Bad news from Burma

Today the news are really bad. On Yahoo, the opening of the Associate Press Writer news starts like this : "One hundred shot dead outside a Myanmar school. Activists burned alive at government crematoriums. A Buddhist monk floating face down in a river." Few bloggers out there showed the actual picture of that monk, beaten, enflated, sunken, dead. I do not have enough words for describing him, that man that was alive and well and peaceful, like you and me, just yesterday.

And goes on : "The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press on Monday that her staff visited up to 15 monasteries around Yangon and every single one was empty". The number of arrested demonstrators must be in the thousands, according a senior official who defected and interviewed in Thailand (Burmanet.com news). Everydoby can imagine what is happening to them. But But Than Shwe reality may be worst than everyday people imagination : Others new media report that soldiers burned protesters still alive at the Yae Way cemetery crematorium on the outskirts of Yangon.

6,000 demonstrators are being held at detention centers set up at universities and old factories in Yangon. Many observers say that most of these people are being hill-treated, beaten, compulsed to deny their beliefs and religion, the monks to disrobe, and other horror stories.

Thousands of monks detained in Burma's main city of Rangoon will be sent to prisons in the far north of the country, sources have told the BBC. Many bloggers report that the monks have been disrobed and shackled, and since the military do not allow the people to come to them and bring them food, that they are refusing to eat military food.

A BBC interwiev reported that the monks were certainly happily surprised to hear of the visit of the UN Envoy to Aung San Suu Kyi. They also had hope that Gambari also came to met them. They felt that this time it was about them, and not politics. They expressed themselves for the first time in 30 years. They expected the UN to pay attention to them. Instead, they are beaten, taken away, shoot at, disrobed, without none noticing. One of them said that they are discouraged, but I do not believe this one second. I know the monks.

In the meanwhile, Thailand is starting feeling the heat, fearing an uncontrolled influx of refugees fleeing Burma. They closed the border and sent the incoming people back to Burma. May they intervene for their sake if not for Burma itself.

One better news : the labour organistions in Italy and France are reporting that a work strike is in line for Burma in the next few days. Best wishes of a good success. CISL Italia and CFDT France are mobilised and supporting.

PS : as the links on Yahoo, BBC and others have normally quite a short life (sometime less than an hour, especially Yahoo, ever noticed ? and most of the time this happens, it is about crucial news, weird isn't it?), I cited the most striking news here from them. I am filing most of the things. May them understand. This time, Human kind needs that the massacre does not go unnoticed, as it went in 1988.

Links :
http://www.burmanet.org/news/
http://www.mizzima.com/
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
http://rfaunplugged.wordpress.com/