In the midst of a massive humanitarian crisis in Burma in which 1.5 million people are at risk of dying from disease, local government officials in Rangoon have been selling aid and bribing residents in order to turn a profit, according to sources in Rangoon. It has been eight days since Cyclone Nargis wiped out entire villages along the Irrawaddy delta and left Rangoon in shambles, but the ruling junta has prevented relief efforts from barely making a dent in the recovery process.

Government officials have stolen donations of rice, cooking oil and diesel and sold them on the black market, a businessman in Rangoon said on Sunday. In several townships around the major city, the government announced that it would provide a certain amount of rice and cooking oil to each household, but local township officers were found refusing families their quotas and instead selling the goods on the black market.

“Most community heads and their staffs are doing good biz in leading distribution of aids, like petrol, oil with cheap price/ but they store a lot/ they steal a lot,” the businessman wrote.

The businessman, whose 15-month old baby has a case of diarrhea due to lack of clean drinking water, said the officers denied his family its quota as well.

He sent his information to a contact in Thailand via Google Chat because the junta can censor email from the government-service providers and from Gmail. Even natural disasters are politically sensitive in Burma, and the junta has sent Burmese to prison in the past for giving information to the international press.

Rangoon residents have also found packages of salt from Thailand in markets and have assumed that foreign countries intended to give out the supplies freely as aid. “We are not sure but feeling bad because we know things like that happens all our life,” said a humanitarian worker who lives in Rangoon. “Drugs from UNICEF [were available to] buy from the market when we were young.”

This cannot be verified, though it reveals the people’s lack of trust in government officials to forgo personal profit for the sake of helping survivors of a natural disaster.

The Burmese government, which rules the country with an iron fist, has also used the cyclone as an opportunity to improve it own propaganda machine. The junta, which has forbid foreign governments from distributing aid directly, has also prevented residents from donating directly to survivors, according to the woman who works for a humanitarian organization. Residents must donate to a government-backed group, called the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which then distributes the aid as if it came from them.

“There were some people coming to the rescue tent and distribute rice,” she wrote in an email.

“The local authority stopped them and asked to distribute through them and the donors left.”
The junta controls all media inside the country, and state television has shown image after image of soldiers giving out aid to victims.

Despite the utter poverty in Rangoon and inability of most survivors to afford basics like food and shelter, local authorities in some townships have also started collecting 5000 Kyats from each household to give to the ministry of electrical power, according to the businessman. He said families on his street were forced to collect all of the money, about 1,000,000 Kyats, and give it to the electric department in order to have their street’s electricity repaired. The cyclone wiped out most electricity in the city.

Electricity is critical in Rangoon because most homes rely on it to pump water into a private tank. If there is no electricity, people cannot access clean water and are at risk of disease.

People in Rangoon have expressed outrage and disbelief at the junta’s decision to manipulate the situation for its own gain as well as for its focus on Saturday’s referendum on a draft constitution instead of the relief process, its inability to clean up the city and provide needed services, and its refusal to allow foreign aid workers into the country.

However, the humanitarian worker also said some people in Rangoon believe the government propaganda and think that the disaster is not severe and that the government is doing its best to help the people.

She wrote via Google Chat: “Ppl r dying n some ppl still think situation is not bad.”

The most frustrating aspect of Saturday’s cyclone in Burma, which left 22,500 dead and 41,000 missing, is all the ways the junta running the country makes the relief process more difficult.

UN relief workers are ready and willing to bring aid and medicine into the country. But the Burmese government hasn’t yet issued them visas. Foreign journalists must report the story from Bangkok because the junta won’t let them in. And Burmese inside the country aren’t allowed to talk to foreign journalists in Bangkok, or any other reporters not associated with the state mouthpiece.

Numerous non-governmental organizations like Doctors Without Borders aren’t in the country to begin with because they pulled out in years past when the junta made it impossible for them to travel to project areas or do their work effectively. The junta hasn’t allowed Burmese civil servants living in the new capital, Naypyidaw, to leave to visit their families in Rangoon, an area hit by the cyclone. They aren’t supposed to leave until after the referendum on the military-drafted constitution May 10.

On the other hand, it is impressive that the junta is allowing international organizations to help at all. This is unprecedented. In the past, the junta has tried to cover up all news about fires, storms and other natural disasters. If news about a disaster got out, the junta insisted it was capable of cleaning up the mess. The fact that the government is admitting a storm killed tens of thousands and is asking for help is clearly a good sign.

