I’m not sure. For the record, it could just be a bug or an unexpected edge case, not necessarily a specific government intervention, but regardless it does seem more fragile than it should be considering Signal’s ethos.
Not sure if this is relevant but the Tatmadaw are majority owners of Mytel, which has one of the largest networks in subscriber base and hardware infrastructure. They never really gave up control of Myanmar in a strategic sense.
Did Signal give solid reasoning for disallowing accounts and usage without an attached cell phone number? (I assume the question comes up frequently, but I don't know the answer)
Unfortunately in many countries even prepaid SIM cards are directly tied to government ID verification. I know this has been discussed many times, but I agree that it would be nice to be able to use Signal for secure communications without a phone number.
I find it interesting that Germany is one country which does this. A country which has strict privacy regulations and people prefer to use cash rather than cards, but they are happy to carry a device which can track their every movement and is tied to their government identification. This isn't an EU thing, there are quite a few EU countries where you can buy and activate a SIM without any ID.
Have there been any cases where the people have spoken out against such regulations, and they have been reversed?
Horse hockey. They'll still do the same thing, there'll just be larger networks of individuals who activate a SIM and then swap it with someone else. The terrorist excuse is no excuse at all. It's just a pragmatist's paving stone on the path to hell and tyranny.
>the social graph already exists due to contact books
But you don't have to share your contacts with the app, no?
In case you do, then I really don't see how Signal is considered secure. Having to share your phone number is bad enough, but uploading my whole contact list is just Orwellian.
From what I gather, the phone number is only used for identification of a user account. Can't exactly remember where I came across this information (probably an ama from their team on reddit) but Signal have recently said they are looking for ways to make the above not a requirement for its users.
I don't see this sim lockdown being a problem unless you want to create a new account or for some reason your account has been logged out requiring 2FA. In my understanding, telegram also asks for SMS for 2FA on re-login. Though the 2FA code will be simultaneously sent to any other device you've logged the account in.
Using phone numbers as identifiers for encrypted messages is the core feature of Signal. It was marketed from day one as a drop in SMS replacement. Initially it even used SMS as the transport for encrypted messages. It was literally called "TextSecure". This is why I have always found the attacks on it using phone numbers to be amusing.
The problem is that in the years since Signal was launched like that, more and more countries around the world are requiring you to show ID to buy a SIM card, and then a copy of that ID is made and sent on to the authorities. So, the state has a one-to-one correlation between phone numbers and individuals, and so it can see who is using Signal.
So? Signal is just a messaging client. The goal of Signal is to get it widely used by as many people as possible, so that it's a totally normal thing to have on your phone.
If a country has gotten to the point that you would be targeted just for having an app installed, just changing to usernames wouldn't be enough, as users could be easily detected through network logging (thanks AWS and Google for killing domain fronting [0]). Your usecase sounds like it needs an app like Briar.
It's pushed as a secure messaging client, and so when it doesn't meet the standards for that people will mention it so potential users have the information needed for a risk assessment.
This is the core routing issue. If you don't have centralized system to locate a "user", then the only alternative is to broadcast all messages to everyone, which is not a scalable solution.
Actually, there must be methods for distributed routing. How does TOR finally map a hidden service to an IP address?
Maybe there can be a dynamic DNS service for user accounts on an anonymous messaging network?
I wonder what caused force log out in the first place? I have a Signal account logged in and then SIM card was removed from the phone, and Signal still works (of course I'm not in MMR).
This one person--with no people responding "also me!"--says they were logged out of multiple services in different jurisdictions at once, so while the underlying issue of a login mechanism somehow tied to SMS access is certainly an issue, I personally, so far as makes sense from this one data point, find it unlikely that this had anything to do with the coup.
If you're logged into at least one device with telegram, the sign in code for the a device first comes to the logged in device, instead of coming via SMS. The 6 digit code comes from a verified 'Telegram' account over the internet, thus avoiding the security or connectivity issues of SMS.
Reminder that while apps like signal are more convenient for every day use, if you want to have a way to message certain people when communications are being blocked, you should setup Briar[1] with your friend group. It connects over Tor when you have internet access, but can also pass messages ad hoc over WiFi or bluetooth, so that messages can be distributed across a group.
There should be a really wide (geographically), and at the same time not too sparse network of Briar users for sending messages with it to make sense practically.
Since there is no obvious disclaimer on the page, I'll add one here for good measure: In most jurisdictions, broadcasting on long-range frequency bands is not permitted without a license. I absolutely encourage people to get involved in this topic, but don't forget to check your local regulations.
Regarding regulations LORA tries to address that problem, from Wikipedia:
LoRa uses license-free sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 433 MHz, 868 MHz (Europe), 915 MHz (Australia and North America), 865 MHz to 867 MHz (India) and 923 MHz (Asia).
I want to love these things but the first one appears to be unfinished, and the second has hardware you have to assemble and then depends on an android app that appears to be quite flaky from the reviews. I would very much like a radio enabled encrypted communications system to complement Briar, but both of these look extremely iffy currently.
This is why using multiple burner SMS accounts from various countries, I understand why most apps use filters of known SMS numbers but this is why this can be a pretty big deal.
Sometimes you can get logged out going from wifi to LTE/mobile data on either of those apps, I have had that happen, and this can create issues like this which means you will have to create another account and may not have your contact list etc... which is impossible if you're trying to use your mobile number you use.
It's kind of crazy that all of our over-paranoid back ups and ad-hoc solutions have been so damn necessary for even the normal person in the last 10 years, be it PgP, burner sms numbers, cryptocurrency, apps like TG and Signal etc...
As some have mentioned Moxie said he wants to move away from phone based accounts, and now that Elon sent him a ton of new users from all walks of Life that this may need to be accelerated, which from what I garnered from his podcast with JR it's just not well staffed and is in need of some your guys' talents.
> It’s difficult to get burner SMS numbers and also to activate a SIM from abroad.
Agreed, to an extent.
But not if you know how to do the legwork; I have 4 active Telegram/Signal accounts on sveral devices using apps that allowed me to register and acquire a US/EU based mobile number.
I completely lost al ofl those passwords and access to those old numbers (didn't use them after activation years ago) but it certainly is possible if you do the legwork.
Threema does not have this issue. If it would be free it would be a better choice as it does not need a mobile number. For people in the west the cost is so low but still many refuse because it 'should be free'.
>Aung San Suu Kyi could not have ordered the military to stop their operations against the Rohingya, and it was legitimate to fear that the military would reverse the transition toward democracy ...
Now we see just how little control she had over the generals.
You're quoting the first part of that article, but ignoring the entire conclusion - she was a willing enabler of the genocide.
"But now that the military establishment has moved to accommodate the Burmese pro-democracy movements in the country, oppression of so-called Muslim foreigners like the supposedly Bengali Rohingya is perfectly acceptable along the path toward building an exclusionary Buddhist nation-state."
But ASSK was a Novel laureate and revered in the West and all precisely because she did not only do what the military would tolerate all the time.
I totally see why she did what she did and understand in her shoes maybe many of us might have made the same choice, but we should all remember the entire reason for her elevated profile outside Myanmar is that she had in the past refused to simply abide by whatever the military wanted and she claimed often that she could not stand idly by and had to act when she protested for democracy.
Despite what western media outlets say, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Military juntas are often a good/restorative part of government in countries like Thailand and Myanmar, and are well received by the general public.
Doesn't mesh well with washington kissinger pastiche though
Please don't speak again unless you thoroughly know what you are talking about when it comes to politics. I am a Burmese and Aung San Suu Kyi has never been racist. In fact, her former advisor, Ko Ni, who was a Muslim as well spoke out against the Myanmar nationality law drafted by the militay junta that prevented Rohingya of Burmese citizenship and he got assassinated. This isn't the only one, there have been other bombings, death threats, kidnapping and assassinations by the military since Aung San Suu Kyi's party won. If you were to visit Myanmar and ask anyone, be it from a racial minority group or literally anyone, they will speak in favor of her.
Yeah, but did she do anything other than deflect and support the military at that time? I get that the situation is complex and not entirely her fault, but let's not absolve her either.
"But her personal defence of the army's actions at the ICJ hearing last year in the Hague was seen as a new turning point that obliterated what little remained of her international reputation." [1] from this article itself.
"No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim" [2]
Will admit that I am not very familiar with Myanmar politics, but the above sentence from the article seems to indicate the opposite. Now, it is entirely possible that she was forced to do that due to military pressure at home.
