Aung San Suu Kyi faces her destiny

Freed at present, the Burmese opponent seems to be bound hand and foot. According to the international press, it is far too early to declare victory.

Aung San Suu Kyi even released and celebrated by activists of her party, remains the bete noire of the military regime in Burma. (Soe Than Win / AFP)

Aung San Suu Kyi, released Saturday after seven years under house arrest in a minute-by-minute operation described by the Guardian, has come back to work Monday morning at her party’s headquarters, the National League for Democracy (NLD officially dissolved by the junta). Sunday, Burmese dissident had held her first political speech since 2003. Burma’s Nobel peace laureate (1991) has called on the opposition to merge, telling her supporters that she would take time to listen to her fellow citizens before deciding on a strategy. Because we know that for the past fifteen years, her leeway against the military junta in power is narrow actually.

“So what is her political future?” seems wondering the Bangkok Post in its editorial: If she wants to launch a protest movement and “challenge her enemies in the new government, she needs to urgently consolidate the opposition forces. Now that the new political landscape in which Burma becomes a little more civilianised is providing the rightful context for Mrs Suu Kyi to play a role, she must take this opportunity to work with numerous factions in the opposition and the ethnic minorities. But it will not be an easy task.”  Because of her long years under house arrest, Mrs Suu Kyi has little experience political dealings: “She has never directly participated in politics and has been idolised as the icon of democracy and the face of Burma’s struggle against dictatorship. Her angelic image has sustained the anti-military junta movements inside and outside Burma.” But this isolation “has come at a heavy price. It has made her more “divine”, thus separating her from the political reality.”

Her party singularly lacks of activists who can make the link between pro-democracy personalities and the electorate base. Thus, she is exposed to a threat: “she will be locked in a subtle, yet intensifying, competition among opposition forces. The continued fragmentation of the opposition would in turn strengthen the power interests of the new regime.” For the exile journal The Irrawaddy, these personalities may even try to sabotage her return to politics [...]. The battle that awaits opponent is complex: “how to rebuild and reinvent herself in the new Burmese political environment?”

Besides, Libération asks: “Freedom, so what?”, pointing that Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi “will have to learn again to know her country” where, as “female symbol” in the words of La Repubblica. “Daughter of the hero of independence, General Aung San, [she] is the bête noire of the military junta,” brings Radio Canada. And it will not probably be enough that the Lady of Rangoon calls Burma’s generals for dialogue “, writes Le Devoir in Montreal. “Behind this joy oh so legitimate,” says L’Express, emerge “power relations which remain very tense.”

This “icon of freedom can do nothing against the junta. Her freedom is a sham. Her release is a [marketing] operation. By maintaining the suspense until the last minute, the Burmese junta has made a huge publicity for the event, ensuring the headlines of international media.” (Slate). Anyway, the military do not think much of the international opinion, even if they may have calculated that her release overshadow the electoral masquerade. In addition, Mrs. Suu Kyi is weak enough to be kept away from public life.

Same analysis backed by Eurotopics: “The main concern of the generals who have ruled the country for 50 years is an end to the unpleasant foreign sanctions.”And above all, “the junta wants to test whether the opposition is strong and whether it can manage to divide it into those who play along with the new parliament’s game and those who could potentially be isolated. But this game of poker is an unequal contest, for the generals can imprison the freshly released dissident whenever they want.”

If The New York Times called it junta’s latest “ruse” and FrankFurter Allgemeine “a gift in exchange for her political abstinence”, El País says she has “hands cut off,” that is to say, she is literally muzzled in a context where it is still far “from the darkness to the light.” Even so, if the opponent said on Sunday (Le Soir, in Brussels), “she would be willing to meet General Than Shwe, the junta’s strongman,” we know well that he “royally hates her [...] and is similarly reluctant to pronounce her name.”

Dialogue is not looking promising…. The New Light of Myanmar, the dictatorship official press organ, indeed barely mentions the events of the weekend.

Related Posts:
· A Shout to Nothing
· The Burmese Junta Steps Back from Aung San Suu Kyi’s Unconditional Release

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Economic trends ‘After the Empire’ age

A change of economic model for the next decade is possible

Pulse aquí para la versión en Castellano.

