As much as we all here @ New Mandala will like to see the resolution of current Kachin-Bamar armed conflicts, using McDonald ┬о will diminish this tragic event with it beginning rooted as far back as b/f WWII.
A quick and lasting resolution will entail grasping the etiology of nearly every ethnic conflicts within Myanmar.
The SOS etiology of ‘control’.
Until such time as negotiations are favored over arms to resolve issues regarding ‘control’, bemoaning the results of ongoing conflict with some dubious links on behalf of only one side serve only to obscure the more important problems faced by the entire Citizenry of Myanmar.
Not until Myanmar has a Citizenry that is beyond ‘barely surviving’ how this government in using, such atrocious mean as ‘4 cuts strategy’ achieving ‘control’ will be another moot concern.
By what great MEASURE will you use to claim as enough REDEMPTION for the near 3 decades of co-deprivation iniquities, by SPDC and the West, the latter that you have chosen so EARLY, readily and quickly to exonerate at the expense of your own?
Ko Moe Aung
You will need to white wash a lot faster, or make empty excuses akin to ‘the regional government’ of Mandalay ( RGM), just to cover , the unfolding Kachin War, a direct result and the inertia from the previous West policy.
Thein Sein et al/ RGM surely is doing a great job using Facebook┬о for their short comings.
The comments in this blog are like the Rhizome of a plant sending shoots off everywhere and one damn good reason to keep tabs on the multiple conversations going on here. 🙂
I am sure their are oodles of things in this blog that could bring jackboots to the door at some random unpredictable hour, fear being a key driving force of political complacency, apathy and inactivity.
Frank G. Anderson: “Thailand has a Law Reform Commission, part of the Council of State. Its current head has several times advocated serious changes to Thailand total criminal and civil codes, and in the processes that do not deliver the justice they were allegedly designed to do.”
Which raises the question of why no action is ever taken?
Far more interesting than what I or any reader of this blog thinks about the oppressive net laws is what everyman or little man thinks or the audience that Police Captain Chalerm is pandering to when, for instance, he wants to get that execution chamber working at full throttle again or declares that LMers will all go to hell.
That forces for democratic change may have a dark side and may not always be the heroic and enlightened forces that this blogs makes them out to be, that LM and computer crime laws may have active support or at least passive acceptance among large swathes of the population and even give them a sense of purpose feeling as if they fighting off the enemy on the walls of Ayutthaya in the good old days, explore that idea why don’t you (and please don’t unfalsifiable assertions ascribing it all to “Amat” mind control or brainwashing.)
@Ohn #22:
I share your concerns about violence in Arakan State.
And I had the same concern when I saw that Narinjara article. But, as I’m not knowledgeable enough about issues in Arakan to draw any conclusions, I asked a colleague that works mostly with Rohingya communities. This is what she said:
“This [the accident referenced in the Narinjara article linked by Ohn] is an accident that occurred near Thandwe on 2 June and not related to the attack on a bus just outside Toungup on 3 June afternoon. I did notice some other media outlets used that picture from Narinjara to illustrate their piece on the Toungup attack which is misleading.
Frank G Anderson: Perhaps write to them and ask them if they have any idea when any rich person, connected person, politician or official is going to spend one day in jail for the crimes they’ve committed and will commit? When the codes are being applied they can then they can start tweaking them. Even in China and Vietnam ministers and officials are being jailed and executed when they’ve committed crimes. Isn’t Sondhi Lim supposed to be behind bars?
[…] the fact that, today, following the initial acts of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, even the Democrat Party has its own extra-parliamentary […]
You’ve asked a lot of questions here and I am not sure I have time to answer them all.
As most of them relate to the ICC – and this is just a suggestion – why don’t you contact RA yourself and ask him these questions? I know that plenty of other people have – including mere bloggers like myself. He’s very approachable.
The ICC application is available online. I’ve read bits of it but never read the whole thing. It was filed in Jan 2011 and I think a couple more bits were filed afterwards but I am not 100% sure. All that’s in the public domain and has been for a while. So, the process is complete, and can’t have any plug pulled as you are suggesting. Also Mark is 100% UK national who was registered to vote. There’s a pic on RA’s site of his name on electoral roll from when he was at Oxford – you have to be UK citizen to be on there and you have to actively put your name forward. It’s not done for you.
As far as I understand it the next decision is with the ICC. Obviously if they do take it up Thaksin’s “money” will still have no bearing as it will be self-funded. They will then investigate and then decide to press charges at later date – I think that is how it goes.
