After the suppression of protests in Burma, international prere on the military leadership is increasing – but so far only verbally, criticizes Ulrich Delius of the Society for Threatened Peoples. In an interview with this site, he calls on neighboring states "to now back up words with deeds". The West does not have the power to do that, Delius said. Meanwhile, the military junta in Burma is using a double tactic: gestures of reconciliation on the one hand, discrediting on the other.
Renewed protests The junta generals and their families donated money, rice, oil and toothpaste to monasteries in Rangoon, Asian media reported Monday, citing the Burmese state organ New Light of Myanmar. The monks would have accepted the donations.At the same time, according to the media, the military government is trying to discredit the clerics. It is alleged that pornography and weapons, such as pistols and slingshots, were found during raids on the monasteries during the violent crackdown on the peaceful uprising. Refusal to accept donations from the military was at the heart of the monks' protest actions. A boycott of donations has great symbolic significance.Meanwhile, in Yangon, some citizens expressed their contempt for the military junta again on Monday. Occasionally, soldiers are said to have been pelted with stones, Burmese media in exile report. Three days ago, leaders of the popular uprising, both monks and opposition politicians, who have gone into hiding and fled, called for the continuation of the protests through civil disobedience.
Federal Foreign Office: Situation only superficially calm The German Foreign Office in Berlin demanded Monday that all those detained be released. The situation in Burma is superficially calm, but arrests are still occurring during the nighttime curfew, spokesman Martin Jager said.In doing so, he said, it was apparently enough for people to have cameras or cell phones with them at demonstrations, or to wear only "a T-shirt of the wrong color". The International Red Cross called for access to detainees in prisons and labor camps in an epd interview Monday.The German Foreign Office emphasized that the Burmese government must know that its behavior will not remain without consequences. The UN Security Council should remain seized of the ie. The country's neighbors, in particular, should influence the military government. The junta should now enter into a "dialogue without preconditions" with the opposition, Jager demanded.
International prere increases International prere also mounting on Burma's military leadership. Malaysia's Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar on Monday urged the military junta to hold talks without preconditions with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for years. "There should be a meeting without preconditions on Burma's future before the international community moves to stronger prere," he told the Malaysian news agency Bernama. Malaysia, like Burma, which the generals renamed Myanmar, is part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).Burma's head of state, General Than Shwe, surprisingly agreed to meet with Suu Kyi last week, but set conditions. He said the politician should call on Burmese to give up resistance to the military. She should also end her support for international sanctions against Burma. A Freilang Suu Kyis rejected the junta on Monday in a commentary in the "new light of Myanmar".