Ye Thu, a friend and reporter for Democratic Voice of Burma, told me via Google Chat last night: “I think even the government itself is really shocked. That’s why they called for help.”

But still, this is ridiculous. It’s a cyclone. No one is blaming the Burmese junta for causing it.

Well, that’s not totally accurate. A Burmese friend of mine living in Singapore said that Buddhists believe the government must have caused such a disaster. She wrote to me in an email: “As a Buddhist, we used to believe we are always safe from that sort of natural disaster, due to the power and protection of Buddha, Dhama and Sanga…Now that sort of miseries happened to our country. So all are saying that its due to the horrible disgusting junta who is ruling Myanmar very unfairly. Due to the worst ruling government, we have to suffer a lot.”

The Burmese government has rigging votes down to an art. In the aftermath of protests demanding political reform, the Burmese junta is holding a referendum on its new constitution. The vote represents the junta’s way of appeasing the international community by pretending to enact democratic reforms. The referendum will be May 10, and advance voting has begun this week. But there is nothing “democratic” happening; and these aren’t “reforms.” Here is how the junta holds a referendum. Let’s call it, “Voting, Burma-Style.”

First, the government handpicks the delegates who write the new constitution. Second, it adds a clause that forbids the national hero and Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, from ever running for office.

The junta then makes amendments impossible; harasses, assaults and arrests pro-democracy activists; forbids criticism of the draft constitution; and bombards the state media with a campaign to promote the referendum. It prevents media outlets inside the country from publishing the views of anyone against the referendum. The junta doesn’t tell people what the draft constitution actually says. Then it insists that all civil servants and their families must vote and must vote “yes” - or lose their jobs.

Think that’s enough? Nope. The junta also prints some ballots with the “yes” box already filled in. An anonymous source told the Irrawaddy, a magazine based in Thailand and run by Burmese exiles: “I was given the ballot already marked—my duty was just to put it in the ballot box.”

And finally, just in case the above tactics fail, the junta writes the constitution ensuring that the military government will remain in power.

Michael Green, a professor at Georgetown, and Michael Schiffer of the Stanley Foundation wrote in an op-ed in the Boston Globe, “The junta has mastered the art of fending off international pressure with empty gestures. It is exploiting divisions in the international community to block pressure for real change.”

If Machiavelli were around, he could learn a thing or two.

This photo is from Thingyan (Water Festival) to celebrate the Burmese New Year. The festival was April 13, 2008, in Monterey Park, Los Angeles. To see more photos, click here.

In Burma, all businesses, shops and restaurants close for the week to celebrate the holiday. Burmese society is typically conservative – except on Thingyan. Young people wear Western clothes, girls look sexy and all rules are ignored. Children run through the streets throwing water at anyone they can find. Or they wait by the windows of their apartment, ready to dump a bucket of water on the next passerby.

In Rangoon, teenagers and young people load up in cars or trucks and ride by stages set up in the streets with people spraying water hoses. Kids scream, sing, dance and try to find a police officer to taunt. Normally, being rude to a man in uniform would get you in serious trouble in this totalitarian country. But on Thingyan, anything goes.

Photos by Hanna and Aung Moe Win

When I was living in Rangoon my boyfriend Morning (now my husband) brought me along to a birthday party for his friend’s daughter. I was excited to meet more of my Morning’s friends, and I thought this would probably become another interesting cultural experience. I would get to see how Burmese celebrate their children’s birthdays.

Soon after we arrived, the adults gathered in the back of the family room, chatting and drinking punch as they sat on chairs and sofas lined up against the wall. The young children sat on the floor in the middle of the room, playing games. The parents brought out a birthday cake, and everyone sang, “Happy Birthday,” in English. I was shocked— the celebration could have happened in New York.

It’s four years later, and I am sad to learn once again that life in Burma does work differently. A few weeks ago Morning’s friend, the birthday girl’s father, Thet Zin, was arrested by the Burmese junta and thrown in prison, where he remains today. His crime: having video CDs with footage of last September’s demonstrations and a copy of the report on the demonstrations by UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to Burma Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.

