Foreigners like yourself has made eastern Myanmar what it is. Trying to start one in the west now?
How about becoming a good foreigner that favor negotiation ?
@#2
Myanmar will always be a predominantly Buddhist country.
Kachin state must always be a part of Myanmar.
This conflict is mainly over exploiting the resources in Kacin State.
Negotiation has fallen by the wayside due to the West useless careless policy.
Let us neither bring religion nor ethnic differences.
Such divisions play right into the hands of this military government as well as those who do not care over all anything what-so-ever about the rest of the Citizenry of Myanmar well being.
@#3
The unspeakable suffering among the Citizenry within Myanmar is universal 2┬║ to this present government policy with assist from the West under DASSK name.
Until one of these tripartite change their idiocy the Citizenry as a whole must stick together.
Otherwise any one of these 3 parties will exploit to their own advantages without regards for the humanity within.
“combined registered capital of 34 billion baht”…? Small beer, I’d say. It wouldn’t even come close to paying of the 46 billion confiscated from Thaksin.
If Yingluck is unable to keep her twitter account safe and thus unable to properly protect the country, what are you doing to ensure the safety of your own twitter account?
Funny enough, with reference to Yingluck’s ability, this question was asked to (and by) Chulalongkorn University students in an inter-faculty night late last year.
[…] And finally, for more analysis of what might happen if the controversial ex-PM were to return, see this New Mandala post: “When Thaksin Comes Home” […]
Genocide of Kachin is NEVER going to happen because Min Aung Hlaing and his Chinese, Russian and Sri Lanka masters are no match for the Kachin. Keeping the honourable Burmese Military tradition, every time they get killed, they go around to torture defenceless villagers and rape the girls and kill them valiantly afterwards. If Aung San Suu Kyi has some opinion on these apart from the high school essay of we all should be peaceful stuff, it is not apparent.
The international community has been in economic doldrums ever since the mortgage crisis. Current bailout of Greece which is still in trouble is only part of Eurozone crisis. Everyone is itching to get in Burma for resources, cheap labour, sex industry and integration of Pan Asian economy which in economic terms will benefit the whole region and may head off this particular global economic crisis with new consumer market and new resource and energy production until this one runs out as well.
But led by a group of American Senators/ congressmen who have been steadfast in keeping the sanctions for noble purpose of truly helping the oppressed, no one was going to start this disgraceful carpet bagger rush until it was unexpectedly and suddenly triggered after that fateful 18th August 2011 “Family Dinner” with Aung San Suu Kyi coming out effusively praising and endorsing the fake President who all we all know is there by the grace of Than Shwe and is materializing the well planned calculated opening to get the best of both worlds for themselves.
Advised by the Chinese and the equally vision less and wicked ASEAN buddies and some American Nobel Prize winners, the military must be feeling so smug that they have sold of public assets to themselves and their foreign partners with financial gains with a prospect of multi fold more to come after the most inane “Investment Law” which will be enacted by the Parliament , the same parliament which is silent at best / more likely ordered killing of the large number of Kachins with guaranteed blankets for the survivors.
A large number of people have written recently and given interviews like the ones by Roland Watson, by Elliot Presse-Freeman, etc. of the need for orderly social development and education BEFORE indiscriminate destruction of the irreplaceable natural resources and (something no one mentioned) of the destruction of social fabric and millennium long traditional culture which cannot be regained.
The moral decay is already setting in the country and is accelerating. As a leader with moral authority it is more important for Aung San Suu Kyi to point out the importance of upholding the moral value and restraining the greed rather than encouraging people to get to be like Singapore in short time. Leading the ASEAN! What do we lead and why do we have to lead whatever for? Ta lwe sabin kaung!
Recent reminder of necessity for restraint in religious affair is the very sort of thing she should do and she did. But there are others which she could have done and regrettably didn’t.
People are so used to be kicked about all their lives and being told what to do and what to believe. It would have been wise to truly LISTEN to the people to understand what they want, what their aspirations are, what is is that they would like to see.
These may not necessarily be exactly the same those advised by the economists of Harvard and Singapore National University. Even though it is polite to want to be integrated with the others, the Burmese may not feel inclined to wallow in the decadent world of consumerism which every single academic and commentators are so desperate to shove into their throat.
Interesting to listen to all these academics being delighted about people getting out of poverty. Poverty as they understand in their feeble mind of numbers and statistics. Stiglitz was commissioned by Sarkozy to find measurement of economic performance and social progress, something not quite as good as Bhutan Gross National Happiness index which is ignored by all including one with strong Bhutan connection. All it is said about now is how much money is being made as sole indicator.