Also, I have an allergic reaction to statements made that "everyone speaks in favor of an X leader" anywhere. I am pretty sure the Rohingyas aren't all that in favor of her, even though they have no good options any way.
You don’t know what you’re taking about. You just read news articles.
- ASSK/elected government never had any power over Rhohingya situation.
- Only outcome of UN trial would be sanctions, which would not help Rhohingya and further harm Burmese. ASSK was choosing the better option by trying to avoid sanctions. Knowing full well that she would be vilified by media.
- ASSK good friend and personal lawyer, U Ko Ni was Muslim and assassinated for trying to protect civilian government.
We've banned this account for using HN repeatedly for flamewar and ignoring repeated requests to stop. That's an abuse of the site and not cool at all.
No, we don't support genocide. We're just trying to have an internet forum not destroy itself.
Military rule has been a complete and utter disaster for Myanmar. It's one of the poorest countries in the world, brutal repression, ethnic cleansing, isolation, the list goes on. There is nothing at all to redeem it.
I'm from Nepal. We're next doors to Myanmar. We have democracy, social policies (even universal healthcare, which is comically bad anyway but we do have that), freedom of speech, free press, yadda yadda but Myanmar is still richer than us. The disagreements of democratically elected leaders has been the main cause of political instability for us for more than a decade now.
> We have democracy, social policies (even universal healthcare, which is comically bad anyway but we do have that), freedom of speech, free press, yadda yadda
Most middle-eastern countries do not have this either...
> but Myanmar is still richer than us.
but I am willing to bet they are richer than both Nepal and Myanmar. It seems what Myanmar has over Nepal is natural resources, (just like the middle eastern countries). This is nothing to be proud of.
We are blessed in other ways too. We have a huge hydroelectricity potential that we haven't tapped fully. The problem is that people are insanely xenophobic and foreign investment is derided as "selling out to foreigners" here. Existing rules make it a nightmare for prospective foreign investors. There's not much capital inside to invest on our own natural resources.
Don't know what you're getting at. There's no autocracy in Nepal (at least not yet). The Maoists won a free and fair election (Socialism is just that popular here). At most the country is super-duper and insanely socialistic, with government owning multiple large monopolies. Unless you call yourself a "socialist" you won't be winning any elections here. Unfortunately there is no pro-business/capitalistic political party in Nepal and that is what I sincerely believe is lacking here.
Freedom alone is not democracy; that's just liberalism. Social justice, economic equality and others including political power control from people are important part of democracy.
I don't know that human rights can create good government, but it seems pretty reliable that societies without strong human rights protections will turn into a weird pyramid scheme for someone and then collapse in relatively short order.
The military’s power over Myanmar hasn't collapsed in a half-century. (Even during the ostensible moves towards democracy in recent years, the military still called all the shots.) They seem to have established a pretty solid dictatorship. Also, the creation of a new capital at Naypyidaw, in the middle of nowhere, is said to have been an attempt at making the regime impervious to any large-scale public protests.
What conclusion can be drawn, then, regarding Myanmar’s growth experience from independence in 1948 up to the end of the 1990s? If we wish to be unkind, we can say that Myanmar is a subsistence agricultural economy, relying on a few commodities, with a pre-industrial economic structure, which has no shock absorbers to cushion the impact of events originating within and outside the country. Natural and human-made disasters, therefore, windfalls from the bounty of nature and commodity booms that resulted from such events as the Korean War largely determined the state of the economy, rather than factors such as the GDI/GDP ratio.
Such unkind views can, however, no longer hold with the official data for Myanmar’s economic performance coming into the new millennium. In biblical times, it was possible for a country’s economy to enjoy seven fat years in a row and then to suffer seven lean years in a row. Not anymore! Global warming, a growing menace, has brought with it climate change that has made weather volatile and erratic. There is no way a country can expect to have seven consecutive years of good harvests in the twenty-first century.
That was written back in 2005 and it looks like their GDP predictions have turned out to be correct with a big drop in their GDP since 2005.
For any given area, you will always be able to find an answer to "who's in charge here?," but I think there needs to be some degree of comprehensiveness and inclusion to call that authority "society."
For instance - in colonial states the "authority" is the colonial administrator - who are almost totally separate from the "society" of the country. I should have been more clear with terms in my first post. Trying again:
Strong human rights protections help guarantee that the administrative power of a state spends some time including all the people within its borders. Once those rights fall away, the chance of the state becoming more exclusionary and focused on the rights of a limited subset of the people within its borders seems high.
A military junta, for instance, is primarily concerned with keeping the military in power and doesn't devote attention or resources to much else.
It's easy to look at them from our perspective and think "you're so small, shouldn't you be peaceful and united in order to face the larger world around you?" but we're just as prone to the same type of thinking.
Myanmar has a population of over 50 million, and has been in various stages of civil war continuously since the end of WW2. The army's primary public justification for ruling the country is precisely the need to keep a tight grip on the misnamed "Union of Myanmar" and prevent all the various rebel groups from spiraling off.
Sad but not surprising. And unlike previous coups, there's no obvious way to protest: they've plowed an estimated $4 billion into building a brand new capital in the middle of nowhere, far from any people who could protest, and it looks like this investment is going to pay off.
There was literally nothing except an obscure village or two when construction started in 2002, and the official population figure of 900,000 is widely regarded as preposterous. (The video I linked to above guesses 100k tops.)
I took a look at the satellite images. It's a bit hard for me to gauge what the entire area that is supposed to comprise 900k people is, but the official numbers for Pyinmana (inside the capital district but not the capital itself) is about ~100-200k, and Pyinmana is visibly more dense than the city of Naypyidaw itself.
In contrast to Brasilia (which is perhaps the most well-known recent-ish create-a-new-capital-from-scratch initiative), it is far less dense and less occupied. Contrasting to most of the other newer similarly-situated capitals, Naypyidaw is clearly pretty poorly populated and some of its infrastructure is laughably oversized compared to what use it would actually get (Why do you need that road with 10 lanes in each direction? It goes from nowhere to nowhere...).
Putrajaya in Malaysia (est 2001) is an interesting comparison. It's also overly ambitious and oversized, but it's not quite as nuts (the empty highways are 3-4 lanes, not 10), it has a comparatively far more sane location (between Kuala Lumpur and its main airport), and its actual population is around 90,000.
And of course Astana - or now called Nur-Sultan to honour the Kazakh president. Also has the similar highways that can just be used for airplanes if needed. The city was a ghost town in the weekends when I visited 6 years ago, because all government personnel takes the night train to Almaty in the weekends.
Interestingly, Brasilia was modeled after the build-up of Washington DC - a remote capital that would not allow undue influence from any one existing US State.
Creating a remote capital is not itself a malicious idea - even though that may be the case here (and Myanmar's close ties to North Korea which did the same is probably no coincidence).
But in general, the notion creating a new remote capital free of the existing concentrated power structures of the biggest cities is an old idea.
It was the motive behind the build up of Washington DC, which at the time was not very populated and mostly swamp land. The motive was to be free of the unfair influence of any one state. Brasilia copied that idea (it's amazing how visually similar it is in many ways to DC). ...and you might say Constantinople was the original. Similarly, most US state capitols are intentionally NOT their largest city (ie NYC is not the capital of New York State). ...even Vermont chose Montpelier instead of Burlington.
Canberra, Australia was built as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne as well. I think it was the closest city that was midpoint between the two largest cities.
Strangely, I discovered the horrors of myanmar mining through tiktok. The sight and scale of 400000 people mining jade in very dangerous conditions is unimaginable
Thanks for sharing this, Global Witness appears to have a pretty wonderful page on the topic[0].
It reminds me of the images of the Serra Pelada miners in Powaqqatsi[1], which is 20+ years old.
It's sad to see how little progress we've made, in some ways.
They have a very close relationship with North Korea and host knowledge sharing meetings with them. They are trying to model their dictatorship after NK.
I feel sad for the people of Myanmar. I feel sad for Aung San Suu Kyi and all freedom fighters who have sacrificed their whole life and family to better Myanmar.
My personal experience is Myanmar is a wonderful country full of a wonderful people, and vibrant culture, despite living in the shadow of ethnic violence and a brutal military regime.
It’s hard to say how this will play out. For many here it’s a mystery why military did this, as they already had power over state business, 25% military appointed legislature, control of courts, etc. and the benefit of hiding behind fake democracy to get foreign investment. So people are confused as to what their motive is, as they already had the best of both worlds.