Thet Zin is the editor-in-chief of Myanmar Nation, one of the few publications in Rangoon without ties to the junta. His office was raided February 15, and the publication has since been shut down. Thet Zin and office manager Sein Win Maung remain in prison. The Irrawaddy, a publication based in Thailand and run by Burmese exiles, reported today that the Myanmar Nation might be allowed to resume operations if the publisher agrees to become a mouthpiece for the junta.

Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams said after the arrest: “Burma’s military regime has once again shown its intolerance toward different political viewpoints by arresting journalists who were doing nothing more than reporting news and opinions. How can the Burmese authorities create even the semblance of a credible constitutional referendum in May when they won’t allow journalists to report the news?”

Thet Zin was also arrested in 1988 for his role in pro-democracy demonstrations, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Like this past fall, the junta responded to the 1988 demonstrations by opening fire on the peaceful protesters, killing as many as 3,000 students and activists. This arrest makes him and Sein Win journalist numbers 10 and 11 currently detained by the Burmese junta, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The cute birthday girl must be about 9 years old now. If Thet Zin is convicted of a charge of illegal publishing and printing, he faces 10 years in prison. She could be 19 before her father makes it to another family celebration.

Perhaps something a little more controversial.

Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain have all come out in full support of extending U.S. sanctions against the ruling Burmese junta.

Gambari and Suu Kyi: Eloquent body language.

Jeremy Woodrum of U.S. Campaign for Burma says Clinton has supported every measure and initiative trying to end the crackdown in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta). “She’s done everything in a heartbeat without hesitation,” he told me.

McCain has brought up Burma while on the campaign trail, calling the generals who run Burma “military thugs.”

McCain spokesperson Brook Buchanan said: “He talks about it at every stop—this is a very important issue to him.”

It’s pretty difficult not to support monks and protesters who are peacefully taking to the streets to demand an end to a repressive regime.

The Burmese people have been under military rule since 1962. It’s hard not to sympathize, especially as we get glimpses of photographs and video clips that have been flying around the Web of soldiers beating up protesters with their batons. One series of photos showed a dead monk floating in a creek, his maroon robe bunched up around his neck and his body covered in mud and seaweed.

Burma has 70,000 child soldiers, more than any other country. Its health care system is the second worst in the world, ranking just above Sierra Leone. The junta commits forced labor, burns down thousands of villages in Eastern Burma and uses rape as a systematic weapon of war and oppression against its ethnic minorities.

And now, depending on the source, it has killed about 150 people and detained between 3,000 and 6,000 for peacefully protesting. Soldiers have been searching homes at night, arresting anyone they suspect was involved in—or even watched—the demonstrations.

Yet, if this is such a black-and-white issue, one has to wonder why more of the presidential candidates aren’t denouncing the junta and its atrocious record of human rights at every turn. With the exception of McCain, it is difficult finding any articles quoting them on the issue.

I see no mention of the current crisis in Burma on any of the campaign websites. I searched the sites of McCain, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee.

George and Laura Bush have done significantly more, and they aren’t running for office. (Turns out, just because Bush supports something, doesn’t mean it’s bad.)

The candidates should be using their influence to educate and incite Americans to take action.

Maybe Burma isn’t getting its fair share of shout-outs precisely because it is a black-and-white issue. Candidates and voters seem to relish controversy. Nothing like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia to get Americans raising hell.

Issues like universal health care and gay marriage get play while something we all agree on—the utter depravity of beating, torturing and killing monks and demonstrators peacefully protesting a totalitarian regime—gets put on the back burner.

It’s starting to not get any burner. Burma is already disappearing from the pages of newspapers. I knew that would happen, but it is crushing to see it happening so fast.

Woodrum says he thinks the candidates have done a good job on Burma. “Our battle is not in the U.S.,” he said. “We are the only country in the world who has done anything concrete.”

He thinks we should direct our wrath at China and U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari.

Woodrum has a fair point. China of course enjoys vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions against dictatorships, and Gambari has proved practically useless. While he was in Burma posing at photo ops with the junta’s top generals, soldiers were rounding up and arresting more monks and civilians.

But the candidates should not get off so easily. If they don’t rouse Americans to action, to express their outrage at the junta like we did at the South African government during apartheid, who will? We should not be leaving foreign policy campaigns to celebrities. We should demand of our candidates not just platitudes about peace and democracy, but concrete answers. And so I ask you, presidential candidates:

What will you do about Burma?

