Thanks! (fwd)

[anaing@xxxxxxxx]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 05:32:35 -0500
To: anaing@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Thanks!

Thanks a million for your response. :-)
Have you read the latest rantings from our expatriate, Ko Tun Myint?


>Here you go again!
>I don't know what is with you, every time on the subject of chinese-burmese
>in Burma, everything you claim to be fighting for is out of your system.
>You can even `respect' what BSPP and RC had done toward your fellow
>countryman, your neighhor, your classmate who happened to be a chinese
>descent.

Bravo and well said.

Personally, when I saw the timeline (posted recently) of historical events
surrounding the brutal military regime that omits the 1967 Anti-Chinese
Racial Riots (that led to a month-long martial law being imposed on parts
of Rangoon), I felt that it was a deliberate omission, and
racially-motivated. So I posted a two-sentence reminder on BurmaNet.

I have long suspected many Burmans, instigated by the military
dictatorship, harbour animosity towards ethnic minorities such as the
Chinese and Indians not to mention the indigenous minorities like the
Shans, Kachins, Chins, Karens, Arakanese, Mons, etc. Since independence
from the British at the conclusion of World War II, the indigenous
minorities have been in constant rebellion -that's half a century - not to
mention the perennial Burma Communist Party rebels.

Thirty three years have passed since a military coup ousted the legitimate
government of U Nu; 33 years of a failed experiment in socialism under the
banner, Burmese Socialist Program Party - nationalistic socialism that
would have made Hitler proud. Rejected by its own people as evidenced by
the 1988 anti-governement demonstrations and massacres and the landslide
victory by Aung San Suu Kyi, one would think a Burman studying in the
United States; Indiana University to be exact, will not defend the
indefensible, viz. the discredited BSPP and its reincarnation, SLORC.

Lo! And behold, Mr. Tun Myint ("illuminated noble" or Enlightened One, if
you will) literally 'leaped at my jugular' and told me in no uncertain
terms to get lost. (We have been enlightened) As you know, in Burma, ethnic
minorities were deprived of their livelihood, their properties, and
subjected to draconian expulsion from their homes and birth places. In the
case of the Chinese, they were made scapegoats for the governent's
mismanagement that led to the rice shortage crisis. The 'rice bowl' of Asia
became a basket case herself! Yes, many ethnic Chinese blood were shed on
the streets or Rangoon. I know, I was there; my youngest brother escaped
death by a mere two hours. If I did not locate him in time, he would have
been just a memory. (He is raising a family in California.)

All I wanted to do was remind people about a historical fact lest it be
swept under the rug of time and forgotten.  (Even in cyberspace, they
wanted to drive me out, 33 years later. Am I relieved to be in America!
Thank God for America!)

Judging from the subsequent postings on BurmaNet, I must have touch a
sensitive nerve among some Burmans who publicly embrace democracy, but
never too far below the surface, harbor racial prejudice.

Mr. Ye Myint's comments on 'obtaining Burmese citizenship by certain means'
smacks of cynicism and prejudice. He implied that ethnic minorities
obtained Burmese citizenship by illegal means. A legal resident born in
Burma could live all his or her life there and never be granted
citizenship. You know that. How different from America!

(Yessir, I've smoked out some hypocrites on BurmaNet.)