>While failures to reform the country can be considered by many to be at the disadvantage of NLD, in a more cynical reading, it might actually be to the party’s advantage. Ironically, it helps to convince the people that there are still influential dark forces (read: the military) that deter the party from reforming the country. [1]
Do you believe that your consideration of the previous military power is widely understood and that the above quote explains the success of the NLD in the election?
Do you feel San Suu Kyi has been prevented from acting to protect ethnic minorities due to the influence of the military?
If so, is there reason to believe the military would perceive the beyond landslide victory in favor of the NLP as Likely to disrupt or erode their existing position of power?
Most international press is dangerously misinformed about structure of government in Burma. For example, constitution (created by military) gives military control of 25% legislature seats, president, and courts. The military doesn’t answer to any civilian authority. Civilian government can’t reform constitution or appoint critical positions without military approval.
Almost everyone in Burma hates military and understands that civilian government can’t do everything they want.
Yet all the international coverage seems ignorant of these facts, condemning ASSK for things she doesn’t control, like military operations in Rhakine against Rohingya. They don’t understand that the reason she defended military at UN is only outcome of not defending them would be sanctions which just further harms civilian government and people. She had no choice.
People here in Burma are still confused as to motivation for coup, since military already had best of both worlds: ultimate power of law and courts, and no sanctions because of farcical democracy. Why they would risk sanctions to do this is a mystery.
> Why they would risk sanctions to do this is a mystery.
Sorry for offering wild conjecture, but the first thing that comes to mind is some kind of a payout to generals from China, who is hoping for sanctions from the rest of the world so that they can be the sole influencer in the country.
Or some variation on that theme: influence from China.
Or perhaps just some power hungry generals longing for the old days <shrug>
No so crazy. Many believe Chinese interests like behind what’s been happening in Rakhine since 2017 as well. The rest of the world shunning Burma benefits the CCP more than anyone other than the Myanmar generals.
> For many here it’s a mystery why military did this
Big Tech started banning Myanmar government officials from their services that they didn’t approve of. Now they cry about suspension of democracy? The claims of a rigged elections in Myranmar sounds eerily familiar...
> So people are confused as to what their motive is
Economic prosperity for the populace is dangerous for a dictatorship. Myanmar is still a poor country which exports mainly things dug out of ground. If the situation changes and now the military is financed by businesses and tax-payer money, they'll have to answer to those.
This is bad news for the military leaders and their gang. They'd much better have a small income from these resources and a poor population than being ousted. (and probably face prosecution)
Most of the independence armies except Rhakine armies (AA and ARSA) officially want a true federal union, which would require a new constitution. This is the same aim as NLD.
Only KNU (Karen army) so far has made statement opposing military coup.
Edit: That said, independence armies are all to some degree corrupt and many funded through drug manufacturing and smuggling.
Yes. All NLD leaders, ASSK, her lawyer, physician, President, lawmakers, chief ministers of Yangon, Mon state, Karen state, mandalay, and more all detained. Some activists, some journalists, and some filmmakers too arrested in middle of the night. Anyone critical of regime.
Military has also taken over ASSK FB page and is posting false information.
I was there Dec 2019 (for pleasure). Saw some soldiers in the international airport area, that was it.
I learnt about the Rohingya ethnic cleansing before going and how the leader wouldn't publicly condemn military actions. It now seems like she didn't want to ruffle some feathers.
What's the general attitude over there? Did anyone see this coming? I was able to meet a few locals and ate at the same three places for one month. The youth were optimistic. The city felt alive. Multinationals were investing.
Would be sad to see US sanctions followed by the populace getting the shaft, like some North Korea situation.
I'm 28 years old. In the time I've been aware of world events, it's felt like the world has been accelerating in a downward spiral towards authoritarianism and away from progress. Things are worse in some places than others, but seemingly no corner of the globe is spared from the trend.
I genuinely can't tell how much of this perceived trend is real, and how much of it is a shift in my own perspective. And even then: am I just becoming more aware of how the world has always been, or is an increase in media sensationalism to blame (either for my perspective shift, or for an actual shifting reality?) Does it all come down to the impact of social media, or other technologies enabling oppressors? Is it the increasing concentration of global wealth? Was the latter half of the 20th century just an anomaly where much of the world was turned off to authoritarianism by the second world war, and we're at a point now where that's worn off and we're getting back on with the normal trajectory? Was it just my American information bubble telling me that things were ever somewhat better, even for a few decades?
I don't know what to think, but what it feels like is that this train is going off the rails.
For most of the second half of the 20th century, the USSR existed, China was (as it still is) authoritarian, and the US supported authoritarian regimes in places like South Korea, Indonesia, Iran, and Chile. US-supported regimes killed something like a million people between 1950-1990. Then the 1990s came and the USSR collapsed, liberating Eastern Europe. Also, the US pulled back a bit from its support of the worst sort of authoritarians. So there were reasons to be hopeful during the 1990s. I'd say that on the whole, if there was an anomaly it was more the 1990s specifically than any of the time from 1950-1990. I think the world in general is still less authoritarian on average than it was between 1950-1990.
The 90s weren't great. We had wars in Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and more.
But, in general, I do have a sense it was a uniquely optimistic decade for many people in the former First World, mainly because the Cold War ended and there was a sense that we had "won". Western Europe in particular demilitarized a lot as a result, the EU was formalized, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, Oslo Accords happened, end of apartheid etc.
For Americans I think 9/11 derailed things again.
Outside of the former First World, I'm not sure they'd see the 90s the same way.
It was nearly a golden age in indochina. People in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, (South) Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, etc experienced incredible and permanent improvement in living standards
but yeah it wasn't that great anywhere south of cancun or cairo
I don't know, but listening to Dan Carlin discuss the Nuclear Age made me think in some ways we're beyond all of that -- it's both already far worse than we imagine, and kind of amazing we're alive at all: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-59-the-de...
I really think you should chalk a lot of it up to media sensationalism. The Soviet Union collapsed around the time you were born, and that was a massive reduction in authoritarianism across the globe. By nearly all measures, things are better for everyone: poverty, child mortality, easily curable disease, access to education, to clean water, are all dramatically better since then.
Media sensationalism and bubbles are driven by several cooperating incentives: consolidation of traditional media ownership into fewer and fewer corporations all which have similar goals; more competition from non traditional outlets; suspension of traditional journalistic principles; cozy relationships among journalists, politicians and academics that tend to a very narrow Overton Window; a climate of fear regarding cancel culture.
Fortunately, alternative perspectives are easier to find than ever before.
> am I just becoming more aware of how the world has always been
Bit of both really. I'm a decade older and therefore able to remember both the sense of imminent doom that hung over the Cold War - the risk that the two world powers might just obliterate each other with an hour's notice and billions dead - and also the "end of history" period in the 90s. The optimism after the Soviet Union collapsed ...
... and then the gradual back-filling of everywhere east of the Iron Curtain with capitalist corrupt states. 9/11 happened, and the world went mad with vengeance in ways that it hasn't really recovered from.
Even in the past decade we've gone from "social media and the internet enables revolutions and democracy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revolution_of_2011 , almost exactly a decade ago), to "you get a revolution whether you want it or not, and revolutionaries are often terrifyingly illiberal".
The big one is of course China, which has seen a complete transformation in material conditions without transitioning to even the slightest bit of liberal democracy.
- ASSK has no power over military operations or Rohingya. Elected civilian government has no legal power over military.
- Only outcome of not defending military at UN would be sanctions or civilian government losing some of the little power they have, which would only harm situation more.
- ASSK does not want genocide or anything like that. She is slandered by ignorant press.
> ASSK does not want genocide or anything like that. She is slandered by ignorant press.
Isn't failure to educate international press still a (big IMHO) failure?
Personally the result for me has been that she was once a kind of freedom hero, than became a kind of mass murderer and should have her Nobel prize revoked.
Then I read today that she's been almost a hostage of the military for all this time and she's getting some of my sympathy back again. However the trade she accepted to do feels bad and the signaling of being a hostage was totally missing.
Currying favor with international press at expense of relations with military doesn’t help her party’s situation, or the people of Burma.
What is she supposed to do? Come out and denounce the military publicly, effectivey destroying what little relationship and understanding they’ve built with the military? That doesn’t accomplish anything. She already did that and sat in prison for 15 years.
Nobel peace prizes and moralizing westerners don’t help Burma. There’s little reason for her to care about what they think.