——
Hanna Ingber Win is a columnist and editor at Pop and Politics. This piece was cross-posted at the Huffington Post’s OffTheBus campaign coverage project.

“I really feel sorry and even feel guilty because I was away from my people at the very critical time. I could not sleep at all. You know, at about 1:00 am or 2:00 am here, in Yangon, the government starts shooting people. The news comes out. So, I could not sleep at all. I have been crying after reading the news. I tried to call my Burmese friends in the States. And they also called me.. but we have no idea how we can help people and to stop [the] killing. So, we are just crying on the line. And I am so emotional during those days. I cannot concentrate on my study at all. I have been in front of the computer for the whole night and have been waiting for the news, searching the Burmese news, webs and blogs, spreading out the news to my friends.

And during those days, we have no idea what we can do. So, we even write several letters to the UN secretery general and even the vice president of the U.S. At that moment, the only wish I have is just to make the military government to stop killing Buddhist monks.

I don’t think I would be protesting, but I [would] be with the demonstrations. It’s definitely sure I would be covering all the news. Last night, as I called my mom, she said that if I were still in Yangon, I would be one of them [who] were shot or arrested.

The main thing I am guilty is, majority of the people cannot get access to the information. If we can publish like a newsletter, at least the leaders [in hiding] can give their messages. [Since Burma is] a censored country, it’s quite difficult to distribute such newsletter. But I think, at least, I could do that task if I were there.

I usually contacts with my friends in Yangon by emails and online. But, since the Internet connection shut down in Yangon last weekend, I have not met any of them online. My family is still in my native village. So, it seems that they are ok over there. They did not even get most of the information I get here. They have to rely on the BBC, RFA and DVB Burmese [radio] broadcasting services [from abroad].

I am now planning to go back Yangon during the summer break. I really want to go back now.”

For voices and images coming out of Rangoon (renamed Yangon by the junta), check out my photo essay and commentary on Washingtonpost.com.

Photo credit: The cartoon appeared on MoeMaKa blog.
Contact: hingber@gmail.com

This is the body of a *monk* found in a creek in Burma. The photos were on MoeMaKa Media, a blog covering the demonstrations.

This is a government that kills not only its own people, but also its religious leaders.

I have not put up other disturbing photographs from the crackdown, like one of a student’s brains, which were blown out of his head and lay in a gutter. But maybe if the images are strong enough, people will not be able to ignore them.

The junta claims the death toll is around 10, but the real number may be in the thousands. Hla Win, a military intelligence officer who defected from the Burmese junta after he was ordered to kill hundreds of monks, said: “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.” Read more here.

They also spoke of the thousands of monks in Burma who were killed, beaten or arrested for marching in protest of the government. The monks have been locked in their monasteries – or detained – all weekend. Some have been on a hunger strike.

Seth Mydans had a great piece about the importance of the monks in Burma.

The vast majority at the vigil were Burmese living in Los Angeles. And just about everyone – including many of the journalists – wore red, as supporters of the Burma movement have been doing in similar vigils and rallies all over the world.

The monks sat lined up in the front facing the crowd, who sat or kneeled in front of them on the ground. The monks led chanting of religious prayers, and hundreds of voices joined in. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but got emotional just listening to the music and knowing that what was at stake was critically important to everyone there.

The monk leading the service stressed the need for unity among Burmese in order to overcome the junta, which started cracking down on the demonstrations Wednesday. The monk therefore led Christian and Muslim prayers in addition to the traditional Buddhist ones.

There were a crew of journalists including some from ABC and FOX. I know it’s all over the news every single day, but it still surprises me that the world is actually paying attention to Burma. Most people couldn’t give a s*&t for decades, and now, now KCAL 9 news cares. Every movement needs monks – they do wonders for publicity.

I spent a year living in Burma in 2003. I worked at the Myanmar Times and Business Review, a paper strictly censored by the government. These are some photos from my time there.

Houses at Inle Lake
Burma is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, yet, because of the political situation there, it attracts a small fraction of the number of tourists that flock to neighboring countries such as Thailand and India. An oppressive military regime has ruled Burma since 1962. Burma has 70,000 child soldiers— more than any other nation— and horrendous health care.

House close to Chaung Tha Beach
The government has isolated the country from the outside world. Its economic policies have caused Burma— a nation rich in natural resources and the former “rice bowl” of Southeast Asia— to become one of the poorest and least-developed nations in the world.