Without having to draw on awful – but sometimes accurate – predictions of Emmanuel Todd’s After the Empire, it must be admitted that the influence and power of the U.S. will no longer be what they were. American political, economic and military supremacy of the last century is coming to an end. The 120-page report of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) on Global Trends 2025, (November 2008) remains up to date when considering the end of the unipolar world and the emergence of multilateralism. A multilateralism in which China, India and Russia weaken the U.S. dominance. It is expected that by 2025 the relative strength of the U.S. will decline and its levers of influence will be more limited, being only one among the global players, with a minor role and not decisive as it was in the past.

End of U.S. hegemony

The financial crisis and the collapse of the superpower at the end of 2008 were a clear sign of how intense the global economic crisis  would be (a crisis that began in August 2007). In this aspect it will be very difficult not to question the basics of the economic model applied in most countries and the weakness of regulatory mechanisms. Since the 80s, the Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush jr. administrations, got used to admonish and reproach to the world about keeping finances in order, via the IMF and Washington Consensus (1). Meanwhile, Washington completely neglected own’s at a level of irresponsibility and exuberance completely irrational.

A key issue of ‘Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Global Trends 2025: a world transformed)’, is the gradual abandon of the dollar as standard of exchange and the growing strength of Asian currencies. Asia as a whole is the continent that will emerge with strength in a growing shift of wealth from West to East in terms of technological and cultural development. Latin America, with Brazil at the top – and Mexico, Argentina and Chile to a lesser extent, if the political will and the economic powers do not fail – has a golden opportunity to gain their own lever to progress. Hollywood productions will cede ground to Asia which mass culture will popularize widely. The positive predictive value of the report is the weakening of al Qaeda and terrorism in general and the low risk of using nuclear weapons – but it seems to ignore the unknown Russian factor.

The report confirms that Brazil (and not Mexico) will be the Latin American country to gain considerable influence on the global stage, as – with Russia, India and South Africa – it will help define the new challenges and game rules of humanity. Climate change will be the biggest problem and the shortage of drinking water and reduced harvests in some parts of the globe (for every degree the temperature rises the agricultural production decreases by 10%) will bring troubles and hunger. But this increase in temperature will benefit Canada and Russia by increasing their agricultural capacity and better and easier access to oil reserves in the north: these are elements that will powerfully reinforce their economies.

The U.S. will remain trapped and will live a lost decade as a result of the huge deficit left by the Bush administration. Its debt (2) now exceeds 13 billion dollars and it is growing by one million per minute (U.S. $ 1,400 million a day). Hence the importance of what Barack Obama can do to reverse a potentially adverse scenario across the line. It remains to be seen whether he will be a new Franklin D. Roosevelt to lead the country into the stormy waters of the current decay and collapse.

Overall trends for the next decade

Some of the projections of the Global Trends report, and that at the time were not taken into account, are:

• The leading economies are, from most to least, the United States, China, India, Japan, Germany, UK, France and Russia. (Note that Japan lower second to fourth place ranking in and Italy and Canada go out)

• The growth of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) would exceed the GDP of the G-7 in 2040.

• Brazil, and not Mexico, will be the Latin American country that gain more influence in the international arena.

• The economic axis will move from west to east as China and India are the countries with greater economic progress.

• The U.S. weakness will not take away its economic supremacy (its GDP is three times higher the following country) but its influence and domination will be undermined.

• This will allow the emergence of multipolarity, which will allow overcrowding and the use of different currencies.

• While terrorism will not disappear it is difficult it ever meet the preponderance as in the past, especially when the relevance of Al Qaeda is increasingly diluted. The real danger may lie in the opportunism of groups that want to exploit the rise of multipolarity: gangs, criminal networks, religious organizations, tribes, companies and insurgent groups.

• As a result of the crisis, and at global level, there will be a resurgence of public enterprises which will increase the “state capitalism”, a phenomenon that may promote corruption and the consequent emergence of criminal groups.

The authors’report point that the survey “only” reflects the opinion of some specialists. Never mind, almost over two years after its publication, we can see its accuracy in several points. What should we do then, to avoid falling into the hands of corrupt governments and criminal gangs, according to what the report delivers?

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(1) See the contrasting views of John Williamson, the originator of the concept in A Short History of the Washington Consensus and the critical approach of the program of the Center for International Development at Harvard University.

