politics

Myanmar Forces Fire on Protesters – New York Times

The peaceful pro-democracy uprising led by Buddhist monks in Burma (Myanmar) came to a head as the military dictatorship’s troops attacked monks and lay supporters.

Government security forces cracked down for a second day on nationwide protests, firing shots and tear gas, and raiding at least two Buddhist monasteries, where they beat and arrested dozens of monks, according to reports from the city of Yangon.

At least three monks were killed in clashes with Burma’s security forces who cracked down on anti-government protests in Rangoon according to anonymous government officials. One monk was reportedly killed when a gun went off as he tried to wrestle the weapon away from a soldier, while two others were beaten to death, the official said.

The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown on Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of growing protests in cities around the country. Security forces clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air and arrested hundreds of the monks, who are at the heart of the demonstrations.

Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.

In response to the violence, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but China blocked a Council resolution, backed by the United States and European nations, to condemn the government crackdown.

An earlier peaceful uprising in 1988 was crushed by the military, which shot into crowds, killing an estimated 3,000 people.

At the United Nations, President Bush on Tuesday announced a largely symbolic tightening of American sanctions against Myanmar’s government. The European Union threatened to tighten its own sanctions if violence was used. On Wednesday, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the first step after any meeting of the Security Council should be to send a United Nations envoy to Myanmar.

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and antiapartheid campaigner, have spoken out in support of their fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, who has been held under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

Monks seize troops in Burma town

September 6, 2007

Bodhipaksa

The BBC reports (Monks seize troops in Burma town) that Buddhist monks have taken about 20 members of the security forces hostage in central Burma, a day after clashes at a protest rally.

In Burma (officially Myanmar) democracy and military dictatorship have been playing seesaw for decades. After liberation from Japanese occupation at the end of Word War II, was first under civilian leadership, but then in an ominous move, army Chief of Staff General Ne Win formed a caretaker government in 1958.

1960 saw elections and a win by U Nu, but then the military took over again in 1962. In 1974 power was transferred to a nominally civilian People’s Assembly — formed and run by the former military leaders. in 1990 the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi won a general election, but the military did not recognize the result. If this is a game of seesaw, then the military dictatorship is playing Moe to democracy’s Calvin.

The governing military dictatorship has persecuted minorities, hounded pro-Democracy activists, kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest on and off for 11 years, and has generally mismanaged the economy to the point where people are rioting.

The monks had been involved on Wednesday in an anti-government rally where security forces had fired rounds into the air. The officials who are being held captive had come round to the monastery the next day to apologize, only to be seized and to have their vehicles set alight.

This isn’t very monastic behavior, but given the situation we can’t help applauding them. According to the BBC the monastery is surrounded by hundreds of people who have gathered to support the monks, and the security forces are afraid to approach.

In June of this year US diplomats held talks with Burmese government ministers in Beijing to press for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and to discuss the regime’s behavior, but reported that the military dictatorship showed no signs of softening its stance.

The regional grouping Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) is also losing its patience with Burma, frustrated by the government’s continued refusal to progress towards democracy, the poverty it has causes, its tolerance of corruption, its human rights abuses and high levels of black market trading, which includes the smuggling of gems, drugs, and sex-workers into neighboring countries.

Burma is friendless in the region, but in January of this year China and Russia vetoed a draft US resolution at the UN Security Council urging Burma to stop persecuting minority and opposition groups.

Internal dissatisfaction with the ruling junta has been simmering for years and there’s no guarantee that the military dictatorship will relinquish power, but we can keep our fingers crossed that the actions of these feisty bhikkhus will inspire the Burmese people to restore democracy.

In the meantime you can read more about Burma, and opposition to the junta, in the US Campaign for Burma‘s website. (The website of the British equivalent is currently down).

“Mindful Politics: A Buddhist Guide to Making the World a Better Place” by Melvin McLeod

June 21, 2007

Akuppa

reviews

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Mindful Politics: A Buddhist Guide to Making the World a Better Place by Melvin McLeod, editor. (Wisdom Publications, 2006. Paperback, $16.95).

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

There are some books on engaged Buddhism that tend to be rather polemical or academic in style. ‘Mindful Politics’ is not one of them. Its editor hopes that it will serve as a guide or a handbook for those who wish to draw on Buddhism to help make the world a better place. His hopes are well justified. It is an anthology that draws on the accumulated experience of much learning – rich in flashes of insight and practical wisdom. Anyone who feels some connection between the transformation of self and world is sure to find some fresh perspectives and directions among its many and varied contributions.

All but a few of the contributors are American or America-based. Given the subject matter of the book, it is perhaps surprising that this bias is unexplained and barely acknowledged. And yet its rootedness in the American Buddhist experience is also a real strength. This is a book that could not have been compiled twenty or thirty years ago. It bears witness to a generation of practice in the West and engagement with real-life suffering in the world. It is a sign that the Dharma has not only taken root outside of the East but has begun to bear fruit, too. The result is a collection of pithy writings that have an immediacy and accessibility to any Western reader.