Chaung Tha Beach house
In 2006 GDP per capita was $174, according to the US State Department. Clean drinking water and electricity— let alone proper health services— are luxuries.

School girl in Mandalay
Children and women still wear thanaka—a cream made of ground bark— on their cheeks to protect their skin them from the sun. Only the wealthiest people in Burma sport jeans or other Western fashions. Most men and women still wear longyis, or sarongs.

Men leaving a market in Inle Lake
Farmers use traditional tools.

Girl on water buffalo
And modes of transportation.

Buddhist statue near Inle Lake
Nearly 90 percent of the population of Burma is Buddhist. Most people practice Theravada Buddhism.

Monks at Kyauktan
You often see monks in maroon robes. Despite the junta’s acts of violence and oppression, the generals claims to be Buddhist and usually pay great respect to the country’s monks.

Akha woman rolling betel nut at a New Year’s festival
Burma is made up of at least 20 major ethnic groups. Most have maintained their traditional clothing, language, religion, food and way of life. This is an Akha woman rolling betel nut at a New Year’s festival.

Pa-O family in Shan State sitting in front of their cheroot leaves
The junta uses the ethnic groups to advertise its diversity and appeal to tourists. But it commits human rights violations against them and does not give them autonomy over their lives. The army burned down 3,000 Karen villages in eastern Burma last winter. Rohingya Muslims in western Burma aren’t given citizenship or even the right to travel or marry. The army employs forced labor, requiring men, women and children from different ethnic groups to work as porters or laborers. The army also uses rape as a systematic weapon in its larger campaign to control the population.

The Wall Street Journal ran a cover story on Friday discussing the role of the Internet and citizen journalism in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta) over the past few weeks.

The article states: “Citizen witnesses are using cellphones and the Internet to beam out images of bloodied monks and street fires, subverting the Myanmar government’s effort to control media coverage and present a sanitized version of the uprising.”

The majority of phone lines have also been cut. Journalists based in other countries are now relying on the few people who still have phone access.

Until Friday morning, people inside Burma could send emails but had limited access to foreign news. Most news websites were banned due to the government’s tighter control during the two-weeks of demonstrations.

“Most of the Myanmar people don’t know what’s going on [in] their land,” a Burmese man emailed me on Thursday.

Despite the crackdown, the demonstrations continued Friday. They mark the 11th-straight day of protests and marches by monks and civilians in Rangoon, Mandalay and cities across Burma.

Photo: Soldiers arrive at Sule Pagoda on Thursday. Photo taken by an American in Rangoon during the demonstrations.
Contact: hingber@gmail.com

It was August 27, 2004, the Friday night before the Republican National Convention was coming to New York City. I was dating Danny and he liked bikes, so I joined him on the monthly Critical Mass bike ride around Manhattan.

Later, as the officer put on the plastic-flexi cuffs, I shouted, “What are you doing? This is ridiculous!”

After about two hours the cops loaded us onto buses. I sat on the bus for hours, the cuffs digging into my wrists. It was hot and sweaty. The windows barely provided air.

A guy in the back vomited. Another complained, “I can’t feel my hands!”

More…

Campus police tasered a student for asking John Kerry too many questions at a University of Florida event last week. Yes, he was acting like a pain in the ass. Andrew Meyer spoke more than the allotted time at a big function. But that’s it. That was his crime.

As a result, the police swarmed him, grabbed him, shoved him around, threw him on the floor, handcuffed him and then gave him a taste of the taser.

Police arrested and electrified a kid for taking too long asking questions.

How did we get to this point?

Almost as disturbing, most of the other students at the event sat calmly in their chairs. I wouldn’t recommend punching a cop, but they could have stood up, screamed, shouted and carried on, in some way demonstrating that they did not think the punishment was just. What are students in the post-9/11 America taught? That security means no civil liberties?

I should have known better than to have been surprised. I learned my lesson three years ago.

It was August 27, 2004, the Friday night before the Republican National Convention was coming to New York City. I had a date with Danny. It was the first time I had ridden a bike since I was 10. But Danny liked bikes, so I joined him on the monthly Critical Mass bike ride around Manhattan.

To my delight, I did not fall off and the ride was exhilarating. Crowds of pedestrians gathered on the streets, cheering on the bicyclists— a collection of hippies, hipsters, moms with kids.

