Military dictatorship just cannot afford the media and all the theatre of democracy.
If people have 1-3 parties to choose from, they'll vote for one of them, without thinking it's the same thing just different label.
I don't follow what "they sow". It seems that they were ordered by the military to implement surveillance and now they are personally threatened. I cannot comment on their intelligence but maybe you could provide some information.
If they are foreigners it was either willing collaboration or not being allowed to leave isn't exactly new to them. If it's the latter, sure, they should be treated as victims.
It's more complex than just that. For a while (early to late 2010's), Myanmar was widely seen as being on the path to become a functioning democracy. Engaging such fledgling democracies economically is generally believed to be a good thing.
I know it's easier to just lump everyone into "good" or "evil" categories but it's not that simple.
I wonder how international companies handle this. Sneaking them out of the country would obviously be in breach of local law but may be considered part of their duty to employees (similar to rescuing people stuck in a war zone due to a business trip).
Why those executives were in the country is another question.
Never underestimate the power of greed to overwhelm any moral questions. Pay people enough and you will find some people will overlook even their own security.
The world needs to act on Myanmar’s military coup - democratically elected leaders need to be restored and mass scale human rights abuses stopped, or it will descend into a failed state with tens of millions affected.
It looks like Russia (and China) are vetoing any UN action. What are the alternatives?
> 4. Surgical strike on the junta leadership without broad UN involvement by somebody brave enough
Dear me. I hope not. If you look at a map, Burma is nestled between the two nuclear armed up-and-coming superpowers. This is not the part of the world to be seeking adventure by doing political assassinations on military figures.
> It looks like Russia (and China) are vetoing any UN action. What are the alternatives?
There are no alternatives, that is part of the problem. The UN was primarily created to prevent all-out war between the US and Russia... young people like me expect it to be more than that though.
In the past, as a result the US and various European nations have gone off on their own to engage in various conflicts, both in military actions and in economic sanctions, on sometimes extremely thin or nonexistent legal grounds.
That's unrealistic to expect here:
- there isn't much trade between Myanmar and the EU to sanction (and the bit that is can and will be covered by Russia and China)
- military action is out of the question since the US has more pressing problems to solve than a military junta - Taiwan and interior issues - and the EU is blocked by its 100% consensus requirements on foreign action, incompetent and underfunded armies and general instability
- generally, outside of human rights activists no one cares about human rights abuses, that is the sad and tragic reality.
- as for the UN: there isn't any hope for multilateral action any more there either, it's a dead paperweight. No single nation there acts on good faith and a sense of common humanity, everyone is just looking for their own interests.
> There are no alternatives, that is part of the problem. The UN was primarily created to prevent all-out war between the US and Russia...
Please don't pervert the history. This wasn't the case. The UN was created as a reaction to the horror of WWII and the failure of the League of Nations.
It was to become a League of Democracies, an iron fist against the next Nazi Germany wannabe, a guarantor of the "Never Again."
It was the US who go the idea to get USSR into it, pretty much sabotaging it on the day 1.
> There are no alternatives
The alternative is here, and it's the resolution 377 action.
This is not a Nazi Germany wannabe, it's just a garden variety tinpot dictatorship. There are a lot like it in the world, and we've figured out that outside intervention is not a good idea in such cases. It's the responsibility of a country's own people to pursue free government for themselves, assuming that they care to. Reap what you sow, and all that.
> It's the responsibility of a country's own people to pursue free government for themselves, assuming that they care to. Reap what you sow, and all that.
This isn't possible often enough. There are countless dictatorships that use any means necessary to ensure their survival, from starving their populations (North Korea) to murdering or beating them up on the streets (Tiananmen massacre, Arab Spring revolutions) or silencing any opposition (Hongkong, Belarus).
Most freedom movements need some form of support from the outside, be it arms, money, logistic or ideologic support.
> There are countless dictatorships that use any means necessary to ensure their survival
These things only matter in the short run but successful, enduring democratization is a very long game. Look at Taiwan and South Korea - relatively straightforward when looking at them from the outside, and yet they took decades to become stable democracies with real respect for fundamental rights. More challenging cases might take generations.
> Most freedom movements need some form of support from the outside, be it arms, money, logistic or ideologic support.
Most often, the needed support can come from the inside, as influential groups within the country start supporting a peaceful transition to liberal democracy. Arguably, this is even the best possible case.
> as influential groups within the country start supporting a peaceful transition to liberal democracy
For that, you need influential groups that can benefit from changing the status quo. In a country that has been suffering from decades of corruption, the elites are generally so widely despised by the population that they have to fear to be imprisoned at best and executed at worst, were they to lose power.
