MYANMAR DEBRIEFING

Now that I'm safely back in L.A. for a few hours, I feel more confident about speaking out about the oppressive and tyrannical military dictatorship running Myanmar, which I visited for the first time in the last few weeks. After I wrote the mildest report from Myanmar about the slapstick attempts at propaganda, Down With Tyranny was made inaccessible in Yangon. It only took a couple of hours for the junta to find my story and shut down the website. I was shocked.

Myanmar functions as an actual Orwellian society, one with expert help from a Republican lobbying and p.r. firm in Washington, the DCI Group, major George Bush allies. Today Myanmar is in the news again because human rights leader and rightfully elected head of state Aung San Suu Kyi (who has been under arrest on and off since 1989 and is only alive because her father was the George Washington of the nation's struggle for independence and because she is a high-profile Nobel Peace Prize winner) has been hauled before a member of the junta for "talks." The junta murdered hundreds of peaceful monks, demonstrating for democracy and human rights, in September.

I've been writing about my trip to Myanmar on my travel blog, and I plan to continue posting pictures and stories from my trip next week. (I'm still unpacking.) Myanmar is potentially a prosperous country, held back by a small clique of military fascists for their own benefit. They control the state through brutal force, and spending time in the country has helped reaffirm my belief in our own country's Fourth Amendment, the right for citizens to have weapons. Governments should fear citizens, not the other way round.

The photo above was taken south of Yangon, in the Irrawaddy delta area. I snapped it of Roland visiting a dilapidated orphanage we stumbled across in a swampy area off limits to foreigners. I'm negotiating to build the orphanage a real building instead of what you see. One of the problems is the endemic corruption that insists on skimming fees off the top of humanitarian efforts. I'll keep DWT readers posted on the progress of our efforts.

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