Sunday, December 2, 2007

Friday, November 23, 2007

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Dr. Win Naing's interview with DVB

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Letter to Minister of Health Dr. Kyaw Myint


November 15, 2007

The Honorable Dr Kyaw Myint
Minister of Health
Ministry of Health
Naypyidaw, Myanmar
Email: dmkm@health.gov.mm

Dear Dr Kyaw Myint

We, the Concerned Burmese Physicians and Professionals would like to bring to your attention the following accounts of life in Burma, with particular reference to the health system and its failure to attend to the basic medical needs of the populace.

The conscience of the world was moved by recent events. An editorial in the prestigious British Medical Journal The Lancet (vol. 370, 27 October 2007) pointed to the ailing health system of Burma, which has not coped with the demands placed on it, leaving Burma with a rank of 190th out of 191 nations in health care provision.

The Lancet article expressed concern about the recent disruption of food distribution programs for poor people, orphans and patients with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, etc, as well as the ICRC's suspension from carrying out many field operations, which has impeded the relief work of the Red Cross inside Burma. The editorial went on to state that "military misrule," the root cause of the suffering, was largely responsible for Burma's humanitarian crisis, and that it was man-made, as in Zimbabwe.

It also stressed the urgent need to address the root causes of both the health system failure and the widespread suffering among the people, as well as the necessity to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those in the most desperate need by preventing it from being siphoned off.
The following account, which we received from sources inside Burma in recent weeks, gives a true representation of the suffering of the great majority of the Burmese people: “The people are suffering grievously. Prices of food and bare essentials continue to rise sky-high. There is no adequate medical treatment for the sick. Unless you have money you cannot get treatment at all. If you can get into a general hospital you have to supply even cotton wool when necessary. Even in emergencies requiring blood transfusion, relatives are needed to seek the assistance of compatible donors through the black market and to offer high prices to ensure an adequate supply,just as in an auction. A relatively high percentage of the population is affected by beriberi, including children and monks.”

As a concerned Burmese physician and professional group, we call upon you and the government of Burma to allow the ICRC or the UN to monitor the distribution of aid to the most needy people of Burma and to rectify the ailing health care system by investing a larger proportion of GDP in it, implementing a more efficient health system, in which all donors’ blood are appropriately screened for HIV & HepA,B,C and patients are not required to supply their own bandages and cotton wool or to bid for blood supplies.
We also call upon the government to allow the ICRC to see political detainees and provide necessary assistance.

Yours sincerely

Dr Raymond Tint Way, MB BS, MM, FRANZCP
Consultant Psychiatrist & Member of CBPP
Suite 7, 83 George St, Parramatta, NSW 2150,Australia.
Ph: 61 2 96335155 Fx: 61 2 96335166 Mobile: 0416220208
Email: jostint@hotmail.com


BBC interview by Dr. Ko Ko Lay

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Monday, October 22, 2007

Statement regarding arrests of innocent family members (7/2007)

Concerned Burmese Physicians and Professionals Statement regarding arrests of innocent family members ( 7/2007)

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We, the Concerned Burmese Physicians and Professionals are saddened and outraged to learn that SPDC continues its practice of holding activists' families hostage. This is in blatant disregard for basic human rights and international norms. Those continued arrests, especially arrests of innocent family members, torture of detainees and denial of medical access for detainees reflect SPDC's lack of respect of international pleas. Those acts also reaffirm the world community's suspicion that SPDC has no sincere desire for genuine dialogue and national reconciliation.

We call upon SPDC to take the following steps unequivocally to start a genuine dialogue and national reconciliation.

1. Immediately release all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
2. Stop arrests and torture of detainees.
3. Allow detainees immediate access to medical care.
4. Grant international human rights groups and family members access to detainees.

We also ask international human rights groups to continue their efforts to help those in detention and we stand by ready to assist in anyway we can.

We will continue to push for United Nations' brokered mediation as well as bilateral and multilateral actions by the United States and its allies until our goals are met.

We again strongly pledge our continued commitment and support for our people's struggle for freedom and national reconciliation.

Concerned Burmese Physicians and Professionals
http://cmpp-burma.blogspot.com/
October 22, 2007

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Invictus


B E L I E V E !


B E L I E V E !
For freedom Burmese people cry.
" So do I "
For food Burmese people cry.
" So do I "
For families Burmese people cry.
" So do I "
For friends Burmese people cry.
" So do I "
From fear Burmese people fly."
So do I
"Said a little caged bird not yet in the sky,"
I believe, perhaps one day, all will be free ".
Said the Burmese people, " So do we "
kklay20/10/2007

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Article published in a US newspaper by a concerned Burmese physician


CURRENT HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN MYANMAR NEEDS YOUR HELP


Recently, some of us may have noticed the disturbing news from Myanmar (formerly Burma) both in this paper and the national news media. Being a native of that country, I would like to inform the readers about the current crisis with a special appeal for help particularly from our elected officials.

For 19 years, Myanmar has been ruled by the world's most repressive military regime, after it brutally crushed a popular democratic uprising in 1988 when 3,000 people were killed, thousands imprisoned and many ran away to border areas as refugees or freedom fighters hoping to start an armed struggle against the military. Instead they were outmatched by the well equipped Myanmar army. For the last twelve years the Generals also have kept the democratic opposition leader Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, who had won the noble peace prize in 1991 for her unarmed struggle, under house arrest. Her party won the elections in 1990, the results of which were ignored by the military junta. Many concerned and well meaning countries lead by the USA had condemned the military regimen repeatedly and applied economic sanctions in the past and present.

With this background, many a time I had been asked by puzzled friends in the West. How come, the military remains in power when even the Berlin wall had fallen? And why doesn’t the population of 48 millions rises up against the 450,000 man strong military?

The first question as to why the regime survives despite the sanctions is simply because there are other nations that don’t impose sanctions, but encourage trade including sales of arms. In return they were able to buy natural resources from Burma at cheap prices through deals offered by junta led companies. Myanmar is their economic colony. The country at the top of this list is China followed by the neighboring ASEAN countries. That’s how the Military regime has avoided economic collapse but it is at the expense of the country and its citizens because it is becoming one of the poorest nations of the world, instead of the rising star it was in Southeast Asia some 60 years ago.