There’d be no need for Thaksin to have any ad-hoc ICC arrangement set up against him if he has a Montenegrin citizenship as Steve points out – they are ICC signatories.
Why do I think it has been done in good faith? Cos the case is thorough, has been filed already, is backed by plenty of other people and has already had an impact. Will the ICC take it up? Less than 50/50 but it is still worth hoping for. Something had to be done and the truth committees set up by Abhisit, without power of subpoena are next to useless – which was his aim.
Re helping webmasters, to encourage commentary on other social media sites like Twitter rather than the comments section of the website itself… for instance by including a hashtag at the end of an entry, directing commentary to be ‘filed’ there… (Above post re neutering in general).
Re neutering the negative impact, for Thai news organisations to offer cheaper website front-page/header advertising to respectable VPN services? Or even VPN clients for download… For Thai news organisations to start hosting web content overseas and for journalists to begin writing more anonymously…
” was made aware by a friend that Sean Crispin was very angry about my comment about him in this article.
I apologize to Sean if this has hurt his feelings – it was only meant as a lighthearted joke, nothing else.”
Yeah…. l thought that was a bit jarring and off in an otherwise fascinating and detailed report.
On the non joke issues, the news of the Democrat ‘street’ crews is a weird one…. Not sure the Democrats do ‘street’ anything very well sadly…. It’s a large part of why they lost the last election…. Sniffy and disconnected best describes their last ‘street’ efforts……
Thailand has a Law Reform Commission, part of the Council of State. Its current head has several times advocated serious changes to Thailand total criminal and civil codes, and in the processes that do not deliver the justice they were allegedly designed to do.
Whatever comments you get from your editorial inquiry here pale in comparison to what the LRC might say to you. Why not write them, as I have last week, regarding the lese majeste law?
Andrew Spooner #26. I would seriously doubt Robert Amsterdam’s good faith in filing the case against Abhisit with the ICC, if by good faith you mean that he thought there was a snowball in hell’s chance of the case ever being heard. Nevertheless, it has served the interests of both Amsterdam and his employer admirably. At a critical moment, the filing provided a great talking point and motivation for red shirts without legal training who might actually have been persuaded the case was viable and it presumably generated plenty of fees for Amsterdam. The attempt to use Abhisit’s British citizenship by birth as a back door route to prosecution was tenuous to say the least and the main purpose was clearly to provide fodder for red shirt speakers to demonise him as a privileged farang who is remote from their problems. For Abhisit’s British citizenship to be of any use to Amsterdam the British government would have to consent the case which is as inconceivable as Montenegro consenting to an arraignment of Thaksin for complicity in murder at Tak Bai, the Kruesae Mosque and his other numerous human rights abuses.
Sadly none of these cases will ever be prosecuted anywhere or even properly investigated. To do so would create too much collateral damage in the senior ranks of the military and police and no politician, no matter how great his parliamentary majority, will ever dare take that risk.
Again it does go under the filing of Healthy Eating Promotion fund from McDonald.
If hypothetically, the Burmese government excludes the Australian extractive, financial and service companies from Burmese commerce, this offering is not going to be there.
For Burma, money may have been better spent for 300 primary schools. But presumably Than Myint-U or any other elites do not own a primary school age child needing schooling in Rangoon.
Obviously the law should be repealed. Its disingenous justification at the time was to protect consumers from fraud on the net but there are few signs that it has ever been employed for that purpose. Meanwhile, e-commerce has never really got off the starter’s blocks in Thailand partly due to the lack of adequate legal framework. Now would be a good time to ditch this odious law and come up with a new law that is genuinely intended to facilitate e-commerce and cut down on the thousands of unnecessary journeys made to collect cash and obtain hard copy signatures. Thailand is one of the few democratic countries where you have to provide your ID or passport details just to use an internet cafe or use a wi-fi card at Starbucks which is ridiculous.
Unfortunately this law is very consistent with Thailand’s civil law approach that relies on deliberately vague and ambiguous statutory laws that can be easily amended through ministerial regulations without the bother of going through Parliament again. Since precedent doesn’t carry the weight that it is does in common law jurisdictions and there are no juries, judges also have a lot more power and contradictory rulings by the same court based on the same law in different cases are common, e.g. Thaksin’s acquittal on asset concealment by the Constitutional Court compared to Sanan’s conviction on a less serious charge of the same thing. Most Thai judges don’t come up through the ranks of successful barristers, as they do elsewhere, but join the judiciary straight from law school so that being partial is the only way they can money and advance their careers.
