Archivo etiqueta «Unión de Myanmar/Birmania»
Por Aitor Esteban (EL CORREO DIGITAL, 07/10/07):
El color azafrán de las túnicas de los monjes budistas ha servido para poner nombre a la rebelión que se está produciendo estos días en Myanmar. La revolución azafrán, encabezada en su inicio por columnas interminables de monjes que recorrían las calles de Yangón, está ocupando portadas sobre un país habitualmente ignoto para los medios.
La mirada occidental se ha centrado en la lucha entre el Gobierno militar y la oposición política personificada en Aung San Suu Kyi, pero el azafrán tiene muchos matices. El conflicto étnico representa un obstáculo incluso más fundamental … Seguir leyendo
By William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard (THE WASHINGTON POST, 07/10/07):
on Sept. 25, President Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly. Mostly avoiding controversial topics such as Iraq and the war on terrorism, he called on countries to live up to the freedoms promised at the United Nations‘ founding six decades ago. He called particular attention to the situation in Burma, expressing Americans’ outrage at the “19-year reign of fear” imposed by military dictators. Alluding to the tens of thousands who had been bravely and peacefully protesting in the streets for over a month, Bush … Seguir leyendo
Por Inocencio Arias, diplomático (EL PERIÓDICO, 06/10/07):
En las novelas decimonónicas, hay muchos personajes que acuden a la ópera para ver y ser vistos. Que la pieza del escenario sea de Verdi, Wagner o Puccini les deja indiferentes. El interés principal de su desplazamiento no es degustar la música.
Un escéptico pensaría que en la Asamblea de la Organización de Naciones Unidas ocurre algo parecido. No pocos dirigentes acuden para pronunciar un discurso para su galería o para ver a una serie de colegas. La concentración de estadistas en la sede de la ONU en esa semana es impresionante, … Seguir leyendo
By Cath Urquhart (THE TIMES, 05/10/07):
At a clandestine theatre show in Mandalay, banned by the Burmese Government, three brave comedians performed skits and dances in English to a small group of backpackers. One of them, Par Par Lay, had just been released from a seven-year prison sentence imposed for telling an anti-government joke.
I asked fellow performer Lu Maw if I could write about the show, or would it get them into trouble? “We want tourists to come and spread the word,” he said. “Take our photograph and put it on the internet! Foreigners are our protection.” Par Par … Seguir leyendo
Por Juan José Tamayo, director de la Cátedra de Teología y Ciencias de las Religiones, de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (EL PAÍS, 03/10/07):
La imagen que suele tenerse del budismo, al menos en Occidente, es la de una religión o cosmovisión que huye del mundanal ruido por considerarlo impuro y se refugia en la contemplación para no mancharse las manos ni contaminar la mente con preocupaciones mundanas. Según esa imagen, la interioridad es lo que conforma el universo budista: la vida interior, la paz interior, la liberación interior, el viaje hacia el interior de uno mismo. La … Seguir leyendo
Por Henry Kamen, historiador británico. Acaba de publicar Los Desheredados. España y la Huella del Exilio (EL MUNDO, 02/10/07):
El hecho de haber nacido en Birmania no me da más derecho que a otro a escribir sobre el actual movimiento en contra de la dictadura militar. Birmania (un país en el que la dictadura ha cambiado el nombre por el de Myanmar, pero que revertirá a su nombre tradicional en cuanto se vayan los dictadores) fue el hogar de la familia de mi padre y de mis primeras memorias de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y de los aviones japoneses … Seguir leyendo
By George Monbiot (THE GUARDIAN, 02/10/07):
China has become the world’s excuse for inaction. If there is anything that a government or a business does not want to do, it invokes the Yellow Peril. Raise the minimum wage to £6 an hour? Not when the Chinese are paid £6 a year. Cap working time at 48 hours a week? The Chinese are working 48 hours a day. Cut greenhouse gas emissions? The Chinese are building a new power station every nanosecond. China has become our looking-glass bogeyman: if you behave well, the bogeyman will get you.
As we saw during … Seguir leyendo
By Fred Hiatt (THE WASHINGTON POST, 01/10/07):
An upheaval like the pro-democracy uprising taking place in Burma over the past month tends to shake up certainties that had seemed self-evident. Certainties such as the primacy of justice. Or the sanctity of the Olympic Games.
