One would think that Zetty Brake, being a spokesperson for Burma Campaign Australia (BCA), would be more informed about the current politics and the situation in Burma.

According to her, “the sanctions list is very much targeted towards individuals and it’s not a blanket list; it’s meant to target people who are benefitting from the brutal repression in Burma”.
This is not correct. The sanction list just includes the names of people that are supposedly ‘senior’ military members and the names of their immediate family members. Only someone ignorant of the situation in Burma would think that anyone in the Airforce is in control of the Military Junta / Regime. The Army is in control – not the airforce. And the entire military is controlled by Senior General Than Shwe. Anyone else is just a puppet. A general in Navy or Airforce means nothing. If someone tried to quit the military, they would be imprisoned. No, there are no rights. No democracy. If you speak against the regime, you will disappear – general or no general.
Now, in this situation, what should a person who is not involved with the military do? If that person seeks to study or live overseas in a country like Australia, which claims to be democratic, he/she is expelled without a fair trial.

Ms. Brake said “it was hard to tell whether the claims made by Zin Mon Aye and her lawyers were true”. Does this constitute a fair trial? Is this sufficient to expel a person from Australia?

Ms. Brake seeks to impose stronger sanctions on Burma, but will this hurt the Military Regime? No! This will only hurt the innocent people, and will only make the country more poor. I am not sure why she believes this will only have “minimal impact on ordinary citizens of Burma”.

Best way to punish self center, son of a bitch generals.

I lived in Burma for my first 19 years. It took all my parents money to study in US. I can proudly tell that my parents earned their money honestly.

Zin Yaw, the general of this woman works for the Burmese government. While the generals are spending money like water, there are numerous burmese people who do not have clean water to drink.

I do not wish anyone leave from a democratic country but I cannot STAND any of JUNTA’s families spending BLOOD MONEY (the money that JUNTA steals from burmese people who are suffering each and every day). For this reason, I support the decision of the Australian authorities. I also thank them for their efforts.

Pathetic! By expelling an innocent girl not responsible for the regime, the politicians have won the trust of some gullible people.

Yay…go Australia. Bash Indian students. Expel innocent Burmese. Show the world what a civilized country is like!

Good work for Australia!!!

And anyone who critizes that decision, why is she innocent? Who funded her throughout her study? Where does it come from?

hteinlin!
Do you know the girl personally? How can you then claim that the gril is connected to a dictator? As it happens, the girl is NOT sponsored by the government or ANYONE connected to the government! Read the whole case and not just the brief on this website.
Zin Mon Aye is correct to argue that she should not be expelled solely because of her father’s link to military. Her argument is plain – she is not being supported by the military so why should she be deported?
Also, why should “Ko Tut” have to reveal the true name or telephone number to you? Given the Burmese government’s nature, they would target anyone they feel threatened by.
I do not support the Burmese government and I feel their opression is wrong, but I still feel that a person should not be punished just because of their relations. This is injustice! Even if the Burmese government has been really cruel to you, there is no reason for you to lash out at their family members who themselves do not support the government and are thus completely innocent!!

hteinlin: I congratulate you on your knowledge of the Burmese history. But it is completely useless in this case. You are prejudiced against the girl because of what other Dictator’s relations have done. Do you personally know the girl or her father? You wish to persecute all the family members of those connected with the military. This is not fair on your part! I urge everyone not to follow on hteinlin’s steps.
I do not support the government. I despise what they have done. However, I do not believe in punishing the innocents either. Not every son and daughter of a military general is bad or supports the regime. Many desperately hope for a change, just like you and me.

it is a example that what ever you did bad thing reflects not only upon you but also on your next generation

The Junta deserves to be punished…the innocents don’t. The girl did nothing wrong.

Denys, how is it apparent to you that the girl tried to lie that she is not supported by her father? If you actually bothered to read the whole case, you would know that she was not sponsored by her father and this was proven, and was acknowledged by the judges. The reason she lost the case is because the judges did not have the power to overturn the foreign minister’s policy.