It's even worse in countries like the Lebanon, Syria, Yemen or former Yugoslavian member states, where religion, ethnic disputes and sometimes hundreds of years worth of land disputes and squabbles come into the mix.
> For that, you need influential groups that can benefit from changing the status quo. In a country that has been suffering from decades of corruption ... religion, ethnic disputes and sometimes hundreds of years worth of land disputes and squabbles come into the mix.
I don't exactly disagree, but this is why it can make sense to pursue basic state-building ("good government") and liberalization (respect for basic rights and freedoms) well before worrying about electoral democracy, or a transfer of power away from current policy makers. In practice, the latter is essentially useless without the former - but in the long run, more freedom opens up opportunities for more democracy.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about or any knowledge of Burma's history. General Hlaing's junta has already committed one genocide against the Rohingya in 2017 and given the continued opportunities will turn Burma into a failed state, cause the death of millions and destabilise the region. Just because they lack Nazi Germany's industrial capacity and sharp uniforms doesn't mean they won't continue to murder, maim and slaughter.
I've read somewhere that the Rohingya aren't liked that much in all the regions they dispersed into, because much of them worked as the shock troops of the British Empire, protecting its interests. That seems to be true even for the time when their home was called Arakan, and they weren't so dispersed.
So they are shunned where they did the shock trooping for the Brits, or tried to separate and do their own islamic thing afterwards, in multiethnic regions.
It depends, I think Syria was a half hearted involvement, I think Bosnia we did actually do some good. Anyone know why Russia and China can’t be involved/lead a UN peacekeeping effort? Why block it, dictatorships good is their only thinking?
In Bosnia, the Clinton administration and the EU provided cover for the Serbs while pretending to do something. This provided a cause around which Jihad movements could coalesce (along with Chechnya) leading to both the "Jihad travel networks" and improvements in international resource flows to sponsor those. Later, during the Kosovo conflict, the Clinton administration bombed civilians in Belgrade and blew up passenger trains, trying to assert U.S. initiative which they had ceded to the Serbs and their patron Russia.
Syria was a half-hearted involvement? So sponsoring insurgencies to destabilize a sovereign country would have been good if only the government was also toppled? Iraq? The whole ISIS genocide rape torture destruction and blood letting thing was slightly inconvenient but I'm sure the people of these places will thank the enlightened noble Europeans and Americans for their gracious aid.
I would suggest not continuing to fall for it. It's not that war and intervention can't ever do "some" good. It's that the people behind wars and interventions are never interested in actually helping people. It's purely for money and power.
Libya and Syria: Same here, some 3rd parties are involved anyway. The question is if "the West" (I guess this is what you refer to) should/must/must not get involved as well.
China was opposed to the military junta and preferred the previous government.
Their recent diplomatic stance isn't about involvement, it's them calculating that involvement isn't worth it and signaling to the junta that they shouldn't be afraid of involvement.
This is a huge lie. The CN government did not prefer the previous "american puppet" government at all. I don't know where this stupid meme keeps coming from but it has ZERO basis in reality...
Are you implicitly assuming that the civil wars in Libya and Syria started without active involvement by the U.S. and other governments and they got involved afterwards?
"Never again" has never been the truth. Standing international policy seems to be to ignore just about any atrocities as long as they're within a country's borders, and to a country's own citizens, with a couple rare exceptions when there's oil we can liberate.
54 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] threadNow reap what you sow.
The value of their passports are no more to Burmese military than lives of their own citizens.
Now they will have time to contemplate how deeply concerned they are in Burmese jails.
> I cannot comment on their intelligence but maybe you could provide some information.
Western companies in Burma largely collaborated with the junta with great enthusiasm, going above and beyond what a person simply coerced will do.
https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/bangladesh-blast...
They hope to ride this out, and have chummy relationship with the government under junta.
And this is when their execs largely fare from countries proclaiming themselves most liberal out there.
I know it's easier to just lump everyone into "good" or "evil" categories but it's not that simple.
Why those executives were in the country is another question.
Who the f--k be caring about local law now? Pissant MNC lawyers finding chutzpah to pretend like as if nothing is happening?
There is no law there. It's a military junta. They must snap out of this.
It looks like Russia (and China) are vetoing any UN action. What are the alternatives?
2. India pulls 1971 on Burmese junta, if Modi's Achand Bharat brouhaha is worth anything
3. International intervention under resolution 377
4. Surgical strike on the junta leadership without broad UN involvement by somebody brave enough
Dear me. I hope not. If you look at a map, Burma is nestled between the two nuclear armed up-and-coming superpowers. This is not the part of the world to be seeking adventure by doing political assassinations on military figures.
