For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question (43 page)

Find the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices at
state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/
.

State Department-report rejection: Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations, Geneva.

Martus is open-source software supported by a nonprofit tech organization, Benetech, in Palo Alto, California. In the BA database, the guys document their names, organization, and region and as much information about the perpetrators as is available—Burma army unit, soldier rank, name. That’s followed by a narrative of the testimony they collected:

You can read
Cruel and Vicious Repression of Myanmar Peoples by Imperialists and Fascists and the True Story about the Plunder of the Royal Jewels
at the Library of Congress. If you’re so inclined.

No TV until 1980: Newcomb, p. 2147.

Burma becomes a net rice importer: Pascal Khoo Thwe, pp. 56-57.

“Burma is a country that has never known, and can never know, famine”: Scott 1, p. 145.

The displayed royal jewels are rumored to be fake: Andrew Marshall, pp. 70-71.

You can read about Ne Win’s demonetization in Lintner 2, pp. 273-274, and Pascal Khoo Thwe, pp. 134-135.

Cities guarded by the gates of the zodiac: Thant Myint-U, p. 45.

“Tuesday and Saturday are bad days to do anything”: Scott 1, p. 127.

Up to 80 percent of the country’s currency became useless: Lintner 2, p. 273.

There are dozens of published accounts of the tea-shop fight and ensuing riots. A good one can be found in Lintner 2, pp. 274-275. Pascal Khoo Thwe, who was there, talks about the 1988 protests on pp. 155-164.

Burmese students protested Rangoon University Act: Aye Kyaw, p. 86; Tucker, p. 219.

Ne Win’s resignation speech: Thant Myint-U, p. 32.

He’d previously banned all opposition parties: Martin Smith, p. 204.

8.8.88: Thant Myint-U dramatically reenacts the scene starting on p. 33. Find a detailed account also in Martin Smith, beginning on p. 4.

“It is hard to describe the thrill”: Pascal Khoo Thwe, p. 160.

JWI-hiring company superclose to junta: R. Jeffrey Smith; McAllister; Barnes; Eaves.

Speculation that the PR firms were involved in the name change:
The Washington Post
; Tan.

For a longer list of preapproved party insignia, as well as the other very specific details of the 1990 elections, see Martin Smith, p. 412.

“Don’t gamble with the Burmans”: US Army Air Forces Tactical Center Arctic, Desert and Tropic Information Center. More good advice: Don’t “argue with Hindus about caste” or go fishing in Buddhist temple pools, and know that if you stare at a Muslim woman, “her male relatives may kill you both.”

Censorship of publications and porn:
1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Law
; OpenNet Initiative 1, p. 5.; Article 19, pp. 29-33; Freedom House.

BBC and Voice of America broadcasts jammed: In 1995.
Connors
; Article 19, p. 32 (pdf page).

One of the occasions when CNN was blacked out came during the 2008 anti-government protests in neighboring Thailand. See Saw Yan Naing 1.

Universities shut down all the time, for long periods at a time:
Steinberg
.

Students spread out away from main campuses: Min Khet Maung.

200,000 Tatmadaw soldiers in ’88: Selth 2, p. 11.

400,000 in ’96: Arnott 1, p. 3.

You can read about Pascal Khoo Thwe’s personal post-demonstration flight into the jungle beginning on p. 189, some firefights with the Burma army starting on pp. 226 and 237, and the regime’s creepy radio entreaties and leaflet-dropping on pp. 189 and 209, respectively.

Thant Myint-U was with the student rebels while they were hoping for US/ Western reinforcements, pp. vii and 39.

Pascal Khoo Thwe was at the failed conference of the student/ethnic rebel coalition, pp. 208-209.

The ’88 melee barely covered in the United States:
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times
, and Associated Press did run the story, but in no way commensurate with its significance, nothing even remotely comparable to, for example, 2009’s protests in Iran. A quick search in ProQuest turns up five times as many article hits for the latter.

“jealousy against establishment of a peaceful and prosperous socialist state”: Mirante, p. 309.

American journalist drugged, stripped, and covered in shit: Jenkins.

Rangoon spy facility:
Sydney Morning Herald
; Chenard;
Bangkok Post
5;
The Irrawaddy
2.

Thai army general speculating on Burma’s intelligence spending/Thais concerned Burmese spies getting migrant IDs:
Bangkok Phuchatkan.

Thais recommended making civilians spies that spy on Burmese spies:
The Nation
4.

Ten armed Burmese nationals in Thailand admitted they were sent by Burma: Min Lwin 4.

Burmese spies in Thailand spy on both Thais and defected Burmese:
Bangkok Post
7.

“There are Burmese government agents everywhere”: Andrews 2.

Tatmadaw intelligence report on KNU, NGOs: Min Lwin 7.

BBC reporter stalked by unsavvy spy: McGeown.

Friendship Bridge’s opening ceremony:
The Irrawaddy
1.

Map of the Asian Highway: United Nations 10.

Royal Thai Government paid for the bridge:
The Nation
1.

Cost 80 million baht:
The Nation
1;
Bangkok Post
6.

Years of delays:
The Nation
1;
Bangkok Post
4.

Thailand earning $28 million a month from Myawaddy-Mae Sot trade: According to the Tak Chamber of Commerce, reported in Lawi Weng 4.

1,400 feet of concrete:
The Nation
1;
The Irrawaddy
1; Lintner 3.

Burmese movies forbidden from depicting poverty: Kyi Wai 3.

The battle for Myawaddy:
Bangkok Post
1; Falla, p. 28; Martin Smith, p. 270.

Blown-up oil depot and freaked-out cows:
Bangkok Post
2.

Pascal Khoo Thwe compares modern Burma to Nazi Germany on p. 187.