Events that had taken place in the last two weeks should have answered the second question as to why many prior uprisings failed. It is because, the military doesn’t hesitate a minute to shoot the peaceful unarmed demonstrators. They don’t operate under the norms that you and I understand. This time that barbaric act is more obvious when they did not hesitate to kill even the highly revered Buddhists monks who initiated the “saffron revolution” two weeks ago. Pictures of blood shed were all over the news lately. That should also put to rest some of the misconception in the West that this predominantly Buddhist nation discriminate against people of the other faiths. It is the ruthless military regimen which suppresses any individual of any faith including their own Buddhist monks as soon as one starts demanding for freedom, human rights and democracy. Earlier this week, President Bush condemned the military’s action in Burma demanding to stop the killing of unarmed protesters. He and the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown led an effort to place this matter on the agenda for discussion at the United Nations Security Council. But to no one's surprise of those who follow the Myanmar news in the last two decades that motion was vetoed by the two other permanent members of the UNSC, China and Russia, as usual. The international community is back to the helpless state again like it had been in the last 19 years.

But now, you as a conscientious human being or a friend of the Myanmar citizens can help. China is the country with most influence on the current military junta. As an emerging power and a global citizen, it should do the right thing by prevailing upon the military junta to stop the ongoing violence against its own people. It should firmly urge the junta to start working for the national reconciliation and dialogue with the imprisoned political activists including Aung San Suu Kyi which should lead to a free civil society and a democratically elected government in Burma. Otherwise its reputation as a good global citizen is at risk especially just a year before it intends to be the friendly, modern and welcoming host of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Please write letters and petition to the Chinese government and its citizens to facilitate this process by pulling the plug on the Myanmar military. Otherwise calls for boycotting the 2008 Olympics may become inevitable. Though we generally discourage using sports to win political objectives, dire events call for dire actions and the Myanmar people are in dire strait at present. Please help them. This is their only chance to make a difference after many prior failures played to the same old playbook.

Dr T.N. Oo.

Burma Buddhists and Bad Kings


Burma Buddhists and Bad Kings

Anawrahta established the first unified Burma
He succeeded by propagating Buddhism by Theravada
He needed the Tipitaka to standardize Sasana
King Manuha denied Anarahta’s request
He was duly dethroned and detested.

King Narathu killed his father Alaungsithu by suffocation
Murdered his brother Min Shin Saw by poisoning
Insulted the monks by lying
Pantthaku Mahathera admonished him
Narathu was beheaded by the Sri Lankese king
(Hence he is known as the “Kalakya Min”.)

King Shwe Nan Kyawt Shin was dethroned by Mohnyin Shan
Ava was over-run and ransacked by the northern men
Tho Han Bwa was proclaimed as King of Ava by his father
He ruled the country with an iron fist and torture
Men, women and monks suffered thereafter.

Min Gyi Yan Naung came to their rescue
He killed Tho Han Bwa and his men in retinue
By showing Burmese swordsmanship anew
He showed his moral and manual courage true
He renounced the kingship and manhood too.

U Ottama the monk opened the Burmese eyes
To fight for the people’s rights the British denied
He was imprisoned and disrobed
But he resisted and came out still robed
He instilled in the Burmese a hope
They fought for self determination in a ready mode.

U Wisara followed in the U Ottama’s footsteps
He too was arrested
He fought defrocking by fasting
British could not destroy his determination
He died after five months in incarceration
His statue was erected after independence in celebration.

The Japanese Fascists ruled Burma here
They ransacked, raided and raped for three years
They too were anti-Buddhist to be clear
They paid no respects to the Buddhist monks
They were chased out and flunked.

General Ne Win had two faces
One was religious to be seen by the populace
Another was murderous to all men and monks in case
They were opposing his grip on power base.

He tried to unite different sects of monks in Burma
By sponsoring seminars and selecting Sangha Nayakas
He even erected a pagoda by the name of “Wizaya”
But he disrobed and destroyed many Sanghas
He ordered his secret agents to persecute in camera.

Now SPDC is doing the same thing
Befitting the lackeys of Fascists and sons of U Ne Win
They are killing Buddhist monks and destroying
Monasteries, pagodas and Buddhist cultural things
They will certainly end in A-wi-zi hell
Like all anti-Buddhist criminals before them have dwelled.

But, it is a tragedy for the country
As it has lost the religion and democracy
Only political power matters to the SPDC
People have to fight hard and long from this tyranny
Encouraging thing is that most peoples support this struggle
Except the Russian and China double
Victory is with the Sangha and people
The fight will be through!
Hold on, Carry on!

Aesclepius B

Monday, October 15, 2007

Is it time for the doom of Buddhism in Burma?

Dear Members,
I am trying to find the answer and I don't have the intention of disparaging our Buddhism since I think I am a follower with a serious faith. I used to be a traditional Buddhist and recently I am tryingto explore the essence of Buddhism. I thought I did the right thing to believe in our Buddha's teaching.
Usually the starting point of Buddhism is to take refuge in three jewels, namely Buddha, Dhamma, and Sanghas, as everybody knows. Because we believe that by doing this we will be protected from some kind of unforeseeable misfortune. Right now our at least psychological protectors are facing perishment imposed by evil forces. So the inevitable question arises right now is are they really protecting us. Please don't accuse me of Deiti's because I am still deeply believe in our Buddha's teaching and thisis my own decision without anybody's influence and I won't regret bydoing this. But when and if this question arises from more than 50million population, what is the explanation?
We all know that there are five major sins in Buddhism, namely 'Pancanantariya Kamma' and if someone perpetrate one of those acts, he or she will have retribution right away. At this time and age, I am wondering why the punishment is delayed. Will it ever happen in our lifetime? If not then what we learned since we are young are questionable and become dubious. Because those evil, monk-killers are still on the throne and people are thinking of negotiation with those religionless for a better life but ?without the sasana. OurBuddha said, if you jump from a cliff, you will die only once. But if you don't know the dhamma your suffering will be endless in infinite lives. I still strongly believe in our Buddha teaching and I don't want to see our sasana easily disappear and is destroyed by those Deitis . Sanghas are assumed as the sons of Buddha, because they are the carriers of our sasana for more than 2500 years. With their great sacrifices and endless efforts, we can learn the precious teaching of our Buddha and can think of seeing Nirvana in our life time even without personally worshipping or refuging with a live Buddha. Needless to say the Sanghas right now come out for the suffering ofthe people at the same time sacrificing their lives, we should protect our sasana and our eternal benefactors. I would say it is the last battle and we should come out and do something for our religion. We need everybody's effort to bring down the evil regime since we see the evil forces are winning the battle. Everybody please actively participate in our activities before it is too late.
Regards,
Richard
ျမန္မာစာ ေရးသားရန္

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Letter to Mrs. Bush


Dear Mrs. Bush,

We thank President Bush's administration for its strong commitment to Burmese cause for democracy and freedom. We also thank you for taking a personal interest in helping Burma gains freedom. Even though it is encouraging for the United Nations and specifically the Security Council to take a strong interest in Burma, we are genuinely afraid Burmese generals are not sincere and again deploying delaying tactics.