I focused on learning how to use the brakes while listening to chants of “more bikes, less cars,” which often turned into “more bikes, less Bush.”

The ride ended on Second Avenue and 10th Street, when a clash broke out between some bicyclists and police officers. Danny and I eyed the confrontation from the sidewalk. We were surrounded by people chanting, “Let them go” and “No police state.”

We decided to leave the area just to be safe. But while walking our bikes away, we realized that police had formed a barricade across the avenue.

No problem, I thought. Being white and middle class, I thought cops in the United States were always on my side. I walked up to a sergeant, put on my innocent, 23-year-old voice and said, “Excuse me, sir. How do we get out of here?”

“Right this way,” he said, directing us through the barricade into the hands of another officer. “Cuff them,” he said.

As the officer put on the plastic-flexi cuffs, I shouted, “What are you doing? This is ridiculous!” I did not resist arrest like Andrew Meyer, but I was just as shocked by the police response.

The cops sat us on the pavement with a group of handcuffed bicyclists. On-lookers filled the sidewalks, chanting for us, “Let them go.”

I had no idea how I had gotten myself in this position. I had not chosen to lie down on the road and block traffic. I had not chained myself to a tree.

After about two hours the cops loaded us onto buses. I sat on the bus for hours, the cuffs digging into my wrists. It was hot and sweaty. The windows barely provided air.

A guy in the back vomited. Another complained, “I can’t feel my hands!”

One said, “Officer! My shoulder is dislocated!”

The cops ignored them.

“Yo,” screamed another. “His hands are blue. He wasn’t born with blue hands.”

They continued to ignore them.

“I need medical attention!”

One policeman said, “What do you want me to do? I’m not a doctor.”

Another said, “You guys had to riot. This is what happens.”

After a few more hours they let us out at Pier 57, a former bus depot, which they had turned into holding pens for the protesters. I sat there for 12 hours. There were metal cages with barbed wire on the top. The floor was covered with oily grime, and I was shivering in my shorts and t-shirt. When I asked to make a phone call, the cop laughed.

The exhaustion and powerlessness wore me down. I sobbed on and off for the next 18 hours.

At hour 14 of my arrest they transported us to Central Booking at the Center Street Courthouse, where everything took hours longer than anticipated. Mug shots, finger prints, health checks.

After 28 hours, they finally released me.

I later learned that the city and police had coordinated an effort to silence protesters during the RNC weekend and arrested hundreds at the Critical Mass event that night and thousands over the weekend. I am part of a lawsuit suing the city for unlawful arrest.

Before the bike-date arrest, I was a bit of an activist. I participated in numerous protests, including the 2003 rally in New York against going to war.

It kills me to admit this, but since being arrested, I haven’t participated in a single protest march. When I see them, I run the other way. I used to think that if I did everything right— if I obeyed the law and didn’t chain myself to a fence— I would be safe. Now, I know that isn’t true.

I look at cops differently. I know they could arrest me for no reason and throw me in jail.

Tens of thousands of monks have spent the past week protesting the military junta in Burma. They are risking their lives to demand national reconciliation and an end to the repressive, draconian rule of the government. I lived in Rangoon for a year and often heard people say they could not protest the junta because they would be killed.

These mark the largest protests since 1988, when the junta gunned down thousands of student activists.

I was traumatized after a night in jail. Many of the monks and other demonstrators were arrested in ’88 and spent ten or more years incarcerated. Yet they are willing to do it all over again. I’m in awe of their bravery. Read more about it here.

We should be looking to the monks for inspiration. The lesson we must take from events like the tasering episode and the RNC arrests is not that we should stop speaking our minds (or riding our bikes) because we might get thrown in jail. It’s that we must be as vocal as ever, even if we get thrown in jail.

We also need to recognize that society has an obligation to make it safe for protesters. Onlookers cannot sit quietly as the police or government cracks down. They must instead demand that activists have a right to speak their mind. And they must demand that we protect not just the person who is polite, but also the kid who is obnoxious.

——
Hanna Ingber Win is a staff editor and columnist at P+P. Pushing Off is a column of her dispatches from twentysomething land. Contact her at: hingber@gmail.com

The Burmese junta continues to order troops to beat up monks and protesters as it cracks down on the mass demonstrations in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the regime). Reports coming out of Burma say that troops attacked people at a monastery in Rangoon Thursday morning and then arrested about 100 monks and laymen. An American who was in Rangoon told me this:

“Eyewitnesses said three trucks filled with soldiers arrived at the monastery at about 12:15am on September 27. When the monks refused the soldiers’ demand to open the gate, a fight broke out in which both sides hurled bricks at each other for about 20 minutes.

