Burma: An Upside to the Relief Effort | Newsweek Periscope

BURMA
'A Bad Omen'
Melinda Liu 5/8/2008 12:00:00 AM
Burma remains one of Southeast Asia's most opaque and isolated societies, frustrating analysts who're trying to find out more about the horrific Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta. Irrawaddy Magazine, based in the northern Thai city of Chiangmai, is a familiar resource to Burma watchers trying to monitor political events inside the country. Edited by Burmese exiles in Thailand, the magazine and its Web site have carried firsthand reports from inside Burma about cyclone survivors surrounded by bloated corpses, apparent outbreaks of disease, the low profile maintained by senior military leaders and mounting civilian anger at the regime's inadequate response to the calamity. Irriwaddy editor Aung Zaw spoke on the phone with NEWSWEEK's Melinda Liu about what the exiles are being told about the mood inside the devastated areas of Burma, which the regime calls Myanmar. Excerpts:
‘I Wanted Democracy’
Lennox Samuels 11/19/2007 12:00:00 AM
It was momentum, not militancy, that got the 26-year-old monk to join his Buddhist brethren massing on the streets of Rangoon. He left his monastery on the first day of the September protests and was soon marching near the famed Shwedagon Pagoda, confronting Burmese soldiers who barred him and others from climbing the shrine's stairs. He dropped out pretty quickly, though, when the Sangha, the state council of Buddhist monks, ordered the monks to stand down.
LETTERS
China for the World

Fareed Zakaria and Kishore Mahbubani got warm reviews for unconventional columns on China's Tibet crackdown. One reader agreed, "Putting public pressure on the Chinese is futile and counterproductive." Another called for the West to recognize China's "deeper integration into world affairs."
WORLD AFFAIRS
The Stealth Rescue

They line the roads south of Burma's main city, Rangoon. Aid groups call them "separated children" because many don't know if their parents are dead or alive. They await food, water and other essentials delivered by private groups operating without legal authority in this brutal dictatorship. It's all surprisingly open; drivers stop, pop their trunks, and hand out noodles and water as soldiers look on. The kids then return to the churches, temples and schools that have become refugee camps across the Irrawaddy Delta.
BURMA
Where Are The Monks?

The 26-year-old monk was one of thousands who took to Burma's streets in late September. Like so many of them he had never imagined himself an activist—"I'm a normal monk, I'm not a political monk," he says—but he was carried away by the democratic fervor then sweeping Rangoon. On Sept. 25 he returned to his monastery late at night, climbing over the back wall since the front entrance was locked. The next night the soldiers came and took him away.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Free the Burmese

Brutalities in BurmaFareed Zakaria's Oct. 15 World View on sanctions against Burma was the most concise and logical article I have read about that country ("Sleepwalking to Sanctions, Again"). At last, someone finally did some homework and read the history of Burma and what it has gone through for the last 150 years. Naturally, the Burmese don't trust outsiders because of what outsiders have done to them during the last century. All they wanted was their independence from foreign rule, and those promises were always broken. Why punish them further with sanctions? Leave them alone. They are savvier than we think.Esther M. SmedvigLondon, England