There are daily reports of continued arrests and torture while junta offers dialogue with insincere preconditions. Revered Buddhist monks are still being forcibly disrobed and subjected to torture while the international community waits. In recent news, a prominent '88 generation student leader Ko Htay Kywe and five other student activists were arrested. An NLD member and two student activists died during interrogation. The military continues both daytime and night time raids and enforces a climate of intimidation.

In the past, Burmese generals released a fraction of detainees just to deflect the world's attention and soften a stepped up measures against them. In the end, there were more political prisoners in the junta's jails and torture centers. We are afraid it is happening again. We again do not want to forget about the murder, rape, forced relocation, destruction of villages and pillaging suffered by various ethnic groups for years under the same murderous military regime.

Mrs. Bush, the world must not let Burmese people down again. United States must take a leading role to save those innocent lives. Time is running out for those detainees. They are dying in the regime's torture centers as the United Nations Security Council waits for the next step. The Security Council must demand that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must be freed first in order to start a genuine dialogue and national reconciliation process. All political prisoners also must be freed immediately. The climate of intimidation must be lifted. Concrete actions must be taken if the regime fails to do so.

Burmese monks, students and people have asked for these things during the last peaceful demonstrations, "Will the United States come and help us?" We strongly ask the United States and its allies to consider a strong unilateral action if necessary to save those innocent lives. It is very important at this juncture to show the world that the United States has the political will and plan to take a strong and unilateral action if necessary. Burmese people are with the United States of America and will be grateful for your help.

Concerned Burmese Physicians and Professionals
October 15, 2007.


Thursday, October 11, 2007

Urgent Release (6/2007)

Urgent Release

We, Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals are extremely
concerned with the eye condition of Ko Hla Myo Naung, a recently
arrested 88 generation student leader. We understand that he is
suffering from severe glaucoma and has been suffering severe eye pain.
There is a very good possibility that he will lose eye sight if he
does not receive appropriate treatment immediately.

We request the SPDC to grant him immediate access to proper
medical care based on humanitarian ground.

We also request the international human rights groups, including
ICRC to request SPDC to grant immediate treatment.

We reiterate our call for immediate release of all political
prisoner and access to medical care while being detained.


Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals

October 11, 2007

http://cmpp-burma.blogspot.com/

What is this world regarding Burma?


What is this world regarding Burma?

Monks are supposed to be meditative
Not demonstrative or progressive
But in Burma they led the protest
They sided with the mass on their behest.

Senior-General was born in Kyaukse
From an obscure and obsolete family
But he said he is King Anawrahta reincarnate
He bejeweled his daughter with diamonds in marriage!

ASSK was born of a general
Father of Burma army and all Burmese nationals
However, SPDC depicts her as opponent of the army
What happened to the concept of sincerity and progeny?

Burma was once the richest country in SEA
Plenty of resources for the people to squander
Singapore was just a small island of poor coolies
Now, she is rich and investing in the country!

Lee Kuan Yew taunted the Burmese generals
As being dumb and de-economical
But he was a guru for them
Now he admonishes them for the recent mayhem.

Many Burmese have left the country
Settled in various lands as the adopted country
Some claimed fresh citizenships
They discard Burmese connections as being blemish.

Now monks have given life for the people
So that a democratic government rules
Most Burmese-Americans and the like join
They show their Burmese-ness with smiles.

2007 protest against the SPDC is unique
It is led by the Buddhist clerics
Not for themselves but for the public
How novel and unselfish it is!

Although SPDC has arms and won this time
In that it can still govern and grind
All opposition without reason and rhymes
They lost the people faith and minds.

A new era is evolving
Dawn is coming
World has heard and seen
What happened in Burma has been
Near hell and animal kingdom in between
All Burmese would wish the future gleam
It is free, democratic and pristine.

Aesclepius B








Monday, October 8, 2007

Statement 5/2007


Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals
( Statement 5/2007)

We, the concerned Myanmar physicians and professionals view with cautious optimism, the offer of dialogue made by the military regime. However, the preconditions set for the meeting between Senior General Than Shwe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi call into question the regime's sincerity in making this gesture.

We are also very much concerned about the continuing arrests and night time raids of monasteries and homes taking place in various parts of the country, the conditions of the recent detainees who have not been given access to health care or allowed visits by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) personnel.

We, therefore, strongly urge the SPDC to initiate an immediate dialogue without any prerequisites.


We also call upon the SPDC to show its sincerity for national reconciliation by removing the present climate of intimidation. We demand that SPDC stop immediately
the arrests and night time raids of monasteries and private homes. We further urge the SPDC to grant detainees, access to medical care and visits by ICRC personnel and family members based on humanitarian grounds.


We reiterate our call for unconditional release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, 88 generation student leaders and all remaining political prisoners.


We also call upon SPDC to meet the demands of Sanghas as to show they are true Buddhists and followers of Buddhism.

We take this opportunity to honor and salute the venerable Sangha and people who have sacrificed their lives and freedom for the common good of our people of Burma who have been denied their basic human rights and decent living conditions.

We welcome the UN and international community's commitment to bring positive changes in our country's current crisis and call upon them to continue in their efforts to bring freedom and national reconciliation to Burma.

With this statement, we express our solidarity with Burmese people and strongly pledge our continued commitment and support for our people's struggle for freedom and national reconciliation.


Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals


October 8, 2007.


Friday, October 5, 2007

Victory is Assured


Victory is Assured!

Many people are dismayed and angered
By brutal killings and repressions in Burma
They recommended armed struggle
Protesters fight SPDC in the jungle.

SDC will hear it with glee
They can fight back with spree
They will now use modern arms freely
Until the people vanish eternally.

In 1956, the Hungarian people raised alarms
Fought with rifles, rockets and small arms
To earn democracy and sovereignty
But it was crushed with animosity.