“The soldiers eventually crashed through the gate with one of the trucks and used bamboo sticks to beat everyone in the monastery— including monks, laymen, women and children, some of whom were related to or were under the care of the head abbot, or sayadaw.”

The beatings occured at Ngway Kyar Yan Monastery in South Okkalapa township in Rangoon. The junta killed up to eight people, including monks, earlier Wednesday.

I know this is a “blog,” but I have no commentary. Troops beating up monks. Enough said.

Photo credit: MoeMaKa Volunteer Reporters inside Rangoon
Contact: hingber@gmail.com

On my second day living in Rangoon, Burma (renamed Yangon, Myanmar, by the ruling junta), I visited the blockaded American Embassy. After my passport was passed from person to person to person, I got in.

It was August 2003. Burma had been ruled by an oppressive, military dictatorship for more than 40 years.

I was 22, fresh out of college, and had come to work at the Myanmar Times and Business Review. Before my trip to Burma, foreign correspondents and Asia experts warned me about the situation there: don’t talk about the political crisis and don’t trust anyone, they said.

I had been warned not to trust even the Burmese staff at the embassy, so after my registration papers were complete, I asked to speak with an American.

A Marine greeted me and asked what he could do to help.

“I was just wondering,” I said. “What do I do if there is an emergency?”

“What kind of emergency?”

“Oh, you know,” remembering stories about the 1988 demonstrations when the army gunned down 3,000 protesters, “street riots and the like.”

“If there are street riots,” he said with a laugh, “stay in your apartment and we’ll come and find you. But I don’t think you have to worry.”

The junta controlled Burma with such a tight fist that street riots were practically unfathomable. Little did he know, four years later, Burma is now erupting in demonstrations and protests that have thrown the country into the international spotlight.

On the way back from the embassy, I was spotted by young boys trying to sell me postcards. I did not want postcards but they seemed to be more interested in practicing their English anyway.

We began walking through the downtown together, them pointing out the Yangon City Development Council and other government buildings. I snapped picture after picture, until one grabbed my arm and said, “Not here!”

I looked up and realized there were military guards with large rifles in the vicinity. “You saved my life,” I said. “Thank you.”

We came to a big intersection and they helped me cross the four lanes of speeding traffic. The Burmese cross one lane at a time, waiting in the middle of the road until the next lane is free. I never grew comfortable with this mode of traversing so I would find a Burmese who looked like he knew what he was doing, stick closely next to him and hope for the best. I didn’t know if there were many pedestrian-related traffic accidents in Rangoon— the media was not allowed to report them— but I wouldn’t have been surprised.

We crossed the intersection and a stooped woman in her 80s with piercing eyes and few teeth caught sight of us— two young kids and a tall white foreigner. She pulled me aside and, after nervously looking over her shoulder, whispered into my ear, “Be careful…Snakes in the grass. Snakes in the grass.”

I knew she was not referring to reptiles but to the notorious military intelligence (MI) officers positioned in tea shops, offices and schools throughout the country to spy on its people. Because of those “snakes,” no one talked openly in public places, not even at the Myanmar Times.

I nodded my head and thought, Wow, Burma really feels like a scary movie.

The boys took me to Sule Pagoda, the temple in the center of downtown that I could see from my balcony. It is at the heart of the protests this week.

I’m now living in Los Angeles. The closest I can get to Sule Pagoda is through the photographs flying around the web of monks and civilians protesting there.

It’s very scary knowing that these protests might turn into another horror story. The junta is petrified of losing power and might once again violently suppress the demonstrations.

On the other hand, this is the moment anyone and everyone interested in Burma has been waiting for. Finally, after 19 years, the people are standing up to the regime and demanding change. They want decent jobs and safe drinking water for everyone. They’re tired of reading censored newspapers and having the electricity go out at all hours of the day and night. They want to elect their leaders and then hold them accountable.

And they want it so badly they are risking their lives to get it. I applaud their courage.

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail. view more photos at irrawaddy. Contact hanna at: hingber@gmail.com