New Mandala

Adding their voices to the current debate about sanctions against the Burmese government, Alison Vicary and Sean Turnell have used an opinion piece in The Age to argue that “[l]ifting economic sanctions now would not only embolden Burma’s present reform-shy regime, but also greatly deleverage the ability of the US, Australia and like-minded countries to [...]

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If we do not loudly and strongly condemn this draconian process, hundreds of Burma’s leading thinkers and performers will disappear into the country’s squalid gulag, and the ephemeral promise of a liberal and free Burma could well be lost to another generation.
- Extracted from David Scott Mathieson, “The world looks away as Burma mocks democracy”, [...]

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Now here’s an exciting piece of news from Bernama, the official Malaysian news service, via Xinhua, monitoring a journal in Yangon: Myanmar is set to go wireless. “Myanmar is striving to introduce a wireless internet system of WiFi by early next year,” an article dated 12 November said. It is also “striving for the development [...]

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PBS Frontline World has a documentary on the “Saffron Uprising” and its aftermath.  It includes footage from the crackdown and from along the Thailand-Burma border.  The focus is the monks who spearheaded the protests.  It is, without question, worth a look for anyone who is interested in the future of Burma and its people.
Other Frontline World [...]

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Readers looking to continue chewing over the issue of Burmese politics and foreign “intervention” may find some satisfaction in this article from The Christian Science Monitor.  It is part of a series they have been running over the past week that highlights conditions one year after the September 2007 uprising.

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In response to the Distributed Denial of Service attacks that have, in the past few days, disabled a number of prominent Burma news websites, Irrawaddy editor Aung Zaw has hit back.  His article in The Wall Street Journal will be of great interest to anyone who watches developments in Burma.  More details on the current campaign [...]

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New Mandala readers who have followed this conversation may find a weekend article from The Wall Street Journal is worth a look.  Burma is the subject of sustained discussion about half-way down.

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Over at the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter “blog/zine hybrid”, Andrew Selth has a neat overview of recent events in and around Burma.  Selth’s take-home message comes right at the end:
Increasingly…it is being understood that foreign powers are likely to have only limited influence in Burma. Real and lasting change will have to come from the Burmese [...]

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Over the past couple of days a few people have written to ensure that George Packer’s recent article for The New Yorker does not escape the attention of New Mandala readers.  With the title “Drowning: Can the Burmese people rescue themselves?”, it is a wandering 12,000-word account of the trials and tribulations of contemporary Burma.  Much [...]

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