[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Ethnic cleansing and the media's ro



The Japan Times
September 21, 1997

Readers in Council,

Ethnic cleansing in Myanmar

Katsuhiro Fujiwara must have been a very conscientious note-taker during his
recent trip to Myanmar ("Myanmar deserves credit for its advances," Sept.
1). His remarks are a rehash of old State Law and Order Restoration Council
press releases. It makes one wonder whether he ever got out of an air
conditioned conference room to see the country, even the streets of Yangon!

Fujiwara says that "the biggest accomplishment of today's Myanmarese
government . . . is the way it has somehow managed to unify the country,
restore social order and bring stability back to the nation."

In fact, the Burmese armed forces are carrying out ethnic cleansing policies
in minority areas, especially in Karen and Shan State, reminiscent of
Bosnia. The regime has no coherent economic policy apart from enriching the
power elite; little is being done to develop health or education, and most
people are slipping into desperate poverty. Drugs are epidemic, and there is
evidence the regime gets income from the international heroin trade. Like
the old Burmese kings of the 18th century, SLORC uses forced or corvee labor
to build development projects.

All this is common knowledge. It's dismaying that Keidanren, Japan's most
powerful business group, should be so naive about SLORC. It's not surprising
that Japanese and other companies differ from Aung San Suu Kyi and the
Clinton administration on the merits of "constructive engagement." But
Fujiwara should take a closer, more skeptical look at the country.

DONALD M. SEEKINS
Okinawa


The media'e role in Myanmar

Opinions are needed to keep the world striving for goals. As Katsuhiro
Fujiwara demonstrates, it is good to keep an open mind to view situations so
that one may sharpen their goals. I wish to continue on the path to open
minds a little further.

It is true that Burma (Myanmar was the name adopted by the State Law and
Order Restoration Council to claim that they had created a new country) has
had some economic growth, but it is due to slave labor from its own people.
The government kidnaps from the 135 different ethnic communities living
outside of the main cities. If these people do not go they are killed along
with their family. After a few weeks they are transferred back to their
homes starving and penniless. Then the government takes a new group of fresh
bodies.

There is not a sign of-democracy or any fair government in Burma. SLORC has
kept Aung San Suu Kyi?the true elected leader with 80 percent of the
vote?from taking her position since 1990. SLORC also tortures and imprisons
her peaceful supporters, and subdues protests with thugs and guns. They use
an army full of children to pillage villages in forced relocation programs.
They also force farmers to sell a huge percent of their rice at a fixed
price to SLORC at less than one-quarter the market price. No wonder Burma is
the seventh poorest nation in the world.

If the media chose not to report these atrocities on human rights, SLORC
would become even more abusive. Press coverage protects Suu Kyi, a Nobel
Peace Prize winner from being assassinated. We need the media to report what
is really going on in Burma, otherwise we will only have the propaganda of
SLORC, which only has economic goals.

 LAURALEE GARSON-OKAMOTO 
Kobe
http://www2.gol.com/users/brelief/Index.htm