Foreigners not allowed to continue past Myawaddy:
Thompson
.

Reproduction of Shwedagon Pagoda in the new capital:
The Irrawaddy
8; Andrews 1.

Civil servants given days to pack up: BBC News 3; McGirk; Sipress; Pedrosa.

Information minister said in BBC that the junta needed a more strategic location: BBC News 3.

Information minister told Al Jazeera that the junta needed more space and more pastoral scenery: Pedrosa.

In 2002, Aung San Suu Kyi told the BBC, “We have not yet come to the point where we encourage people to come to Burma as tourists”: BBC News 1.

Mandalay moat refurbished with slave labor: Burma Campaign UK 4.

Rough Guides is one guidebook without a Burma volume. Said the FAQs on its website, “Rough Guides don’t publish a guide for Burma because the democratically elected leader, who is currently held under house arrest, has called for a tourism boycott.”

Tourism isn’t on the CIA’s World Factbook list of Burma’s industries.

Burma vs. Thailand:

Burma vs. the world:

The exact amount of Burma’s weapons expenditures is hard to know. One prominent expert estimated that the country had bought $2 billion worth from just China as of more than a decade ago.

On Doctors Without Borders’s shit list: DWB.

Has more child soldiers than any other country:
Becker
.

One of eight worst violators of religious freedom: US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

One of ten worst human rights violators: US Department of State 8, Introduction.

Tied with Iraq for second place in corruption: Transparency International.

Home to fourth-worst dictator: Wallechinsky.

KNU “world’s most pleasant and civilised guerrilla group”: Falla, p. 107.

Activists’ lawyers and families imprisoned: Saw Yan Naing 4; Wai Moe 3 and Min Lwin 9 (respectively).

2 million Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, three quarters of them illegal: TBBC 2.

Particularly vulnerable to abuse are the women migrants, not just from their employers and authorities but from other migrants and street gangs, who say things like “Burmese women are illegal migrants and we can’t be arrested if we rape them”: Lawi Weng 1.

Lots of women and children from Burma are sex slaves in Thailand: More info can be found at Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities’ website:
depdc.org
. The book about them I decidedly didn’t enjoy reading was Human Rights Watch 1.

Susan Rice’s comment about Burma comes from her January 2009 confirmation hearing, quoted in Jha 1.

For a picture of Laura Bush at Mae La, see Wiseman. For a jubilant press release about the mosquito-net donation, see United Nations Foundation.

Clinton barred new US investment in Burma in 1997: Code of Federal Regulations.

Freedom and Democracy Act:
Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003
.

“outpost of tyranny”: Rice; BBC News 2.

G.W. Bush called Burma out: In 2006, 2007, and 2008. Text available at gpoaccess.gov.

Block Burmese Jade Act:
Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2008
.

The White House representative and policy coordinator for Burma nominee was Michael Jonathan Green.
Daily Digest
.

Refugees testifying to Congress: Jha 4.

Experts testifying to Congress: Jha 3.

Australian sanctions: Stephen Smith.

EU sanctions/arms embargo: Burma Campaign UK 3.

The Jennifer Aniston/Woody Harrelson video was just one of a slew of celebrity-packed videos released in the US Campaign for Burma’s “30 Days for a Million Voices/Burma: It Can’t Wait” series. Some of them are funny, and some of them are randomly inappropriate (I’m talking about you, Sarah Silverman). Find spots starring everyone from Judd Apatow to Tila Tequila to Sheryl Crow at the US Campaign for Burma’s YouTube channel.

For the Lady
, an album dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, was released by Rhino in 2004. U2 was involved. Obviously.

Open celebrity letter was released by Not On Our Watch.

Htoo Moo told me about his participation in the malaria epidemiology studies, and Dr. François Nosten confirmed all the details. The latter also did a lot of lamenting about those mosquito nets Laura Bush brought.

Alan Hoffman was a lobbyist for Unocal:
OpenSecrets.org
1.

Alan Hoffman was Joe Biden’s chief of staff: Columbia Books Inc. data.

Chevron gets sweet tax concessions and should “consider voluntary divestment over time”:
Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2008.
The EU is also still into Burma’s oil and gas: For an interview in which the CEO of French Big Oil company Total says that critics of his company’s involvement there “can go to hell,” see McNicoll.

Foreign countries pulled out Burma aid post-’88 uprisings/regime ushered in new era of allowing foreign investment: Thant Myint-U, pp. 328-330.

Remember, from chapter 8, that the Thais started making trade deals with Burma in 1990—pretty soon after all that 1988 dissent-squashing.

Sanctions advocates: Most people. The governments of the US and Australia and Europe, for example, as well as the main Burma-advocacy groups of the US and the UK, the US Campaign for Burma and Burma Campaign UK. Sanctions-haters: For two other writers’ takes, check out Kristof and Pedersen.

China’s building a pipeline for overland Burma energy transport: CNPC.

80 percent of China’s imported crude goes through Strait of Malacca: Energy Information Administration 1; Energy Information Administration 2; Shwe Gas Movement.

Thailand has rights to 1.7 trillion cubic feet of gas in one concession: PTTEP.

Indian firm gets 5 trillion cubic feet of gas: ONGC Videsh.

Russia has several firms drilling: Burma Campaign UK 2.

France, Thailand, and Chevron operate a wildly profitable pipeline: EarthRights International 4, p. 77.

Daewoo plans to make more than $10 billion over 25 years in Shwe gas fields: Kim.

US firm Transocean did exploratory drilling for Daewoo:
Cantwell
.

ASEAN’s free-trade agreement with India: ASEAN.

India has agreed to invest billions in two hydroelectric dams: Burma Rivers Network 1.