How did you link the girl to Than Shwe’s crimes? Yes, Than Shwe is a pig. And yes her father is a part of the military, though not a decision maker and has no control (don’t let the title fool you). But why is she guilty? Did she choose to be born into that family? Should all Australians be treated like convicts because their ancestors were convicts?

Blind hatred will not help anyone. If you want to uphold justice, punish only those who deserve it, otherwise you are the same as Than Shwe and the lot.

You say children should pay for parents’ crimes. I don’t know of any religion that teaches this, least of all Buddhism.

All of these comments defending the daughter of an SPDC General are quite misplaced.
What are the trademark standard operating procedures of the SPDC?

Lies, misinformation, cover-ups of ill-gotten wealth, cronyism, underhanded dealings with foreign corporations, etc, etc.

If Australian authorities had known that Zin Mon Aye was the daughter of a high ranking SPDC general at the time she entered Australia, she likely would not have been allowed to attend university in the first place.

As for the comments about not punishing the daughter of the General, that she had done nothing wrong, that she was not supported by her parents, and that she is estranged from her parents, this is all convenient liberal rhetoric and hearsay.

As Zetty Brake pointed out:
“the sanctions list is very much targeted towards individuals and it’s not a blanket list; it’s meant to target people who are benefitting from the brutal repression in Burma,” she said. “In that case, [Zin Mon Aye’s expulsion] is very fair because these are people who are specifically named and targeted for that reason.”

In other words, for her to get into Australia to attend university, it would be necessary to hide the fact that she is the daughter of an individual who is targeted by the sanctions.

Her backstory saying she was sponsored and financed by an unnamed donor would be the logical way to circumvent the sanctions.

I believe it is likely that the “donor” was an Australian corporation who is doing business with the SPDC regime, and I think a full investigation of her “donor” is in order.

I for one am not surprised that she conveniently had a job lined up following her graduation.

After all, what better position for the elite offspring daughter of a high ranking SPDC officer, with a masters degree in accounting no less, than to be surreptitiously positioned in one of the countries whose corporations do business with the SPDC regime?

I think the sympathy in this case should go out to the MILLIONS of Burmese ethnic monority citizens, whose children will never attend university because they will die of disease or malnutrition before reaching school age, over 100,000 children EACH YEAR.
Of the lucky children who do survive to school age, many will have to attend classes in a jungle clearing with a rock as their blackboard, because the schools and churches of their villages are prime targets which the SPDC shock-troops have destroyed in order to suppress the possibility of their ever becoming more than slaves of the regime.

Under the SPDC’s policies of educational repression behind the Bamboo Curtain, many ethnic minority children will be fortunate to complete a fourth grade education.

I have one question for those liberal thinkers who are willing to give SPDC elite offspring Zin Mon Aye the benefit of the doubt.

Since she is contending that she planned from the start to take up permanent residency in Australia after receiving her masters degree in accounting, why didn’t she renounce her “estranged” father and the SPDC regime and apply for political asylum when she ARRIVED in Australia?

Hello Thinka,
and thanks for giving your opinions. Please allow me to address the issues you have raised.

“First of all the comments here are not to defend a daughter of ‘an SPDC General’. They are to defend moral rights.”

>I am not sure why you feel that the daughter of an SPDC General has more moral rights than the millions of Burmese ethnic minority citizens who have had no rights whatsoever, other than the right to die.

>Why is she so special when it comes to moral rights?
>Oh yeah, she is special because she is the daughter of an SPDC general!
>How ironic.

“You have argued that even if she was not sponsored by the junta, still her sponsor must be guilty and should be convicted.”

>I said no such thing, I said that her donor should be investigated.
>You seem to forget that the Australian government has the right to decide who can come to visit, live, or study in their country, and when someone aids and abetts an individual to enter the country under false pretences, they have committed a crime.
>The same anonymous “donor” may have arranged for many others like Zin Mon Aye to enter Australia, and other countries illegally, and therefore should be investigated.
>If it is apparent they have committed a crime, they should be tried according to Australian law.

