Chees’ Last Stand
Not unexpected that the Chees are having a bad time in court. They have had their chance to cross-examine the father-son duo but Davinder Singh, the same guy who destroyed TT Durai in the NKF trial, argued that most of Chee Soon Juan’s questions were irrelevant e.g. whether the Lee family controlled Singapore.
The Chees know they would lose the case. They don’t trust the judiciary to be fair and they know that Davinder Singh is an experienced litigator. Chee Soon Juan on the other hand is representing himself. Why he did not want his activist comrades M Ravi or Chia Ti Lik to take on the Lees is anybody’s guess. Either they don’t wish to, Chee Soon Juan does not trust them to do a good job, or maybe he does not want to get them involved in the very personal family feud between the Chees and the Lees. By not getting experienced lawyers to defend him, Chee is deliberately undermining himself in court, but gaining much to depict himself as the David against the Goliath.
What the Chees are doing is to extract as much political coverage of this case as possible as a publicity stunt. Both brother and sister are declared bankrupt and cannot stand for election so they have nothing to lose. What they have is lots of free time and despite their bankruptcy, money to sustain themselves.
Obviously bankruptcy and short jail terms do not deter the Chees anymore in their political quest. The local media has destroyed the Chee’s credibility while the foreign media has elevated him as the opposition’s leader. A stalemate has been reached and the only people who benefit from this Chee-Lee feud are opposition parties like WP, who are sitting quietly and smartly on the sidelines as SDP and PAP throw themselves at each other and lose much needed respectability along the way.
Singapore leaders seek ‘unprecedented’ damages
SINGAPORE (AFP) — Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew and his son Premier Lee Hsien Loong sought “unprecedented” damages Wednesday as the trial of an opposition leader for defamation came to an emotional climax.
The Lees, stung by two days of cross-examination by Chee Soon Juan, secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), asked a Supreme Court judge to punish the pro-democracy activist for his behaviour in court.
Their lawyer, Davinder Singh, said Chee acted like a “hooligan” and exhibited “loutish behaviour” when he grilled the two leaders on the witness stand and ignored the judge’s admonitions about his manner of questioning.
Singh said that despite a court injunction, Chee repeated allegations of corruption against the Lees in court and posted them on the Internet, an action that merits an “unprecedented award” of damages.
“The case for substantial damages is very compelling,” he said.
Chee, summing up his defence, told the packed courtroom he stood by everything that was written in a party publication at the heart of the case, but added he harboured no personal hatred against the Lees.
“I do not hate Lee Hsien Loong, I do not hate Lee Kuan Yew and I do not wish them ill for what they have done and continue to do to me and my family,” he said.
Chee had been found guilty of defamation over allegations of government corruption made in an SDP newsletter ahead of general elections in May 2006.
The SDP and Chee’s sister and fellow pro-democracy activist Chee Siok Chin were named as co-defendants.
Defence lawyer M. Ravi, representing the SDP, said the Lees only deserved to be awarded a token 50 Singapore cents (37 US cents) because their reputations were not hurt by what the SDP and the Chees said.
Hearings were held this week to determine the amount of damages and the Lees took the witness stand to press their case, allowing the defendants to cross-examine them.
Chee, acting as his own lawyer, used strong language as he questioned the record of the Lees and the necessity of strict political controls in Singapore, now Southeast Asia’s most economically advanced society.
The Lees — the father was prime minister from 1959 to 1990 and his son came to power in 2004 — dismissed Chee’s attacks and said he further damaged their reputations during the cross-examination.
The Lees and other Singapore leaders have won hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages from lawsuits against members of the country’s tiny opposition.
Chee is already bankrupt after failing to pay 500,000 Singapore dollars (365,000 US) in libel damages to the elder Lee and another former prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, for remarks he made in the 2001 elections.
Sexy Fragrance Prince’s Unsexy Arrest
The blogger who was the centre of attention for posting racist comments was arrested by the police after vigilantes made complaints. So much for community education and castigation, the authorities also want incarceration next seemingly.
The police probably had to respond as the public complained. Hopefully the police is merely employing a scare tactic as a deterrence, and if it does go to court, perhaps community service as a rehabilitative process for the 24-year old bigot blogger. If we see the pattern of racist netizens, the law has been more and more progressive if we want to see it positively. The first two were arrested and jailed, the third had to do community service, this is the 4th one to be arrested.