It is basically a putrid justice system that needs a complete overhaul. This law would be a great place to start and the PM could pick up brownie points by repealing it on the grounds that it needs to be rewritten in order to serve its original purpose of preventing internet fraud and facilitating e-commerce. Somehow I think that she will keep smiling at everyone and doing nothing.
There are many robust comments I might like to make about some topics but don’t as if I were tracked down over a misinterpretation of what I was suggesting then who would feed my family as I rotted away or died in jail. Some sites I even visit by proxy.
That is the reality, I self moderate or don’t comment some topics. Although from observing some of the dislikes I have received some might suggest I don’t do so enough 🙂
“The Democrat Party has now made the transition into directly commanding their own street protest group – ‘Sai Loh Fah’ .”
Always the copycat, the miserable Democrats. But still a long way to go before matching the Red Shirts in numbers, a long way to go before ‘Sai Loh Fah’ villages. Will we see the ‘Sai Loh Fah’ marching to Bangkok with petrol-filled bottles too (hey if the Reds could do it, why not?).
I already asked this question to Spooner: Could the Democrats storm troopers (with the offensive SS) be any match to Thaksin’s Black Shirts in any Bangkok street fights – the Black Shirts grenade launching and arson torching skills considered?
Yes, it has to be abolished. It stops the necessary conversations in Thai society. I notice the Bangkok Post, for instance, puts a routine “comments have been stopped for fear of legal dispute” on just about anything remotely controversial such that often most of the articles on the front page of their website cannot be commented on.
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Thant Myint-U on Yangon
#30
As much as we all here @ New Mandala will like to see the resolution of current Kachin-Bamar armed conflicts, using McDonald ┬о will diminish this tragic event with it beginning rooted as far back as b/f WWII.
A quick and lasting resolution will entail grasping the etiology of nearly every ethnic conflicts within Myanmar.
The SOS etiology of ‘control’.
Until such time as negotiations are favored over arms to resolve issues regarding ‘control’, bemoaning the results of ongoing conflict with some dubious links on behalf of only one side serve only to obscure the more important problems faced by the entire Citizenry of Myanmar.
Not until Myanmar has a Citizenry that is beyond ‘barely surviving’ how this government in using, such atrocious mean as ‘4 cuts strategy’ achieving ‘control’ will be another moot concern.
Thant Myint-U on Yangon
Matt,
Thanks. The composition of the victims were very different. And the coincidence is uncanny.
Narinjara of course should be a leader in humanity above all. We are so short of leader in humanity, unadulterated.
Comments, comments, comments
I do think Frank G Anderson’s recommendation and action to be very good. I will consider same while considering the other thoughts.
On protests and media in Myanmar
“Engagement too little too late for you?”
Too little too late:
By what great MEASURE will you use to claim as enough REDEMPTION for the near 3 decades of co-deprivation iniquities, by SPDC and the West, the latter that you have chosen so EARLY, readily and quickly to exonerate at the expense of your own?
Ko Moe Aung
You will need to white wash a lot faster, or make empty excuses akin to ‘the regional government’ of Mandalay ( RGM), just to cover , the unfolding Kachin War, a direct result and the inertia from the previous West policy.
Thein Sein et al/ RGM surely is doing a great job using Facebook┬о for their short comings.
Comments, comments, comments
The comments in this blog are like the Rhizome of a plant sending shoots off everywhere and one damn good reason to keep tabs on the multiple conversations going on here. 🙂
I am sure their are oodles of things in this blog that could bring jackboots to the door at some random unpredictable hour, fear being a key driving force of political complacency, apathy and inactivity.
Frank G. Anderson: “Thailand has a Law Reform Commission, part of the Council of State. Its current head has several times advocated serious changes to Thailand total criminal and civil codes, and in the processes that do not deliver the justice they were allegedly designed to do.”
Which raises the question of why no action is ever taken?
Far more interesting than what I or any reader of this blog thinks about the oppressive net laws is what everyman or little man thinks or the audience that Police Captain Chalerm is pandering to when, for instance, he wants to get that execution chamber working at full throttle again or declares that LMers will all go to hell.
That forces for democratic change may have a dark side and may not always be the heroic and enlightened forces that this blogs makes them out to be, that LM and computer crime laws may have active support or at least passive acceptance among large swathes of the population and even give them a sense of purpose feeling as if they fighting off the enemy on the walls of Ayutthaya in the good old days, explore that idea why don’t you (and please don’t unfalsifiable assertions ascribing it all to “Amat” mind control or brainwashing.)
