Myanmar junta shuts AIDS monastery

Below I have included a report that was posted today about the military junta shutting down an AIDS monastery in Yangon. I posted my comments throughout between dots (•••).
--------By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - The Myanmar junta has shut down a Yangon monastery which served as a hospice for HIV/AIDS patients and expelled its monks, an opposition lawyer said on Friday.

"The authorities sealed Maggin monastery yesterday afternoon" and expelled the monks, said Aung Thein of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

"The authorities did not give them any documents and did not say under which law the action was taken, so we cannot do anything to provide them with legal assistance," he added.

United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari criticized the closure of the monastery, which was used as a hospice for HIV/AIDS sufferers and a refuge for provincial patients who came to Yangon for medicines.

"Any actions that run counter to the spirit of national reconciliation, any action that will undermine the dialogue between the government and those who disagree with the policy of the government should be avoided," Gambari said in Phnom Penh.

••• OK, I don't know what Gambari is trying to say here exactly but come on! He should know better than anyone that "real" dialogue is never going to happen. As I have mentioned in some of my other posts... he has been going in and out of Burma for years now. There have been no changes. If you read Gambari's statement without doing a little of your own research, and knowing what has been happening in Burma for decades, it's easy to believe that maybe he is right. He is just not though and he knows it. In my opinion it just looks like the UN assigned him to Burma and they know he is just a prop to send in and out of the country. It is just silly to think that this one man, with ZERO power and influence, could ever make a difference. •••

"And I'd like to repeat that," he told reporters during a visit to Cambodia on a regional tour before returning to the former Burma next month for more talks with the government and probably Suu Kyi.

••• AAAAA!!! I don't want to hear him talking about "talks" anymore! They just shut down an AIDS monastery, monks from the protests in September are still missing, they have their opposition leader under house arrest. They did these things without talking to anyone first. Can he really think that these talks he goes for help?? •••

The abbots of Maggin monastery have long had the reputation of supporting pro-democracy campaigns, such as the one led by monks in September which the junta crushed. The official death toll is 15, but diplomats believe it is much higher.

The suppression caused such international outrage the junta allowed Gambari to visit and it appointed a senior general as intermediary with Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years under some form of detention.

••• This is the most important comment I would like to make... When the international community expressed outrage back in September the junta actually became a little worried. Why? Because it is only in the masses that they can be taken down. So, they let in Gambari to talk. What it seems this has only done though is quiet down the international community. I would like to hear some reporting telling people that if they just keep up their outrage maybe something can change. That is why I have said so many times before and in the heading of my blog to boycott the Beijing Olympics. It could be one of the most financially devastating events for China. Who, as I have mentioned before, is the number one supporter of the military junta in Burma. I should at least mention there devastating actions in Tibet and Darfur as well. I would need a few more blogs to keep up with those stories. •••

Gambari, who expects to return to Myanmar in December, said after his last visit he had received assurances the crackdown would stop.

But arrests have continued, raising doubts about the junta's sincerity in beginning a real dialogue with the opposition.

••• I would be embarrassed as a reporter to write this line above. Doubts are just beginning to be raised?? I don't think so. Again, it has been decades with the military junta in power. •••

"We get reports almost on a daily basis of people being picked up," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told reporters in Bangkok.

"It's hard to see how shutting monasteries, continuing to arrest people and continued restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi, how this is progress," Villarosa said.

Myanmar state media say all but 91 of the nearly 3,000 people arrested in the crackdown were released and monks from raided monasteries were sent home.

Villarosa said she believed "a considerable number" of monks had been arrested and their whereabouts were unknown.

"It's the big question out there. Where are all the monks?"

(Additional reporting by Darren Schuettler in Bangkok; Ek Madra in Phnom Penh)

••• I am beginning not to know what to say anymore. The situation just goes in circles with nothing changing except for more people being taken prisoner and probably dying. Unless the international community can become better informed it will just become worse.
With the lack of interest from most people in the western world I can only begin to fear what will happen in the world, not just Burma. •••