Burma imminently going down that money road to the delight of academics and economists will forever be regarded as a true tragedy for she was a remarkably beautiful country in appearance and conduct.
Please do not punish New Mandala’s readers for an un intended slight from me that I will be happy to retract. Actually, I had only intended for the first and last sentences in my comment to be directed at you.
The middle part was really intended to help perpetuate the internet best practice of linking to easily linkable sources, which I do think is a great thing to do. So with that said, please accept the text below as a replacement for my offending comment above:
Roger,
Would you please post a link to the Youtube video?
taxirubjang # 3. That’s right. With the acceptance of a pardon in the implicit acceptance of guilt. Though in Thailand I am sure there is still the magic reality where one can happen without the other. Hell yeah! Release a few birds and a few months in a monastery and any amount of mass murder and massive corruption is washed away. Ah the land of smiles.
Srithanonchai, we learned not to conduct arguments in this way when we were in school. You are gnawing away at what you like to imagine Simon is saying, rather than engaging with what he is actually saying. It’s pettiness like this that has turned things farcical, where there was once a recognisable academic debate.
#3 Taxirubjang
“We appreciate a man who surrender and feel guilty for what he has done.”
So are you saying that he should feel guilty for winning the election, and get ousted by the undemocratic coup, and serves the jail sentence for winning the election? Because if you are going to say he is guilty due to that land deal, I’d say the judgment is BS. Conflict of interest (if any) would result in the deal being cancelled, nothing more, as it is a civil matter. Not to say that the Justice system in Thailand is rotten to the core anyway.
So tell me please, why do you think he should feel guilty and serve jail sentence for winning the election?
Do you invest in the stock market. (KLSE) Please take the monday stock section of the “Star” newspaper and have a look at the top 100 companies listed on the KLSE. 18 out of the top 20 are “GLCs” or Malay owned / controlled. If you would just add up the valuation, you will find that they account for more than 75% of the KLSE capitalisation.
Please visit any 5 star hotel during lunch or dinner time. The patrons are mainly “Malays” Visit “premier” golf courses like KLGCC / Tropicana / the Mines. Members and patrons are mainly “Malays” These clubs even have special “drivers / body guards” rooms and waiting areas. Meanwhile the non malays are playing golf in cheap clubs and courses, buying AGS cards for low expense golf etc
You have been seriously conned by UMNO. Related Malay elites and cronies are the true “wealth” holders in Malaysia NOT the Chinese / Indians. The seemingly “Chinese” wealth is an illusion caused by the concentration of Chinese in the cities. A large percentage are small business people or trades people, thus making them more visible. That is all
This book and review are so excellent. They provide a high-level framework for thinking about issues that touch every person’s daily life in rural areas as well as big cities. To the central concepts of exclusion and access, I would add encroachment on and policing of property rights and that includes the rights to the commons and I will explain why.
Take for instance different attitudes towards the use of the commons of sidewalks and roadways in Thailand and the Philippines (as well as more broadly land use/business licensing restrictions). Thailand is much more liberal in allowing vendors of every variety operating on sidewalks as well as allowing motorcycle taxis to use sidewalks as thoroughfares however this laissez faire unpoliced approach of granting unlimited access also effectively excludes other groups to access such as pedestrians. Unlimited access can thus be seen as encroachment. Take for instance the stretch of sidewalk on Phra Ram IV leading up to the Queen Sirikit subway station, home to a wet market and the chicken slaughter house of Klong Toey market (potential Avian Flu vector and biosecurity threat?). Under a Thaksin Hernando de Soto-inspired give-poor-vendors-property-rights scheme, where would the sidewalk be relocated to? I would assume that under the port authority redevelopment scheme (scrapped after a mini landlord-tenant-security guard war that ran parallel to the red-shirt/yellow shirt conflict, the poor vendors side encroaching upon the street for a year with their ironically yellow shirt protest camp) under the port authority redevelopment scheme the sidewalk would probably have been restored to its proper function (at least in a universe in which platonic ideals are accurately projected onto the cave wall) as a sidewalk for pedestrians to walk on though probably excluding poor vendors from its alternative wet market/slaughterhouse use.