USA fought in Vietnam with huge force
Vietnamese fought back without remorse
But the whole world condemned US invasion
The US army lost the war by public opinion.

So does in the Burmese case
SPDC has already lost the race
Democrats just need to behave
Continue fighting peacefully in their place.

Peaceful means has been accepted
By the leadership of monks and protested
It appears in a news report a few days ago
I take it as a harbinger of hope or so.

Yes, victory is assured for the Burmese people
They would definitely be free of SPDC rule
Gandhi had shown the non-violence success
Mandela has proved it again no less.

Now that Aung San Suu Kyi is in center stage
People need not be afraid
She is taking Gandhi and Mandela image
She will surely lead Burma to achieve greatness.

SPDC chieftain declared he would meet her
Previously he said he won’t meet her ever
This is a sign of their wear and tear
It’s a harbinger of hope for the furtue.
“Rome is not built in a day”
Democracy is not made like hay
It takes longer and has to pay
There is progress anyway.

I see a red star coming out in the east
Harbinger of hope has flown at least
It’s the lady and the beast
We know the lady ultimately succeeds
She will fulfills the people’s needs
That is peace, progress and prosperity indeed.

Aesclepius B

What is the difference?

What is the Difference?

People could speak freely under the British
So they said it was democratic
But any one criticizing British rule was imprisoned
They included U Ottama and U Wisara Thera-wun.

U Wisara was to be disrobed by the jailors
He protested with intense fervor
He fasted for Sangah rights there
He sacrificed his life for ever.

British suppressed all opponents after annexation
They jailed or killed without deliberations
They fired at the crowd in Mandalay
Seventeen monks were killed on that day.

SLORC fired at the crowd in eighty eight in Burma
They killed many monks and laymen there
SPDC also fired at the monks in 2007
They killed many monks in the mayhem.

So, what is the difference between the British and SPDC?
One is the colonialist and another the Burmese army
Many would have said one was alien and another national
But both are the same in the act infernal!

One must oppose any government so brutal
Such as the Burmese one at present so cruel
Whether alien, national, vassal or feudal
We just need democracy at this interval.

Use nonviolent means as the weapon
Rely on the truth as a beacon
Be sincere in your talkathon
Be persevere in your marathon
Then you will succeed in your carry-on.

Aesclepius B

Thursday, October 4, 2007

A poem by a Burmese physician

They know no diplomacy
They know no tact one can see
They have no skills
They were brought up just to kill.

They are full of arrogance
Born of their own ignorance
And ideas of grandiosity
Fill them up with such pomposity

They deem themselves above the law
They deem themselves above religion
On par with god all the more
In their blinkered sighted vision.

They are corrupt in mind
They are corrupt in soul
`The country's ours' they thus opine
`For we're the saviours as a whole'.

Thus has led to the decline and fall
Of our motherland that once stood tall
Ruled by rulers without consent
Loathed by one and all resent.

The time has come for them to go
But onto power they cling on so
With weapons and lies the world they tell
Alas their sins will toll their death knell.

Maximus.


Free Burma!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Struggle for Democracy in Burma Continues


Struggle for Democracy in Burma Continues…

August is a memorable month for Burma
Public protests occur in both eighty eight and O seven
Many people demonstrated and remember
Many protesters were killed or beaten.

Protesters had no firearms
SPDC has so many guns
It was an unequal struggle
The world sees it as a puzzle.

Many Buddhist monks were beaten and killed
Many more were tortured and imprisoned
But their sacrifice and stamina are strong still
People support them with passion.

All Buddhists are indignant with the SPDC
For suppressing the monks without mercy
They were also treated similarly
It is right to fight back with ferocity.

Some may recommend taking up arms
Others may suggest ,“don’t accept alms”
Still there is a way to emigrate
There’re many ways to topple SPDC degenerates.

Mahattama Gandhi had shown us the correct way
To oppose the oppressors in open days
To use peaceful means in all confrontations
So that people win morally in all conflagrations.

Gandhi marched peacefully
British beat, kicked and shot savagely
Still he marched on to his destination
He succeeded after incarceration.

In eighty eight, students went underground
They fought with arms from beyond
But they were not trained to acclaim
SPDC found them easy game.

It’s a mistake to fight an army with arms
“An eye for an eye” will give you harm
Buddha’s way is to fight tormentor with “Meytta”
It is the correct way to conquer everywhere.
So fight hatred with equamnimity
Oppose cruelty with sympathy
Be steadfast in your mission
Continue your commitment with dedication.

Ultimately justice will prevail
No body needs to wail
People must work in unity
They will achieves success, peace and democracy.

Aesclepius B

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Call to Action


We honor and commend all those physicians, nurses and medical and nursing students who provided medical care to those injured peaceful protesters. At the same time, we are deeply saddened by the fact that those peaceful protesters who received injuries and wounds were not allowed to be taken to hospitals immediately. What is more repulsive to us is the news that some of the wounded and injured were cremated alive at Ye Way cemetery.


Therefore, we the Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals strongly condemn SPDC for such inhuman acts of atrocity committed against its own people. As a civilized nation and society, we the People cannot and will not tolerate the rule of atavistic bullies who dare to maim and massacre venerable sangha and unarmed citizens in full view of the world.


Therefore, we emphatically urge our fellow physician, nurses and healthcare professionals to join hands with our venerable Sayadaws and people general strike that will begin on Monday, October 1, 2007.


We also urge fellow members of our professions who are serving in the military to join us in this fight for the future of our People, Sasana and Nation.


Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals


September 30, 2007

ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံလံုးဆိုင္ရာ အေထြေထြသပိတ္ႀကီးတြင္ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ားပါ၀င္ရန္ တိုက္တြန္းခ်က္

ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားကို ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ေပးေနသည့္ ဆရာ၀န္၊ သူနာျပဳမ်ားႏွင့္ ေဆးေက်ာင္းသားမ်ား အတြက္ ကြ်ႏု္ပ္တို႔ ဂုဏ္ယူပါသည္။

တဆက္တည္းမွာပင္ ဒဏ္ရာရဆႏၵျပသူမ်ား အေနျဖင့္ ရန္ကုန္ျပည္သူ႔ေဆးရံုႀကီးသို႔ ခ်က္ခ်င္းသြားေရာက္ခြင့္ မရျခင္းအတြက္ စိတ္မေကာင္းျဖစ္ရပါသည္။ အဆိုးဆံုးမွာ အခ်ိဳ႕ဒဏ္ရာရသူမ်ား ေရေ၀းသုႆန္တြင္ အရွင္လတ္လတ္ သၿဂၤိဳလ္ခံရျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။ ဤသို႔ လူမဆန္ေသာ အျပဳအမူမ်ားကို ႏိုင္ငံတကာေရာက္ ျမန္မာဆရာ၀န္မ်ားႏွင့္ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ားအဖြဲ႔ အေနျဖင့္ အျပင္းထန္ဆံုး ရႈတ္ခ်လိုက္သည္။

တိုင္းျပည္အေနျဖင့္ ေခတ္ေနာက္ျပန္ဆြဲကာ အႏိုင္က်င့္သတ္ျဖတ္မႈမ်ား လႊမ္းမိုးေနရျခင္းကို မည္သို႔မွ်သည္းညည္းမခံႏုိင္ပါ။

ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံတြင္းရွိ ဆရာ၀န္၊ သူနာျပဳ က်န္းမာေရးလုပ္သားမ်ားကို တနလာၤေန႔ (ေအာက္တိုဘာလ ၁ ရက္ေန႔တြင္) စတင္မည့္ အေထြေထြသပိတ္ႀကီးတြင္ ရဟန္းသံဃာျပည္သူအမ်ားႏွင့္ လက္တြဲညီညီ ပါ၀င္ၾကပါရန္ အထူးတိုက္တြန္းလိုက္သည္။

တပ္မေတာ္ေဆး၀န္ထမ္းတပ္တြင္ တာ၀န္ ထမ္းေဆာင္ေနေသာ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ားကိုလည္း ကြ်ႏု္ပ္တို႔ႏွင့္အတူ ပူးေပါင္းပါ၀င္ပါရန္ တိုက္တြန္းလိုက္သည္။

ႏိုင္ငံတကာေရာက္ ဆရာ၀န္မ်ားႏွင့္က်န္းမာေရး ၀န္ထမ္းမ်ားအဖြဲ႔

Friday, September 28, 2007

YGH did not accept WHO donation


ျမန္မာစံေတာ္ခ်ိန္ ၁၅း၅၅

ဒဏ္ရာရသူမ်ား မ်ားျပားသည္ဆုိေသာ သတင္းေၾကာင့္ WHO မွ သြားေရာက္ကာ ေဆးမ်ား လႉဒါန္းသည္ကို လက္မခံဘဲ ျငင္းလႊတ္ေၾကာင္း (WHO ႐ံုးက) ၾကားသိရပါသည္။ ေဆးရံုႀကီးသို႔ ဖုန္းဆက္ ေမးျမန္းေသာအခါ ျပန္လည္ ေျဖၾကားျခင္း မရွိ၊ ျငင္းဆိုျခင္း မရွိဘဲ ဖုန္းကို ခ်သြားပါသည္။ ေဆးရံုႀကီးဝင္းကို စစ္တပ္က ပိတ္ပစ္လိုက္သည္။

Source: MMedWatch

Thursday, September 27, 2007

UN Office Number in Rangoon


THE UN Designated Official in Rangoon has established a 24 hour hotline in case of emergency, especially during curfew hours. 01 554 597 or 01 554 625. Please pass this to all people inside Burma. This is a Rangoon hotline that should be reached immediately

A senior Burmese physician's show of solidarity


The following letter by Prof. U Thein Htut, FRCP, FRACP to the Australian, a news paper here. This was published yesterday, the 27th.

Prof. U Thein Htut is a very senior gastroloenterolgist and is the son of the late Prof. U Min Sein FRCP, Professor of Medicine, and the late Prof. Daw Yin May, FRCS, FRCOG, FRCP, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in the Medical College, University of Rangoon. Both saya's parents were two of the earliest pioneers of medicine in Burma. Prof. Daw Yin May was the first person ever to be elected as Fellow of the three different colleges of UK. She was also the person who diagnosed Amoebic vaginitis, which was originally called May's Disease.

Dear Mr Editor,
The monks in Burma (the Sangha) are called "phongyis" in the Burmese language, meaning "highly revered". Phongyis are treated with the greatest respect by Burmese of all religions. They have forsaken all worldly possessions. They play an essential role in the religious and indeed the social life in Burma. In Theravada Buddhism practiced in Burma, they are one of the Triple Gem: the Buddha, the Buddha's Teachings and the Sangha.
For the phongyis to demonstrate in their tens of thousands is unprecedented. They are unarmed, their aim is one of peace. They reflect the concern for the ongoing suffering of the Burmese people.
Burma has been under a continuing chain of military dictatorships since 1962. Many, many thousands have left the country. The military rulers are essentially thugs. They accept no criticism. These thugs wield absolute power. They are of the same race, culture and religion as the majority of the Burmese. However, because they wear the khaki uniform, they are a class apart. They have benefits in salaries, education and all amenities.
These thugs have continued in power with recognition and support from neighbouring countries, including members of ASEAN. These countries have exploited Burma's vast natural resources. Some may be afraid of Burma's large standing army.
We do not yet know the outcome of the Burmese Sanghas protest marches now supported by the public. It reflects the ongoing suffering of the people.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Thein Htut.

Advice to protesters

Please do not provoke or attack soldiers and police.Do not throw stones or say abusive words to them.Just chant metta sutta and be disciplined all the time.
For public
1) Do not protest separately between monks and public. Make it togehter as monk is one row and public is one row. ie they will openfire to public definately.
2) standby video camera, camera, batteries for video, camera andhandphone, generators, UPS ie they will cut electricity during openfire
3) Open all the doors for temple, mosques, churches, pagodasprotesters can run and hide easily if they need. let army to openfire to temples
For NLD Candidates,
1) Do not wear obviously that you are NLD candidates, ie You are thefirst target to open fire.
2) Do not show signboard that you are selected candidates and mixwith public.
3) Send one group to the place near Aunty Su,'s house to monitor thestatus.
4) Contact to US and UK embassies and UN offcie to monitor the statusand report to their personnels immediately. ie Now UN assembly is inprogress.
For those non-buddhist protesters,
1) do not wear your religious dress during protest ie junta will openfire to non-buddhist first according to 8888 experiences.
2) Open your temple doors for public to run and hide in case,especially, one mosque and one church near city hall need to co-operate.
3) Listen to buddhist monks ie there is no differentiation betweenreligious all are burmese people and we stay at same land.
For foreigners and foreign journalists,
Try to wear burmese dress(trousers better than shorts) and blend in the crowd and conceal cameras and videos.