(2) A meter of the U.S. debt at the U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time.

In Iran Power and Opposition Turn More Radical

Iranian officials on Sunday faced a difficult dilemma. If, as announced, they strictly repressed the protests, the risk of dead should further aggravate the fissures that post-election crisis has opened in the Iranian society. If they did not act, the opposition would benefit from the cycle of religious ceremonies — as happened in the months prior to the revolution that ousted the Shah thirty years ago. What is clear is that they could not keep people out into the streets the most important day of their calendar, Ashura , which commemorates the founding myth of Shiite Islam: the death of Hussein, grandson of Muhammad.

Police reportedly detained hundreds of opposition supporters

Often transmitted by mobile on the Internet, the images have turned around the world. Sunday December 27, images showed the violent repression and the determination of the demonstrators in Iran who have transformed the traditional religious commemoration in a day of clashes of rare magnitude.

A targeted killing, a sort of warning to the leader of the protest.

In Tehran there were more demonstrators than penitents. Six months after the opposition accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of stealing elections, this pulse tests the upset degree of a good part of the Iranian political system that has led to a political and economic impasse — and in its relations with the world, as well.

And not just in Tehran. Protests in the main cities make clear that the malaise is not limited to urban elites of the capital — the “four rich kids” M Ahmadinejad talked about. The crisis has revealed divisions even among the ruling elites. Former Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami have shown their support for the opposition. Also leading clerics like Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whose death a week ago, at age 87, has given fresh momentum to protests by adding young urban activists, older people and further religious men to his followers.

Yesterday, we witnessed tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Tehran and most major cities of Iran: Shiraz, Isfahan, Qazvin, Tabriz and even Qom — the holy city. The videos show live bloody clashes between the multitude and the security forces and militiamen Bassij, sometimes assisted by helicopters, motorcycles and cars on fire. All evoke the dead. The first deceased since the massive protests that had followed the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad June 12, which had resulted in sixty victims and 4,000 arrests, according to the opposition. This time, police admitted five “accidental” deaths and hundreds of “hooligans” arrested. Demonstrators carry this record to 15 dead. The victims included Ali Moussavi, the nephew of Mir Hossein Moussavi. The former prime minister — and unsuccessful candidate of the reformers in the presidential election in June — denounced a “massive fraud” and launched protests. Six months after the election, and despite of severe repression, the movement goes on. Reformers’ websites as Jaras related — mentioning among others filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf – that Ali Moussavi was killed deliberately, his body being transported and kept in the morgue whereas the family asked to remain discreet.

In Isfahan, the brother of former reformist Interior Minister, Abdullah Nouri, was allegedly beaten in front of his children by militiamen who had publicly threatened him before.

Other prominent government critics were taken to jail. This is the case of Ibrahim Yazdi, the old leader of the Liberation Movement of Iran (a nationalist party tolerated intermittently), arrested at home bed at 3 AM. Or Mehdi Arabshahi, the secretary of the largest student organization, Tahkim varDate (Consolidation of Unity), arrested in Tehran. Just as three other closest associates of Mr. Moussavi.

Curfew was introduced in Najafabad, the hometown of the great dissident Ayatollah Montazeri, the figurehead of the religious dispute, with burial under surveillance has led protests against the regime last week.

Meanwhile, the castling of the fundamentalists’ bunker who control the power centers is helping to radicalize protesters.

Prevent too great a radicalization.

Faced with what may seem like a further escalation of repression, voices were raised to prevent too great a radicalization of the protest movement. Ezatollah Sahabi, the leader of a nationalist group of religious appeals to “moderate” not to play in the hands of government: “Be careful not to rush into violence. They are ready — he writes in essence — to kill one million people if necessary.”

Supporters of Mousavi protested the disputed election result in Tehran for nearly two months

However, in the opinion of many analysts and witnesses demonstrators turn radical. Their slogans were aimed very hard not this time at Ahmadinejad, but at the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The guide was also compared to the Caliph Yazid , responsible for the death of Imam Hussein at the battle of Karbala, which commemorates the mourning of Ashura. What is more, without really being armed, many demonstrators have erected barricades in some streets of Tehran, throwing stones at police or fire Bassidji motorcycles — forefront outfielders of repression during the riots in the street.