“You have listed the steps the girl should have taken to prove to everyone that she has truly renounced her parents.”

>You are again conveniently misstating what I wrote.
>I said that if she had planned on permanent residency following her schooling she should have made the Australian government aware of her intentions at the time she applied for a student visa.
>If that had been her intent, the forms she would have had to fill out for permanent residency would certainly have clued-in the Australian Immigration authorities as to her family ties.
>If she had done so, I assume that under the sanctions she would have been denied both the student visa and permanent residency.
>I also assume that if she had renounced her “estranged” family, and the SPDC regime, and requested political asylum, she likely would have received it, and I would have supported that decision as firmly as I support their decision to deport her.
>It seems your only possible point of contention is that after she got away with circumventing the sanctions which they are now upholding, she should have gotten a “get out of jail free card”, and been given permanent citizenship while they were at it.
>It is completely absurd to think that a foreigner can show up in the country of their choice and bend that country’s immigration laws to fit their lifestyle decisions.

“My question is simple…why should the girl have to do anything to prove herself innocent when she has not commited a crime?”

>My answer is simple, I don’t consider her innocent, and neither does the government of Australia. >It is too bad she got caught prior to finishing her masters degree, but it is ironic that getting caught IS usually what stops people who are doing things which are against the law, whether man or woman, and whether the daughter of a farmer or a general.

“According to you, her crime is that she is the daughter of a man linked to the military. This was not her choice and to me this is not a crime, and so she should not be punished for it.”

>Dear Thinka, it appears that you are guilty of consistantly misstating the facts of my comments, and it’s ironic that being guilty of misstating the facts is what got the general’s daughter deported.

>By the way, Burma is a cruel world where millions of Burmese ethnic minority citizens will be born to live and die as slaves who are considered beasts of burden and are targeted for lifelong oppression, what was THEIR crime?

>Why have THEY been punished, raped, extorted, tortured, murdered, displaced, and enslaved?

“If a person decides to study or live in Australia then he/she should be treated the same as everyone else and not punshied for something his/her relative has done.”

>”Everyone else” as in everyone else who didn’t withold information on their forms, or everyone else who DID withold information of their forms?
>I am NOT the son of a Burmese general, and I can assure you that my simple act of “deciding to live or study” in Australia and $5 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks, because it is up to the government of Australia based on the information I supply them with to decide whether I am accepted or denied what I have “decided” to do.
>If they find out I lied, or omitted facts on my application, they would deport me too.

>I think I will stop here, because everything else you have written is based more on hearsay and your gut feelings than anything you can prove.

>I would not be surprised to find that you are Zin Mon Aye’s lawyer Tony Silva, who was equally evasive and lacking any proof of his allegations in his interview on Radio Australia.

>And for your information, the Burma Air Force supports the Burma army in its operations in the ethnic homelands.

>Maybe if enough Burmese elite offspring are outed and sent home, their parents would start getting the message which the international sanctions are designed to give them.

>I guess the lesson to be learned here is that if you are the elite offspring of an SPDC general, and you are applying for a student visa with the intent to stay on permanently in Australia or any other country which has sanctions forbidding you from doing so in their country, honesty is the best policy.

Hi Garett,
Thanks for posting your replies to each point of mine, even though most of them contradict what you are trying to prove.
Mostly, your prejudice disgusts me.

I will simply reply to your responses:
________________________________
>I am not sure why you feel that the daughter of an SPDC General has more moral rights than the millions of Burmese ethnic minority citizens who have had no rights whatsoever, other than the right to die.
>Why is she so special when it comes to moral rights?
>Oh yeah, she is special because she is the daughter of an SPDC general!
>How ironic.

No, a daughter of a general does not have more rights, but why does she have less rights than any ordinary person? If a person tried to apply for Australian visa, they are not asked for their family’s history. Do you know that many Australian’s forefathers were convicts deported from Britain? Would you now try to check if your Australian friend’s great grandfather was a murderer?

Why should Zin Mon Aye’s family connections matter? Oh yes, she is the daughter of a military member which automatically makes her guilty in your eyes.