“Pavement: Reflections on mercy, activism, and doing ‘nothing’ for peace” by Lin Jensen

June 12, 2007

Lokabandhu

reviews

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Lin Jensen’s little book Pavement — Reflections on mercy, activism, and doing “nothing” for peace (Wisdom, March 2007) arrived in the mail a few weeks ago and has been by my bedside since, an almost-daily source of inspiration in the mornings before rising. Its 36 short chapters are an easy read, but squarely address a tough theme — how to respond as a Buddhist when you are a citizen of a country you believe to be violent and to be engaged in violent acts, in this case America and her war in Iraq.

Jensen is a man of deep feeling, a long-standing Zen Buddhist, and possessed of a passionate need to respond — somehow, every which way he can find — to the suffering and violence he hears of daily. It’s clear from hints dropped here and there through the book that he’s a long-standing peace activist — “I’ve written my representatives repeatedly, submitted all the Letters to the Editor I could get printed, written whatever articles on peace I could persuade someone to publish, joined the peace rallies and marches, and given all the talks on nonviolence I could find an audience for.” And yet he hasn’t stopped the violence, and knows it, and is still impelled to respond when he hears of missiles dropped on Iraqi children — “I could run screaming into the streets with such news, I could knock on the doors of houses and force strangers to hear how a little girl in Iraq died.” And so he is forced to engage with a deep koan (though he does not use the word) — “WHAT TO DO?”

This led him, in 2005, to begin his ongoing peace vigils, sitting daily in meditation on the streets of Chico, his home town in California. And these in turn led him to an extraordinary series of discoveries, both about himself, his practice, and his fellow Americans — insights and reflections that make up the bulk of the book.

Jensen is honest (“I would sit an hour’s meditation on a downtown street corner in an outward attitude of calm and peacefulness and feel like a perfect hypocrite because I felt so little peace within”), realistic (“I don’t imagine my sitting here … has prevented even a single bomb dropping into the lives of people a thousand miles away”) and yet confident in his enterprise (“You may acknowledge me or ignore me as you see fit, but I am here, nevertheless, to remind us both that something has gone drastically wrong with our nation, and I’ll be back tomorrow to remind us again.”) He comes to see, first of all, that peace was not something that would ever come from his own “willful devising,” that it was its own agent and he, at best, merely its instrument.

The book’s reflections range over a wide variety of topics, and take all sorts of little incidents as their starting-points, often the people who interacted with him as he sat there. We have to guess, from little hints here and there, what kind of person he is and what his friends, wife and fellow-citizens think of him — we learn for instance that he’s 75, a long-distance runner, and Zen teacher. The book is occasionally whimsical and a little “light,” but most often it’s moving, sometimes deeply so. And we are privileged to share something of Jensen’s journey as he confronts ever more deeply his question.

The book is not primarily a political book, nor was it written specifically in response to America’s war in Iraq. It simply springs from them as a primary meeting-place between the real world and his ideals — with his practice of Buddhist meditation as a sort of crucible in which those poles can be reconciled.

There is ample evidence that meditation has been a powerful, humbling, and transformative practice for Jensen himself. As to whether or not his actions have made any difference to anyone else, I would like to close by saying that I read his book in the UK, on the other side of the Atlantic, and it felt a blessed relief to hear this voice of humility and compassion — even of honest self-doubt — coming from far-away America. I realized it was far too long since I had heard anything from that country save belligerence, self-righteousness, and defiance. I share Jensen’s belief that America occupies a pivotal point in the world today: as he says “It is the United States alone, like Asoka’s kingdom of old, that holds the necessary power to halt the long centuries of killing.” So I would like to say to Jensen, “thank you — you have made a difference to me.”

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Lokabandhu is a western Buddhist of many years standing, based in the UK. He is a father of two children, now aged 21 and 17, and has, over the years, taken his practice into many different areas, from pilgrimages to the Holy Places in India to peacework in Palestine. Currently he works for the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order as their Development Coordinator.

Dalai Lama Focuses on Science, Not Politics, During Washington Visit

November 9, 2005

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Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, says he is trying to keep the focus of his trip to Washington on scientific, not political, matters. He spoke Tuesday before the opening of a three-day conference that examines how meditation affects mental and physical health.

At a meeting with reporters before the start of the conference, the Dalai Lama was asked only one question about China. The Tibetan spiritual leader gave a brief answer, saying that although the Tibetan government in exile and Beijing have been in direct contact, he hasn’t seen improvements on the ground, inside Tibet.

“So far, [there has been] no such sign,” he said. “Still, things are very, very repressive.”