She’s been public about her strategy. She’s always said the only way forward is to build understanding and relationship with military. To work with the scraps given to them. To work through peaceful means. It’s either that or nothing. Rising up won’t really work, they tried that in 1988 and the military just murdered and jailed people until they stopped.
why am i getting downvoted? she's the leader of the govt and has not helped address the issue. whether or not it's in her power is besides the point. she did the politically convenient thing and pretended that nothing was wrong.
She is the leader of civilian government, which has no control of military. The military is not within civil control, legally. Civilian government has no power to order the military to do anything.
She had two choices: 1) Say publicly that military are bad people, and erode what little power military affords NLD and fragile relationship between civilian government and military. Or 2) Have the press hate her for not saying words, and maintain the fragile understanding and peacemaking process with military.
She chose the least bad option, in support of civilian rule, democracy, and peace building. Publicly condemning military for Rohingya doesn’t accomplish anything for anyone.
"In 2012, she told reporters she did not know if the Rohingya could be regarded as Burmese citizens."
"However, she said that she wanted to work towards reconciliation and she cannot take sides as violence has been committed by both sides."
"State crime experts from Queen Mary University of London warned that Aung San Suu Kyi is "legitimising genocide" in Myanmar."
"Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a fellow peace prize holder, also criticised Suu Kyi's silence: in an open letter published on social media, he said: "If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep"
"In early October 2018, both the Canadian Senate and its House of Commons voted unanimously to strip Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary citizenship."
She has been trying to build relationship with generals, and is not going to publicly denounce them just to achieve some kind of moral pageantry. Angering the military so she can appease people who don’t do anything for Burma is pointless.
If ASSK was in charge Rohingya situation would not happen. But she’s not in charge. Holding her to some impossible ideal is ridiculous. Blaming her for genocide is offensive. It’s just part of a game western academics, journalists, and moralizers like to play.
Her actions are completely understandable if you understand the political situation, and its history.
And for most Burmese the lack of support for her fledgling civilian government by the nations and journalists that condemn her has created deep resentment. Nobody here cares at all what they think.
Imagine how it feels to have people, who don’t even know the name of the generals, how the government works, or where Myanmar is on a map, tell us how evil ASSK is. The person who has sacrificed her whole family and life for peace and reconciliation.
This is the exact rationale the US uses when it supports dictatorships - "we're just choosing the least worst option". It's not exactly a convincing argument.
The fact is is that what's happening to the Rohingya is a a genocide - and ASSK says nothing or even worse, tries to dismiss it or make excuses. As Desmond Tutu said in the statement I quoted, if the price of her position is silence, that's a price too high.
You really expect her to die on a hill that can’t be held? What’s the point of that? Publicly shaming the military isn’t a way for her to achieve anything. She is a prisoner of the people responsible for the war crimes in Rakhine state. She doesn’t need to condemn anything. Everyone in Burma already knows who is responsible. It would achieve absolutely nothing.
And Desmond Tutu’s letter is patronizing and ridiculous. She has no power over the Rakhine situation. None. The only power she had was negotiating with the military. She doesn’t need to be told that people don’t deserve to be victims of war and ethnic strife.
sounds like another case of "there are good people on both sides". anyway, the takeaway here is that she did the thing that was meant to keep the fragile arrangement intact, and yet here we are today with the same result had she chosen the morally right thing in the first place.
There is no comparison between the US and Myanmar. There is absolutely no comparison between Trump and the brutal dictators who hold Burma hostage.
I suppose the Gies family should have walked outside and told the Nazi soldiers they were pieces of shit. That would be the morally right thing to do!? Get a grip. Sometimes speaking truth to power is just fucking dumb.
Do you think Burmese aren’t in the streets protesting because they approve of the government, or because they know they will get shot?
The obsession with defaming ASSK over the evil actions of the military is pathetic. It is so so low and pathetic how the international media relentlessly implies ASSK is secretly a supporter of genocide because she won’t tell the military off in public. All it accomplished was emboldening the military and damaging relations with the civilian government. Just so all the “journalists” could pat themselves on the back for being so courageous.
The military is alleging that voter fraud took place. Obviously a pretext by Myanmar’s dictatorial military family, but it makes you wonder if Trump’s demagoguery and erosion of trust in the US voting system has emboldened authoritarians across the globe who can now scoff at the integrity of democratic norms, seeing that one of the greatest examples (supposedly) in the free world is not even capable of being such an example. The power of our example has global ramifications.
Can you tell me where it was stated that every political outcome globally is tied to the US? A bit of a strawman.
Many regimes that have been dictatorial for decades have fallen. It’s easy to name them. South Korea is a particularly good example where its history is marked by alternating periods of democratic and autocratic rule and now they are a stable and wealthy democratic country. The last few years in Myanmar was a hopeful surprise as they made inroads towards a constitutional democracy, albeit with a lingering junta in the shadows. That did not happen without international pressure. The world is different today, where events are seen worldwide in an instant and movements are inspired in an instant. Many countries expressed shock at what happened on Jan 6 and the four years of isolationism preceding. It will be harder today to call out Myanmar for what the autocrats are doing. The reply will be scorn about our hypocrisy. The madmen are stepping out of the shadows of shame.
>Can you tell me where it was stated that every political outcome globally is tied to the US? A bit of a strawman.
Where you specifically implied that Trump's actions emboldened the authoritarians that seized power in Myanmar. As someone who lives in this part of the world (close to Myanmar), your comments are a bit silly and self-centered.
Their claimed reasoning for seizing control is "election fraud". Sound familiar?
This is why many of us internationals get concerned about American politics, because where America goes, others soon follow. Just like some countries used the "war on terror" branding to suppress democratic movements, it was only a matter of time before other authoritarians used "election fraud" to overthrow election results they didn't like. In Myanmar's case the junta's fraud issue is more likely to be that they didn't rig the system enough to their liking.
Trump's attack on the integrity of the 2020 election was irresponsible, as was the Democrats' on the 2016 election. I don't think Americans generally understand how fragile legitimacy is, and how important it is
Russian diplomat turns meeting to support Belarus into an attack on Estonia
"...After representatives had expressed concern for the situation in Belarus one after another and Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Reinsalu proposed the creation of an international mechanism for investigating crimes against peaceful protesters in the country, it was the turn of the Russian representative.
"...Polyanskiy went on to say that claiming that a country's elections saw bias and fraud is not a rare occasion, giving the example of presidential elections in the U.S. Polyanskiy asked why potential election fraud in America is not a subject of discussion and referred to different treatment of elections in USA and Belarus as garish double standards.
"'Is there a list of bad countries somewhere regarding which colleagues in the West silently support anti-government actions and protests and 'good' ones where the powers that be are always in the right? Why are you paying exaggerated attention to such phenomena only in certain countries, while ignoring them in France, UK, Germany and, as it happens, also Estonia?' Polyanskiy asked."
I assume the downvotes are from people who think one of the tribes attacking the legitimacy of the Office of President was justified while that of the other was reckless.
Authoritarian? The proof is out there of the fraud in America...
meanwhile, Trumps replacement? Quoted "A dictator uses EOs" and he's already used a record number of them while his white house is surrounded by troops and barbed wire.
Trump was never an "authoritarian" - and if you think he was... you better be 100x more vocal about the new regime whos already doing worse to lead by fiat after cheating to get in in the first place.
If there's proof, why is it that no court in America, even the conservative stacked supreme court, will give it the time of day? Trump's own legal team were so clear they had no credible evidence that their court cases never even alleged any fraud. Why not?
I've still yet to hear a coherent reason why Trump is even alleging such massive fraud. I'll do without proof even, I understand something can be true or strongly suspected without proof, but you need a reason to suspect it right? Some initial concern or reason for thinking there might be fraud on the scale of millions of votes across numerous states in this particular election. Including states in which Republican appointed election officials supported and certified the results. Honest question, what is it? To my knowledge Trump has never given one. I'd love to know.
For conservatives like myself outside America that view the Republican party as our natural political allies, it's desperately sad. Fortunately there are responsible Republicans standing up for the Democratic process, but so few. We're going to be dealing with the corrosive effect of this on democratic processes across the world for many years to come.