Thant Myint-U on Yangon
@Ohn #22:
I share your concerns about violence in Arakan State.
And I had the same concern when I saw that Narinjara article. But, as I’m not knowledgeable enough about issues in Arakan to draw any conclusions, I asked a colleague that works mostly with Rohingya communities. This is what she said:
“This [the accident referenced in the Narinjara article linked by Ohn] is an accident that occurred near Thandwe on 2 June and not related to the attack on a bus just outside Toungup on 3 June afternoon. I did notice some other media outlets used that picture from Narinjara to illustrate their piece on the Toungup attack which is misleading.
Narinjara only wrote about the Toungup incident today – http://www.narinjara.com/main/index.php/murder-of-muslims-in-taungup-due-to-lack-of-legal-protection/ ”
In any case, hope that helps clarify.
Comments, comments, comments
Frank G Anderson: Perhaps write to them and ask them if they have any idea when any rich person, connected person, politician or official is going to spend one day in jail for the crimes they’ve committed and will commit? When the codes are being applied they can then they can start tweaking them. Even in China and Vietnam ministers and officials are being jailed and executed when they’ve committed crimes. Isn’t Sondhi Lim supposed to be behind bars?
Reconciliation games
[…] the fact that, today, following the initial acts of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, even the Democrat Party has its own extra-parliamentary […]
Reconciliation games
Greg
You’ve asked a lot of questions here and I am not sure I have time to answer them all.
As most of them relate to the ICC – and this is just a suggestion – why don’t you contact RA yourself and ask him these questions? I know that plenty of other people have – including mere bloggers like myself. He’s very approachable.
The ICC application is available online. I’ve read bits of it but never read the whole thing. It was filed in Jan 2011 and I think a couple more bits were filed afterwards but I am not 100% sure. All that’s in the public domain and has been for a while. So, the process is complete, and can’t have any plug pulled as you are suggesting. Also Mark is 100% UK national who was registered to vote. There’s a pic on RA’s site of his name on electoral roll from when he was at Oxford – you have to be UK citizen to be on there and you have to actively put your name forward. It’s not done for you.
As far as I understand it the next decision is with the ICC. Obviously if they do take it up Thaksin’s “money” will still have no bearing as it will be self-funded. They will then investigate and then decide to press charges at later date – I think that is how it goes.
There’d be no need for Thaksin to have any ad-hoc ICC arrangement set up against him if he has a Montenegrin citizenship as Steve points out – they are ICC signatories.
Why do I think it has been done in good faith? Cos the case is thorough, has been filed already, is backed by plenty of other people and has already had an impact. Will the ICC take it up? Less than 50/50 but it is still worth hoping for. Something had to be done and the truth committees set up by Abhisit, without power of subpoena are next to useless – which was his aim.
Comments, comments, comments
Re helping webmasters, to encourage commentary on other social media sites like Twitter rather than the comments section of the website itself… for instance by including a hashtag at the end of an entry, directing commentary to be ‘filed’ there… (Above post re neutering in general).
Comments, comments, comments
Re neutering the negative impact, for Thai news organisations to offer cheaper website front-page/header advertising to respectable VPN services? Or even VPN clients for download… For Thai news organisations to start hosting web content overseas and for journalists to begin writing more anonymously…
Reconciliation games
#29 Nick Nostitz
” was made aware by a friend that Sean Crispin was very angry about my comment about him in this article.
I apologize to Sean if this has hurt his feelings – it was only meant as a lighthearted joke, nothing else.”
Yeah…. l thought that was a bit jarring and off in an otherwise fascinating and detailed report.
On the non joke issues, the news of the Democrat ‘street’ crews is a weird one…. Not sure the Democrats do ‘street’ anything very well sadly…. It’s a large part of why they lost the last election…. Sniffy and disconnected best describes their last ‘street’ efforts……
Comments, comments, comments
Thailand has a Law Reform Commission, part of the Council of State. Its current head has several times advocated serious changes to Thailand total criminal and civil codes, and in the processes that do not deliver the justice they were allegedly designed to do.
Whatever comments you get from your editorial inquiry here pale in comparison to what the LRC might say to you. Why not write them, as I have last week, regarding the lese majeste law?
