Burmese Language
Burma elections ‘on 10 October’
US senator Jim Webb has said he expects elections in Burma this year to be held on 10 October and said that people should vote in order to “build the future a step at a time”.
Webb has long been an advocate for engagement with the Burmese junta, a stance that has riled the factions within the old guard of Burma’s pro-democracy movement. A fortnight ago, a senior member of the now-disbanded National League for Democracy (NLD) party warned that Webb would not be welcomed on a diplomatic visit to Burma.
The NLD announced they would boycott the elections in light of laws that ban leader Aung San Suu Kyi from participating, but other details surrounding the election date have remained typically vague.
“What I’m hearing is that they will take place…on 10-10-10,” Webb told the Asia Society. If true, the date would be in keeping with successive Burmese generals’ fixation on numerology, which has dictated key decisions in the past: Ne Win, Burma’s first dictator, ordered that the Burmese currency be issued in denominations of 45 and 90, which are divisible by nine, his lucky number.
He also initially set the date of his resignation for 8 August 1988, which triggered the bloody student protests known as the ‘8888 uprising’, an auspicious figure in Burmese numerology.
The government is yet to confirm the date for the elections, although senior ministers have set they will be held in the latter half of 2010. Leaked details from a meeting in January this year between Burma’s agriculture minister, Htay Oo, and the head of Japan’s Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, suggested that Htay Oo had told Sasakawa elections would be in October.
International opinion on the elections has been mixed: while the Obama administration and other Western leaders officially support the NLD’s decision, and Webb has acknowledged that the polls are designed to preserve the military regime, he told reporters yesterday that he did not support a boycott.
“In East Asia, in Southeast Asia, you have to build the future a step at a time,” he said. “When’s the last time China had an election? When’s the last time Vietnam had an election?
“It doesn’t mean we don’t talk to them, and it doesn’t mean we don’t try to advance the notions of a fairer society.”
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When’s the last time BURMA had an election?
It was on 27 May 1990!!!
Then, the NLD won landslide!!!
The mandate has not yet been fulfilled!!!
Build the future one stap at a TIME?
Sen. Webb has a lot of gall to ask the Burmese citizens to join him in ignoring the fact that the elections are rigged.
He conveniently overlooks the 1990 elections, which instead of being a step towards building the future which the voters had envisioned, only became a step towards building the present Burma which the SPDC had envisioned.
BAM- twenty years have gone by!
Burma, its people, and its natural resources, and even the Sangha have been repeatedly gang-raped by the regime during those twenty years.
The SPDC has used the money they have stolen to amass and equip one of the largest standing armies in Asia, which it uses to enslave and torture, to persecute and oppress, to burn schools and churches, to destroy villages and crops, and to wage revenge and suffering upon the Burmese ethnic minority citizens.
And if the urban citizens fail to remain silent and apathetic, or they forget that they are lucky to be obedient breeders for the SPDC’s shock-forces, they will be reminded by being shot like dogs in the streets, by their own obedient sons.
And now, the SPDC are seeking nuclear weapons, and emulating the North Korean government. Not in order to protect themselves from aggressors, but to guarantee that they can continue their national rape, oppression, and ethnic revenge without having to answer to any international organization.
And Sen. Webb, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, asks the Burmese people to participate in the SPDC’s fixed election?
If relatively fair elections in 1990 brought twenty years of human suffering of Biblical proportions, and a downward spiraling national economy despite Burma’s wealth of natural resources, what the hell kind of future does Sen. Webb see coming from these fixed elections?
I won’t be surprised to find that Sen. Webb has invested heavily in Burmese companies which specialize in the manufacture of chains and shackles.
*Note to President Obama:
Put Sen. Webb on a short leash and revoke his passport.
And while you’re at it, fire Hillary Clinton and get a Secretary of State whom you can send to personally handle these goons in Napyidaw, instead of someone they laugh at as Bill Clinton’s overbearing wife.
You may of course have to lower yourself to their level to understand they are playing by a completely different rulebook.
You may have to concede that just as Saddam Hussein laughed at, and took advantage of international law, while doing plenty of oil business under the table, the SPDC is carefully removing loopholes, and political opposition, and that their gameplan for faux legitimacy depends on people like you not getting in their way.
I hope that with the latest news that the SPDC regime is seeking nuclear capability, you Sir, will step up and start making some difficult decisions which will prompt other leaders to make difficult decisions.
In the words of Edmund Burke:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
I think Senator want Burma to complete the AB construction by prolong those thugs in power.
THE 1990 election must become law before any other election can be held, of course Thitsphout Than Shwe will never let that happen, so he will be happy to hold an illegal election so he or his personally trained puppet Thein Sein can illegally continue to hold on to power.
Sen. Jim Webb
I’m wondering that you are an American senator.!!!!
Why do we need to wait for 20 years to move begins first step?
Is this called sincere approach? Is this called really they care about Burma and Burmese people?
In that case, why following pillars are gone almost meaningless;
Law and order
Health
Education
These three main pillars are systematically destroyed under less than 20 years.
Most people are impoverished and bare sustenance and more dead than alive.
If these three pillars are built gradually to move forward with positive direction, then Burmese people will support definitely for this election.
Now what is the point of doing so but to boycott only?
I guess you may have other motivation.
Senator Webb, Shame on you ! Burma need Free All Political Prisoners, Democracy and Human Rights!
Is it true that Senator Webb is supporting for participation in election? He must have lost in the propagandas of Master tactician, Murderer Than Shwe. Burmese people got no option but to boycott the election in millions. They had paid their lives during numerous demonstrations. No world body can help the defenceless people gunned down by its own fascist army. China support the Junta with all its power. The UN said Burmese people have to make their decision. The Junta refused to comply with international requests of full inclusiveness of all stakeholders in election. Burmese can not expect any realistic help from the world. The world discard them at the mercy of fascist army thugs. There is no option left for Burmese. They got to show their disapproval of Junta by boycotting election in millions, countrywide. I never thought Mr Webb would support the election. I hope he will swallow down his word which encourage the fascists, not defenceless discarded millions of Burma.
Burma go to new way for the people.