NZ Communists Supporting Burmese Protesters
I'm in no way supporting the Burmese socialist regime, but guess who's supporting the anti government protesters?
From Indymedia
The peaceful people's revolution in Burma against an oppressive and brutal military dictatorship now faces a crucial few days, as the Junta declares it will crack down on protests and demonstrations with the utmost of severity. But the huge marches in Rangoon, Mandalay and other major cities that have been led by monks, have now been joined by students and workers.
Solidarity Union calls on workers and students here in Aotearoa to come and show your support for our courageous brothers and sisters in Burma this Saturday, 2pm, in Auckland's Aotea Square. Please bring your union or organisation banners and placards calling for freedom for Burma. This world does not need a horrific repeat of the massacres of 1988. "
Special speaker at the rally in Auckland will be Naing Ko Ko, a trade union and democracy activist with the Burmese Federation of Trade Unions, who was jailed and tortured for six years by the military dictatorship. The rally is also supported by the CTU, the Service and Food Workers Union, Amnesty International and Radical Youth. We appeal to other community groups to come and stand with Naing and the Burmese people in solidarity, and demand that the NZ Government has no truck with the military butchers or the companies that are profiting from Burmese slave labour.
- Joe Carolan
Solidarity Union Secretary
Joe Carolan is of course a member of the Central Committee of NZ's leading Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Worker.
The Socialist Worker Blog also featured this quote;
FROM THE BBC-
'Communist plot'
State television said the demonstrations of the past week were being fomented by communists and exiled media and student groups.
Obviously trying to tell to their supporters why they should be rallying to the cause.
I'd have thought the red flags would have been enough of a hint.
From Indymedia
The peaceful people's revolution in Burma against an oppressive and brutal military dictatorship now faces a crucial few days, as the Junta declares it will crack down on protests and demonstrations with the utmost of severity. But the huge marches in Rangoon, Mandalay and other major cities that have been led by monks, have now been joined by students and workers.
Solidarity Union calls on workers and students here in Aotearoa to come and show your support for our courageous brothers and sisters in Burma this Saturday, 2pm, in Auckland's Aotea Square. Please bring your union or organisation banners and placards calling for freedom for Burma. This world does not need a horrific repeat of the massacres of 1988. "
Special speaker at the rally in Auckland will be Naing Ko Ko, a trade union and democracy activist with the Burmese Federation of Trade Unions, who was jailed and tortured for six years by the military dictatorship. The rally is also supported by the CTU, the Service and Food Workers Union, Amnesty International and Radical Youth. We appeal to other community groups to come and stand with Naing and the Burmese people in solidarity, and demand that the NZ Government has no truck with the military butchers or the companies that are profiting from Burmese slave labour.
- Joe Carolan
Solidarity Union Secretary
Joe Carolan is of course a member of the Central Committee of NZ's leading Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Worker.
The Socialist Worker Blog also featured this quote;
FROM THE BBC-
'Communist plot'
State television said the demonstrations of the past week were being fomented by communists and exiled media and student groups.
Obviously trying to tell to their supporters why they should be rallying to the cause.
I'd have thought the red flags would have been enough of a hint.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
9/26/2007 11:29:00 PM
21 Comments:
Burma's deception on "democratization" is certainly at work, is it not?
I have very little time for Socialist Worker, but given the choice between them and somebody who says "I'm not going to support people struggling against tyranny because there's a few old commos involved" I think I'd take the former.
Be nice if a few more capitalists actually did something to support people struggling for freedom, instead of first leaving it up to the left, then using the left's involvement as an excuse to stay aloof (and irrelevent).
- Sam Buchanan
the 8888 revolution on August 8th, 1988 had been led by the student left and the Burmese workers unions. The military dictatorship in Burma brutally purged and slaughtered both these groups, driving them underground to this day. NOw as they re-emerge, the class nature of what they are fighting re-emerges for debate. Given the anti-communist rhetoric of the Burmese regime, it would seem that they are to the right of their Stalinist pay masters in China. National Socialists, prehaps? Fascist bastards, certainly.