It appears that the hardline Basij militias were afraid this time. The roles were reversed:  turmoil seemed turn them mad with rage. The power has, indeed, made mistakes, in the opinion of Iranian analysts. The first was probably, not having respected the grief at the death of Ayatollah Montazeri. His supporters have been harassed, those who paid tribute prevented sometimes do. In this, the authority has lost its religious and popular credibility.

The second mistake was to prevent former reformist President Mohammad Khatami to deliver a speech on Saturday. Khatami was chosen to speak at Jamaran, northern Tehran, where Ayatollah Khomeini had lived. A highly symbolic place in these troubled times where government and opposition are fighting the legacy of the founder of the Islamic Republic. But the police did not comply. People come to hear the speeches, were forcibly confined in the mosque, others asked to disperse. This symbolic battle has also been lost by the regime. Some protesters shouted “Khomeini, if you lived, you’d be with us! “…”

Should we expect a further strengthening of repression? The event-repression cycle seems to be now engaged. Ahmadinejad’s government is going to play tight in the coming weeks if it does not want to contribute growing the protest.

Government refusal to engage dialogue with the opposition — as been suggested by some moderate conservatives — has destroyed all the bridges for reconciliation. Demonstrators are no longer calling for repeating elections (the celebrated “where’s my vote?), but the end of the Islamic system. Further problems in perspective…

Sources: NY Times/El Pais/Le Monde/AFP

>>Related Posts: The Political Importance of the Power of Images to Reveal Government Abuse

The US economic revival just (provisionally) around the corner

>> Haga clic aquí para la versión en castellano

The US economy yesterday offered a robust data that, at least temporarily, allowed closing the world’s largest economic downturn since the Second World War.

Budget deficits, 2001-2010, by EU region · Déficit presupuestario 2001-2010 por región UE (Source: Ronan Lyons Economic Analysis, Oct. 16, 2009)

American GDP growth in the third quarter was 3.5% after four consecutive quarters’ drops. The positive data was expected by analysts, but the strength of the US economy stunned – and pleased – the world stock markets and particularly the Dow Jones index, which rose above 2%. The turnaround from the Q2 (-0.4%) suggests that the incentive plans of the U.S. government, an interest rate of 0% practice, the takeoff of the upturn in private consumption and housing are sufficiently solids to undertake corrections in a few months which would put the economy outside the ICU. If so, we would not be far from a very modest increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, an assessment that, sooner or later, should be followed by the European Central Bank, especially if consolidating the growth in Germany and France. In the case of Spain, data also released yesterday show the fifth consecutive quarter of economic decline, although it is true that the deterioration has been moderating in the last three quarters we have moved from -1.9% (Q1) and -1.1% (Q2) to -0.4% in Q3. We are, according to the Bank of Spain, in an “incipient recovery” that entails a great deal of risks: the worst unemployment rates, intolerably increasing next to18.2%, deficit escalating close to 10% of GDP and an upward  lack of credit to businesses and individuals.According to the latest figures in relation to countries under the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) of the European Commission, the general government deficit of the euro area lay at 6.1% of GDP in 2009.As a result, the EU-15 public debt the will increase as of 69.3% GDP in 2008 to 78.4% in 2009. By 2010, however, it is expected to further increase on average 6.6% of GDP.At disaggregated level, most euro area countries in 2009 recorded a deficit exceeding the 3% of GDP, while all euro zone countries will infringe the maximum allowable deficit in 2010, according to latest IMF estimates.

Thus deficit cuts jump out over 0.5% per year, mostly in countries with higher deficits.

And what are these countries? Ireland, Greece and Spain showed the highest euro area’s gap budget, both in 2009 and 2010. In particular, Ireland’s public deficit will reach a rate close to 13% of GDP, according to recent estimates. Greece exceeds 12%, while Spain recorded a deficit of 9.5%, along with the IMF.

In 2010, these three countries will continue to be leaders in fiscal imbalance: Ireland (13.3%), Spain (12.5%), while Greece will approach 10%, given its public accounts inaccuracy, only just admonished by the Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker.

The Burmese Junta Steps Back from Aung San Suu Kyi’s Unconditional Release

Myanmar: Appeal to stop the repression

The Nobel Peace Laureate was sentenced today to three years hard labor after the trial for breaking her house arrest. She has been confined immediately to her residence in Rangoon for a year and a half, according to judicial sources.