The amount of negative reaction towards that blogger is a barometer of how much displeasure there is toward such blatant racism. Ideally, the law should not be brought in at all. Furthermore, there was no incitement of violence or orchestrated hate speech from what was said about this bigot. If I remember correctly, the blogger who did community service after he gave a sob story as a plea, was worse than him as he advocated genocide. So this Prince should get a lighter sentence in the event this case goes to court. We have to wait and see if he goes to court, or is let off with a stern warning. The latter is the best option for all in a society that is coming to terms with internet regulation, racism and responsibility.
Educate, Castigate but not Regulate
Another imbecile racist blogger, and the community effort to chastise him is the best way for the internet. The anachronistic Sedition Act should be sheathed and let the community embarrass and educate such racist bloggers. This is the best way to deal with racists in the internet. Unless there are threats, instigation of violence or orchestrated hate speech, the law should not be in the picture. Mob justice and fiery rants to isolate a supposed bigot, as long as they don’t threaten or incite violence, is more in tune with the government’s pledged “lighter touch”.
The Road to Hell is Pathed with “Good” Intentions
Reading such hawkish thoughts is both scary and hilarious at the same time. Neo-cons want to bring back into fashion armed humanitarian intervention which is merely sugarcoated gunboat diplomacy. Right here at Asean’s doorstep, never mind that it is the mad pariah state of the regional bloc, just to send a strong message to North Korea etc of US power, but decorated as UN philanthropy at best. The whole idea of might- is-right self-righteous intervention. And when things don’t turn out as planned like in Somalia, they just leave, making things worse than the original state. Also, I thought Dr Chee Soon Juan is so enamoured with Burma, where is he now?
May 14, 2008
New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
Aid at the Point of a Gun
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Mae Sot, Thailand
MORE than 60,000 people may have died as a result of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and at least 1.5 million are homeless or otherwise in desperate need of assistance. The Burmese military junta, one of the most morally repulsive in the world, has allowed in only a trickle of aid supplies. The handful of United States Air Force C-130 flights from Utapao Air Base here in Thailand is little more than symbolic, given the extent of the need.
France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has spoken of the possibility of an armed humanitarian intervention, and there is an increasing degree of chatter about the possibility of an American-led invasion of the Irrawaddy River Delta.
As it happens, American armed forces are now gathered in large numbers in Thailand for the annual multinational military exercise known as Cobra Gold. This means that Navy warships could pass from the Gulf of Thailand through the Strait of Malacca and north up the Bay of Bengal to the Irrawaddy Delta. It was a similar circumstance that had allowed for Navy intervention after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
Because oceans are vast and even warships travel comparatively slowly, one should not underestimate the advantage that fate has once again handed us. For example, a carrier strike group, or even a smaller Marine-dominated expeditionary strike group headed by an amphibious ship, could get close to shore and ferry troops and supplies to the most devastated areas on land.
The magic of this is that an enormous amount of assistance can be provided while maintaining a small footprint on shore, greatly reducing the chances of a clash with the Burmese armed forces while nevertheless dealing a hard political blow to the junta. Concomitantly, drops can be made from directly overhead by the Air Force without the need to militarily occupy any Burmese airports.
In other words, this is militarily doable. The challenge is the politics, both internationally and inside Myanmar. Because one can never assume an operation will go smoothly, it is vital that the United States carry out such a mission only as part of a coalition including France, Australia and other Western powers. Of course, the approval of the United Nations Security Council would be best, but China — the junta’s best friend — would likely veto it.
And yet China — along with India, Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Singapore — has been put in a very uncomfortable diplomatic situation. China and India are invested in port enlargement and energy deals with Myanmar. Thailand’s democratic government has moved closer to the junta for the sake of logging and other business ventures. Singapore, a city-state that must get along with everybody in the region, is suspected of acting as a banker for the Burmese generals. All these countries quietly resent the ineffectual moral absolutes with which the United States, a half a world away, approaches Myanmar. Nonetheless, the disaster represents an opportunity for Washington. By just threatening intervention, the United States puts pressure on Beijing, New Delhi and Bangkok to, in turn, pressure the Burmese generals to open their country to a full-fledged foreign relief effort. We could do a lot of good merely by holding out the possibility of an invasion.