He said most of his time during his 10 day visit to Washington is devoted to science, including this week’s conference, titled “The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation.”

In his opening remarks to the gathering, the Dalai Lama said Buddhists and scientists have something in common — they both seek to dispel ignorance with knowledge, gained from experimentation and investigation.

“So, science and Buddhists, I think both are actually trying to find reality,” the Dalai Lama said.

The conference’s main sponsor is the Mind and Life Institute, a non-profit organization that promotes dialogue between modern science and contemplative traditions, such as Tibetan Buddhism.

Mind and Life Institute chairman Adam Engle compared meditation to exercise, saying a healthy mind is as important as a healthy body.

“So, in the same way that you’ve got a myriad of physical exercises to help your body, there are a myriad of mental trainings. And this is not well known. Most people, when they think about meditation, they think about turning your body into a pretzel and zoning out somewhere,” he said. “But it is really just a word for mental training.”

These ideas were given weight by the meeting’s co-sponsors, Georgetown University Medical Center and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Not all scientists agree with the Dalai Lama, though. More than 500 brain researchers signed a petition urging the Society for Neuroscience to cancel his lecture to the group’s annual meeting. Many of those who signed the petition believe the field of neuroscience risks losing credibility if it mixes science with spirituality.

Meantime, the Dalai Lama also commented on a vexing issue in the United States — namely the origin of human beings. He said some Buddhist scriptures say humans descended from higher beings. But he added that the traditional Tibetan myth of creation says humans descended from monkeys.

“I don’t know, all human beings or not. At least Tibetan human beings come from monkeys,” he said. “So, that’s more scientific.”

On non-scientific matters, the Dalai Lama meets with congressional leaders. He also is expected to meet at the White House with President Bush, who is traveling to China later this month.

The Dalai Lama is the head of Tibetan Buddhism. He has lived outside of Tibet since fleeing in 1959. His remote Himalayan homeland is inside China, which accuses the Dalai Lama of undermining national unity and trying to gain international support for Tibetan independence.

When meditation spurs revolution (Taipei Journal, Taiwan)

December 24, 2004

Manik Mehta, Taipei Journal: Normally imperturbable New Yorkers have recently been visibly shaken by simulated scenes of religious persecution in China staged in bustling areas of New York such as Times Square and Grand Central Station.

Followers and friends of the Falun Gong movement, which professes only to teach traditional Chinese methods for improving psychic and physical wellness involving simple exercises, meditation and development of xinxing–or heart-mind nature–enacted scenes dramatizing Beijing’s brutal suppression of the movement. They replicated the torture chambers purportedly used in China to punish Falun Gong members who refuse to renounce their beliefs and practices.

Amateur actors dressed as Chinese prison guards pretended to administer electric shocks to chained female Falun Gong practitioners, with faces contorted in agony and bodies covered with torture marks. Another simulation showed a woman prisoner in chains hunched over in a cramped “birdcage.” “Eeeek!” screamed a female passerby upon seeing the birdcage and its bruised and bloodied occupant. “Don’t tell me this is really happening in China?” Similar anti-torture tableaux, in tandem with petition and letter-writing campaigns, have been staged in cities and on university campuses the world over since November. The disgust and horror of onlookers, be they in New York, Munich, Taipei or Lima was proof that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

According to data provided by the Friends of Falun Gong organization, more than 1,600 followers have been tortured to death in China, while hundreds of thousands continue to languish in jails without formal charges or legal recourse. More than 100,000 have been sent to labor camps and another 1,000 have been tortured in mental hospitals, it is claimed.

Worldwide sympathy and support for the Falun Gong can only mount if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership persists in its knee-jerk reaction to even loosely organized groups that it perceives as posing a threat to its authority. Already, virtually every democratic society in the world is highly critical of Beijing for its violation of human rights on a vast scale. It is notorious for its suppression of religious groups, its complicity in driving farmers off their land, its backsliding on its legal commitment to allow Hong Kong to function as a free and autonomous entity, or its calculated annihilation of the Tibetan people’s cultural and linguistic heritage.

China’s embassies and consulates around the world are regularly bombarded with petitions pleading respect for Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans and other abused religious, ethnic and social groups.

For its part, the U. S. Congress has expressed its strenuous objection to the Chinese government’s treatment of Falun Gong members. On July 24, 2002, by a vote of 420-0, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed resolution H.R. 188, urging the Beijing authorities to cease such persecution.

The resolution reads, “The campaign of persecution [against the] Falun Gong has been carried out by government officials at all levels, and has permeated every segment of society and every level of government in the People’s Republic of China.” An issue of particular concern to U.S. politicians is the fate of an American citizen of Chinese origin, Charles Li, who is languishing in a prison in Nanjing and, according to Falun Gong sources, being beaten and subjected to brainwashing because of his association with the organization. When he refused to attend a brainwashing session in July at the behest of prison guards, it is said, another inmate knocked Li to the ground and dragged him down a staircase.

