New Mandala

In response to my earlier post that mentioned northern Burma’s Rawang Rebellion Resistance Force (RRF), a long-time New Mandala reader has sent some important background information:
The Rawang were the only major tribe to not join the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)/Kachin Independence Army (KIA), although there have been individual Rawangs involved with both groups.  This is largely due to [...]

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In the past week Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has issued a series of travel warnings about Burma.  Last Friday, Burma was still in the second most “peaceful” category – “Exercise caution”.  On Tuesday it was upgraded to “High degree of caution”.  The country is now classified in the second highest bracket - “Reconsider your [...]

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The prolific and well-connected Awzar Thi has put together a wonderful collection of photographs of the protests across Burma.  The pictures are available here.  Everybody is strongly encouraged to have a look at these images, which have all been snapped by “citizen photographers” inside the country.  They give a feel for the scale of protests in different areas.  There is [...]

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The Kachin News Group is one of the best sources of current news about northern Burma.  Under normal circumstances its daily reports focus on the post-ceasefire politics of life in the Kachin State, the area’s economic prospects and its relations with neighbouring countries.�
With major protests happening across the country it has abruptly shifted gears.�
It has, along with many other news [...]

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For the benefit of the many interested New Mandala readers I have put together a consolidated document with key quotations from some of the world’s leading Burma scholars.  There is obviously a range of opinion about the current uprising and, importantly, about its likely outcomes.   

Perhaps the nation most concerned about the ongoing protests, and [...]

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Police in Burma have fired tear gas at about 1000 protesters led by Buddhist monks as they started a march from Rangoon’s landmark Shwedagon Pagoda today, witnesses said. At least 100 people, including some monks, were thrown into police trucks as police tried to stop them joining in, witnesses said. Earlier, [...]

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New Mandala readers in Australia’s biggest city will be keen to know that a “Free Burma Protest” will be held in Martin Place at 12:30 on Thursday, 27 September 2007.
More information is available here.

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…The root cause of the above-mentioned problems is the perpetration of internal and external destructionists, who are jealous of national development and stability, to harm all the government’s endeavours through various methods.The government convened the National Convention for emergence of a Constitution that is as important as the life-blood of the people. Although they made [...]

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 This is an interesting study from the Philippines about the electoral behaviour of the poor. It probably won’t mean much to those who assume that those with different political opinions lack ethics, but for those with more open minds it contains many useful insights into local political culture. Here is a brief extract from the preface:
Contrary to stereotypes, [...]

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[Song Kinh is a Singaporean writer who lives in Northern Thailand.]
Last year the wildly successful Elephant festival in Hongsa (in northern Laos) attracted around 10,000 visitors. About 2000 of those were foreigners, some leaning heavily on sticks, others elegant attired, others dreadlocked and ganja inspired.
They had made, in white fella terms, an epic journey. It’s not [...]

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