The authorities allowed the attendance to diplomats at the hearing, held in a wing of Insein prison complex in which Suu Kyi is detained since last May 14. On the occasion of the hearing, about two thousand troops of the security forces were deployed around the perimeter of the prison and at the entrances to the neighborhood of Insein.

The verdict, which in principle should have been delivered on July 31, was postponed until August 11 by the special court because additional time was needed to study the legal arguments connected through a referendum.

Without due process.
The trial was dominated by the secretiveness of the military regime itself, the continuing delays and obstacle course that judges demured to lawyers who defended the opposition leader.

Suu Kyi, 64, -she brings 13 of last 19 under house arrest- was charged with violating the terms of the house arrest when she sheltered two nights Yettaw, an American citizen, who is now tried for violating the rules of public safety. Yettaw, 54, who suffers from diabetes, was discharged last night by medical doctors at the Rangoon General Hospital, where he was admitted a week ago to receive care from attacks of epilepsy he has been suffering for years.

Human rights activists warned before the trial starts that a guilty verdict was inevitable in a country where more than 2,000 political prisoners are behind bars and where the court usually gives in to the generals.

The military junta governs Burma with an iron fist since 1962. The dictatorship chaired by general Than Shwe rejected early May the request made by the National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi party, for the release of their leader by her deteriorating health status. The Nobel Peace Prize party won the general elections in 1990 by an overwhelming majority, although the results have never been recognized by the generals.

EU announces more sanctions against Myanmar regime. China, Japan, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should work for the immediate and unconditional release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Burma’s rulers should set her free, and start learning from her example.

Related Posts:

· A Shout to Nothing
· Aung San Suu Kyi lawyers seek emergency UN action

The Political Importance of the Power of Images to Reveal Government Abuse

One of the places where the Iranian uprising against falsified election was given a narrow coverage was China. An attempt was made indeed in PRC to block online images of demonstrations meanwhile official media tried to ignore the clamor.

The reason was clear enough: any mass protest and its brutal suppression raises uncomfortable memories of Tian’anmen Square on the 20th anniversary of China’s nasty crackdown of student movement.
Now China faces itself violent troubles in its Xinjiang western region as Muslim Uighurs confront Han Chinese in what seems to be the worst nation’s ethnic conflict in years. As in Iran, the authorities are trying to repress the protest movement through a combination of technology and force: cutting off cell phone service, blocking the Net, shooting people and sending the riot police.
The Chinese unrest poses an interesting dilemma. What is Iran? An Islamic republic, whose leader aspires to lead the Muslim world, to make of Muslims rising up in an authoritarian state? Islamic commitment requires solidarity with the Uighurs, while repressive solidarity requires pledge with Chinese security forces. The answer in the current Iranian climate has been predictable enough: almost no mention in the official media of the Chinese riots –and no mention that one party is Muslim.

These are both authoritarian states that have generally stopped short of totalitarian control, adapting to the 21st century by limiting freedom and deploying repression where it is critical to the maintenance of the system, but allowing some measure of liberty –to travel, trade, speak out– where it is considered harmless. Call them the new “Red Line” states. Live your lives and make money, they say, but never cross the red lines, which include organizing against the system and denouncing the leadership in place.
These methods have seemed effective but became unsuccessful in recent weeks. The Iranian regime, surprised by a last minute wave of support to the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Mussavi, opted in mid June for a brutal crackdown in defense of an electoral lie. The shift from control to savage repression was abrupt and devastating, pushing many young Iranians from reluctant consent to .total opposition.

Despite this, many young Iranians have borne witness –with mobile video images and photos, through twitter and other shapes of social networking–  and have thus amassed a permanent global act of indictment against the usurpers of mid June 2009. the Neda effect –the image of eyes blanking, life abating and blood blotching across the face of young student Neda– will undermine the regime over time.
China makes no electoral simulation in its one-party system, but it too, has been temporarily undone by the power of word and image spreading across the Internet. The current unrest in the Xinjiang western desert region has its origins in an incident thousands of kilometers away in southern Guangdong province, where a Uighur dormitory was attacked in June by Han Chinese and at least two people were killed.
Photographs appeared online. The government tried and failed to delete them. Calls for protest spread through web sites and instant messaging. Again, the government attempted to block online discussion of the incident. But Uighur rage had gone viral.