That sounds almost like the script before WWI.
And one of these nuclear power needs to be taught a very good lesson as of late.
Don't expect anything unless thousands of refugees start pouring in India.
https://m.dw.com/en/myanmar-india-mizoram-asylum/a-57171804
There are no alternatives, that is part of the problem. The UN was primarily created to prevent all-out war between the US and Russia... young people like me expect it to be more than that though.
In the past, as a result the US and various European nations have gone off on their own to engage in various conflicts, both in military actions and in economic sanctions, on sometimes extremely thin or nonexistent legal grounds.
That's unrealistic to expect here:
- there isn't much trade between Myanmar and the EU to sanction (and the bit that is can and will be covered by Russia and China)
- military action is out of the question since the US has more pressing problems to solve than a military junta - Taiwan and interior issues - and the EU is blocked by its 100% consensus requirements on foreign action, incompetent and underfunded armies and general instability
- generally, outside of human rights activists no one cares about human rights abuses, that is the sad and tragic reality.
- as for the UN: there isn't any hope for multilateral action any more there either, it's a dead paperweight. No single nation there acts on good faith and a sense of common humanity, everyone is just looking for their own interests.
Please don't pervert the history. This wasn't the case. The UN was created as a reaction to the horror of WWII and the failure of the League of Nations.
It was to become a League of Democracies, an iron fist against the next Nazi Germany wannabe, a guarantor of the "Never Again."
It was the US who go the idea to get USSR into it, pretty much sabotaging it on the day 1.
> There are no alternatives
The alternative is here, and it's the resolution 377 action.
This isn't possible often enough. There are countless dictatorships that use any means necessary to ensure their survival, from starving their populations (North Korea) to murdering or beating them up on the streets (Tiananmen massacre, Arab Spring revolutions) or silencing any opposition (Hongkong, Belarus).
Most freedom movements need some form of support from the outside, be it arms, money, logistic or ideologic support.
These things only matter in the short run but successful, enduring democratization is a very long game. Look at Taiwan and South Korea - relatively straightforward when looking at them from the outside, and yet they took decades to become stable democracies with real respect for fundamental rights. More challenging cases might take generations.
> Most freedom movements need some form of support from the outside, be it arms, money, logistic or ideologic support.
Most often, the needed support can come from the inside, as influential groups within the country start supporting a peaceful transition to liberal democracy. Arguably, this is even the best possible case.
For that, you need influential groups that can benefit from changing the status quo. In a country that has been suffering from decades of corruption, the elites are generally so widely despised by the population that they have to fear to be imprisoned at best and executed at worst, were they to lose power.
It's even worse in countries like the Lebanon, Syria, Yemen or former Yugoslavian member states, where religion, ethnic disputes and sometimes hundreds of years worth of land disputes and squabbles come into the mix.
I don't exactly disagree, but this is why it can make sense to pursue basic state-building ("good government") and liberalization (respect for basic rights and freedoms) well before worrying about electoral democracy, or a transfer of power away from current policy makers. In practice, the latter is essentially useless without the former - but in the long run, more freedom opens up opportunities for more democracy.
I've read somewhere that the Rohingya aren't liked that much in all the regions they dispersed into, because much of them worked as the shock troops of the British Empire, protecting its interests. That seems to be true even for the time when their home was called Arakan, and they weren't so dispersed.
So they are shunned where they did the shock trooping for the Brits, or tried to separate and do their own islamic thing afterwards, in multiethnic regions.
Karma is a bitch, isn't it?
That is what both you and I hope that the UN would have been, but unfortunately not much based in reality.
> It was the US who go the idea to get USSR into it, pretty much sabotaging it on the day 1.
Without Soviet cooperation, the purpose of the UN would have been moot from day 1.
Oh, because the UN and European member soldiers are afraid of casualties. Silly me.
So don't criticize Clinton or the US.
I would suggest not continuing to fall for it. It's not that war and intervention can't ever do "some" good. It's that the people behind wars and interventions are never interested in actually helping people. It's purely for money and power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Myanmar_relation...
Libya and Syria: Same here, some 3rd parties are involved anyway. The question is if "the West" (I guess this is what you refer to) should/must/must not get involved as well.
Their recent diplomatic stance isn't about involvement, it's them calculating that involvement isn't worth it and signaling to the junta that they shouldn't be afraid of involvement.
The Junta government opposed them at every turn and doesn't like foreign investment.
What 3rd party involvement?
There are only 2 third parties doing anything.
Russia helping Assad to flatten his own country to the ground
And Turkey trying to at least deny them a complete victory by enforcing the Idlib pocket with its troops, and firepower on the ground.
Why Myanmar now?