vampire, eager for blood and keeping the world awake at night.
America’s war on terrorism, it says, is an excuse of the "bloodthirsty murderer" to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, kill innocent people, and strip survivors of their human rights.
Burma’s newest tirade against the US in state-run media comes amid a month-long campaign by the repressive military government of the isolated Asian nation to defend itself against Washington’s attempt to bring Burma to the United Nations’ Security Council for punishment.
Virtually daily throughout October, Burma has condemned former Czech President Vaclav Havel and South Africa’s retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu for demanding the Security Council investigate widespread reports of forced labor, torture, opium production, child soldiers and mass rape in the country.
In addition human rights groups have expressed concern over reports that government backed forces of Burma have stepped up attacks against predominantly Christian ethnic communities, including Karens. Up to 1.5 million people, most of them members of the Karen community, are internally displaces, according to human rights investigators.
ECONOMIC TROUBLES
Meanwhile, Burma’s economy has been shattered by US-led international sanctions, widespread corruption among the military leadership, and a nonsensical use of "lucky numbers" to fix financial problems, BosNewsLife established. As a result, inflation is reeling and Burma’s kyat currency is depreciating.
The unelected junta, a group of generals known as the State Peace and Development Council, also displayed increasing nervousness over American, British and other foreign attempts to pressure it to release Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 10 of the past 16 years under house arrest.
The generals insist Suu Kyi, 60, must remain in detention so she cannot "destabilize the country" with demands that her National League for Democracy (NLD) party be allowed to govern.
Her NLD party won a landslide election victory in 1990, which the regime refused to recognize by claiming that the military must oversee the writing of a new constitution before any politicians can take office.
CHARGES DENIED
Human rights watchers deny her release would destabilize the nation. "The Christian Karen people very much appreciate her and would accept her as Burma’s leader," said Jim Jacobson, the president of advocacy group Christian Freedom International (CFI) and a former White House analyst in a recent interview with BosNewsLife.
Yet some diplomats and commentators also point out that after 15 years, no constitution has
been written, partly because Suu Kyi boycotted the drafting procedure, amid complaints the document would endorse the military’s right to rule and grant them immunity from prosecution.
Washington’s current bid to put Burma in the UN Security Council’s dock has caused jitters among the generals, as evidenced by the lengthy complaints in the government-controlled media.
Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, is majority Buddhist, a close ally of China, and mainland Southeast Asia’s biggest country. The regime’s mouthpiece is its New Light of Myanmar newspaper, which publishes daily in English for domestic and international consumption.
VAMPIRE MENTALITY
"Behind the word ‘anti-terrorism’ is convincing evidence of all forms of suffering and adversities [which] the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq are experiencing," the paper said last week.
"Without knowing the hideouts of the terrorists at all, the invaders are using force to launch attacks in these nations at will, killing a great number of innocent people," the New Light of Myanmar said. A kind of vampire mentality Washington apparently enjoys.
"The word ‘anti-terrorism’ serves as armor for a bloodthirsty murderer and militarist," the newspaper added. "’Human rights’ and ‘democracy’ are two beautiful words the militarist bloc is widely applying to mislead the world’s people about its invasion, and interference in the internal affairs of other nations, under the pretext of anti-terrorism."
Ironically, Burma warned against "the loss of all human rights of innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan," while claiming that the Burmese military was enforcing law and order so human rights and democracy could flourish at home.
ETHNIC GEURRILLAS
Al Qaeda-style, Islamist terrorist groups are not active within Burma.
But the regime has blamed "terrorists" for exploding a handful of small bombs in recent months in the capital, Rangoon, and points to Burma’s minority ethnic guerrillas, including the outnumbered Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), fighting for autonomy or independence and protection since British colonial rule ended after World War II.
Despite a lack of evidence, the generals have tried to link Suu Kyi indirectly to the bombings and occasional clashes between the military and the guerrillas. She has consistently denied the claims and says her struggle for democracy is non-violent.
Burma earlier criticized US-based DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, a legal services company, for helping Havel, and Nobel Peace laureate Tutu, publish their 70-page document titled, "Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma."
BURMA DISAGREES
"There is no basis whatsoever to its claims," Burma’s foreign ministry said in a 1,270-word statement published in the New Light of Myanmar in September.
"Myanmar has on several occasions officially denounced those allegations that it engages in rape, forced labor, child soldiers, refugees’ outflow, forced relocation, etc.," the foreign ministry said.
Burma, ruled by the military since 1962, is among the world’s worst abusers of human rights, according to London-based Amnesty International, the US State Department and other monitors.
In January, American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named Burma as one of the "outposts of tyranny" which she said must be challenged, along with Cuba, Belarus and Zimbabwe. But for now, human rights watchers suggest, the nightmare continues.
(LETTER FROM BANGKOK is a regular news column giving a rare insight on crucial developments in South East Asia written by award-winning reporter, photojournalist and author Richard S. Ehrlich. He has covered Asia, including war zones, for 27 years for a variety of media, including as staff correspondent for United Press International from 1978 to 1984, based in Hong Kong and New Delhi. He also co-authored the non-fiction best seller "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" — Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. The book, reviewed by Time magazine and other leading publications, looks beyond the red light of Thailand’s nightlife, and gives a rare insight in the often tragic and difficult relationships between prostitutes and their clients. Ehrlich, who was born in the US and is currently based in Bangkok, received the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Foreign Correspondent’s Award in 1978. He speaks some Mandarin, Hindustani, Urdu, Thai, Spanish and French. Ehrlich can be reached for assignments for all media, including newspapers, wire services, radio and television networks and/or more information via website: http://www.geocities.com/asia_correspondent/news.html )