up date news

hi!
how r u all?i am myanmar the one who protesting for my country.i wanna
tell u about today protesting new.yesterday i was accident when i run
away ,they shoot to the people.so my leg wound is really pain so i
decided not to go out for today but at 2:05pm i heard the news some
monks was killed by army at sulay pagoda so i put some medicine at my
wound after that i follow to sulay pagoda at theingyi zay and
lathar township when i arrived there some of novice and monks was got
shoot by army so some people take them away .so most of the people
were looking at to there bad way so there have most of young students
were start to protest along the way anawyathar street ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေပးတဲ့
စစ္ပညာ >>>> ျပည္သူေတြကို သတ္ဖို႔မဟုတ္ဘူး ။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေပးတဲ့ စစ္ပညာ
>>>> ဘုန္းႀကီးေတြကို သတ္ဖို႔မဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုၿပီး ေအာ္ဟစ္ ဆႏၵျပေနၾကပါၿပီ
at the time most of the people singing our national sound .all the
people follow to our student group.when we arrive sanpya our protest
group when over 200,000 and most of the side people follow to us so
our group are bigger and bigger. when we are near thirimingalar market
we are over 400,000peoples and some seller are came and gave water
.when we are over market some of seller they leave there goods and
they follow us so the whole street with people.when we arrived at
sinmalike ,alone township when we try to brake our people the army
troop came some of student got in the nearest monestory and i am some
of my friend got in the side people i wait the seturation and first
troop stop in frond of monestory so there is so many student inside
so we were warry about some of student so we start to trow with stone
from back at the time they shooting back .but alot of people are
waiting and abusing to them .some people follow from back the other
side of the people are they don't go back .they are still protest so
they shoot the other not our side cos we group are so big like we
round to the thee troop.they are middle from out side people getting
near by near they still standing in frond of monestory shooting to the
other side not ours so i don't know right excite news.at 6 pm i went
back people are still there so i don't know later yet.
but we appoiment with some of our student for tomorrow .i have to go
back now.if there any news my friend will be send to u mail.
wish to get free democaracy country.
best regard
nat mauk ther
soe

From Rgn

Don't afraid them ever alive of we're life-ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေပးတဲ့ စစ္ပညာ >>>> ျပည္သူေတြကို သတ္ဖို႔မဟုတ္ဘူး ။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေပးတဲ့ စစ္ပညာ >>>> ဘုန္းႀကီးေတြကို သတ္ဖို႔မဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုၿပီး ေအာ္ဟစ္ ဆႏၵျပေနၾကပါၿပီ ။   8:45 AM

From Rangoon

yes! today at taingyi monk army shoot to some novice and monks !
 
so most of the people are angry so we bame a big group and we go down along the way to anawyather at the time side of the way most of young people join with us
 
at sanpya our group are more than 200,000people

From Rangoon

we demostrate over 500,000people  along the way to kan nar lan near thirimingalar zay

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Let's be wise, don't fall into the same page from the old playbook

Next the junta will declare martial law. Citing lawlessness by the
demostrators though in reality their thugs are the ones causing the
disurbance, Tat Ma Daw will have to rescue the country from chaos and
looters by shooting them. People should be thankful to Tat Ma Daw for
restoring law and order.

Many hot blooded youth will go underground or run to border areas to
form a students' army or a people's army. Rumors said that truck load
of M-16s supplied by CIA is waiting for them in Thai-Burma border. In
reality, the only thing waiting is malaria and the well equipped enemy
Tat Ma Daw.

At the other side of the ocean, many concerned countries are trying
UN security council to intervene. But all motions are vetoed by the
two permanent members of the UN security council. You know who they
are, the ones that are sucking up all the natural resources of Myamnar
by ganging up with the junta. After a month or two, fatigue sets in
and all disparse.

Sounds depressingly familier? But I think this time we may have a
special window of opportunity if we act wisely and in time. Despite
the public facade, the big brother Pauk Phaw Gyi China must be quite
nervous about the smooth celebration of 2008 Olympic on its soil.
After all it is their coming out party. Let's start drumming up the
campaign to pursuade other countries to boycott it unless China pull
it strings and tell the junta to sit down for a dialogue and
reconciliation. And let China know that this campaign is coming.

I think that's our only chance. The other methods, we have tried. And
we all now the outcomes. Anybody colleting signatures or petition to
be sent to Chinese government? I want to know and participate. It will
be more effective to demonstrate in front of the Chinese embassy than
Burmese embassy in my opinion. Just my humble two cents.
 

Than N Oo
Michigan




Urgent Release -CMPP demands junta stop barbaric response

Urgent Release
We, the Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals are saddened and outraged by the Burmese junta's brutal response to peaceful demonstrators.
We demand the Burmese military junta to immediately stop this barbaric response and release all political prisoners. The whole world is watching and the junta will be held accountable for spilling the bloodof innocent citizens.
We are proud of our fellow Burmese physicians, nurses and health careworkersinside Burma and commend them for their bravery and professionalism. We encourage all Burmese medical professionals to join us in helpingthose injured.
Concerned Myanmar Physicians and Professionals
September 26, 2007

Message from a fellow medical professional

This is the message from one of our fellow medical professionals working in Yangon General Hospital. The message is provided as-is. No editing is made.

today.... 26/9/07 my duty time part is working on Emergency YGH... at about 2:00 pm 5 patients was coming to our Emergency ... for Gun Shot from Government militaries... 1 patients died on d spot on arriving Hospital... ( shot on Bladder ) 4 r still bad in Diagnosis... The patient's attendant said " the patient r not in d line of protest... they ( victims ) are just chatting and watching d protest line and sitting on Cafe Bar near Shawe Dagon Pagoda , some r pedestrians" when they watching.... Government military Car was crossing to d protest line and randomly shot all of them ... what the insanity and inhumanity of their mind don't they have self-mind.. that can desire to do or shouldn't do? don't they have Family? don't they have Brain? i was very sorry for victims ( pateints ) and victims' relatives really insanity , really inhumanity, really selfish to get holding their stupid military Government... really unintelligence .. how to manage the country like in this situation ... i always ready to support Protest Monks and People... and wanna treat whenever they get injuries ... and all my friends ... u also wanna see like that or not .... This PROTEST is our chance to get improving our country among neighbours ...