Yes, the Burmese people are oppressed by the junta. But the girl did not oppress them. No matter how numerous or vile the crimes of the junta, this still does not give anyone the right to punish an innocent.
________________________________

>I said no such thing, I said that her donor should be investigated.
>You seem to forget that the Australian government has the right to decide who can come to visit, live, or study in their country, and when someone aids and abetts an individual to enter the country under false pretences, they have committed a crime.
>The same anonymous “donor” may have arranged for many others like Zin Mon Aye to enter Australia, and other countries illegally, and therefore should be investigated.
>If it is apparent they have committed a crime, they should be tried according to Australian law.

By ‘donor’, I assume you mean ‘sponsor’. For your information, the girl’s sponsor is not a corporation and has no links to the military and is not Burmese.

Australian government has the right to abide by its own laws. It can force anyone out and crush anyone’s right, so long as it does not then claim to be democratic.

There was a time there was White Australia Policy. If everyone thought like you, this policy would not have been abolished. It was abolished based on moral and ethical grounds. If no one stands up to an injustice, then things will not change or improve.

Also, if you had bothered to read the whole case, you would know that the sanctions were imposed AFTER the girl had already arrived in Australia. She did not sneak in or lie or come here under false pretenses. She was granted student visa just like everyone else. She was not brought here illegally as she was granted student visa like everyone else and there was nothing against her.
Only after the sanctions were imposed that she was asked to leave. However, being related to someone is not a crime. How some people can fail to understand this just baffles me.
_________________________________

>You are again conveniently misstating what I wrote.
>I said that if she had planned on permanent residency following her schooling she should have made the Australian government aware of her intentions at the time she applied for a student visa.
>If that had been her intent, the forms she would have had to fill out for permanent residency would certainly have clued-in the Australian Immigration authorities as to her family ties.
>If she had done so, I assume that under the sanctions she would have been denied both the student visa and permanent residency.
>I also assume that if she had renounced her “estranged” family, and the SPDC regime, and requested political asylum, she likely would have received it, and I would have supported that decision as firmly as I support their decision to deport her.
>It seems your only possible point of contention is that after she got away with circumventing the sanctions which they are now upholding, she should have gotten a “get out of jail free card”, and been given permanent citizenship while they were at it.
>It is completely absurd to think that a foreigner can show up in the country of their choice and bend that country’s immigration laws to fit their lifestyle decisions.

The sanctions were not placed until after the girl was already here, so there was no reason for her to apply for asylum when she first arrived. She was granted student visa fairly.

There are thousands of international students who are studying in Australia, who arrived here on student visa and intend to apply for permanent residency once they complete their course. In fact, most of the international students wish for this and very few wish to return. I assure you, none of them would have applied for a permanent residency before arriving here or made their intention known to the Australian government. Not doing so is neither criminal or wrong in any way. They have a right to apply for permanent residency, just like anyone else. Zin Mon Aye was also studying here under student visa which was granted to her legally, as no sanctions were in place at that time, and she had the same intention as everyone else.

She did not ‘circumvent the sanctions’ and should not have been deported for something her parents were guilty of thousands of miles away. She wished to study and live here, away from her parents, but was forced to return back to Burma after the sanctions were placed on all the ‘senior’ military members and their immediate family members.

If tomorrow it was discovered that your uncle, who is living overseas, thousands of miles away, is convicted of a crime, then should you be charged as well? To me this sounds absurd. This is exactly the same as what has happened to the girl as well.

Would any person want to apply for asylum given how the refugees are treated? Things are not all easy for them and there was no guarantee that she would have received it either. Plus, things would have been worse for her when she returned back after being denied asylum. Her father does not have any power and is only a brigadier general in airforce (not a general). The army is the one is control and not the airforce. He is just a puppet. She and her family might have been imprisoned. The sanctions against her family are not just, but the people imposing the sanctions did not bother to find out all the details.