Trump was alleging fraud since the beginning, because it's a common belief among Republicans that the Democratic Party takes and maintains power primarily through fraud and criminal activity. Remember the narrative in 2016 was that the mainstream media and social media were all controlled by the globalist left taking orders from the Democratic Party, collaborating to "rig the election" for Hillary Clinton. Trump didn't mean that as a metaphor, he was literally accusing the Democrats of doing what he would accuse them of in 2020. Trumpists believe that it was only through the revolutionary power of their populist uprising that Trump was able to be elected at all... but it could happen again. Remember, people were literally accusing Hillary Clinton and the DNC of committing treason and claiming Trump was going to lock her up as soon he got into office (note the throughline between the DNC email leaks, Pizzagate and eventually QAnon is "Democratic Party/leftist/liberal corruption.")
Populism like Trump's is always driven by a persecution complex, the belief that the populists have been humiliated, wronged or cheated from their rightful destiny by some nebulous enemy within (be it Jews, immigrants, socialists, Democrats, what have you) and the promise from a strong leader of just retribution against that enemy through revolutionary action (and often violence.)
Of course, this is just a means of control. The Democrats didn't try to rig the election in 2016 and they didn't steal it in 2020 but people driven by irrational fear and hatred are easy to manipulate, because once you know your enemy is pure evil (literally they drink the blood of the children they rape for their satanic orgies and they're Marxists!) and that the system is always rigged against you and enemies within are everywhere, all decisions become simple. Trust God, trust the Leader, trust the Plan.
So no actual reason then, but genuinely, thanks for the summary.
Strange that Trump didn't take any practical steps whatsoever to investigate or stop all of this over the 4 years he was in power. If he actually believes all this stuff, you'd think he'd want to do something about it.... If.
I can't tell if he believes it or not. He convinced his base that mail-in ballots were a scam, then cried foul when all of the mail-in ballots came in for Biden. He launched innumerable lawsuits alleging fraud that were thrown out, then claimed the courts were against him. He tried to shake down Georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes to put him over Biden. His rhetoric absolutely encourages conspiracy theory but while he directly accuses the Democrats of stealing the election, he never directly calls for or condones violence, so his supporters call him a man of peace on one hand, and plan kidnappings and killings of government officials on the other.
It's impossible to tell with him. Maybe in our post-truth society where most people's reality is generated by abstractions and algorithms, it doesn't even matter.
I think it's possible to tell by looking at his actions. If he actually believed in 2016 that there was massive fraud, and a risk of the same happening again in 2020, he would have done something about it. If anyone believes he was sincere, the fact he took no action for so long in inexplicable. You'd think it would be a matter of vital, urgent concern.
The fact that he ignored the whole issue until it was convenient for him to do so again speaks volumes. So I think it's perfectly clear, he doesn't believe a word of it because he doesn't act as though he believes it, and none of the people in the Republican party who say they believe him actually act as though they do either. They are doing nothing whosoever to address he problem, because there's nothing there to address and they know this perfectly well.
The west backed Aung San Suu Kyi painting her as human rights icon but her governance induced new ethnic and class conflicts. The imbalance of power does not seem to be correcting itself no matter who is in power because that country is being driven by external agenda as well ethnic and class conflict.
You are quoting an article which has flawed view points of a couple of people, almost all foreigners without a vested interest and much skin in the game..
What would happen if the US just invaded and wiped out the military?
Would there be an insurgency? Would they be able to train a local and loyal military force to protect democracy?
I guess it would end up like Iraq all over again. Local military leaders would just become terrorist leaders. However because they are mostly Buddhist it feels like it would be harder for them to attract jihadists. And the Muslims are the ones being persecuted.
After all the money we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems like it would have been better spent liberating a country like this once and for all.
Funny to think how the reaction would be to a Biden government going to war with a tiny military dictatorship. Would people protest it and on what grounds?
Could a modern day colonialism work? With modern liberal ideals of the US it seems like it would be dramatically different from times past. US would just setup and defend a constitution and ensure fair elections and provide military. Minus the exploitation this time.
PS. Not seriously advocating for any of this, just interesting to think about.
—
Also, I think we take it so much for granted that the most powerful military in the world who could easily take control of the whole country overnight is 100% loyal to a civilian elected by the people.
I wonder how much free choice people have in this scenario anyway. It would seem obvious to blame the military leaders and their soldiers who are the ones who enable all this. But how much does a regular soldier rely upon his salary to survive.
I know it’s easy to be cynical and that there will always be any number of reasons why it’s in the self interest of the US, but I do believe that the Bush doctrine of spreading freedom was something that many in the cabinet believed in their hearts.
One has to admit that it is probably one of the most difficult things to do, many have tried throughout history and failed.
Look at WW2 as a great example of the US’s inaction and disinterest in upholding its values causing huge amount of destruction and casualties.
In terms of net benefit in the long run from the Iraq war, it doesn’t look great right now. But there are many things that were done wrong that led to the insurgency.
I bought the line of it’s only for oil/power/stock-prices for a long time, but I don’t believe that is a great enough sole motivation for a bunch of men who were already rich and powerful. People care about legacy - and if you can say you ejected a life long dictator as president it’s a pretty great legacy - unless an unexpected insurgency cancelled that out.
Every single sentence where you are not speaking solely about your home country is somewhat puzzling.
I don't even know where to begin and neither do I feel qualified to provide anything approaching a basic education on this long list of topics, considering my own ignorance. Not that it would fit in a single post.
Here's a rough list anyways:
- Insurgents aren't the same thing as terrorists. I don't think you want to suggest the Burmese military response to US military occupation will be to target their own civilian population.
- Your use of the word jihad(-ism) doesn't make sense in either its arabic meaning or in how it is commonly used in the west.
- Please don't try to define people by their religion, or ascribe a religion to them. The only ones who get to do that is the people themselves.
- Especially since religion is at best tangential to this whole situation.
- You seem to think Myanmar is some "tiny" country with an equally small military. It is not. Their current 'new' government is also not without potential allies. China doesn't appear to care who's at power in Myanmar, but they do depend on it being stable and probably won't just tolerate half a million US troops landing in their backyard to 'liberate' it.
- Colonialism is diametrically opposed to the idea of liberation.
- Neocolonialism (or "modern day colonialism") is also explicitly about everything but riding in with your military.
> the Burmese military response to US military occupation will be to target their own civilian population.
Everyone would have to pick a side. Look at Vietnam.
> jihadism
TBH, I have just read about what jihad means now and it was interesting. Jihadism is definitely a commonly understood term in the west meaning religiously motivated military movement. It looks like there are many types of Jihad - and one is "jihad of the sword" which is what is understood in the west.
Non-violence is especially central to Buddhism. In practice is this the case...maybe not. But it certainly has that "image".
If you send forces to a sovereign nation, some might think you are violating their sovereignty politically. But if your justification is religious - like it was with the Taliban - in a sense that it offends their deity - then this is going to have a much deeper and long-lasting resistance - as the US saw. This was my point. There seems more religious motivation to resist occupation in Islam than there is in Buddhism. But in terms of who is violent and non-violent - I don't think that is a good point.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 267 ms ] threadSeems like a major weakness if your local government can somehow just log you out of your secure messaging platform.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25986226.
So I'd assume accidentally with something about the cell phones changing making Signal and Telegraph want to re-authenticate.
Or the person has cleared their phone for obvious reasons which also logged them out.
Have there been any cases where the people have spoken out against such regulations, and they have been reversed?
I think officially it’s just (2) and (1) is just a side effect, but I think it’s secretly more about (1)
But you don't have to share your contacts with the app, no?
In case you do, then I really don't see how Signal is considered secure. Having to share your phone number is bad enough, but uploading my whole contact list is just Orwellian.
[1]: https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1280904362999476226
[2]: https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1348031542606454785
I don't see this sim lockdown being a problem unless you want to create a new account or for some reason your account has been logged out requiring 2FA. In my understanding, telegram also asks for SMS for 2FA on re-login. Though the 2FA code will be simultaneously sent to any other device you've logged the account in.
If a country has gotten to the point that you would be targeted just for having an app installed, just changing to usernames wouldn't be enough, as users could be easily detected through network logging (thanks AWS and Google for killing domain fronting [0]). Your usecase sounds like it needs an app like Briar.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16970199
It's pushed as a secure messaging client, and so when it doesn't meet the standards for that people will mention it so potential users have the information needed for a risk assessment.
Usernames: Signal needs to store your social graph (in a privacy preserving fashion) on a central server.
So, paradoxically, phone numbers were the easiest and most secure option to start with.
Actually, there must be methods for distributed routing. How does TOR finally map a hidden service to an IP address?
Maybe there can be a dynamic DNS service for user accounts on an anonymous messaging network?
