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Pilger: UK's Politics of Hypocrisy in Myanmar

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Tim Murphy (activ-l)

The Guardian - Oct 27, 2007
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/comment/0,,2200312,00.html

The politics of hypocrisy

UK business interests in Burma are more important 
to this government than justice 

By John Pilger

The news is no more from Burma. The young monks are quiet in their
cells, or they are dead. But words have escaped: the defiant, beautiful
poetry of Aung Than and Zeya Aung; and we know of the unbroken will of
the journalist U Win Tin, who makes ink out of brick powder on the
walls of his prison cell and writes with a pen made from a bamboo mat -
at the age of 77. These are the bravest of the brave. What shame they
bring to those in the west whose hypocrisy and silence helps to feed
the monster that rules Burma.

Condoleezza Rice comes to mind. "The United States," she said, "is
determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking
place in Burma." What she is less keen to keep a focus on is that the
huge American company, Chevron, on whose board of directors she sat, is
part of a consortium with the junta and the French company, Total, that
operates in Burma's offshore oilfields. The gas from these fields is
exported through a pipeline that was built with forced labour and whose
construction involved Halliburton, of which Vice-President Cheney was
chief executive.

For many years, the Foreign Office in London promoted business as usual
in Burma. When I interviewed Aung San Suu Kyi a decade ago I read her a
Foreign Office press release that said, "Through commercial contacts
with democratic nations such as Britain, the Burmese people will gain
experience of democratic principles." She smiled sardonically and said,
"Not a bit of it."

In Britain, the official PR line has changed; Burma is a favourite New
Labour "cause"; Gordon Brown has written a platitudinous chapter in a
book about his admiration of Suu Kyi. On Thursday, he wrote a letter to
Pen, waffling about prisoners of conscience, no doubt part of his
current empty theme of "returning liberty" when none can be returned
without a fight. As for Burma, the essence of Britain's compliance and
collusion has not changed. British tour firms - such as Orient Express
and Asean Explorer - are able to make a handsome profit on the
suffering of the Burmese people. Aquatic, a sort of mini-Halliburton,
has its snout in the same trough, together with Rolls-Royce and others
that use Burmese teak.

When did Brown or Blair ever use their platforms at the CBI and in the
City of London to name and shame those British companies that make
money on the back of the Burmese people? When did a British prime
minister call for the EU to plug the loopholes of arms supply to Burma.
The reason ought to be obvious. The British government is itself one of
the world's leading arms suppliers. Next week, the dictator of Saudi
Arabia, King Abdullah, whose tyranny gorges itself on British arms,
will receive a state visit. On Thursday the Brown government approved
Washington's latest fabricated prelude to a criminal attack on Iran -
as if the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan were not enough for the
"liberal" lionhearts in Downing Street and Whitehall.

And when did a British prime minister call on its ally and client,
Israel, to end its long and sinister relationship with the Burmese
junta? Or does Israel's immunity and impunity also cover its supply of
weapons technology to Burma and its reported training of the junta's
most feared internal security thugs? Of course, that is not unusual.
The Australian government - so vocal lately in its condemnation of the
junta - has not stopped the Australian Federal Police training Burma's
internal security forces.

Those who care for freedom in Burma and Iraq and Iran and Saudi Arabia
and beyond must not be distracted by the posturing and weasel
pronouncements of our leaders.
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