Despite an academic industry devoted to the subject, no one can predict when an oppressed people will find that precise combination of hopelessness and hope, impatience and solidarity, and recklessness and anger that leads it to rebel. Nor can anyone answer the most important question facing Burma now: When will the boys and men who prop … Seguir leyendo
By Pankaj Mishra, the author of Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond (THE GUARDIAN, 01/10/07):
In recent months, militant atheists have tried to convince us religion ought to be expelled from public as well as private life. It is not hard to imagine how their salon wisdom would have fared last week in the streets of Rangoon, where ordinary Burmese protesting against a military dictatorship rallied behind Buddhist monks – the “highly revered moral core”, as the New York Times put it, of Burmese society.If the images of saffron-robed mendicants braving police … Seguir leyendo
By Rosemary Rigther (THE TIMES, 01/10/07):
When China joined Russia last January to veto a fairly mild United Nations Security Council resolution calling on Burma to free political prisoners and improve its abominable human rights record, Beijing’s Ambassador at the UN helpfully explained that “no country is perfect” and that “similar problems exist in other countries”. Including, as he of course did not say, China.
The parallels may not seem all that obvious this week. Leaving aside the contrast between China’s boom economy and the misery inflicted on all Burmese by the military regime’s cruelty and incompetence, political repression in … Seguir leyendo
By Yang Jianli, president of the Foundation for China in the 21st Century. He was released last month after completing a five-year prison term in China, where he was sentenced for attempting to observe labor unrest in 2002 (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/09/07):
In the early hours of June 4, 1989, I was on Chang’an Street, just west of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, when I saw Chinese soldiers open fire and kill many of my fellow protesters. I barely escaped the same fate. The horror of that day is seared in my mind like it was yesterday.
In recent … Seguir leyendo
By Aung Zaw, a Burmese exile, is the editor of the Thailand-based (THE GUARDIAN, 29/09/07):
Burmese generals have long professed to be protecting and preserving Buddhism – claims that they sought to illustrate with frequent pilgrimages to the country’s monasteries. Now these self-styled devotees have shown their true colours, ordering their forces into those same monasteries with murderous intent.Their targets are Burma’s venerated monks, who have played a prominent role in the vanguard of the independence struggle for many decades. In recent weeks they have again stepped in to fill the vacuum left by the imprisonment, resignation and exile … Seguir leyendo
Por Nicole Muchnik, pintora y escritora (EL PAÍS, 29/09/07):
Nicolas Sarkozy acaba de exigir de las empresas francesas, y particularmente de Total, que no inviertan más en Myanmar, una decisión tardía, pero bienvenida. Sin embargo, falta todavía una aclaración sobre el papel del actual ministro francés de Exteriores, Bernard Kouchner, responsable de un informe del año 2003 pagado por Total sobre la explotación del sitio Yadana y la instalación de un oleoducto.
Rangún, Myanmar, 1990. La Liga Nacional para la Democracia, dirigida por Aung San Suu Kyi, obtiene el 85% de los votos en las elecciones organizadas por la … Seguir leyendo
By Maung Zarni, founder of the Free Burma Coalition and a visiting research fellow at Oxford (THE TIMES, 29/09/07):
As the events unfolded this week in Rangoon, my mind wandered back to the bedtime stories my great-grandmother told me of a bloody encounter in the 1930s in my native Mandalay. It was between the world-conquering power of the British Raj and the soft power of the world-renouncers, the peaceful and unarmed Buddhist monks and nuns, 17 of whom were mown down. How gallantly they had stood up to the British Raj on behalf of Burma’s poor, she said.
Were … Seguir leyendo
By Michael Gerson (THE WASHINGTON POST, 28/09/07):
The great virtue of Buddhism is serene courage in the face of inevitable affliction. That courage is on display now in Burma — a nation caught upon the wheel of suffering.
The sight of young, barefoot monks in cinnamon robes quietly marching for democracy, amid crowds carrying banners reading “love and kindness,” is already a symbol of conscience for a young century. On closer examination, these protests have also shown that nonviolence need not be tame or toothless. The upside-down bowls carried by some of the monks signal that they will not accept … Seguir leyendo