The girl tried to fight this is in court, but failed as judges had no power to overturn the foreign mininster’s policy, no matter how unethical.
_________________________________

>My answer is simple, I don’t consider her innocent, and neither does the government of Australia. >It is too bad she got caught prior to finishing her masters degree, but it is ironic that getting caught IS usually what stops people who are doing things which are against the law, whether man or woman, and whether the daughter of a farmer or a general.

Again, she did not arrive here illegally. The sanctions were imposed after here arrival. Her studying here was not illegal. She did not commit any crimes. She simply fought against the government’s decision to deport her, after the sanctions were made, based on the ground that she was an individual and so should not be punished for a crime she herself did not commit.

Again, there was a time when ‘Blacks’ were not allowed to even travel in the same bus as the ‘Whites’. That was the law. It took a brave person to fight against the law. If everyone took your view, we would still be living in a very different world today. It is everyone’s right to fight against an injustice.
________________________________

>Dear Thinka, it appears that you are guilty of consistantly misstating the facts of my comments, and it’s ironic that being guilty of misstating the facts is what got the general’s daughter deported.
>By the way, Burma is a cruel world where millions of Burmese ethnic minority citizens will be born to live and die as slaves who are considered beasts of burden and are targeted for lifelong oppression, what was THEIR crime?
>Why have THEY been punished, raped, extorted, tortured, murdered, displaced, and enslaved?

Dear Garrett, if you had taken half the time to read the case as you obviously did to write this absurdly big and pointless response, you would know that the girl did not mis-state any facts. She arrived here and studied here legally. She was asked to go back after the sanctions were placed by international governments to put pressure on the Burmese junta. Unfortunately, they too are as ignorant as you, and so did not bother to find out who is guilty or not.
Yes, the Burmese junta is cruel and the tyrants deserve to be punished. You are right, the Burmese people have not committed any crimes and need to be freed from the oppression. But this girl did not oppress anyone. She has not ‘raped, extorted, tortured, murdered, displaced, and enslaved’ anyone! Why then do you insist on imposing this injustice on her? In this way, you are no different to the junta.
________________________________

>”Everyone else” as in everyone else who didn’t withold information on their forms, or everyone else who DID withold information of their forms?
>I am NOT the son of a Burmese general, and I can assure you that my simple act of “deciding to live or study” in Australia and $5 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks, because it is up to the government of Australia based on the information I supply them with to decide whether I am accepted or denied what I have “decided” to do.
>If they find out I lied, or omitted facts on my application, they would deport me too.

I am not related to any military member, but that does not give me the right to villainise every family member of a military personnel.
I will not repeat the above. You obviously need to do get your facts straight before accusing anyone. The girl has not withheld any information and that was not the reason for the deportation.
_________________________________

>I would not be surprised to find that you are Zin Mon Aye’s lawyer Tony Silva, who was equally evasive and lacking any proof of his allegations in his interview on Radio Australia.

No, I am not Zin Mo Aye or Tony Silva. I did listen to the interview though and having different opinion to your own is not being evasive.
You though are probably Zetty Brake or her relative…trying to justify your lame arguments of how we should crucify daughters and sons of ALL military members because some have committed heinous crimes.

__________________________________

>And for your information, the Burma Air Force supports the Burma army in its operations in the ethnic homelands.

The main culprits are Than Shwe and a few of his cronies, and the main control is of the army. Would you say the court and judges support the junta wholeheartedly? They are in the junta’s pocket. Than Shwe’s word is law.
__________________________________

>Maybe if enough Burmese elite offspring are outed and sent home, their parents would start getting the message which the international sanctions are designed to give them.

>I guess the lesson to be learned here is that if you are the elite offspring of an SPDC general, and you are applying for a student visa with the intent to stay on permanently in Australia or any other country which has sanctions forbidding you from doing so in their country, honesty is the best policy.

The girl’s father is not the general or the ‘elite’. He is not the decision maker.

Also, the girl did not lie to get into Australia or get the visa.

And the only message this callous policy of international sanctions will send everyone is ‘if you are unjust, we are worse’.
________________________________
p.s.
Have fun sipping your $5.00 coffee from Starbucks. I prefer Gloria Jeans. In Burma, neither is available, and neither you, nor I, nor Zin Mon Aye are to blame for that.