Source: Ko Htike




When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.
Mahatma Gandhi
Dear Medical and Health Professional Colleagues,
My late father was made me read books about Mahatma Gandhi as well as the complete set of speeches given by Gandhi during his life time. My father also taught me to understand and follow the two Gandhiian Principles of “Ahimsa” and “Satyagraha”- of non-violent resistance. What is happening now in our country is very much in accordance of the Gandhian Principles.
We would like to assure you that you have the empathy and support of all of us who are not with you physically.
I am sharing with you the above wise words of Mahatma Gandhi’s of how he had been able to encourage himself at times when he despaired of not achieving his goals in life.
With ananda metta
Min Din (Min Hla)

Red Cross Attending An Injured Monk



ဒဏ္ရာရ သံဃာတပါးအား ၾကက္ေျခနီ လက္ပတ္ျဖင့္ လူတဦးက ျပဳစုေနစဥ္
မိုးမခ မွ ကူးယူေဖာ္ျပသည္

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Attributes of a Good Activist


Attributes of a Good Activist

Have a cool head

Don’t let events carry you away

Keep emotions checked

Follow the set programme of the day.

Don’t talk unless absolutely necessary

Never give your identity freely

Keep your profile low

Just let your leader glow!

Be discreet in communication

Provide truths in information

Keep secret of the donation

Send necessary assistance to destination.

Don’t make heroic acts

That will make enemy react

Check your contacts keep secret

Work according to set format.

Every one has only one life

We have to sacrifice

Let it be useful for the people

It’s to establish a democratic rule.

Government may come and government may go

Some may be good and some may be sore

But the country will go on for ever

People will be there for ever

They are our father and mother

Serving the parent is a blessing

It is according to the Buddha’s teachings.

Aesclepius B


Our Heros Inside Burma

၂၅-၉-၀၇

ျပည္သူ႔ဆရာ၀န္မ်ား ႏွင့္ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ား ဘာေတြလုပ္ေနသလဲ

ယခုရက္ပိုင္းတြင္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ သတင္းဌာနမ်ား ႏွင့္ ဘေလာ့ဂ္မ်ားတြင္ ျမန္မာျပည္ဆိုင္ရာ သတင္းမ်ားက ဖံုးလႊမ္းသြားသည္။ CMPP အဖြဲ႔၀င္တစ္ဦး ျဖစ္သည့္အားေလ်ာ္စြာ ထိုသတင္းမ်ားထဲတြင္ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ား ႏွင့္ ဆက္ဆိုင္သည့္သတင္းမ်ားကို စိတ္၀င္တစား ေလ့လာမိ၏။ ေနရာစံု ေထာင့္စံုမွ ပါ၀င္ေနသည္ကို အထူးသတိျပဳမိသည္။

တိုင္းသိ ျပည္သိ ဇာဂနာ (ကိုသူရ) သည္ အႏုပညာေလာကတြင္ က်င္လည္ေနေသာ္လည္း သြားဆရာ၀န္ တစ္ဦးအျဖစ္ ပညာသင္ခဲ့သူျဖစ္သည္။ သူက ယေန႔ျပည္သူ႔ လႈပ္ရွားမႈတြင္ ေရွ႔တန္းက ဦးေဆာင္ေနသည္။ ဆြမ္းကပ္လွဴပြဲတြင္ ပါ၀င္ကူညီေနေသာ စာေရးဆရာမ၊ Teen မဂၢဇင္းထုတ္ေ၀သူ မသီတာ (စမ္းေခ်ာင္း) သည္လည္း ဆရာ၀န္တစ္ဦးပင္။ လူငယ္ ေျခတက္မ်ားထဲမွ သီခ်င္းေရးဆရာ၊ အဆိုေတာ္ ေဆာင္းဦးလႈိင္သည္၄င္း၊ ဆရာ၀န္ ပူပူေႏြးေႏြး အဆိုေတာ္ ျဖဴျဖဴေက်ာ္သိန္းသည္ ၄င္း ျပည္သူမ်ား ႏွင့္ တသားတည္းရွိေၾကာင္း မီဒီယာကို ေျပာၾကားျခင္း၊ သံဃာမ်ားအား ဆြမ္းကပ္လွဴျခင္းမ်ားျဖင့္ ျပသၾကသည္။ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ရွိ ေဆးေက်ာင္းသားမ်ားကလည္း သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား သြားရာလမ္းတေလ်ာက္ လိုက္ပါေစာင့္ေရွာက္ၾကသည္ဟု ၾကားသိရသည္။ ေတာင္တြင္းႀကီးၿမိဳ႕တြင္ ဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားကို ဆရာ၀န္ သူနာျပဳမ်ားက ေဆးကုသေပးေၾကာင္း သတင္းနားေထာင္ရသည္။ သဃၤန္းကြ်န္း စံျပေဆးရံုႀကီးမွ သူနာျပဳ တစ္ဦးက စစ္တပ္ကေတာ့ ေဆးရံုေတြကို ရွင္းခိုင္းေနၿပီ ဟု တာ၀န္သိစြာျဖင့္ သတင္းေပးလာသည္။ ထိုသတင္းမ်ားကား ေရခဲတုံး၏ ေရေပၚတြင္ ေပၚေနေသာ အပိုင္းမွ်သာရွိမည္ကို ယံုမွားသံသယမရွိ။ အနယ္နယ္အရပ္ရပ္တြင္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသြာ ဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားကို အဖက္ဖက္မွ ကူညီေနေသာ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ား ေတာင္ပံုရာပံု ရွိေနမည္မွာ ေသခ်ာသေလာက္ပင္။ အမည္ေဖာ္ျပ ခ်ီးက်ဴးျခင္းငွာ မစြမ္းသာ၍ ထိုက်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္း အားလံုးကို ေလးစားဂုဏ္ယူမိေၾကာင္း ဤဘေလာ့ဂ္မွ ေန၍သာ ေရးသားလိုက္ရသည္။

