Burma/Myanmar: protests, pictures and the Internet

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From:
Date: September 27, 2007 10:24:38 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: [PLEASE ANONYMIZE] Burma/Myanmar: protests, pictures and the  
Internet

[DAVE, PLEASE ANONYMIZE]

For IP, if you wish:

The pictures at Irrawaddy.org are riveting.  Saddening, maddening.
Inspiring.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/

And there are a few video clips that have made their way as far as
YouTube.  One (relatively peaceful) one is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIpraH81paY

The latest reports are 7:00p.m. Myanmar time, just an hour and a half
ago (it's two and a half hours behind Tokyo).  Protests seem to be
stretching into the evening.

One report is that a Japanese person is among the ten or more that have
been killed.

Hundreds of monks have been rounded up by the army.  A few people have
been shot, many beaten, after forty years of repression and isolation
and previous attempts to throw off dictatorship and install a fledgling
democracy.

The first time I met a particular man, in 2003, he had just stepped off
a redeye flight,  returning from opening Burma's very first Internet
connection.  The pictures you see and reports you read may very well be
traversing that line.  Despite some reports, the Internet is apparently
not *completely* cut off from there, as of yet.  The fact that
information leaks out through cell phones and the Internet no doubt
alarms the junta, and may be a factor in staying the junta's hand.

Are we looking at fifty-six million rising up and freeing themselves?
Or are we looking at the next Tiananmen (which itself may have been
worse if not for CNN)?

Information is fragmentary, conflicting and delayed.  I can do nothing
from here, nothing more than encourage those outsiders who can pressure
the junta, and even they cannot ultimately decide; only the Burmese
people can.  But I cannot look away.




-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com