Mayanmar - Please help them

[Lordgeous]

This is the campaign for Support CRPH (Citizen of Burma Award Organization Inc): https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/ca...urce=crowdrise

[french frank]

I will - for what it's worth. At least some humanitarian aid, I suppose, but what an awful situation. No help for those already massacred.

[Frances_iom]

I will - for what it's worth. At least some humanitarian aid, I suppose, but what an awful situation. No help for those already massacred.

The Russian government have offered their support to the military - after all they have the experienced manpower now that Syria has been dealt with. But recall that China demonstrated its love of democracy by killing many of its youth by the army in the middle of Beijing - there will be little chance of any return even to a semblance of democracy.

[Lordgeous]

Thank you FF. I have a close friend in Mayanmar with whom I talk daily. For the last two calls I could hear gunfire outside her house and she had to terminate last call due to "Teary Gas" (as she calls it!) drifting in. She reports even more insidious actions than reach the news here: medical workers and funeral processions being fired on, takeaway food delivery drivers being forced to deliver meals that the military have poisoned and so on. She's only 19 and her and her young friends have been raising money to help families whose homes have been destroyed or who have lost loved ones. What a nightmare! And bloody Russia and China supporting all this!!

[ahinton]

The Russian government have offered their support to the military - after all they have the experienced manpower now that Syria has been dealt with. But recall that China demonstrated its love of democracy by killing many of its youth by the army in the middle of Beijing - there will be little chance of any return even to a semblance of democracy.

Syria has hadly been "dealt with" but I agree with all else that you write here. I don't see Russia wanting to do more than make some semblance of a show of support by sending one of its senior politicians over there but China is quite another matter. I suspect that it is poised to observe the country falling apart completely and then it might move in to get rid of any supporters of democracy and tell the military what to do, effectively taking it over altogether; I also suspect that this is par for the course with the otherwise admittedly quite different Hong Kong - and then Taiwan, followed by Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, both Koreas and Mongolia so that, ultimately, what we now understand as Asia will, like ancient Rome, be divided into three parts - the Indian subcontinent, Japan and Greater China. China's developing interests in central Africa are something else to watch...

[ahinton]

Thank you FF. I have a close friend in Mayanmar with whom I talk daily. For the last two calls I could hear gunfire outside her house and she had to terminate last call due to "Teary Gas" (as she calls it!) drifting in. She reports even more insidious actions than reach the news here: medical workers and funeral processions being fired on, takeaway food delivery drivers being forced to deliver meals that the military have poisoned and so on. She's only 19 and her and her young friends have been raising money to help families whose homes have been destroyed or who have lost loved ones. What a nightmare! And bloody Russia and China supporting all this!!

Good to know that at least telephone communication still works for the time being!

[Lordgeous]

Good to know that at least telephone communication still works for the time being!

Only because she has a VPN and uses WharsApp or Telegram apps. The internet is shut down overnight though.

[Lordgeous]

Additionally there are no Covid vaccinations available, all being assigned to the military and their families!

[Frances_iom]

... but China is quite another matter. I suspect that it is poised to observe the country falling apart completely and then it might move in to get rid of any supporters of democracy and tell the military what to do, effectively taking it over altogether;....

The Chinese seem to find it difficult to handle large numbers of non-Han people so I suspect the attraction of a satrapy run by the military who seem very willing to kill their own people might well be attractive - it can then be run as slave labour camp as China will in future be short of labour thanks to its enforced one-child policy.

[Bryn]

The Chinese seem to find it difficult to handle large numbers of non-Han people so I suspect the attraction of a satrapy run by the military who seem very willing to kill their own people might well be attractive - it can then be run as slave labour camp as China will in future be short of labour thanks to its enforced one-child policy.

Would that be the one-child policy that ended in 2015, and always had exemptions? China is not exactly short of low-cost labour to exploit within its own borders. Recent reports have implied that it is somewhat less 'Gung-ho' than Russia, where the Myanma coup is concerned.

[Lordgeous]

All pretty depressing. Plus resurging African problems!

[ahinton]

China is not exactly short of low-cost labour to exploit within its own borders. Recent reports have implied that it is somewhat less 'Gung-ho' than Russia, where the Myanma coup is concerned.

China's apparent comparative taciturnity is, I suspect, all about keeping its powder dry until needed and about timing for any future invasive action; China might also have decided that its interests might best be served by keeping its own counsel until Myanmar has deteiorated to a sufficient degree to enable it to move on it - speculation only, I know, but there's no smoke without fire, I fear...

[Bryn]

China's apparent comparative taciturnity is, I suspect, all about keeping its powder dry until needed and about timing for any future invasive action; China might also have decided that its interests might best be served by keeping its own counsel until Myanmar has deteiorated to a sufficient degree to enable it to move on it - speculation only, I know, but there's no smoke without fire, I fear...

I have my doubts as to whether it might repeat what it did re Vietnam in February 1979. I suppose it might offer support in suppressing resistance in Kachin and/or Shan.

[Dave2002]

The Russian government have offered their support to the military - after all they have the experienced manpower now that Syria has been dealt with. But recall that China demonstrated its love of democracy by killing many of its youth by the army in the middle of Beijing - there will be little chance of any return even to a semblance of democracy.

For a society that has its more recent origins in uprisings (maybe just over a century ..) "for the people" that makes sense, doesn't it!

I was never too fond of 1984 as a book, but I think it spots quite a number of political "practices".

[gurnemanz]

I will make a contribution. My wife's cousin in Germany is involved with a Myanmar childrens' aid charity and in 2011 we went with her to take a look at their work and do some tourism. A good time to go. People so friendly and all still very open. We even got to the fascinating Buddhist sites in Mrauk U in the Rakhine state. Still in touch with our guide who now has almost no work as such but luckily they still have a family-run restaurant. He has been on street protests in Bagan.

Our last big foreign tour was Ethiopia in 2014. All was peaceful and it's appalling to read about what is happening there now. In the city of Axum in the northern Tigray region atrocities have taken place in the very holy places we visited. https://apnews.com/article/witnesses...68409bd1d20bfa