By the official count 183 people have now been killed in the protests. As in Iran, images of police officers, confronting weeping women burgeon, carrying emotional charge all through the country and across the world.
Both Iran and PRC have tried to blame people outside the country for the turmoil. They have identified foreign agents they assert are orchestrating troubles. They should look closer to home.

Repression, injustice and brutality have encountered a force hard to control: the empowerment of people through technology. Communication feeds a hunger for freedom that may in the end be stronger than any red line.

In China Uighurs Fight for Freedom. Other People Too.

Uighur riots sparked by fears that separatist dream is dying.
Riots of July 5, between Uighurs and Han in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang in northwestern China, are the most serious in decades. In this region of 20 million people, where the main community is Muslim and Turkish-speaking, the causes of violence are deep …

One of the later news that has convulsed the world last week  -though not as much as the death of Michael Jackson-  has been the strong police repression in Chinese Xinjiang (known as Chinese Turkestan), where several Uighur riots took place. Actually treatment given to them by Chinese authorities in their own homeland as well as in the rest of China, where they often migrate for job purposes is clearly discriminating.

This situation must be put in context. 55 minorities coexist in China and they represent approximately 110 million (2005), on a total of 1.315 million citizens of the People’s Republic. Han are the ethnic majority, equivalent to 91 percent.

Among these 55 ethnic minorities, Uighurs are the largest both demographic and territorial. There are about ten million native Uighurs, 5.5 Tibetans, and 6 million Mongolians. With the particularity that these three ethnic groups represent about 50 percent of the territory of China, and with a low population density, the vast reserves of oil, gas, coal, and large quantities of other raw materials.

Among the 55 ethnic minorities, the Hui and Manchu use to write Chinese characters, while the remaining 53 have their own writings. Since 1950, the Government of Beijing has organized a panel of experts to ‘help’ the creation and improvement of written expression.

In political life, the use of spoken languages is theoretically guaranteed, and when important official meetings take place too. Simultaneous interpretation of the seven major languages are supposedly provided; state laws and transcendent official documents should also be published in these seven languages.

(15 July update)

Meanwhile…

Uighurs who dare to protest the discrimination and abuse are arrested. The protests are brutally suppressed. In Yining in 1997, Chinese police forces responded violently to street riots causing many deaths. After 9/11 attacks persecution intensified. Some Uighur leaders were accused of having links with Al Qaeda and were imprisoned. Repression against any Uighur group suspected of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism is relentless, systematic and ongoing.

All this is happening for decades. What did say politicians or religious leaders from the Islamic world? Not much.

Recently, the Turkish government has shown its concern over the situation in Xinjiang, but without increasing the decibels too much. Better not. This is the reaction of an official Chinese newspaper: “The support of Turkey to the Uighur separatists and terrorists can only cause indignation in China. If [Turkey] does not want to ruin the relationship between our two peoples they should stop supporting these separatist mobs. They must stop being an axis of evil “.

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Three themes outlined below have played important roles in the modernization of the unity of the People’s Republic :

1) A geographical factor. The Pacific Ocean is the East border of the People’s Republic, the desert is at north, while the limits to the west and south are high mountain ranges. In such circumstances, the regional economies tend to converge among themselves.

2) A long history of unification. China is a unified country for almost three millennia, when the Qin dynasty. And in the last 800 years, in contrast to the European trend where the ancient great empires divided into nations, China showed a trend towards consolidation, stronger than ever, over the last Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Be noted that the Yuan and Qing dynasties were established by the Mongols and Manchus, respectively, two outsider peoples that strongly promoted, however, the unification of China.

3) The Han core stability. Their ancestors were called Han Hua, peripherals and other peoples were known as Yi. Hua meant men civilized country’s central and Yi wild men of the periphery. An idea that lasted from generation to generation, making strong distinctions between Hua and Yi, where Hua were not an ethnic affiliation, but cultural. So, Hua population grew to become the largest and core binder compared to Yi. And since the Han dynasty (202 a. C./220 AD), peripheral peoples have called Han those who were living in the central country, abandoning the former used Hua. For over two millennia, the Han have continued to absorb the peripheral outlying populations to reach a rate of 91 per cent of the total population of China today.