This volume also seems promising as providing much needed background and context to the daily news. This passage is so evocative of the recent forestry crackdown in Thailand (which actually just brushed the surface according to my knowledge of property rights in rural Chiang Rai, for example): “Different powers can overlap in practice (consider, for example, military-backed conservation projects with exclusionary effects), and the same powers can be employed by multiple actors.” (I recorded your review to MP3 for personal aural rereading over and over again, better than any book or article I have on this subject. So much to mine here. Thanks) 🙂
It’s a ridiculous if he could ask for a a royal pardon without getting any punishment or never ever been in a prison? I hardly believe it can happen, I’d rather think he still have to fight with the justice system but in a way more VIP.
His solely solution is ‘fighting with justice system’
We appreciate a man who surrender and feel guilty for what he has done.
Am I the only person on New Mandala who believes that a deal will definitely be reached among serious royalists, democrats and Thaksin?
Why would we still think it is necessary for the military or democrats or royalists to block his return? The past 6 years have proved that no single faction of political power can secure an absolute domination any more. This is not a time of Sarit or Prem, not a time of Prince Dhani, and not a time of Thaksin.
No Red Shirt hype, but this reporter here [me] who was at the scene thinks that 30 000 is a good estimate of the crowd. About 50 000 chairs were prepared at the stage area, and far more than half were occupied. This also correspondents to my sources in the Thai intelligence apparatus, who estimated the same number from the departures at the border checkpoints.
I plan to do a little story on this event here, and you can see then images of the crowd.
A royal pardon is an interesting scenario, potentially the smoothest path toward a return. I could see it happening if some serious back-room deals are done on a whole raft of issues. However, I am dubious that the opposing forces would really allow such a move. Interesting times we live in.
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When Thaksin comes home
There shouldn’t be any doubt Thaksin will return to Thailand; the only questions are when, how, and what happens afterward.
As an aside, facts are stubborn things; more people have been murdered while performing “I did it my Way” than all other Karaoke songs combined.
… and that’s the way it is.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
“Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”
H. Kissenger
Kachin State: Don’t mention the war
Charles F.
“When I asked if any foreign volunteers were assisting the Kachin,”
http://www.mizzima.com/gallery/photo-essay/6949-pictures-of-the-un-convoy-to-kachin-state.html
Wrong kind of foreign volunteers?
Slip showing.
Foreigners like yourself has made eastern Myanmar what it is. Trying to start one in the west now?
How about becoming a good foreigner that favor negotiation ?
@#2
Myanmar will always be a predominantly Buddhist country.
Kachin state must always be a part of Myanmar.
This conflict is mainly over exploiting the resources in Kacin State.
Negotiation has fallen by the wayside due to the West useless careless policy.
Let us neither bring religion nor ethnic differences.
Such divisions play right into the hands of this military government as well as those who do not care over all anything what-so-ever about the rest of the Citizenry of Myanmar well being.
@#3
The unspeakable suffering among the Citizenry within Myanmar is universal 2┬║ to this present government policy with assist from the West under DASSK name.
Until one of these tripartite change their idiocy the Citizenry as a whole must stick together.
Otherwise any one of these 3 parties will exploit to their own advantages without regards for the humanity within.
Questions for Abhisit Vejjajiva
re #49 A Littlebird.
“combined registered capital of 34 billion baht”…? Small beer, I’d say. It wouldn’t even come close to paying of the 46 billion confiscated from Thaksin.
Questions for Abhisit Vejjajiva
If Yingluck is unable to keep her twitter account safe and thus unable to properly protect the country, what are you doing to ensure the safety of your own twitter account?
Funny enough, with reference to Yingluck’s ability, this question was asked to (and by) Chulalongkorn University students in an inter-faculty night late last year.
When Thaksin comes home
[…] And finally, for more analysis of what might happen if the controversial ex-PM were to return, see this New Mandala post: “When Thaksin Comes Home” […]
Internationalising the Kachin war
Genocide of Kachin is NEVER going to happen because Min Aung Hlaing and his Chinese, Russian and Sri Lanka masters are no match for the Kachin. Keeping the honourable Burmese Military tradition, every time they get killed, they go around to torture defenceless villagers and rape the girls and kill them valiantly afterwards. If Aung San Suu Kyi has some opinion on these apart from the high school essay of we all should be peaceful stuff, it is not apparent.
The international community has been in economic doldrums ever since the mortgage crisis. Current bailout of Greece which is still in trouble is only part of Eurozone crisis. Everyone is itching to get in Burma for resources, cheap labour, sex industry and integration of Pan Asian economy which in economic terms will benefit the whole region and may head off this particular global economic crisis with new consumer market and new resource and energy production until this one runs out as well.
