This is straight from Al Jazeera. They spoke by phone with a Buddhist monk called Uppekha, who is part of the All Burma Buddhist Monks Alliance.
Uppekha said he had expected more help from the UN and emphasised that all the protests had been peaceful.
He said: "We have a chance to create our own rights. We have a chance to create our own freedom.
"We are peaceful demonstrators but the government is taking this violent crackdown. We are suffering violence from a military junta.
"We dont understand why the UN aren't helping us. They are just talking, talking, blowing in the wind."
When a monk suggests military, martial, or international action to support gunned down peaceful protests... it's gotta mean something. I just think it's disgusting that the "world leaders" are congratulating themselves on cutting military and financial aid to Burma's military regime. The media are also singing this song - when there really should be more questions about why these bastards didn't have their lines of weapon supply and access to foreign assets cut long ago.
And it does seem kind of sick that "democracy" can be delivered by missile, bomb, dictum, and invasion... but not by request or obvious necessity.
Al Jazeera also reports on the cutting of access to Burmese blogs and provides hyperlinks for easy direct access to what remains up online. Al Jazeera has compiled a wide array of background and update pieces and they can all be explored via any of these links.
And thank God for Australia's strong grip on context. The fact that protesters were allegedly beaten up today by police outside the Burmese embassy in Canberra does not say anything specific about Australian reverence for the military junta. But it does highlight how inappropriate the reflexive clamping down on peaceful protest really is. That Australian protesters in Australia were beaten up for protesting against a government that has been killing its own critics simply provides a striking back drop. The complete picture points toward the natural endpoint of the excessive laws forced through in the last 5 years, with a tip of the hat to the consequent problem of overzealous policing.
Still, at least common sense has prevailed somewhere. Because there is nothin more logical than invading an allegedly despot nation to take away their non-existent weapons, realizing you fucked up, and then selling their unstable government $2.3 billion worth of armaments so you can come back and do it all again, gee - i don't know, maybe next week?
A Department of Defense official speaking anonymously said "well that clinches it. This time next week, we're going to be bombing the shit out of Irony."
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