The other challenge we face lies within Myanmar. Because a humanitarian invasion could ultimately lead to the regime’s collapse, we would have to accept significant responsibility for the aftermath. And just as the collapse of the Berlin Wall was not supposed to lead to ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein was not supposed to lead to civil war, the fall of the junta would not be meant to lead to the collapse of the Burmese state. But it might.
About a third of Myanmar’s 47 million people are ethnic minorities, who have a troubled historical relationship with the dominant group, the Burmans. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroine of the democracy movement, is an ethnic Burman just like the generals, and her supporters are largely focused on the Burman homeland. Meanwhile, the Chins, Kachins, Karennis, Karens, Shans and other hill tribes have been fighting against the government. The real issue in Myanmar, should the regime fall, would be less about forging democracy than a compromise between the Burmans and the other ethnic groups.
Of course, Myanmar is not the Balkans or Iraq, where ethnic and sectarian rivalries were smothered under a carapace of authoritarianism, only to erupt later on. Myanmar has suffered insurgencies for 60 years now, and may be ripe for a compromise under a civilian government. But neither can we be naïve. Just because Myanmar is not Yugoslavia doesn’t mean it isn’t like Russia; it is a mini-empire ruled by the ethnic-Burman military that could crumble into its constituent mountainous parts, especially as the democracy advocates have demonstrated little ability to run a country. Here in Mae Sot, a center for non-Burman ethnic dissident groups, complaints over the disorganization of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement are rife.
It seems like a simple moral decision: help the survivors of the cyclone. But liberating Iraq from an Arab Stalin also seemed simple and moral. (And it might have been, had we planned for the aftermath.) Sending in marines and sailors is the easy part; but make no mistake, the very act of our invasion could land us with the responsibility for fixing Burma afterward.
Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.
Myanmar, Pariah
The latest development in the media reporting is not on who is giving how much and doing what, instead it is that the Burmese junta is keeping out foreign aid. Burma-bashing again by the media especially the “Western” ones, but who can blame them for headlining news worthy stories? The Burma junta is some serious pariah state by all accounts. I bet aid is slowly trickling in because the junta wants to transfer the food etc from UN packaging into a local bundles and packages with SPDC logos. This elaborate show is to make the Burmese believe that aid is from the junta and not from the international community when food etc is unloaded off the truck. That also explains why no foreign aid groups are allowed in to help in the distribution.
What is with this junta that fears the world? North Korea as far as I know takes in any aid it can get. With Taepodong and nuclear arms come confidence in accepting aid it seems. The moment Burma takes in foreign aid greedily, then it means they are up to something nuclear!
International Herald Tribune
Myanmar blocking most cyclone aid
Sunday, May 11, 2008
YANGON, Myanmar: A trickle of aid shipments arrived in Myanmar on Sunday, more than a week after a powerful cyclone smashed the country, but officials continued to bar major shipments to more than a million of the storm’s hard-hit survivors.
The junta is refusing to grant entry to foreign aid workers, who relief officials say are crucial to preventing more deaths from disease among an estimated 1.5 million victims of the May 3 storm.
The United Nations World Food Program said that only one visa had been approved out of 16 it had requested and the aid group World Vision said it had requested 20 visas but received two.
At Yangon’s port, shipments of rice were being loaded onto two freighters bound for Malaysia and Singapore, apparently as part of a pre-existing contract. Nearby, another ship was being loaded with rice bound for the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the storm.
Some water and electricity had been restored by Sunday in Yangon, the country’s financial capital, but prices for rice and fuel had increased sharply, along with prices for candles while the power was out.
As aid shipments continued Sunday, a spokesman for the World Food Program, Paul Risley, said it amounted to about one-tenth of what was needed, in addition to a major logistical operation.
The World Food Program said the authorities had released 38 tons of high-energy biscuits it had confiscated on Friday and that 4.4 tons of biscuits had been delivered Sunday.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that three of its aircraft delivered 14 tons of shelter materials.
The United States was preparing to send in its first aircraft with relief supplies on Monday.
Reuters reported Sunday that state-run Myanmar TV had said that the death toll had risen to 28,458, with 33,416 people missing.
