CBSC mural makes (inadvertent) appearance on cover of Carleton student newspaper

Yup, there it is in the back, behind the ninjas

The Honourable Larry Bagnell speaks about recent fact-finding mission to Thai-Burma border

(Monique Lyon-Summer shakes hands with Larry Bagnell after his lecture)


The Honourable Larry Bagnell - Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Burma - spoke at Carleton about his recent fact finding trip to the Thai-Burma border on Monday March 10th. Bagnell, a Liberal MP from the Yukon, went to the Thai-Burma border over the Christmas break and met with members of Burma's democratic opposition, including dissident monks who took part in last September's street protests which were brutally crushed by Burma's brutal military dictatorship. Bagnell also visited refugee camps housing thousands of refugees who have fled a violent military regime.

Bagnell accompanied his lecture with photographs he took during his visit to the Thai-Burma border. A lively question and answer session followed.

Alyssa O’Dell covered the event for Carleton’s student newspaper the Charlatan. Take a look at her article "Liberal MP helps shine light on Burma."

CBSC Newsletter Winter 2008

Burmese Artist Min Mon Paints CBSC Mural Honoring Aung San Suu Kyi at Carleton

(Min Mon painting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's portrait)

(CBSC member Sam Cartmell assists Min Mon with the mural)

(Min Mon enjoying the fruits of his labour)

The struggle for freedom from oppression in Burma has been beautifully represented in a mural painted by Min Mon in the Uni-Centre tunnel (near Oliver's Pub) at Carleton University. Min Mon is a former political prisoner now living in Canada.

Rambo is a man who does not smile

Burma is the backdrop of the new Rambo movie. There is debate amongst people in the democracy movement as to how this film contributes to the cause – positively, negatively or not at all. Does this movie raise awareness about the Burmese democracy movement in mainstream audiences? Do images of Rambo killing Burmese military soldiers raise hope amongst oppressed people inside Burma? These are some of the questions being asked.

Although officially banned, bootleg copies of the movie are available in many Burmese cities. The movie has been criticized in a weekly journal considered by most to be a mouthpiece of the Burmese junta, with the writer stating that “Rambo is a man who does not smile . . . he is an aggressive, hot-blooded man who seems to have a mental illness . . . the movie made me cry in my heart watching this poor man who is obviously crazy.”

While this new Rambo film has put the Burmese military dictatorship on edge due to the fact that its officers are the ‘bad guys’ of the flick, many commentators have taken a critical stance towards the movie and questioned its political impact. Sai Soe Win Latt - a geography MA student at York University – has written an insightful piece criticizing the new Rambo movie for the Irrawaddy magazine. I have reposted his article “Rambo: Another Victory for the West and a Defeat for Burma” below.


Rambo: Another Victory for the West and a Defeat for Burma
(Sai Soe Win Latt - Friday February 1st, 2008)
Stories and rumors about the latest “Rambo” movie have been circulating in Burmese newspapers and on web sites since filming began in Thailand. Burmese activists hoped it would help internationalize the political situation in Burma.
The movie, the fourth in the series, but simply titled “Rambo,” had its world premier last Friday. Several Burmese organizations sent out e-mails encouraging people to go watch the movie, endorsing it as “thrilling.”
Like other Hollywood films, “Rambo” has a tradition and a global strategy. That is, the message it carries is less about Burma and more about the United States. There is almost no plot and no political intrigue, only a band of butchers, and wannabe saviors (from the West, of course). What “Rambo” really does is reveal the ideas that serve to bring Western power and rationality to realization; think Edward Said’s “Orientalism,” a favorite concept of postcolonial and literary critics.
We should not feel content with “Rambo” just because it shows the sick side of the Burmese junta (which has no good side anyway). We cannot ignore the film’s perpetuation of the ideas that justify the US’s domination and oppression in many parts of the world.
So, what ideals does this film portray or reinforce in the global arena? How can we relate it to the power, domination and oppression of powerful nations in this neo-colonial era?
Of course, every form of domination involves oppression. How can it be that supposedly “modern” and “civilized” nations like Britain murdered and enslaved people and conquered foreign lands? How do supposedly liberal democratic states such as the US slaughter civilians in Iraq and get away with it?
Indeed, the ability to justify oppression rests with the power to espouse ethnocentric rhetoric about the people they are fighting against. Let us not forget that Western domination, be it colonial or neo-colonial, is never possible without stereotypical representation of non-Western societies and cultures. Also, we must not lose sight of the fact that Hollywood movies and their imagery are just another part of this cultural stereotyping process.
Historically, colonial Europe produced distorted images of non-Western societies as immoral, barbaric, savage, dangerous, and so on. Once these images were juxtaposed against the West itself, they came to define the West as moral, modern, rational and civilized. The West then assumed moral responsibility to assist and civilize the “savage.”
Ironically, genocide and oppression often took place in the name of civilization through Christian missionaries. Oppression was—and still is—justified on the basis that “We are right” and “They are wrong.”
In the new film, Rambo’s brutal murders are justified when he mutters: “When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing." Another time he quips to a group of mercenaries: “Live for nothing or die for something."
It all goes back to the same old cliché—once Western people get into trouble, things suddenly become “This is who we are and this is what we do.” Such a colonial mindset.
In the real world, we see a similar mindset at work. We witness every single American soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan mentioned on television. We watch national leaders mourning for their deaths. Meanwhile, countless missiles rain down on civilians in residential neighborhoods and anonymous victims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Look at how non-Western places and people are portrayed in Hollywood movies. Take any James Bond or Indiana Jones movie; or the contemporaries—“The Mummy” (1991) or “The Scorpion King (2002), not to mention various CIA-inspired or Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. The bad guys shown as cruel and despicable; the ordinary native people are naïve, inferior and untrustworthy.
Perhaps the most disturbing scene in “Rambo” is the final scene, one of the few that is not bloody. Hero John Rambo is back in his hometown in the US and walks off into the sunset. Stopping on the side of the highway, he turns and looks around—no “bad guys,” no guns, no savages: just the highway, the trees and the open fields. Rambo chuckles to himself. Perhaps he is thinking what a sweet and peaceful world this is: how unlike the non-West.
Maybe “Rambo” deserves some credit for bringing the issue of Burma to an international audience. But it does more to reinforce the idea that the West is rational, moral, powerful and superior; whereas non-Western areas are places of immorality, savagery and powerless victims.
Perhaps those who had hoped that Hollywood would internationalize Burma’s political crisis will be more cautious next time. Let us not romanticize the films that actually hijack the political crises of non-Western societies to make their own points.
Sai Soe Win Latt is a graduate student in Geography from York University in Canada.