Reconciliation games
Andrew Spooner #26. I would seriously doubt Robert Amsterdam’s good faith in filing the case against Abhisit with the ICC, if by good faith you mean that he thought there was a snowball in hell’s chance of the case ever being heard. Nevertheless, it has served the interests of both Amsterdam and his employer admirably. At a critical moment, the filing provided a great talking point and motivation for red shirts without legal training who might actually have been persuaded the case was viable and it presumably generated plenty of fees for Amsterdam. The attempt to use Abhisit’s British citizenship by birth as a back door route to prosecution was tenuous to say the least and the main purpose was clearly to provide fodder for red shirt speakers to demonise him as a privileged farang who is remote from their problems. For Abhisit’s British citizenship to be of any use to Amsterdam the British government would have to consent the case which is as inconceivable as Montenegro consenting to an arraignment of Thaksin for complicity in murder at Tak Bai, the Kruesae Mosque and his other numerous human rights abuses.
Sadly none of these cases will ever be prosecuted anywhere or even properly investigated. To do so would create too much collateral damage in the senior ranks of the military and police and no politician, no matter how great his parliamentary majority, will ever dare take that risk.
Reconciliation games
Nick. Thanks for your reply about your gear. Sounds like you keep things practical and lightweight on the street. Your images look great.
Thant Myint-U on Yangon
Tom,
Zoe Daniels filing the first report was a clue.
Again it does go under the filing of Healthy Eating Promotion fund from McDonald.
If hypothetically, the Burmese government excludes the Australian extractive, financial and service companies from Burmese commerce, this offering is not going to be there.
For Burma, money may have been better spent for 300 primary schools. But presumably Than Myint-U or any other elites do not own a primary school age child needing schooling in Rangoon.
Comments, comments, comments
Obviously the law should be repealed. Its disingenous justification at the time was to protect consumers from fraud on the net but there are few signs that it has ever been employed for that purpose. Meanwhile, e-commerce has never really got off the starter’s blocks in Thailand partly due to the lack of adequate legal framework. Now would be a good time to ditch this odious law and come up with a new law that is genuinely intended to facilitate e-commerce and cut down on the thousands of unnecessary journeys made to collect cash and obtain hard copy signatures. Thailand is one of the few democratic countries where you have to provide your ID or passport details just to use an internet cafe or use a wi-fi card at Starbucks which is ridiculous.
Unfortunately this law is very consistent with Thailand’s civil law approach that relies on deliberately vague and ambiguous statutory laws that can be easily amended through ministerial regulations without the bother of going through Parliament again. Since precedent doesn’t carry the weight that it is does in common law jurisdictions and there are no juries, judges also have a lot more power and contradictory rulings by the same court based on the same law in different cases are common, e.g. Thaksin’s acquittal on asset concealment by the Constitutional Court compared to Sanan’s conviction on a less serious charge of the same thing. Most Thai judges don’t come up through the ranks of successful barristers, as they do elsewhere, but join the judiciary straight from law school so that being partial is the only way they can money and advance their careers.
It is basically a putrid justice system that needs a complete overhaul. This law would be a great place to start and the PM could pick up brownie points by repealing it on the grounds that it needs to be rewritten in order to serve its original purpose of preventing internet fraud and facilitating e-commerce. Somehow I think that she will keep smiling at everyone and doing nothing.
Comments, comments, comments
There are many robust comments I might like to make about some topics but don’t as if I were tracked down over a misinterpretation of what I was suggesting then who would feed my family as I rotted away or died in jail. Some sites I even visit by proxy.
That is the reality, I self moderate or don’t comment some topics. Although from observing some of the dislikes I have received some might suggest I don’t do so enough 🙂
Reconciliation games
“The Democrat Party has now made the transition into directly commanding their own street protest group – ‘Sai Loh Fah’ .”
Always the copycat, the miserable Democrats. But still a long way to go before matching the Red Shirts in numbers, a long way to go before ‘Sai Loh Fah’ villages. Will we see the ‘Sai Loh Fah’ marching to Bangkok with petrol-filled bottles too (hey if the Reds could do it, why not?).
I already asked this question to Spooner: Could the Democrats storm troopers (with the offensive SS) be any match to Thaksin’s Black Shirts in any Bangkok street fights – the Black Shirts grenade launching and arson torching skills considered?
Comments, comments, comments
Yes, it has to be abolished. It stops the necessary conversations in Thai society. I notice the Bangkok Post, for instance, puts a routine “comments have been stopped for fear of legal dispute” on just about anything remotely controversial such that often most of the articles on the front page of their website cannot be commented on.