1. https://briarproject.org/
LoRa uses license-free sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 433 MHz, 868 MHz (Europe), 915 MHz (Australia and North America), 865 MHz to 867 MHz (India) and 923 MHz (Asia).
Regardless, please avoid snark on HN. It does not add value to the conversation.
Sometimes you can get logged out going from wifi to LTE/mobile data on either of those apps, I have had that happen, and this can create issues like this which means you will have to create another account and may not have your contact list etc... which is impossible if you're trying to use your mobile number you use.
It's kind of crazy that all of our over-paranoid back ups and ad-hoc solutions have been so damn necessary for even the normal person in the last 10 years, be it PgP, burner sms numbers, cryptocurrency, apps like TG and Signal etc...
As some have mentioned Moxie said he wants to move away from phone based accounts, and now that Elon sent him a ton of new users from all walks of Life that this may need to be accelerated, which from what I garnered from his podcast with JR it's just not well staffed and is in need of some your guys' talents.
Some eBay traders will sell activated SIMs but you are essentially trusting a third party.
Agreed, to an extent.
But not if you know how to do the legwork; I have 4 active Telegram/Signal accounts on sveral devices using apps that allowed me to register and acquire a US/EU based mobile number.
I completely lost al ofl those passwords and access to those old numbers (didn't use them after activation years ago) but it certainly is possible if you do the legwork.
If you are afraid of government interferance and too lazy to usw xmpp/Matrix why wouldn't you configure at least signal securely?
[0]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/16/myanmar-democracy-rohin...
[1]: https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2021-02/militaerputsch-m...
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/world/asia/myanmar-coup-a...
[3]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-is-alarmed-by-reports-of-mi...
[4]: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-31/myanma...
[5]: https://ctee.com.tw/news/global/411523.html
>Aung San Suu Kyi could not have ordered the military to stop their operations against the Rohingya, and it was legitimate to fear that the military would reverse the transition toward democracy ...
Now we see just how little control she had over the generals.
"But now that the military establishment has moved to accommodate the Burmese pro-democracy movements in the country, oppression of so-called Muslim foreigners like the supposedly Bengali Rohingya is perfectly acceptable along the path toward building an exclusionary Buddhist nation-state."
I totally see why she did what she did and understand in her shoes maybe many of us might have made the same choice, but we should all remember the entire reason for her elevated profile outside Myanmar is that she had in the past refused to simply abide by whatever the military wanted and she claimed often that she could not stand idly by and had to act when she protested for democracy.
Doesn't mesh well with washington kissinger pastiche though
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Myanmar_general_election
"But her personal defence of the army's actions at the ICJ hearing last year in the Hague was seen as a new turning point that obliterated what little remained of her international reputation." [1] from this article itself.
"No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim" [2]
Will admit that I am not very familiar with Myanmar politics, but the above sentence from the article seems to indicate the opposite. Now, it is entirely possible that she was forced to do that due to military pressure at home. Also, I have an allergic reaction to statements made that "everyone speaks in favor of an X leader" anywhere. I am pretty sure the Rohingyas aren't all that in favor of her, even though they have no good options any way.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977
[2] https://www.vox.com/2016/3/28/11306856/aung-san-suu-kyi-musl... (edited for clarity)
- ASSK/elected government never had any power over Rhohingya situation.
- Only outcome of UN trial would be sanctions, which would not help Rhohingya and further harm Burmese. ASSK was choosing the better option by trying to avoid sanctions. Knowing full well that she would be vilified by media.
- ASSK good friend and personal lawyer, U Ko Ni was Muslim and assassinated for trying to protect civilian government.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
No, we don't support genocide. We're just trying to have an internet forum not destroy itself.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Most middle-eastern countries do not have this either...
> but Myanmar is still richer than us.
but I am willing to bet they are richer than both Nepal and Myanmar. It seems what Myanmar has over Nepal is natural resources, (just like the middle eastern countries). This is nothing to be proud of.
China has a heavy influence in Nepal, and the tourist trade gives everyone a bad taste for Western anything.
I would agree with your statement otherwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War
It's a terrible reason, but that is their justification.
Conflict with the Northern provinces have been a constant for decades.
This link gives some insight into how they are going as a country and it is not flattering reading:
http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p102401/mobile...
What conclusion can be drawn, then, regarding Myanmar’s growth experience from independence in 1948 up to the end of the 1990s? If we wish to be unkind, we can say that Myanmar is a subsistence agricultural economy, relying on a few commodities, with a pre-industrial economic structure, which has no shock absorbers to cushion the impact of events originating within and outside the country. Natural and human-made disasters, therefore, windfalls from the bounty of nature and commodity booms that resulted from such events as the Korean War largely determined the state of the economy, rather than factors such as the GDI/GDP ratio.
Such unkind views can, however, no longer hold with the official data for Myanmar’s economic performance coming into the new millennium. In biblical times, it was possible for a country’s economy to enjoy seven fat years in a row and then to suffer seven lean years in a row. Not anymore! Global warming, a growing menace, has brought with it climate change that has made weather volatile and erratic. There is no way a country can expect to have seven consecutive years of good harvests in the twenty-first century.
That was written back in 2005 and it looks like their GDP predictions have turned out to be correct with a big drop in their GDP since 2005.
https://tradingeconomics.com/myanmar/gdp-growth-annual
At a glance it looks like their GDP went from around 12% down to 6.5% on average which is about a 50% drop in GDP.
It is also represents 12 consecutive years of GDP lower than that last 2008 peak.
For instance - in colonial states the "authority" is the colonial administrator - who are almost totally separate from the "society" of the country. I should have been more clear with terms in my first post. Trying again:
Strong human rights protections help guarantee that the administrative power of a state spends some time including all the people within its borders. Once those rights fall away, the chance of the state becoming more exclusionary and focused on the rights of a limited subset of the people within its borders seems high.
A military junta, for instance, is primarily concerned with keeping the military in power and doesn't devote attention or resources to much else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naypyidaw
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/myanmar...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C19EhJitGrU
In contrast to Brasilia (which is perhaps the most well-known recent-ish create-a-new-capital-from-scratch initiative), it is far less dense and less occupied. Contrasting to most of the other newer similarly-situated capitals, Naypyidaw is clearly pretty poorly populated and some of its infrastructure is laughably oversized compared to what use it would actually get (Why do you need that road with 10 lanes in each direction? It goes from nowhere to nowhere...).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putrajaya
But in general, the notion creating a new remote capital free of the existing concentrated power structures of the biggest cities is an old idea.
It was the motive behind the build up of Washington DC, which at the time was not very populated and mostly swamp land. The motive was to be free of the unfair influence of any one state. Brasilia copied that idea (it's amazing how visually similar it is in many ways to DC). ...and you might say Constantinople was the original. Similarly, most US state capitols are intentionally NOT their largest city (ie NYC is not the capital of New York State). ...even Vermont chose Montpelier instead of Burlington.
It was a shambles. Military is making way too much as it stands. Peasants working with cyanide, dumping into rivers.
Absolute disaster
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/02/landsl...
[0] https://www.globalwitness.org/en/all-countries-and-regions/m...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoOdhKYj8Bc
All Internet and TV, phone service, cut off. However fiber internet land lines are still working. Most ATMs are still working but very long lines.
Soldiers and tanks in many parts of city. City hall if full of soldiers.
What has been your personal experience living in Myanmar all this while?
How do you see this situation playing out?
My personal experience is Myanmar is a wonderful country full of a wonderful people, and vibrant culture, despite living in the shadow of ethnic violence and a brutal military regime.
It’s hard to say how this will play out. For many here it’s a mystery why military did this, as they already had power over state business, 25% military appointed legislature, control of courts, etc. and the benefit of hiding behind fake democracy to get foreign investment. So people are confused as to what their motive is, as they already had the best of both worlds.
Do you believe that your consideration of the previous military power is widely understood and that the above quote explains the success of the NLD in the election?
Do you feel San Suu Kyi has been prevented from acting to protect ethnic minorities due to the influence of the military?
If so, is there reason to believe the military would perceive the beyond landslide victory in favor of the NLP as Likely to disrupt or erode their existing position of power?
[1] https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/myanmar-shattered-hopes-for-...
Almost everyone in Burma hates military and understands that civilian government can’t do everything they want.
Yet all the international coverage seems ignorant of these facts, condemning ASSK for things she doesn’t control, like military operations in Rhakine against Rohingya. They don’t understand that the reason she defended military at UN is only outcome of not defending them would be sanctions which just further harms civilian government and people. She had no choice.