But the focus for the military junta this weekend was on a referendum for a constitution that is intended to perpetuate military rule. Residents said the vote followed a campaign of coercion mixed with propaganda.
The military appeared to have diverted some resources from helping cyclone victims to the overseeing the voting, which was held in all but the hardest hit areas. A resident of Yangon said by telephone that refugees who had sought shelter in schoolhouses had been evicted so the sites could be used as polling places. She said refugees had also been evicted from other buildings.
In Datgyigone, 55 kilometers, or 35 miles, north of Yangon, a precinct captain laughed when asked if he thought most people would vote for the constitution. “Everyone will vote yes,” he said. “Of course yes. Hundred percent.”
But he said that most voters had no idea what they were voting for, and that neither he nor most people he knew had actually read the proposed constitution. “The government says vote, so we vote,” he said with a shrug. He spoke openly, but, fearing retribution, asked that his name not be used.
Most villagers, when asked about their votes, said nothing. A man selling batteries, combs and flip-flops from a small pushcart hurried off when he was asked about the referendum. “I cannot speak about this,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m afraid.”
There were a number of reports of “pre-balloting,” in which employees of enterprises or government offices were required to vote ahead of time under the eye of their supervisors.
The product of a 14-year stop-and-start convention, the referendum is intended to lead to a multiparty election and a nominally civilian government. But it allots 25 percent of parliamentary seats to the military, gives it control of important ministries and allows it to seize control in a time of “emergency.” It also would bar Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader whose party won a general election in 1990, from public office. She has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.
No police presence was obvious in Datgyigone or at a dozen other polling stations during the day.
No preliminary results had been announced by late Sunday, but the state-run media said the voting had proceeded without incident. The front page of the government newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, on Sunday carried photographs of General Than Shwe, the leader of the junta, voting with his wife, Kyaing Kyaing.
Thousands of soldiers were on the roads Saturday, using axes, machetes and two-handled cross-cut saws to clear trees from towns and roads.
Small groups of residents in Yangon banded together to distribute aid, but one said the authorities sometimes confiscated their supplies. They said some victims had taken shelter in Buddhist monasteries, which had been targets of the military when it suppressed the protests led by monks in September.
Relief officials warned of an epidemic of cholera and said there was generally a 10-day window after a disaster before the death rate rose steeply.
Health officials are concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dysentery, which can be spread by contaminated water and food. Severe diarrhea can be rapidly fatal, especially in children, and clean water and rehydrating solutions must be made available quickly to save lives.
While the generals were getting out the vote and relief workers were stranded abroad waiting for visas, the local staffs of international agencies were struggling with a disaster far beyond their capacities.
With limited stockpiled supplies and without the huge infrastructure needed for a relief operation of such a size, they were doing what they could, meeting each day to coordinate their work.
Unicef has one of the largest staffs in place, with 130 local workers and 17 foreigners. The World Food Program has 200 Burmese on staff and 15 foreigners. Some other staffs are tiny.
The first priorities are gathering stockpiled disaster relief food from around the country and mapping the affected areas to determine what is needed, said Shantha Bloemen, a spokeswoman for Unicef in Bangkok.
At the same time, Bloemen said, Unicef is shopping at the local market for things like tarpaulins, plates and first aid supplies. “The local markets are probably now depleted,” she said.
Once the emergency of food, water, shelter and medical care are addressed, the second emergency arrives, the rebuilding of lives and livelihoods.
The building blocks are rice, livestock and fisheries, said Diderik de Vleeschauwer, a spokesman for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Two experts are in the field, testing the salinity of the soil, the damage to rice stocks, the state of irrigation systems and the possibilities for draining vast pools of seawater deposited by the storm.
Many fishing boats were probably lost, leaving survivors with no livelihood. Large numbers of animals probably died in a region that raises 40 percent of the nation’s livestock.
The effects of the cyclone will be felt for years.
“This is the food basket of the whole country,” De Vleeschauwer said, “so damage to the crops and livestock and fisheries may affect seriously the food security situation of the entire country.”
This article is by a reporter for The International Herald Tribune in Myanmar and Seth Mydans in Bangkok. Warren Hoge and Denise Grady contributed reporting from New York.
