Australia: Diplomacy: Australia backs Southeast Asia pressure on Myanmar (Burma)

Check out how the Aussies are leading the way in the Western critique of Burma's Buddhist genocidal general bullies (the gen-gen bullyboys of Rangoon). At last, some democratic state-power has come forward to maintain a focus in this particular cesspool of a dictatorship, one among the world's many.

The Aussies are backing up their press releases with at least strong diplomacy to bring China and India into the coalition to pressure the Buddho-Generals to begin the process of democratization.

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UPDATE, December 17, 2005:

UN stages rare Burma discussion
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At the same time, of coure, the Aussies are trying to damp down a race war in their own country among some "MiddleEasterns" aka "Lebanese," and on the other side, massively opposed by some "Whites," young males mostly all around. Australia's internal bloodshed. Echoes of France's riots, so recent. The French images with lots of fire and burning cars, but few deaths, has been translated in Australia's media as absorbed by the a sector of "White young males," sociologically speaking; "testosteroni's," psychologically speaking.

Simultaneous: the Prime Minister, John Howard, keeps Australian troops active in both Afghanistan and Iraq, where democracy has taken another giant step forward - this very day! Cross your fingers, say your prayers.

It seems that Howard has adopted the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy globally, especially where repression is strongest, where genocide is the rule rather than the exception. Along those lines, it is important to note that yesterday or so, the Bush Doctrine was accompied by a Rumsfeld Doctrine, expanding the Bush Doctrine to redefine the mandate of the USA's Armed Forces. The task of "nation-buidling" will henceforth be integrated into the mandate of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Air Force - most of which is the straitforward "deployment of weaponry and its use."

The US military, as this plan is put in place (amidst the ongoing tasks of nation-building that are going on now in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not as shrewdly as necessary), already is in the nation-building business. Now, it's official, policy papers can be produced, all sorts of people can come to Congressional Committees, and the military can now be held responsible of its sucess and failure in actual projects of nation-building. Australia helps us to see that Burma will need to get crackin, or find itself subject to sanctions - until the democratization process is clear and obvious to all, in substance, not simply appearances and cosmetic adjustments.

Burma has elected a parliamentary government; and yet the country's Prime Minister, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, still under house-arrest after all these years, it seems. Keeping that world-famous properly-elected Prime Minister under house arrest and the Parliament inactive, has implications too for Burma's relatively small Christian communities. While repressing the authentic Buddhist laity active conscientiously in democratic peaceful politics, the badboy Buddho-Generals are also trying to kill off the independent Christian communities that are meeting in homes and humble meeting places. At present they are being repressed and are suffering much." What could Aung San Suu Kyi, were she freed and restored to leadership, what could she mean for relief from the present burdens carried by the Christian minority too?

Myanmar / Burma needs democracy - and could they please have a vote to decide which name they really want to adopt. I always have liked "Burma," myself. I guess I have my own private Burma, housed in l'imaginaire, le mien, the sector/s of my brain where imaginings are fostered in the glue of all spheres of everyday life. That's one Burma, lush, wet, green, Rangoon a network of canals with lots of small boat travel. I guess it got this sense of the country from books, magazines, movies, and TV. The old media.

And then there's the Burma that Australia, China, and India may be able to nudge toward democratization - pretty dang fast! - Politicarp