Dear Thinka,
If you want to try to make your points based on some knowledge of the particulars of the case which are not provided in the few online article, how about providing the links to the information you are quoting?

How about supplying the link to the information you are quoting as regards the dates of her application and her arrival in Australia?

How about being specific about the particular sanctions they are acting on, and the date those sanctions went into effect?

How about sharing with us the details of the “sponsor” you are referring to as if you know them and can vouch for them?

You have gone to a lot of trouble to simply repeat the allegations and misstatements you made earlier, without backing them with details, only hearsay.

Is hearsay is all you have?
Are you are just making these things up as you go.

I am sure that we are all certainly willing to take into account any additional information from reports and hearings that you claim to be privy to which goes beyond what information has been provided at online news sources.

Frankly, after an exhaustive search, I find nothing which backs your allegations of the who’s, how’s, and when’s of her saga.

You have provided nothing more than additional rhetoric and misstatements to back-up your earlier rhetoric and misstatements, so it is difficult to be swayed from the obvious.

Here is your big chance to provide for us all the proof of everything you are saying about the hearings, “the case”, etc, etc, etc.

Prove it with cold hard facts instead of hearsay, liberal rhetoric, missatatements of the facts, lame references to Australians ancestors being criminals, and accusations of prejudice!

Hey Garrett, sounds like you are hell bent on opposing the girl. The discussion has blown out of proportion. So what if someone wants to study in Australia? We would only be doing the Burmese community a favour by teaching more people about Australian values.

Dear Garrett,
I happen to know the girl personally and she was studying at a university in Sydney already before the sanctions were posted. It was not fair to make her leave.

Cheers,
AJ

Dear Garrett,

When requested to supply your own sources, you comfortably ignored it and just went on with your accusations.

I am not insensitive towards the many innocent Burmese who have suffered. But is it then fair to then punish another innocent?

I am willing to meet with you in person to show you the FACTS you have not bothered to find out yourself! Email me directly on thinka30 AT gmail DOT com.

Dear Thinka,
I have had enough of your broken record rhetoric. As far as I am concerned, justice has been served, the law has been upheld, and the sentence has been carried out.
As I said earlier, if Zin Mon Aye
had simply asked for political asylum when she came to Australia, it would have been a whole different scenario which I would have supported.

Beyond that I don’t even care if you don’t think she should have had to do that, or whether you think she should be treated the same as every other foreign student, blah, blah, blah.
If those students are sanctioned, they’ll have to leave too. PERIOD.

It’s over!
If you still have too much extra energy, why don’t you start a crusade on behalf of the 60 million Burmese citizens Zin Mon Aye was going to leave behind to be oppressed by the SPDC dictators while she remained permanently in Australia?
Free Burma and you will free Zin Mon Aye!

Dear To Tu Lay,
I find it contradictory that you say you are not indifferent to the plight of millions of Burmese, and then you come up with the sad story of more friends you know from military families.

Sorry mate, the soldiers of the military are the weapons in the hands of the regime, ALL OF THEM, and heck no they don’t think they get paid enough for their brave and dangerous job of rape, murder, torture, killing monks and unarmed civilians in the streets, burning schools, rice fields, and churches.

You guys are TOTALLY in denial of, TOTALLY indifferent to, and TOTALLY ignorant about the tragic suffering of the citizens in Burma which ranges from simple economic and political oppression in the urban zones, to downright ethnic persecution, forced labour, extortion, and forced starvation in the ethnic homelands.
The tragic meaning of those words just don’t seem to have any significance for you guys.

This is like discussing the colors of the rainbow with people who are color blind to all but black and white.

Maybe you can get together with Thinka, and all of your friends from military families and start an organization to crusade for the Burmese orphans whose parents died as forced labourers, were shot while working in their ricefields, starved to death, or died of something as simple as diarrhea for lack of the basic medical care international NGO’s would have given them if the regime allowed it.
Free Burma, and you will free Zin Mon Aye!