The hypocrisy of war criminal Bush rushing to Burma's defence is sickening, and not lost on the underground student and union networks. Where is the cries for democracy in neighbouring Thailand, where a brutal military regime reigns with the West's tacit backing. Prehaps Western multinationals have their eyes on Burma's rich gas, oil and precious stone deposits, and want to push out the CHina/Russia bloc, installing a neo-liberal regime to replace the current dictatorship?
The possiblities of a people's revolution in Burma inspiring their brothers and sisters in Thailand and China is all too real.
"Where is the cries for democracy in neighbouring Thailand, where a brutal military regime reigns with the West's tacit backing."
Er, last time I checked, I never heard Bush praise the military coup of Thailand and btw, you think it's quite nice that Russia and China get to use Southeast Asia as their own private blocs don't you, but have the gall to call Bush a "war criminal" even though the regimes Russia and China installed during the Cold War are quite brutal?
dear oh dear mah29001.
"Neither Washington Nor Moscow" was the slogan for those of us who opposed both Stalinist and Western imperialisms, and "Neither Washington nor Beijing" would be an apt slogan of the Burmese movement today.
Bush and co may not openly praise the Thai regime. Hence the use of the word "tacit". But Western corporations do plenty business with the Thai military junta everyday, and there are no UN resolutions directed at Bangkok.
Trev, you do realise how bad the junta in Burma is? This is a regime that forces political prisoners to clear landmines by walking over them. It enslaves whole villages - men, women and children, to build hotels, oil pipelines and luxury apartments for members of the junta. The families of the junta live in luxury while ordinary Burmese starve.
In New Zealand we often think of democracy as being allowed to vote every 3 years. In Burma democracy means being allowed to travel down the street to go visit your friends without having to go through a military checkpoint and have a passbook.
The oppressive junta is a lot like a real life version of Orwell's 1984. The regime is hated by everyone there, not just communists. I'm usually not this blunt with you Trev but the fact you refuse to support the Burmese bravely resisting their oppressors really shows that your rhetoric about freedom is just talk.
I think you're being a bit optimistic that the Burmese will get a true leftist regime following the overthrow of the oppressive junta. I was thinking about it today. I'm worried they'll have a government that gets bullied by the World Bank and IMF into creating an economic system that continues to exploit people - in a similar fashion to what has happened in post liberation South Africa and East Timor
Should clarify my above comment. A democratic government, albeit one unable to push for an economic situation that truely benefited Burmese people, would still be a heck of a lot better than the junta.
End the junta! Come to the protests on Saturday :)
maybe trev has a soft spot for a land where a minority can live in opulent wealth, and trade unionists are hunted down and tortured like dogs.
The Great Libertarian is on the wrong side of the barricades come the revolution, huh? Well, until it needs to be purged of the student and worker militants, so Burma Inc can open for business.
Incidentally, our good friends in Fonterra have no qualms at all about doing $4.4 million worth of business with the MyanMar fascists every year. And Helen Clarke wants to sign an ASEAN free trade deal with them. The free market, with slave labour. Bastards.
Show me definite damn proof that the West was behind the Thailand coup or I'll dismiss your rhetoric as garbage propaganda.
It's always blame the West, blame "neo-liberalism" the usual propaganda with people like you. Never mind that the military junta in question and the Burmese Communist Party's affiliation with "democracy star" Aung San Suu Kyi seem to be on the same page when it comes to having Burma continuing to be an appendage of the Moscow-Beijing Axis.
Apparently, it's quite alright that the opposition is controlled by a two more powerful totalitarian states to make it look like there's an legit opposition.
Mah, we were with the Burmese people in Auckland when they protested outside the Chinese embassy on Sept 9th. We also support their demands for a boycott of the Olympics in China. Don't talk to me about supporting a Beijing-Moscow axis, when real socialists paid for thei lives opposing Stalinst tanks in Hungary, Prague and Tiananmen Square.
And yes, the West is drooling at the thoughts of controlling Burma's gas and oil reserves, hence the faux outrage from your war criminal Bush. The Burmese people can see right through him- a Buddhist he most definetly ain't.
Neither Washington Nor Beijing, but Burmese Revolution! Boycott the Beijing Olympics!
http://burmadigest.info/2007/09/10/protest-against-china-in-auckland/
Ain't it strange how Trev and Mah and others of their "freedom" loving ilk always try to have it both ways ?