Victor Biak Lian speaks at Carleton University

Last Thursday January 24th Chin democracy activist Victor Biak Lian gave a talk on the plight of Burma’s ethnic minorities and the possibilities for a political solution to the repressive dictatorship in Burma. Victor's activist work comes together in three organizations: The National Reconciliation Programme for which he works as a Project Officer; The Ethnic Nationalities Council of which he is a member; and The Chin Human Rights Organization of which he is a founder and a current board member.

Victor’s work deals with questions of how to effect a peaceful transition to a democratic political system in Burma which is inclusive of ethnic nationalities. During his talk, Victor provided an overview of the present options for a negotiated transition to democracy in the context of struggles by ethnic minority peoples. For Victor, the process of political change must be inclusive of the ethnic nationalities living in Burma. In order to understand the plight of ethnic nationalities one needs to realize that 40-45% of the population comes from an ethnic minority group, and that ethnic minority peoples occupy 60% of the land.

The present situation in Burma is characterized by the institutionalized marginalization of ethnic nationalities, organized political repression including large numbers of political prisoners, a massive out-flowing of refugees and migrant workers, and widespread economic mismanagement and corruption.

The refugee situation is especially dire with 153,000 refugees along the Thai-Burma border; 100,000 Rohinga refugees along the Bangladesh border; 60,000 refugees in India; 30,000 in Malaysia, and around one million internally displaced people.

Victor’s talk focused on the current possibilities for an inclusive political solution to the dictatorship in Burma but he wanted to make it clear to the audience that there is a long history of struggle in this direction. One notable precedent of current efforts to negotiate a unified democratic Burma was the 1948 Paulong Agreement which aimed to forge a Union of Burma with participation from the ethnic nationalities living in the country. The Paulong Agreement was not implemented by successive governments after Aung San was assassinated. Ethnic minority peoples has been struggling for self-determination, through wars of insurgency as well as political negotiation, ever since.

At present one can conceive of two main approaches to a negotiated transition to democracy in Burma: the UN approach and the SPDC approach.

The basis of the UN approach is the notion of a Tripartite Dialogue where the three players are conceived as the SPDC, the NLD, and the ethnic nationalities. This dialogue is envisioned as being bolstered by a UN Envoy to Burma who acts as a “peace broker”.

The basis of the SPDC approach is the “Seven-step Roadmap Towards Democracy”. Step One - the so-called National Convention to establish the framework for the rest of the Roadmap - took 14 years to finish. The framework established by the National Convention is set-up as to enable the junta to disproportionately influence the outcome of the Roadmap process. In short, the process has been a sham.

Thus far, neither the UN nor the SPDC approach has yielded very much in terms of concrete movement towards political transition in Burma, but Victor noted that there have been some positive advances in the past few years. In September 2005 Vaclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutu published the Threat to Peace Report. This report outlined the case for putting Burma on the permanent agenda of the UN Security Council. More recently, Ibrahim Gambari was appointed as the UN Special Envoy to Burma. Gambari met with ethnic leaders, SPDC representatives, members of the NLD and even Aung San Suu Kyi in an attempt to find a way to make the Tri-Partite Dialogue work. The SPDC continues to resist this vision for reform, but this type of multilateral pressure through the UN system at least keeps the regime on its toes. The National Reconciliation Program works to ensure that ethnic nationalities will be properly represented in any future tri-partite dialogue process.