ထို႔ျပင္ အျခား သတင္းေကာင္းမ်ားလည္း ရွိေသးသည္။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ၾကက္ေျခနီ တပ္ဖြဲ႔၀င္တစ္ဦး၏ ဘေလာ့ဂ္က ဟင္နရီဒူးနန္႔စိတ္ဓါတ္၊ ေရွးဦးသူနာျပဳစုနည္းမ်ား စသည္တို႔ကို ေရးသားသည္။ ၾကက္ေျခနီ အမ်ားစုမွာစြမ္းအားရွင္အမ်ိဳးအစားတြင္ ပါ၀င္ျခင္း မရွိေၾကာင္း ေထာက္ျပသည္။ အျခားတစ္ဦးကလည္း အေရးေပၚ အသက္ရႈအားကူနည္း မည္သို႔ေဆာင္ရြက္ရမည္ကို ေရးသားသည္။ လက္ရွိအစိုးရကလည္း ဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားကို အၾကမ္းဖက္ျခင္း မရွိေသးေခ်။ (ဤအျပဳအမူကို ကြ်ႏု္ပ္တို႔ CMPP အဖြဲ႔၀င္မ်ား အေနျဖင့္ အထူးေက်းဇူးတင္ရွိေၾကာင္း ေျပာလိုသည္။ ဆက္လက္ၿပီးလည္း အၾကမ္းမဖက္ပဲ ကိုင္တြယ္ေျဖရွင္းသြားပါရန္ လက္ရွိအစိုးရကို ေမတၱာရပ္ခံပါသည္။)

အေကာင္း ႏွင့္ အဆိုးကား ဒြန္တြဲလ်က္ရွိ၏။ လက္ရွိ မဆိုးလွေသာအေနအထား ျဖင့္ပင္ ေက်နပ္ေနဖို႔ေတာ့ မသင့္ပါ။ သာသနာေရး၀န္ႀကီးက ဓါးႀကိမ္းႀကိမ္းေနသည္။ စစ္ကားမ်ားက ၿမိဳ႕တြင္းတြင္ ဟန္ေရးျပေနသည္။ ရုပ္ရွင္သရုပ္ေဆာင္ ေက်ာ္သူက အလွဴျပဳရင္း ေသြးတိုးသျဖင့္ အိမ္ျပန္နားရသည္။ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား မိုးထဲ ေနထဲ တေနကုန္ ပင္ပင္ပန္းပန္း ၾကြခ်ီၿပီး ေက်ာင္းတိုက္ျပန္ေရာက္လ်င္ ေဆးခန္းသြားခ်ိန္မရွိေတာ့။ ဤအေျခအေနတြင္ က်န္ရွိေနေသးေသာ က်န္းမာေရး၀န္ထမ္းမ်ား ႏွင့္ ဆရာ၀န္မ်ားသည္လည္း သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား ႏွင့္ ဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားကို က်န္းမာေရးကိစၥမ်ားတြင္ ပိုမို ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ေပးၾကရန္ တိုက္တြန္းပါသည္။

Curious observer

CMPP

Curfews in Yangon and Mandalay

Burmese Military Regime imposed curfew (9:00 pm - 5:30 am) in Yangon and Mandalay with effect from September 25, 2007. This is such an old trick to harass or arrest leaders of demonstrations.


ျမန္မာ အာဏာသိမ္း စစ္အစိုးရက ရန္ကုန္ ႏွင့္ မႏၱေလးတြင္ ညမထြက္ရ (ည ၉ နာရီမွ နံနက္ ၅ နာရီခြဲ) အမိန္႔ထုတ္ျပန္ထားေၾကာင္း ၾကားသိရသည္္။ လက္ရွိစစ္အစိုးရ အေနျဖင့္ ထုိသို႔ ညမထြက္ရ အမိန္႔မ်ား ထုတ္ျပန္ၿပီး ဆႏၵျပအဖြဲ႔ ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားကို လိုက္လံဖမ္းဆီးျခင္းမွာ လုပ္ရိုးလုပ္စဥ္ အကြက္ႀကီးပင္ျဖစ္လို႔ေနသည္။

World leaders urge military to show calm

In a show of solidarity with protesters, UN, Britain warn regime it will be held accountable for actions

Sep 25, 2007 04:30 AM

UNITED NATIONS–Support poured in from around the world for protesters in Burma yesterday as the country's military rulers threatened to "take action" against Buddhist monks who have led the country's largest demonstration in nearly 20 years.

World leaders urged the Rangoon junta to show restraint and warned the regime would be held accountable for any violent crackdown on the march, which numbered 100,000 people yesterday in a major challenge to the military regime.

Among those praising the peaceful nature of the demonstrations but urging against retaliatory action was UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban "commends the peaceful approach the demonstrators are using to press their interests and he calls upon the (Burmese) authorities to continue to exercise restraint," he said in a statement.

Washington said it was keeping a close eye on the protests and expressed hope that dialogue would emerge.

But the White House announced yesterday that U.S. President George W. Bush would unveil new punitive sanctions against members of the ruling junta during a speech today at the United Nations.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered his support to protesters in Burma.

"There is a golden thread of common humanity that across nations and faiths binds us together, and it can light the darkest corners of the world," Brown said.

"A message should go out to anyone facing persecution, anywhere from Burma and Zimbabwe: human rights are universal and no injustice can last forever."

The latest show of dissent follows weeks of protests sparked by a massive fuel price hike, leaving observers concerned about a potential repeat of the violence seen in a 1988 crackdown on protesters that left hundreds if not thousands dead.

In the first Burmese official reaction to the protests, state media reported the religion minister, Brig.-Gen. Thura Myint Maung, had met senior clergy yesterday to deliver a warning. "If the monks go against the rules and regulations in the authority of the Buddhist teachings, we will take action under the existing law," state television quoted the minister as saying.

In a message released in Paris, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama urged the military government not to react with violence.

"I extend my support and solidarity with the recent peaceful movement for democracy in Burma," he said in a message datelined Dharamsala, seat of the Tibetan government in exile in northern India.

French foreign ministry spokesperson Frédéric Desagneaux said the junta "will be held accountable before the international community for the security of the protesters" and urged authorities to "open the real process of reform and of national reconciliation that the country needs."

Germany expressed its "sympathy" with the demonstrations and demanded the release of protesters arrested during the marches.

German foreign ministry spokesperson Martin Jaeger also renewed calls for the liberation of pro-democracy leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest.

In Oslo, Geir Lundestad, the head of the Nobel Institute, hailed the "spirit" of the opposition in Burma and said he hoped the swelling protests would culminate in Suu Kyi's house arrest being lifted.



Agence France-Presse

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/260147