People here in Burma are still confused as to motivation for coup, since military already had best of both worlds: ultimate power of law and courts, and no sanctions because of farcical democracy. Why they would risk sanctions to do this is a mystery.
Sorry for offering wild conjecture, but the first thing that comes to mind is some kind of a payout to generals from China, who is hoping for sanctions from the rest of the world so that they can be the sole influencer in the country.
Or some variation on that theme: influence from China.
Or perhaps just some power hungry generals longing for the old days <shrug>
3rd paragraph: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/world/asia/myanmar-coup-a...
Big Tech started banning Myanmar government officials from their services that they didn’t approve of. Now they cry about suspension of democracy? The claims of a rigged elections in Myranmar sounds eerily familiar...
At one point I would have thought of this as presumptive hubris, but now with a 100% correlation that would just be naive.
Economic prosperity for the populace is dangerous for a dictatorship. Myanmar is still a poor country which exports mainly things dug out of ground. If the situation changes and now the military is financed by businesses and tax-payer money, they'll have to answer to those.
This is bad news for the military leaders and their gang. They'd much better have a small income from these resources and a poor population than being ousted. (and probably face prosecution)
Only KNU (Karen army) so far has made statement opposing military coup.
Edit: That said, independence armies are all to some degree corrupt and many funded through drug manufacturing and smuggling.
Military has also taken over ASSK FB page and is posting false information.
I learnt about the Rohingya ethnic cleansing before going and how the leader wouldn't publicly condemn military actions. It now seems like she didn't want to ruffle some feathers.
What's the general attitude over there? Did anyone see this coming? I was able to meet a few locals and ate at the same three places for one month. The youth were optimistic. The city felt alive. Multinationals were investing.
Would be sad to see US sanctions followed by the populace getting the shaft, like some North Korea situation.
Given that I heard that it was probably coming in Western media a couple of days ago, I think the signs were probably there.
I genuinely can't tell how much of this perceived trend is real, and how much of it is a shift in my own perspective. And even then: am I just becoming more aware of how the world has always been, or is an increase in media sensationalism to blame (either for my perspective shift, or for an actual shifting reality?) Does it all come down to the impact of social media, or other technologies enabling oppressors? Is it the increasing concentration of global wealth? Was the latter half of the 20th century just an anomaly where much of the world was turned off to authoritarianism by the second world war, and we're at a point now where that's worn off and we're getting back on with the normal trajectory? Was it just my American information bubble telling me that things were ever somewhat better, even for a few decades?
I don't know what to think, but what it feels like is that this train is going off the rails.
But, in general, I do have a sense it was a uniquely optimistic decade for many people in the former First World, mainly because the Cold War ended and there was a sense that we had "won". Western Europe in particular demilitarized a lot as a result, the EU was formalized, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, Oslo Accords happened, end of apartheid etc.
For Americans I think 9/11 derailed things again.
Outside of the former First World, I'm not sure they'd see the 90s the same way.
but yeah it wasn't that great anywhere south of cancun or cairo
They killed far more than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19... 1965–1966, 500k - 1m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Laos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Cambodia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Myanmar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squads_in_El_Salvador "The paramilitaries committed the vast majority of murders and massacres during the civil war and were heavily aligned with the United States-backed government"
The long steady progress happening in many countries just doesn't provide any headlines.
Media sensationalism and bubbles are driven by several cooperating incentives: consolidation of traditional media ownership into fewer and fewer corporations all which have similar goals; more competition from non traditional outlets; suspension of traditional journalistic principles; cozy relationships among journalists, politicians and academics that tend to a very narrow Overton Window; a climate of fear regarding cancel culture.
Fortunately, alternative perspectives are easier to find than ever before.
Bit of both really. I'm a decade older and therefore able to remember both the sense of imminent doom that hung over the Cold War - the risk that the two world powers might just obliterate each other with an hour's notice and billions dead - and also the "end of history" period in the 90s. The optimism after the Soviet Union collapsed ...
... and then the gradual back-filling of everywhere east of the Iron Curtain with capitalist corrupt states. 9/11 happened, and the world went mad with vengeance in ways that it hasn't really recovered from.
Even in the past decade we've gone from "social media and the internet enables revolutions and democracy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revolution_of_2011 , almost exactly a decade ago), to "you get a revolution whether you want it or not, and revolutionaries are often terrifyingly illiberal".
The big one is of course China, which has seen a complete transformation in material conditions without transitioning to even the slightest bit of liberal democracy.
- Only outcome of not defending military at UN would be sanctions or civilian government losing some of the little power they have, which would only harm situation more.
- ASSK does not want genocide or anything like that. She is slandered by ignorant press.
Isn't failure to educate international press still a (big IMHO) failure?
Personally the result for me has been that she was once a kind of freedom hero, than became a kind of mass murderer and should have her Nobel prize revoked.
Then I read today that she's been almost a hostage of the military for all this time and she's getting some of my sympathy back again. However the trade she accepted to do feels bad and the signaling of being a hostage was totally missing.
What is she supposed to do? Come out and denounce the military publicly, effectivey destroying what little relationship and understanding they’ve built with the military? That doesn’t accomplish anything. She already did that and sat in prison for 15 years.
Nobel peace prizes and moralizing westerners don’t help Burma. There’s little reason for her to care about what they think.
She’s been public about her strategy. She’s always said the only way forward is to build understanding and relationship with military. To work with the scraps given to them. To work through peaceful means. It’s either that or nothing. Rising up won’t really work, they tried that in 1988 and the military just murdered and jailed people until they stopped.
She had two choices: 1) Say publicly that military are bad people, and erode what little power military affords NLD and fragile relationship between civilian government and military. Or 2) Have the press hate her for not saying words, and maintain the fragile understanding and peacemaking process with military.
She chose the least bad option, in support of civilian rule, democracy, and peace building. Publicly condemning military for Rohingya doesn’t accomplish anything for anyone.
"In 2012, she told reporters she did not know if the Rohingya could be regarded as Burmese citizens."
"However, she said that she wanted to work towards reconciliation and she cannot take sides as violence has been committed by both sides."
"State crime experts from Queen Mary University of London warned that Aung San Suu Kyi is "legitimising genocide" in Myanmar."
"Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a fellow peace prize holder, also criticised Suu Kyi's silence: in an open letter published on social media, he said: "If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep"
"In early October 2018, both the Canadian Senate and its House of Commons voted unanimously to strip Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary citizenship."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
She has been trying to build relationship with generals, and is not going to publicly denounce them just to achieve some kind of moral pageantry. Angering the military so she can appease people who don’t do anything for Burma is pointless.
If ASSK was in charge Rohingya situation would not happen. But she’s not in charge. Holding her to some impossible ideal is ridiculous. Blaming her for genocide is offensive. It’s just part of a game western academics, journalists, and moralizers like to play.
Her actions are completely understandable if you understand the political situation, and its history.
And for most Burmese the lack of support for her fledgling civilian government by the nations and journalists that condemn her has created deep resentment. Nobody here cares at all what they think.
Imagine how it feels to have people, who don’t even know the name of the generals, how the government works, or where Myanmar is on a map, tell us how evil ASSK is. The person who has sacrificed her whole family and life for peace and reconciliation.
The fact is is that what's happening to the Rohingya is a a genocide - and ASSK says nothing or even worse, tries to dismiss it or make excuses. As Desmond Tutu said in the statement I quoted, if the price of her position is silence, that's a price too high.
And Desmond Tutu’s letter is patronizing and ridiculous. She has no power over the Rakhine situation. None. The only power she had was negotiating with the military. She doesn’t need to be told that people don’t deserve to be victims of war and ethnic strife.
We stand with Aung San Suu Kyi until the end.
I suppose the Gies family should have walked outside and told the Nazi soldiers they were pieces of shit. That would be the morally right thing to do!? Get a grip. Sometimes speaking truth to power is just fucking dumb.
Do you think Burmese aren’t in the streets protesting because they approve of the government, or because they know they will get shot?
The obsession with defaming ASSK over the evil actions of the military is pathetic. It is so so low and pathetic how the international media relentlessly implies ASSK is secretly a supporter of genocide because she won’t tell the military off in public. All it accomplished was emboldening the military and damaging relations with the civilian government. Just so all the “journalists” could pat themselves on the back for being so courageous.
Myanmar has been a quasi-dictatorship for decades.
