Comments

Nich

Thanks for the on site report!

The fact that you can still be in Myanmar and report first hand on the cultural gems speaks loudly of some important facts that most New Mandala chose to ignore.
How long before these facts become historical nonplus will depend on how fast Myanmar become DPRK like.

Aung Zaw’s piece was originally published in the Wall Street Journal and subsequently in Irrawaddy. I do not belong to the aid humanitarian community but know some background here. Actually, my first reaction was disbelieve that Aung Zaw embarked on such a pathetic whining discourse presenting himself as a victim of shifting donor objectives, instead to face the reality and take responsibility.
Most outrageous is how AZ evokes the high principles of journalism and the Irrawaddy as the last bastion of truth against junta propaganda while presenting the donors as political opportunists who bought “ into the junta’s line.” He thus denies the reader the complete story behind the withdrawal of the donor money, which is much more banal and unflattering and has nothing to do with a “neolib” conspiracy crap as a former commentator suggests. It has also not much to do with the truth telling of a last standing revolutionary (AZ) or martyrdom although the editor obviously made this his official narrative.
Aung Zaw would have gained much respect as journalist if he would have mentioned that there was some squandering of money and mismanagement, ( not to mention hubris and arrogance) that finally led to the decision of the donors to withdraw the money. Why should Danish taxpayers pay for incompetency and arrogance?
And after all, there are many other sources and citizen journalists in Burma who provide us with the truth on Burma.

still dont know what the comments were about so I cannot say whether they were defamatory or not. Usually if they are not defamatory the case will not be forwarded to a prosecutor unless there is something fishy. I presume you must have a good lawyer already. Have you tried contacting Watanasak? I interviewed him a couple of years ago for an article and he seemed very friendly and intelligent unlike most officers – I reckon a simple chat would end the matter peacefully.

The Lao government seem to be selling the country to the Chinese and Vietnamese.

A glimpse of Boten, Golden Triangle special zones in Laos

The Laotian government has attached great importance to the development of the special economic zone, and signed in October 2010 a government order. Under the plan, Laos is expected to build 10 special economic zones nationwide in line with the experience in both China and Vietnam and in compliance with its own characteristics.

Moreover, Laos has also established its State Economic Special Zone Committee with its deputy prime minister taking the post of director of the committee and leading officials of the Investment Department, Finance Department, the Public Security Department, Culture Department and other government departments as committee members.

In line with the development agreement, the Lao government has granted the entire special zones tax-free, preferential policies by means of solely collecting a small sum of ground lease fees from investors, and sent two administrative agencies or committees to join in the special zone administration.

Furthermore, the special committee has been working to draft the preferential policies. However, the management of the special zone calls for a further improvement of the administrative rules and regulation and, in the meanwhile, a set of codes and regulations also needs to be established in varied trades and professions, Huang Yuandong acknowledged.

Apparently they were not offending enough to warrant notice to me to edit or remove the comments. This is the crux of my argument to the police – useless – that they should have dismissed the complaint up front because it is either defamatory or not, and if so, then the offended parties had a primary responsibility to notify me when they saw the comments and demand or request editing, etc. Instead as police tell me Khan filed within 24 hours of seeing them and Wattanasak filed about three months later because he was “busy.” In either case, the subsequent investigations went on for over a year without anyone so notifying me. Even an imbecile should be able to sort out the incongruity – but police seem to have ignored this point as seemingly have the two complainers. In addition to this, the prosecutor seems to have been pleased to hear me admit to posting material online although he has never shown me what material it was. The sheer lack of standards, logic, appropriate investigation and presence of malice and fraud is disappointing in the extreme. No wonder they will never find out the truth about Somchai Neelaphaijit. A criminal justice system that begins with injustice can never…ever produce a meaningful level of justice. I am ot opposed to the proposal that The Royal Thai Police need to be reorganized, first put under the Justice Ministry, but also broken up into provincial units and the national organization disbanded. It would also not hurt to have the multitude of unjust cases they have pursued investigated and officers brought to task for what they have or have not done. But we merely dream…

Octavian (32). I wouldn’t be too outraged about the presence in Thailand of those who are against justice. It isn’t possible to support both a patronage hierarchy and the rule of just laws. Anybody who draws attention to this is answered with something like, “How could you possibly understand? You are either not Thai, or you are an importer of concepts that are undermining our culture.” The answer for them, is that patronage hierarchies, which are found fully developed in troupes of monkeys or packs of dogs, are about power, not culture. In fact they threaten every culture.

Strange, I wonder what the offending comments might have been – were they defamatory? Has the issue been resolved yet? Do you need a lawyer

I met 3 Thais working for the UN Police when I was there lasy year.
2 of them were women.

By the way, UN/NGO staff seem to make way too much many there.

Ko Aung Zaw will always be a PATRIOT

Willing to deal with the devils for the sake of the People is an ultimate necessary trait of a patriot.

As the founder of The Irrawaddy, he made a deal with the devil.

Instead of “For the Citizenry benefit only ” he align TI with the “The absolutely anti SPDC ‘No Matter What’ crowd”.

The deal:

1)Toeing the westerner policy of vilifying SPDC and near saint hood elevation of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi @ every turn.
2) Trivialize or outright ignoring SANCTION of any kind effecting the most vulnerable Citizenry of Myanmar more than the intended SPDC and its cronies.

In return for the financial support from Soros et al ,other profiteering western institutions/expats and western government whose acknowledgment of Myanmar do not go beyond the paradigm of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s purported embodiment of DEMOCRACY vs TRULY atrocious SPDC.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer as bankable due to her continuing intransigence as in SPDC proven knavery.
2) The original advocates of anti SPDC NMW such as Turnell et Al being proven to be charlatans as well as expat and western institutions that rely on litigation and governmental funding going no where!

Ko Aung Zaw must return to being a true PATRIOT on behalf of the Citizenry in dealing with the devil within and without in stead of lamenting the unintended result of his past 3 decades of wasted effort.