..::₪BDC-Burma Democratic Concern ж ျမန္မာျပည္သူတစ္ရပ္လံုးအားကိုယ္စားျပဳသည္₪::..

Dear Everyone

Hope this email finds everyone well and happy. In my view, the sanctions are working as they are intended to (may be limited), but not in a way that will totally satisfy our expectations, which is to choke off the blood supply of the military regime, thus the end of the regime.

In the broad perspectives, economic sanctions are just part of the total rejection of the military regime’s opression on the people of Burma by the global community, to say that it’s brutal actions and unjust rules are not acceptable in the modern democratic and civilised global community. It is a way of putting pressure on the military regme. When the economic sanctions are put into place in conjunction with other mechanisms, then these sort of regimes will eventually collapse such as South Africa’s apartheid regime. In the end, the time will come for these regimes to collapse as their foundations are eroding gradually – economics, social and their power bases. People who are supporting them, including the military itself, wiil see the opportunity cost of supporting these regimes, and will eventually forced to stop their support. In that situation, stopping support for the military regime, and supporting the democratic forces would become more attractive and beneficial for them, which will have a snowball effect. To gain momemtum to have this snowball effect, economic sannctions are part of an integral ingreidents. Economic sactions alone will not be the ultimate solution, but together with other many fronts, it is vital. We cannot expect the economic sanctions alone to work miracles and solve all the problems and topple the military regime in a flash.

The other way of viewing this situation is, to lift the economic sanctions. Once it is lifted, the military regime will have more money rolling into their coffers due to the lucrative deals they and their cronies would enjoy. To a certain degree, some influential people will no doubt benefit from it as well. But, due to the fluency in their coffers, the regime will have more weapons and more mechanisms to supress the people. Democracy will be a forgone conclusion then. The abilities for them to keep the people suppressed will be far greater in that situation. It will also affect the morality of the global community and we will be living in a world filled with evil people and governments whose priorities are money and profit alone. No place for morality.

But the world is not like that in this day and age. The global community embrace justice and democracy. The civilised world will never allow that to happen. It will do whatever it can, such as imposing economic sanctions. Not to impose economic sanctions would be a moral shame in this situation. Of course, we need to do other things as well, for the economic sanctions to work, which we are doing now. Such as demonstartions, UN Ban K Moon demanding the release of Daw Su and the political prisoners, and the whole world community denouncing the military regime.

What other things would we do if we don’t put economic sanctions on Burma and other rogue regimes? Do we do nothing and let the people suffer? Or we do everything we can to help the people struggling for freedom and democracy?

By the way, in my view and if I may suggest, the world cup (football or soccer) is in progress and it would be a very good idea to approach to individual players like David Beckham, Christiena Ronaldo, Kaka, Brazilian and other teams etc, to wear something like a red or a yellow ribbon on their arms, with or without Daw Su’s photo on their arms throughout the series, right to the final, to show their support to Daw Su. It will have an enourmous effect on the regime as the Burmese soldiers will be watching as well. The impact of that will be tremendous.

Please take care all and have a pleasant day.
Kind regards
Zor Hane