They "formally" record their opposition to the monsters of the Burmese "totalitarian" (take note Mah Mah), military junta - to fail to do so would be akin to not declaiming paedophilia - then, having it the other way, especially if they smell a "commie" - they declaim the very people whose enslavement they've just (for the record) lamented. In Mah's case South Africa is the prime example. That's right, according to Mah - the "simply conservative" white South African apartheid regime.
Very disingenuous I think, and I'm being kind.....I can understand it in Mah's case because essentially he's a fanatic.....but Trev.
I thought you were intelligent and intellectually honest Trev. My take is this..... as obssessed as you might be about "commies", they do team up very well in genuine fights for freedom.
Your mania about "them" doesn't make the fight any less justified or honestly, heartfelt supportable Trevor. I'm very surprised you don't see that.....
And actually, who gives a shit about your right wing white middle class strangeness of mind.....far more important the universe be full of energy supporting the Burmese people right now.
"Grow Up !" might be a fair exhortation.
Steve, if you are too ignorant and self-centered to look up that Aung San Suu Kyi's father was a founder of the Burmese Communist Party, that the Communist Party USA and South African Communist Party openly embrace her "democracy movement" then it utterly shows what saps people like you are to believe Soviet-style deception as if you fail to realize that other people you praise such as Mandela, Hugo Chavez are also Soviet trained terrorists, hench Hugo's involvement in 1992 coup attempt and Mandela's ANC's terror campaign and his friendliness toward Cuba, Libya, the PLO, et al.
To Steve and others who deny Anatoliy Golitsyn's warnings. If people like you lecture that you "support" other "view points" but attack anyone who believes in Golitsyn's warnings it utterly shows that you have not read any of his books he authored.
You simply do not care about other view points. All you do is deny, and smear. You believe in Soviet-style deception no matter what form it comes in. Doesn't matter if it's "democratization" form as what's happening in Burma to the likes of Hugo Chavez and ignoring his friendliness toward Ahmadinejad who stated "There are no homosexuals in Iran."
People like you who take evil over good and bitter over sweat shall in the end meet with their self-destruction.
Indeed I have not read any of the books that your hero Anatoliy has "authored". A mere defector disaffected with the grossness he formerly practised. Some sort of god you say - well go to it Mah but who cares really !
Further, your ravings are a strong indicator that one should not read such crap. Oh, and also your conviction that the South African apartheid regime was "merely conservative".
Did we get that from Annie did we ?
Steve, knock off your propaganda bull. I don't see you complaining about Hugo Chavez siding with Ahmadienjad who stated that "There are no homosexuals in Iran." along with stating how Iran is the "freest place" on Earth for women even though people who commit adultery get executed.
You are nothing more than a shill and a bully who supports a Dictator-In-Training like Chavez. Your posts are also have nothing to do on the topic in question and are only meant to bully those who you despise.
Back to the topic,
Over the years we have seen the rascist south african goverment changed and the communist east european goverments change.
Both were totalitarian,one communist, one rascist.
Was change a good thing? Yes.
The former soviet republics that have adopted western policies have certainly made a better start.
The Africans on the other hand have switched the rascist policies of the past for rascist/communist policies that have proven to be destructive to human freedom.
One can object to present day african goverment without endorsing the previous rascist regime.
I hope the Burmese "revolution" adopts the western idea's of free speech, private property etc which have been beneficial to the east european republics and not the south african policies the results of which anyone can see.
So Mah (Max???? anti Libertarian)
"Aung San Suu Kyi's father was a founder of the Burmese Communist Party" So what.. having a commie parent don't make you a commie .. same as the child of a Zionist doesn't mean that child will be a Zionist! (Hopefully?!) Obviously you do not have children Max.
Huhana
PS What is a "shill" Mah - getting some really big words eh Mah like "Anatoliy Golitsyn" - so how many books did that KGB write Max?
Two Huhana, New Lies for Old and Perestroika Deception or are you just too lazy to look them up? You simply don't give a damn about how Soviets are masters of controlling the opposition but have the gall to attack the likes of me horrible terms.
Right on anonymous 2 up.
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