But led by a group of American Senators/ congressmen who have been steadfast in keeping the sanctions for noble purpose of truly helping the oppressed, no one was going to start this disgraceful carpet bagger rush until it was unexpectedly and suddenly triggered after that fateful 18th August 2011 “Family Dinner” with Aung San Suu Kyi coming out effusively praising and endorsing the fake President who all we all know is there by the grace of Than Shwe and is materializing the well planned calculated opening to get the best of both worlds for themselves.
Advised by the Chinese and the equally vision less and wicked ASEAN buddies and some American Nobel Prize winners, the military must be feeling so smug that they have sold of public assets to themselves and their foreign partners with financial gains with a prospect of multi fold more to come after the most inane “Investment Law” which will be enacted by the Parliament , the same parliament which is silent at best / more likely ordered killing of the large number of Kachins with guaranteed blankets for the survivors.
A large number of people have written recently and given interviews like the ones by Roland Watson, by Elliot Presse-Freeman, etc. of the need for orderly social development and education BEFORE indiscriminate destruction of the irreplaceable natural resources and (something no one mentioned) of the destruction of social fabric and millennium long traditional culture which cannot be regained.
The moral decay is already setting in the country and is accelerating. As a leader with moral authority it is more important for Aung San Suu Kyi to point out the importance of upholding the moral value and restraining the greed rather than encouraging people to get to be like Singapore in short time. Leading the ASEAN! What do we lead and why do we have to lead whatever for? Ta lwe sabin kaung!
Recent reminder of necessity for restraint in religious affair is the very sort of thing she should do and she did. But there are others which she could have done and regrettably didn’t.
People are so used to be kicked about all their lives and being told what to do and what to believe. It would have been wise to truly LISTEN to the people to understand what they want, what their aspirations are, what is is that they would like to see.
These may not necessarily be exactly the same those advised by the economists of Harvard and Singapore National University. Even though it is polite to want to be integrated with the others, the Burmese may not feel inclined to wallow in the decadent world of consumerism which every single academic and commentators are so desperate to shove into their throat.
Interesting to listen to all these academics being delighted about people getting out of poverty. Poverty as they understand in their feeble mind of numbers and statistics. Stiglitz was commissioned by Sarkozy to find measurement of economic performance and social progress, something not quite as good as Bhutan Gross National Happiness index which is ignored by all including one with strong Bhutan connection. All it is said about now is how much money is being made as sole indicator.
Burma imminently going down that money road to the delight of academics and economists will forever be regarded as a true tragedy for she was a remarkably beautiful country in appearance and conduct.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Alex:
I agree with Simon that some statements merely makes one “*Yawn*” (#36).
Questions for Abhisit Vejjajiva
Roger,
Please do not punish New Mandala’s readers for an un intended slight from me that I will be happy to retract. Actually, I had only intended for the first and last sentences in my comment to be directed at you.
The middle part was really intended to help perpetuate the internet best practice of linking to easily linkable sources, which I do think is a great thing to do. So with that said, please accept the text below as a replacement for my offending comment above:
Roger,
Would you please post a link to the Youtube video?
It sounds particularly interesting.
Thanks.
Royal pardon for Thaksin? Or coup for the king?
taxirubjang # 3. That’s right. With the acceptance of a pardon in the implicit acceptance of guilt. Though in Thailand I am sure there is still the magic reality where one can happen without the other. Hell yeah! Release a few birds and a few months in a monastery and any amount of mass murder and massive corruption is washed away. Ah the land of smiles.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Srithanonchai, we learned not to conduct arguments in this way when we were in school. You are gnawing away at what you like to imagine Simon is saying, rather than engaging with what he is actually saying. It’s pettiness like this that has turned things farcical, where there was once a recognisable academic debate.
Royal pardon for Thaksin? Or coup for the king?
#3 Taxirubjang
“We appreciate a man who surrender and feel guilty for what he has done.”
So are you saying that he should feel guilty for winning the election, and get ousted by the undemocratic coup, and serves the jail sentence for winning the election? Because if you are going to say he is guilty due to that land deal, I’d say the judgment is BS. Conflict of interest (if any) would result in the deal being cancelled, nothing more, as it is a civil matter. Not to say that the Justice system in Thailand is rotten to the core anyway.
So tell me please, why do you think he should feel guilty and serve jail sentence for winning the election?
Race-based ideology and Islam: The Malaysian enigma
Malay #20
Do you invest in the stock market. (KLSE) Please take the monday stock section of the “Star” newspaper and have a look at the top 100 companies listed on the KLSE. 18 out of the top 20 are “GLCs” or Malay owned / controlled. If you would just add up the valuation, you will find that they account for more than 75% of the KLSE capitalisation.