Many regimes that have been dictatorial for decades have fallen. It’s easy to name them. South Korea is a particularly good example where its history is marked by alternating periods of democratic and autocratic rule and now they are a stable and wealthy democratic country. The last few years in Myanmar was a hopeful surprise as they made inroads towards a constitutional democracy, albeit with a lingering junta in the shadows. That did not happen without international pressure. The world is different today, where events are seen worldwide in an instant and movements are inspired in an instant. Many countries expressed shock at what happened on Jan 6 and the four years of isolationism preceding. It will be harder today to call out Myanmar for what the autocrats are doing. The reply will be scorn about our hypocrisy. The madmen are stepping out of the shadows of shame.
Where you specifically implied that Trump's actions emboldened the authoritarians that seized power in Myanmar. As someone who lives in this part of the world (close to Myanmar), your comments are a bit silly and self-centered.
This is why many of us internationals get concerned about American politics, because where America goes, others soon follow. Just like some countries used the "war on terror" branding to suppress democratic movements, it was only a matter of time before other authoritarians used "election fraud" to overthrow election results they didn't like. In Myanmar's case the junta's fraud issue is more likely to be that they didn't rig the system enough to their liking.
Trump's attack on the integrity of the 2020 election was irresponsible, as was the Democrats' on the 2016 election. I don't think Americans generally understand how fragile legitimacy is, and how important it is
Russian diplomat turns meeting to support Belarus into an attack on Estonia
"...After representatives had expressed concern for the situation in Belarus one after another and Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Reinsalu proposed the creation of an international mechanism for investigating crimes against peaceful protesters in the country, it was the turn of the Russian representative.
"...Polyanskiy went on to say that claiming that a country's elections saw bias and fraud is not a rare occasion, giving the example of presidential elections in the U.S. Polyanskiy asked why potential election fraud in America is not a subject of discussion and referred to different treatment of elections in USA and Belarus as garish double standards.
"'Is there a list of bad countries somewhere regarding which colleagues in the West silently support anti-government actions and protests and 'good' ones where the powers that be are always in the right? Why are you paying exaggerated attention to such phenomena only in certain countries, while ignoring them in France, UK, Germany and, as it happens, also Estonia?' Polyanskiy asked."
https://news.err.ee/1608084259/russian-diplomat-turns-meetin...
meanwhile, Trumps replacement? Quoted "A dictator uses EOs" and he's already used a record number of them while his white house is surrounded by troops and barbed wire.
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/l9ugvn/by_his_own...
https://www.t-g.com/blogs/stevemills/entry/76498
https://news.yahoo.com/us-capitol-building-surrounded-barbed...
Trump was never an "authoritarian" - and if you think he was... you better be 100x more vocal about the new regime whos already doing worse to lead by fiat after cheating to get in in the first place.
I've still yet to hear a coherent reason why Trump is even alleging such massive fraud. I'll do without proof even, I understand something can be true or strongly suspected without proof, but you need a reason to suspect it right? Some initial concern or reason for thinking there might be fraud on the scale of millions of votes across numerous states in this particular election. Including states in which Republican appointed election officials supported and certified the results. Honest question, what is it? To my knowledge Trump has never given one. I'd love to know.
For conservatives like myself outside America that view the Republican party as our natural political allies, it's desperately sad. Fortunately there are responsible Republicans standing up for the Democratic process, but so few. We're going to be dealing with the corrosive effect of this on democratic processes across the world for many years to come.
Populism like Trump's is always driven by a persecution complex, the belief that the populists have been humiliated, wronged or cheated from their rightful destiny by some nebulous enemy within (be it Jews, immigrants, socialists, Democrats, what have you) and the promise from a strong leader of just retribution against that enemy through revolutionary action (and often violence.)
Of course, this is just a means of control. The Democrats didn't try to rig the election in 2016 and they didn't steal it in 2020 but people driven by irrational fear and hatred are easy to manipulate, because once you know your enemy is pure evil (literally they drink the blood of the children they rape for their satanic orgies and they're Marxists!) and that the system is always rigged against you and enemies within are everywhere, all decisions become simple. Trust God, trust the Leader, trust the Plan.
Strange that Trump didn't take any practical steps whatsoever to investigate or stop all of this over the 4 years he was in power. If he actually believes all this stuff, you'd think he'd want to do something about it.... If.
It's impossible to tell with him. Maybe in our post-truth society where most people's reality is generated by abstractions and algorithms, it doesn't even matter.
The fact that he ignored the whole issue until it was convenient for him to do so again speaks volumes. So I think it's perfectly clear, he doesn't believe a word of it because he doesn't act as though he believes it, and none of the people in the Republican party who say they believe him actually act as though they do either. They are doing nothing whosoever to address he problem, because there's nothing there to address and they know this perfectly well.
Election fraud can be a real issue. The question is, like "weapons of mass destruction", getting the evidence rather than going on suspicion.
(Prior to 2020, there were real concerns from security experts: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec... ... but everyone assumed it would be rigged in favour of the Republicans)
Are you talking about the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections?
You are quoting an article which has flawed view points of a couple of people, almost all foreigners without a vested interest and much skin in the game..
And in 2018.
Would there be an insurgency? Would they be able to train a local and loyal military force to protect democracy?
I guess it would end up like Iraq all over again. Local military leaders would just become terrorist leaders. However because they are mostly Buddhist it feels like it would be harder for them to attract jihadists. And the Muslims are the ones being persecuted.
After all the money we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems like it would have been better spent liberating a country like this once and for all.
Funny to think how the reaction would be to a Biden government going to war with a tiny military dictatorship. Would people protest it and on what grounds?
Could a modern day colonialism work? With modern liberal ideals of the US it seems like it would be dramatically different from times past. US would just setup and defend a constitution and ensure fair elections and provide military. Minus the exploitation this time.
PS. Not seriously advocating for any of this, just interesting to think about.
—
Also, I think we take it so much for granted that the most powerful military in the world who could easily take control of the whole country overnight is 100% loyal to a civilian elected by the people.
I wonder how much free choice people have in this scenario anyway. It would seem obvious to blame the military leaders and their soldiers who are the ones who enable all this. But how much does a regular soldier rely upon his salary to survive.
One has to admit that it is probably one of the most difficult things to do, many have tried throughout history and failed.
Look at WW2 as a great example of the US’s inaction and disinterest in upholding its values causing huge amount of destruction and casualties.
In terms of net benefit in the long run from the Iraq war, it doesn’t look great right now. But there are many things that were done wrong that led to the insurgency.
I bought the line of it’s only for oil/power/stock-prices for a long time, but I don’t believe that is a great enough sole motivation for a bunch of men who were already rich and powerful. People care about legacy - and if you can say you ejected a life long dictator as president it’s a pretty great legacy - unless an unexpected insurgency cancelled that out.
I don't even know where to begin and neither do I feel qualified to provide anything approaching a basic education on this long list of topics, considering my own ignorance. Not that it would fit in a single post.
Here's a rough list anyways:
- Insurgents aren't the same thing as terrorists. I don't think you want to suggest the Burmese military response to US military occupation will be to target their own civilian population.
- Your use of the word jihad(-ism) doesn't make sense in either its arabic meaning or in how it is commonly used in the west.
- Please don't try to define people by their religion, or ascribe a religion to them. The only ones who get to do that is the people themselves.
- Especially since religion is at best tangential to this whole situation.
- You seem to think Myanmar is some "tiny" country with an equally small military. It is not. Their current 'new' government is also not without potential allies. China doesn't appear to care who's at power in Myanmar, but they do depend on it being stable and probably won't just tolerate half a million US troops landing in their backyard to 'liberate' it.
- Colonialism is diametrically opposed to the idea of liberation.
- Neocolonialism (or "modern day colonialism") is also explicitly about everything but riding in with your military.
Everyone would have to pick a side. Look at Vietnam.
> jihadism
TBH, I have just read about what jihad means now and it was interesting. Jihadism is definitely a commonly understood term in the west meaning religiously motivated military movement. It looks like there are many types of Jihad - and one is "jihad of the sword" which is what is understood in the west.
Non-violence is especially central to Buddhism. In practice is this the case...maybe not. But it certainly has that "image".
If you send forces to a sovereign nation, some might think you are violating their sovereignty politically. But if your justification is religious - like it was with the Taliban - in a sense that it offends their deity - then this is going to have a much deeper and long-lasting resistance - as the US saw. This was my point. There seems more religious motivation to resist occupation in Islam than there is in Buddhism. But in terms of who is violent and non-violent - I don't think that is a good point.
Thanks for the thoughts - I learned a few things.