In the three most important territorial nationalities mentioned above, there are more or less broad trends towards greater autonomy or even independence. In the case of the Mongols, these features are less intense for their long history of relationship with the Chinese themselves, to the point where there was a powerful Mongol dynasty.

Tibetans, as we know well, have a strong personality, currently represented overseas through the Dalai Lama. And although the progress of Tibet is clear, and the Han are still a minority, demonstrations during the past year there have shown that Tibetans look to keep their ancestral culture on their own standing without impositions from outside.

The Uighurs are less known in the rest of the world than the Mongols or Tibetans. They are far more different than other Chinese citizens for their religious Muslim. Furthermore, the treatment they have received raises many doubts about the supposed equality of every citizen under the Chinese law. Therefore, the outbreak of violence in Xinjiang should help the authorities in Beijing to refrain from punish Uighurs but rather to study the problems in view of satisfaying a mutual cooperation. Additionally, China is an hyper power now and cannot afford to go shooting their own people, creating a feeling of malaise that could turn against the Government of Beijing itself, despite their good intentions and actions in many international areas. It goes without saying that if many peripheral populations of the People’s Republic want more freedom, they are not alone. There are many millions of Han who fight for democracy too…

In Memoriam – Tian’anmen Dark Memory

“From Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping, their domination is the continuation of 1,000-year feudal dynasties.” (Ding Zilin, mother of pro-democracy student Jiang Jielian killed on 4 June 1989)

Speaking of the night 20 years ago when the all-powerful authorities in China were so nervous by student protests that they brought their boot down with a mortal finality on the lives of many of those who had the impudence to question them.
On 4 June, it will be 20 years since the brutal crushing of student pro-democracy demonstrations in Tian’anmen Square, Beijing, but which also spread out in many other cities. On the night of 3 June 1989, the People’s Liberation Army moved in, killing hundreds and possibly thousands of people. China has never given a full account of what happened during the assault or who died.
It was a massacre that changed the way the world viewed China. The image of a solitary protester, still an anonymous figure, lying down in front of a tank at the edge of the square materialized the hope and futility of the movement. However, within a few months, the illusion of China’s economic growth prevailed over Western countries’ moral worries about dealing with the Communist government, and it was back to business as usual, a state of affairs that continues until today. However, the democracy movement spread internationally, and within months the Berlin Wall was down, Central Europe had left behind the chains of oppression, and governments in Warsaw Pact countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland did not decide on shooting on their own citizenry, and the world was changed.
These changes came too late for Jiang Jielian and his mother. After her son’s death, Ding Zilin attempted suicide on various occasions. Then she became provoked by her own suffering and anger.
Three months after the massacre, she met a family that had suffered a similar loss. They soon began to talk to other mothers who had lost children. There was not a “hooligan” – as Chinese officials called the protesters – among the 150 families they roughly came into contact with. The group became known as the Tian’anmen Mothers, and every year in early June they call on the government to answer for what happened to their children.
The Chinese government has defended the massacre, and ignored questions about a new report on former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, who was ejected for opposing the confrontation. China Foreign department still mention it as political incident: “Facts have proven that the socialist path with Chinese characteristics that we’ve pursued is in the fundamental interest of our people and it reflects the aspirations of the entire nation,” said Ma Zhaoxu, Foreign ministry spokesman.
China’s remarkable economic rise is cold comfort for the Tian’anmen Mothers. “This massacre happened despite the concerns of the international community. Even though the Communist Party has tried to cover it up for 20 years, it is indeed a crime, and no power can change it. This crime demands justice,” said Ding Zilin.
The Tian’anmen Mothers group has three demands: “First and foremost, we want the truth. We are asking for an independent and fair investigation. The authorities should publish the name list of all victims of the 4 June crackdown, the total number of victims and the truth. They should give an account of every victim,” she said.
“Second, the authorities should compensate those victims’ families. And last but not least, responsibility needs to be introduced. The people who bear the responsibility for this tragedy should pay according to laws. Our requests are quite different from the Communist Party’s idea of ‘rehabilitation’, because we require that this issue should be handled by laws and justice,” she said.
“Our loved ones have gone. This is a fact that we must accept. Nothing will change that. But as victims’ families, we are asking for justice. As a Chinese mother, I wish this tragedy can never take place again in China, and that the authorities can not massacre civilians after this. We want them to know that killers will be punished by law. Deng Xiaoping ordered the army to shoot people, and that will remain in history forever.”
Over the years these activists have faced regular difficulties with the authorities for their activism. They have been effectively under house arrest for years; usual Communist Party membership conveniences have been revoked, most of them have been under surveillance, and were forced into early retirement. The majority were ordered to leave Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. People who have lost the most important things in their lives don’t care what happens to themselves, although the day by day live is particularly difficult for everyone, and they have come under serious pressure.