Please visit any 5 star hotel during lunch or dinner time. The patrons are mainly “Malays” Visit “premier” golf courses like KLGCC / Tropicana / the Mines. Members and patrons are mainly “Malays” These clubs even have special “drivers / body guards” rooms and waiting areas. Meanwhile the non malays are playing golf in cheap clubs and courses, buying AGS cards for low expense golf etc
You have been seriously conned by UMNO. Related Malay elites and cronies are the true “wealth” holders in Malaysia NOT the Chinese / Indians. The seemingly “Chinese” wealth is an illusion caused by the concentration of Chinese in the cities. A large percentage are small business people or trades people, thus making them more visible. That is all
Review of Powers of Exclusion
This book and review are so excellent. They provide a high-level framework for thinking about issues that touch every person’s daily life in rural areas as well as big cities. To the central concepts of exclusion and access, I would add encroachment on and policing of property rights and that includes the rights to the commons and I will explain why.
Take for instance different attitudes towards the use of the commons of sidewalks and roadways in Thailand and the Philippines (as well as more broadly land use/business licensing restrictions). Thailand is much more liberal in allowing vendors of every variety operating on sidewalks as well as allowing motorcycle taxis to use sidewalks as thoroughfares however this laissez faire unpoliced approach of granting unlimited access also effectively excludes other groups to access such as pedestrians. Unlimited access can thus be seen as encroachment. Take for instance the stretch of sidewalk on Phra Ram IV leading up to the Queen Sirikit subway station, home to a wet market and the chicken slaughter house of Klong Toey market (potential Avian Flu vector and biosecurity threat?). Under a Thaksin Hernando de Soto-inspired give-poor-vendors-property-rights scheme, where would the sidewalk be relocated to? I would assume that under the port authority redevelopment scheme (scrapped after a mini landlord-tenant-security guard war that ran parallel to the red-shirt/yellow shirt conflict, the poor vendors side encroaching upon the street for a year with their ironically yellow shirt protest camp) under the port authority redevelopment scheme the sidewalk would probably have been restored to its proper function (at least in a universe in which platonic ideals are accurately projected onto the cave wall) as a sidewalk for pedestrians to walk on though probably excluding poor vendors from its alternative wet market/slaughterhouse use.
This volume also seems promising as providing much needed background and context to the daily news. This passage is so evocative of the recent forestry crackdown in Thailand (which actually just brushed the surface according to my knowledge of property rights in rural Chiang Rai, for example): “Different powers can overlap in practice (consider, for example, military-backed conservation projects with exclusionary effects), and the same powers can be employed by multiple actors.” (I recorded your review to MP3 for personal aural rereading over and over again, better than any book or article I have on this subject. So much to mine here. Thanks) 🙂
Royal pardon for Thaksin? Or coup for the king?
It’s a ridiculous if he could ask for a a royal pardon without getting any punishment or never ever been in a prison? I hardly believe it can happen, I’d rather think he still have to fight with the justice system but in a way more VIP.
His solely solution is ‘fighting with justice system’
We appreciate a man who surrender and feel guilty for what he has done.
Royal pardon for Thaksin? Or coup for the king?
Am I the only person on New Mandala who believes that a deal will definitely be reached among serious royalists, democrats and Thaksin?
Why would we still think it is necessary for the military or democrats or royalists to block his return? The past 6 years have proved that no single faction of political power can secure an absolute domination any more. This is not a time of Sarit or Prem, not a time of Prince Dhani, and not a time of Thaksin.
When Thaksin comes home
“Jon Wright”:
No Red Shirt hype, but this reporter here [me] who was at the scene thinks that 30 000 is a good estimate of the crowd. About 50 000 chairs were prepared at the stage area, and far more than half were occupied. This also correspondents to my sources in the Thai intelligence apparatus, who estimated the same number from the departures at the border checkpoints.
I plan to do a little story on this event here, and you can see then images of the crowd.
Royal pardon for Thaksin? Or coup for the king?
A royal pardon is an interesting scenario, potentially the smoothest path toward a return. I could see it happening if some serious back-room deals are done on a whole raft of issues. However, I am dubious that the opposing forces would really allow such a move. Interesting times we live in.
Questions for Abhisit Vejjajiva
Roger (c39) – I’d also welcome a link to the video you have in mind.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Simon
Can’t help wondering why you are so defensive.