Victor concluded with four recommendations:
1) Pressure from the “international community” is important and should be maintained (sanctions or otherwise)
2) The Canadian government should be encouraged to accept more refugees – especially children who has been born into camps. The education that refugees will receive in third countries will be important for them to engage effectively as future community leaders in Burma.
3) The “international community” should provide greater assistance to the democratic movement in Burma and along the borders.
4) Canadians should raise awareness of Burma within Canada so that people will continue collective international actions in support of democracy in Burma.

Questions from the audience

In response to an audience question about the effect of the Burmese junta in Chin State on Chin youth Victor stated that they are not being well served by the national education system. In the Burmese nationalized educational system there is a clear disparity of resources between urban and rural areas, leading to a cycle of disparity in the ratio of urban/rural and wealthy/poor youth gaining access to post-secondary education. As well, ethnic languages are not taught in national schools and leads to ethnic, religious and cultural assimilation.

In response to an audience question about the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) Victor stated that he was one of its founders. CHRO was established along the Bangladesh-Burma border in 1995 and was later set-up as a charity organization in Canada. As Chin state is fairly isolated the idea behind CHRO was to document the realities of life in Chin state and raise awareness outside of the state. Over the past twenty years military presence and repression has increased in Chin state: in 1988 there was one army battalion in the state, today there are 12 battalions in 33 camps across the state. CHRO documents and reports on issues in Chin state and beyond through its network of field workers in Chin State, throughout greater Burma, India, and Malaysia (where there are currently 25,000 refugees).

Victor concluded his talk by suggesting some websites where audience members can find out more:

Ethnic Nationalities Council (Union of Burma)
http://www.encburma.org/

Chin Human Rights Organization
http://www.chro.org/

Chin National Front
http://www.chinland.org/

The Chin Forum
http://www.chinforum.org/

Ka Hsaw Wa speaks about Total's connection to human rights abuses in Burma at the Desmarais Building

On Wednesday December 5th acclaimed human rights and environmental activist Ka Hsaw Wa gave a rousing lecture to 70 plus people at Ottawa U’s new Desmarias Building. He told the crowd the story of how his life as a vacant fashion-obsessed teenager in Rangoon was shattered and he was thrust into political activism after being tortured by Burmese military intelligence officers trying to get information about his friend. He then became involved in the 1988 uprisings in Burma and eventually fled to the jungle with the intent to support the Burmese student army and other ethnic armies in their fight against the military dictatorship. It was in the jungle that Ka Hsaw Wa realized his own way to contribute to the struggle was by documenting the oppression of local people by the dictatorship and using this information to raise awareness outside of Burma. He began writing down the stories of military abuses that he heard from people he met in the jungle, and using any means to get those stories out of Burma to human rights groups and international media. In 1995 Ka Hsaw Wa and two American lawyers started EarthRights International to continue documenting human rights abuses and environmental destruction in Burma.

His work with Earth Rights International was crucial to the landmark case brought against UNOCAL in US courts using the Alien Tort Claims Act. At present, EarthRights International runs public awareness and legal campaigns focusing on the Amazon region and Southeast Asia. The organization operates a number of human rights and environmental activist schools which empower youth from Burma and other areas in South East Asia to become forces for positive change in their communities.

He spoke about terrible human rights abuses and environmental destruction that were a direct consequence of a joint venture between French multinational Total (now called Total/Fina), US multinational UNOCAL (now a subsidiary of Chevron) and the Burmese military junta The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). In the early 1990’s Total/UNOCAL entered into a joint venture with the SPDC to construct the Yandana oil pipeline from Burma to Thailand. The SPDC was in charge of “security” for this project and in this capacity committed wide-scale human rights abuses against the people living in the area of the pipeline. Ka Hsaw Wa and the other Earth Rights International co-founders – Katie Redford and Tyler Giannini – documented many of these crimes and won the right to sue UNOCAL for damages on behalf of plaintiffs living in the Burma/Thai border region. The plaintiffs decided to accept a settlement offer from UNOCAL rather than continue the case in court.

The venue of Ka Hsaw Wa’s lecture was fitting as Paul Desmarais Sr. is a major individual investor in Total and was a member of its Board of Directors from 1999 to 2002 (his son Paul Desmarais Jr. is presently on Total’s Board). Ka Hsaw Wa urged students at Ottawa U to contact Paul Desmarais Sr. directly and pressure him to use his influence to ensure that Total’s foreign investments do not support human rights abuses and environmental destruction.