On 17 May, the families of the victims use to attend a memorial service for their loved ones, something they have done every five years since 1989. They face at all times the annoyance and exclusion from the Communist PRC system. To some extent, the indifference from abroad, as well.

Remember the victims of the Tiananmen massacre
Put a light in your window on June 4, 2009, 8:00pm (your local time)

A Shout to Nothing

Who cares about the brutal Burmese dictatorship and the slow murder of Aung San Suu Kyi?

Nor did officials give him permission to visit her, even when he was dying of cancer in 1999. For four years they could not speak to each other. He, Michael Aris, was her husband and she met him when they were young students at the University of Oxford. She studied philosophy, and he was a student of Tibetan civilization. They got two children and a life of struggle for freedom in Burma, which lead them to separation when the Burmese dictatorship finally pulled her out from the world. She could see briefly her son, Kim at the airport in Rangoon in 1999. That’s all. For many years she couldn’t get reports on him and since then, she has been unable to see him again.
Daughter of the great hero of the country’s independence, Aung San, who was killed when she was two, her biography is full of acts of great courage, as occurred in the Irrawaddy delta, when she kept on moving towards a platoon who pointed her with a rifle. Also her talks throughout the country, defying the dictatorship ban. Despite the military junta efforts to banish her, she wanted to stay near the people, thus strongly motivated by her Ghandian ideas and her Buddhist moral. “The goodness and justice will not let you escape,” according to her own words. And as a result, this fragile woman, daughter of Burmese heroes, has dedicated her life fighting for her people’s welfare. She has won elections that the tyrant did not recognize; she is house arrested and not being able to go out or talk to anyone outside.
The latest news alert on her delicate physical condition and update us on her imprisonment, along with two women, mother and daughter, who take care of her for years. What for?  She was taken to prison after a U.S. citizen, John William Yettaw, swam a mile across Inya lake to her home and stayed overnight, which violated the terms of her house arrest. She was just six days short of completing her house arrest
She owns of all the awards the world is able to bestow on freedom heroes, as the Thorolf Rafto Prize, the Sakharov Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize. But, beyond the awards, she is suffering the abandon that all fighters bear when they do not fight for causes of interest. Who is concerned by the brutal dictatorship in Burma? Who cares about the thousands of dead and prisoners, the disregard to all basic rights, the slow murder of Aung San Suu Kyi herself, and the slaughter against the Buddhist monks who rebelled in recent months? Who cares of Amnesty International reports, which deals with mass killings of peasants with machetes? Who cares about the rapists hordes, which choose women from minority ethnic groups in prison for their acts of sexual violence? Not even the plundering of international aid by the military junta during the 2004 tsunami, leaving hundreds of thousands of victims to their fate, raised a convincing wave of anger throughout the world.
The so called State Peace and Development Council is today one of the world’s most heinous dictatorships, and their crimes against the people of Myanmar are, unequivocally, crimes against humanity. But?
It is not the first time that someone cries out for such a reasons, as nobody cares writing about it -dixit García Márquez. Not the first time, either, that one makes an unfriendly complaint, once again, perhaps in the futile hope that someone bothers this drumming. It is not true that street banners noise in the world will invigorate the victim’s core reasons. People are mostly mobilized owing to possible culprits’ name. That is, if the problem is Israeli or American, then noise shouts and bursts into anger. Quite the opposite if the problem is called Sudan’s dictator or the Burmese Tatmadaw’s leader, hence, the noise becomes deafening silence.

This happens because banners no longer have international causes, only obsessions. Thanks to this silence, dictatorships as Burmese are unpunished for their crimes. And as a result of this silence, the victims as Aung San Suu Kyi shout to nothing…

Join the global campaign to free Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at Free Aung San Suu Kyi