Million Dollar Solution from The Million Dollar Minister.
Soldiers have began firing their rifles. This is going to get real ugly real quick. Anyone hoping for the impotent entity that is Asean to try and do anything beyond issuing empty statements is out of their minds.
When asked what would Asean do if the military dickheads junta becomes increasingly repressive, here’s what George Yeo, the man with the million dollar salary has to say-
“If national reconciliation is not possible and there is repression and violence where many people die, then it is a new situation all over again. Asean can issue statements and Asean can shed tears.
But at that point in time, it will be a fight within Myanmar itself.”
In other words, if the bullets starts flying, these guys are pretty much on their own. If Asean couldn’t solve the annual haze problem and forest burning in the last 10 years, in what universe would they be able to stop this bloodshed from happening.
All Asean is good for, is for silly ministers to pat each other on their backs, taking silly pictures holding hands with each other in a silly manner.
This is all what Asean is good for really.
If singapore can activate four riot buses of police in full riot gear because a group of eight anime fans was staging a mock protest with- get this, their action figures (toys), don’t you think George Yeo would start to look pretty ridiculous if he comes out to condemn the Myanmar military dictatorship for supressing the demonstrations.
11 Comments so far
Signing FTAs are more important than anything else. To them, human rights are secondary. Paper tigers.
They issued a statement, but other than that, for something of this magnitude and importance, the response is relatively weak. ASEAN is all about the money, and the improvement of trade. Everything else is seconded to those objectives, unfortunately.
[...] Posted by The Singapore Daily on September 28th, 2007 Burmese Protests – I.Z. Reloaded: The Burma Protests – Singapore Patriot: Singapore-led ASEAN must take immediate, concrete action in Myanmar to prevent bloodshed – Rojak or the melting pot: The Power of Faith, Muzzled – The Online Citizen: TOC condemns violent crackdown on peaceful Burma protesters – Zuco’s Blog: The March of the Sangha The March on Youtube – Warblings Of A Little Bird: Myanmar more democratic than Singapore? – Singapore Patriot: “It’s really bad in Yangon now…please can someone do something for our country” – Readings From A Political Duo-ble: Burmese shrug off military rule – nofearSingapore: Burma’s despotic regime has crossed the line – kelvin quee: Singaporeans – Wear a Red Shirt on Friday for Burma – Insanepolygon: Million Dollar Solution from The Million Dollar Minister – ash’ventures: sign the global petition in support of the Burmese rising – All and Sundry Singapore: Burma, Saffron Revolution, and ASEAN – Sriram Krishnan: Burmese born blogger based in London – Vantan.org: Social media and politics update – HWZ: 2007 anti-government protests in Myanmar [...]
their hands are tied too. asean holds a policy of non-inteference and issuing statements + meeting with condi rice on the drama in UN is as much as they can do. even condi can’t do nuts except say that she’s concerned.
they’ve also sent mr ibrahim, UN representative, to settle the problem. diplomacy should be – and thankfully it is here – the first in a round of conflict resolution.
The non-interference clauses are specially designed for this kind of problems. ASEAN is an association which people comes together, shake hands and drink coffee. Also, for the photo shoots. Everybody in ASEAN know it is a TCSS organisation. Smile here, smile there.
Unless there is WMD in that country. Bush is an expert on that. He can make WMD from thin air.
The “excuse” of non-interference has also been a facade to mask the fact that there is much trade which flows from and to Myanmar to many Asean countries.
After all, surely the eagerness of the members of Asean to see Myanmar join them wasn’t exactly to get another coffee drinking partner, was it?
Hey, we need sand frm Myanmar, right? How’s about sending in all those expensive F-16s and Apache helicopters will Hellfire missiles and take out the military junta? Then we will have a grateful people forever indebted to us, and all the sand we ever need.
The Burmese are really brave. All those bloody crocodile’s tears words. It can’t be much simpler. George Yeo’s statement is just plain simple:
You Die Your Business.
Isn’t this the philosophy they have ditched out to Singaporeans?
abc.net.auI agree with most of you who have commented that ASEAN has proven to be a silly outfit once again. To think time and money is spent for ASEAN meetings where each country’s head shake hands, take pictures and wear coordinated (and mostly hideous) outfits. Superficial social unity (where each country is inherently suspicious of each other) and economics (FTAs) rule the day.
Spanner who commented that (… even condi can’t do nuts except say that she’s concerned…) is only partially true. At least the United States and some other countries have strengthened economic sanctions (whether sanctions are effective is another story altogether). However, what has Singapore done?
Other than issuing a response ‘expressing revulsion’, we should all be aware that Singapore is one of the trading partners of Myanmar (together with China, India, Thailand, Britain and France).
According to these articles,
After Thailand, Myanmar’s other main trading partners were lined up as China with 1.274 billion dollars, Singapore (1.217 billion dollars), India (895 million dollars) and China’s Hong Kong (424 million dollars).
http://english.people.com.cn/200706/01/eng20070601_379983.html
Singapore is the largest investor in Myanmar with over 1.5 billion U.S. dollars having been injected into the country as of now since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, according to Myanmar official statistics. The investment was mainly put into hotels and tourism at the early stage and later expanded to oil and natural gas exploration.
The Myanmar figures also show that Singapore’s bilateral trade with Myanmar amounted to 750.6 million dollars in 2004-05. Of the total, Singapore’s exports to Myanmar was valued at 609 million dollars, while its imports from Myanmar stood at 141.6 million dollars.
http://english.people.com.cn/200607/06/eng20060706_280465.html
For those more interested in numbers/figures, this website is useful (deaix03.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Dp/pdf/116_kudo.pdf)
Anyway, my point is STOP paying lip service. As chair of ASEAN, Singapore should take the lead. The non-interference policy has not worked with more lives being lost in Burma. I’m all for the Aust Manufacturing Workers Union who has suggested that Aust shld cease trade with ASEAN countries. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/28/2045794.htm)
It might not pan out in reality but definitely a suggestion worth a ponder or two. Hope Johnny Howard considers it.
moeyyo.comOUR government is offering help to the junta on our very own soil:
http://www.moeyyo.com/MM/archives/001005.html
GYÂ and LHL look like a pair of depraved Hyeanas. You can’t really trust what they say.