According to Falun Gong members taking part in anti-torture street presentations, Li has gone on hunger strikes and been confined to the prison clinic. It has been reported that when a U.S. consular official traveled from Shanghai to Nanjing to pay him a visit, prison officials refused him entry.

The Beijing authorities have categorically denied that Li’s arrest was related to his personal beliefs or association with the Falun Gong. The movement’s supporters point out that they deny such a connection because, otherwise, it would be tantamount to admitting that they are engaging in religious persecution–this, despite their insistence that freedom of religion is well-protected in China.

Original article no longer available

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China’s former leader sued for genocide (Scoop)

October 26, 2004

Eleven NZ citizens and residents filed a lawsuit in the Auckland High Court today against Jiang Zemin, the former president of China.

“It’s part of the biggest human rights case in the world since WWII… In the end, we plan to bring Jiang Zemin to the International Tribunal,” says Theresa Chu, a lawyer who brought a similar case to court in Taiwan and also the director of International Advocates For Justice. “Twenty-seven lawyers from 21 countries are working to bring Jiang and his cohorts to justice across the world.”

The group’s barrister, Chris Lawrence, a former Proceedings Commissioner of the NZ Human Rights Commission, as well as a past delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, said that the case was unusual because the plaintiffs sue over events in China. “The Chinese legal system, controlled as it is by the defendants, is unable to provide my clients justice. So we are seeking to bring Jiang Zemin to justice in NZ. This case will explore the extent to which New Zealanders who have been subjected to gross human rights abuses in other countries can seek justice in our courts.”

Also named as defendants in the suit are Jiang Zemin’s primary primary accomplices in the persecution of Falun Gong: Luo Gan and Li Lanqing. Together with Jiang, they stand accused of directing a systematic campaign of genocide over the past five years.

The group held a press conference outside the Auckland High Court this morning followed by what they called “The Great Wall of Courage.” The hundred-plus collection of Falun Gong practitioners lined up along eight blocks of Queen St. holding banners and handing out flyers in an effort to raise the public’s awareness of their plight.

Falun Gong describes itself as an ancient Chinese meditation practice, in which practitioners adhere to the principles of “ Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” in their daily lives. The practice grew exponentially during the 1990’s at a grass roots level, and a Chinese government survey in 1999 estimated between 70-100 million people practiced it.

A government policy of harassment began as early as 1996, and culminated in a full out persecution in July 1999. Since then human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, in addition to the UN, and the US State department, have documented serious human rights abuses, including systematic torture, rape, killing, brainwashing, and mental institutionalization of hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners.

Thousands Gather to Commemorate Ban on Falun Gong (The Epoch Times)

July 21, 2004

Original article no longer available…

Stephen Farmer, Epoch Times: Washington, D.C. will be the site of a series of activities to commemorate the Chinese government’s ban on the Falun Gong spiritual practice. The ban was announced on statewide television July 22, 1999 although officials began efforts to suppress the group before then.

On July 22 in Washington, a group of youths riding bikes from Canada will join thousands of Falun Gong practitioners from around the world for rallies, anti-torture exhibitions, a “Great Wall of Courage,” and a conference.

In 1992, Mr. Li Hongzhi founded Falun Gong in China. Practitioners call it a cultivation, or self-improvement practice. It features Mr. Li’s teachings and meditation exercises.

Falun Gong became popular in China very quickly, perhaps because of the health benefits many practitioners reported. Sherwood Liu, a Falun Gong practitioner and researcher at a university in Florida said, “My parents, in their 70’s, benefited tremendously. My mom was in constant pain from arthritis and my dad had facial spasms and imbalanced vision that caused headaches. Their problems all went away after a few months’ practice.”

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, which reports on Falun Gong issues, a government survey in 1999 found between 70-to-100 people were learning the meditation system. On April 25, 1999, some 10,000 adherents petitioned the central government in Beijing to stop mistreating practitioners. Then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin began putting in place a campaign to suppress Falun Gong soon after.

On July 20, 1999, Chinese police began rounding up those they identified as “leaders” of the practice. Since then, the government has adopted stringent measures to suppress Falun Gong, including arrests and imprisonment. The information center reports that at least 1,000 practitioners have died as a result. They say more than 100,000 are detained in China’s labor camps.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the U.S. State Department and other human rights and governmental organizations have issued reports documenting the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners.

Practitioners inside China have responded with peaceful acts of civil disobedience that aims to counter what many consider government propaganda. They continue to leaflet and display posters. Some have gone so far as to tap into state-owned satellite TV signals. Outside China, Falun Gong practitioners hold rallies, parades, bike rides, concerts, exhibitions and other means to call attention to the persecution.

Going to the mat for Kerry (LA Times)

July 20, 2004