Call for prayer

Partners in the UK have issued this call for prayer:

2nd June 2009 – Prayer for Ler Ber Her and 22 Battalion, Karen State

We have just received information that the Burma Army and the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) are planning to attack Ler Ber Her, an IDP camp on the border and 22 Battalion close by in Karen State.

Our sources have told us that armed troops of hundreds of soldiers are only 2 days walk away.

The Burma Army and DKBA have arrested civilians whom they are using as porters for the operation. These people come from inside Pa-an district and Myawaddi Township.

Please pray – there are many innocents who today have nowhere else to run and are in fear for their lives.

Burmese activists petition Ban Ki Moon

An international petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi is being organised by Burmese activists, the Nobel Prize winning elected leader of the country. They had 271,493 “signatures” when I wrote this, the goal is 400,000 but it would be wonderful to go higher… you could sign here. And post this information to Facebook, your blog or email friends…

Dawn raid

Getting across the border out of Burma does not mean safety for the ethnic minorities. If they integrate into a refugee camp life is restricted to the confines of the camp, and with no working allowed, but is secure, since an NGO and the UNHCR seek to protect your “rights”. On the other hand as “illegal immigrants” people can work, and even move around, with no rights and a fear of the authorities. If however you are “caught” by the authorities, or a vigilante group, in the new country, then things get tough. This account arrived today from a friend of ours in Malaysia:

I attempted to access our 2 friends who were arrested in the recent dawn raid. I went to 2 airports, 2 immigration detention camps, an immigration office and negotiated with 2 police men, 4 RELA officers and 5 immigration officials. In the end, despite my utmost efforts and much pleading with the officer in charge, I was denied access but was at least allowed to leave clean clothes, soap and toothbrushes for them. Today they had to face immigration charges in court. Unfortunately it was a closed court and I was again denied access. The UNHCR lawyer, however, was able to make an appearance at my request. We are hoping that the representation of the UN lawyer will avoid our friends being sentenced to severe whipping. Our friends have now been transferred to prison where I will make a renewed attempt to access them and ascertain their condition.

Please pray!

Dormitory Report

We have a final report on the project Tim’s 60th birthday party supported. The Thoo Mweh Kee Hostel included the dorm and bathroom facilities, for IDP children from Burma to attend school.

The project was over budget by a small amount, but this included higher costs for materials as well as a small miscalculation of what was required, so they did much better than most projects round here

When construction was finished a team from NZ (we think from Beachlands) helped with the painting, so there’s been quite an Auckland input to the project

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed, you have helped these boys to get an education in a safe, friendly and Christian  environment. Please continue to pray for their homeland and people this Christmas.

Blog Action Day: Poverty

Since I signed up to participate in Blog Action Day and saw that the topic was “poverty” the global economic meltdown has moved from being a relatively minor blip in the US (and some other’s) economy to what the pundits are comparing to the Great Depression. The banking system has for decades enabled many to act rich as they spend borrowed resources that they have neither grown nor earned.

Banks have achieved this “something for nothing” gift by loaning many, many times more money than they have themselves been loaned. This ensured that saving was not well rewarded, while spending was. Banks and others vied with each other as they woed the borrowers. (When was the last time you saw a TV ad for a banks savings interest rate, how many ads have you seen recently – or at least before the “shame” of governments throwing money at them to “bail them out” – begging you to borrow more? If you pay off your credit card each month you will be used to the company raising your cretit limit higher and higher (Till it becomes a large fraction of your annual pay!) in the hopes of enticing you into accepting a loan.

And now the house of cards has begun to fall.

And now we see real poverty, not among bankers and financiers (they have their Platinum Parachutes, negotiated long ago in the boomtime days) but among those already poor.

• Watch as the prices of commodities, like coffee, cocao, rubber and the other products poor peasant farmer produce  tumble – more people who cannot afford medical care for sick family members.
• Listen as charities that feed the refugees, with falling donations, have to cut the meagre allowances of those who cannot grow their own because war-lords and “governments” drive them from their land.

This is what poverty means in the wake of economic crisis, but don’t worry, you will not be troubled (much) by seeing it on your TV or reading dense paragraphs of analysis of their plight in your newspaper. The focus will remain on how to protect the rich from the consequences of greed, not on how to protect the poor from disaster. NZ and the USA have elections at present. Anyone care to guess how often the world’s poorest and most exploited will get a mention as the politicians bid for your votes?

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Prayer for Burma: Day twenty-eight

While I was enjoying a couple of days, away from Internet and phone, reading and writing (R & W?) Saw Yan Naing tells of a Rangoon reporter arrested for reporting a murder:

A reporter for a leading Rangoon journal was arrested on Monday after being summoned and rebuked by the authorities last week for reporting on the murder of a couple in Rangoon’s Thingangyun Township.Police from Kyauktada Township in Rangoon arrested Saw Myint Than, the chief reporter for the Flower News Journal, on Monday night and is now holding him at the local police station, according to sources.

Saw Myint Than was reportedly charged with at least three offences, including violations of Section 17/A of the Electronics Act, which bans contact with organizations deemed to be unlawful, and Article 124/A of the Criminal Code, which forbids expressions of disrespect towards the government.

Last week’s Tuesday, Saw Myint Than was summoned by police and threatened with arrest for reporting on the murder. He was also warned that the journal’s publishing license could be revoked.

There’s cause for prayer! Not just for Saw Myint Than but concerning a system that prefers “peace” over justice and even over life itself…

Brayer for Burma: Twenty-three

The Asia Times, reporting on the failure of UN special envoy Imrahim Gambari to meet with either Aung San Suu Kyi or the junta leader Sen. Gen. Than Shwe, quoted Mr Gambari:

It is our job, and a continuing challenge at the UN to make the impossible possible, and will continue my efforts at mediation regardless.

Nonetheless, I sometimes wonder whether it is realized that if I fail, and the UN fails, this would have negative consequences for the role of the organization in terms of mediation, conflict prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts, not only in [Myanmar] but throughout the world

Apparently:

He also passed along a letter to Than Shwe in relation to a tentatively planned visit by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon later this year, according to diplomats in Yangon. “The SG has also indicated his intention to return to Myanmar, when conditions are right, to continue his dialogue with the Myanmar leadership,” a senior UN spokesperson, Marie Okabe told journalists earlier this week.

Dare we pray that the UN general secretary will have more success than the Nigerian ex-minister, or since the international community, and notably China, exerted pressure on the junta to permit Mr Gambari’s visit can we pray that this afront to China’s honour may provoke firmer pressure?

Nay Moo discovers Australia

I have been reading a diary written by Nay Moo a Karen very recently resettled in Australia from Mae La, it is a mix of happy and sad events and comments as you’d expect, I found this especially touching:

Today I had no appointment to go so I thought I would go out and have a walk around the streets and explore the place and observe the nearby environments. After breakfast, my two brothers and I went out and walked along the streets. We saw no one on the street. The houses are like the tombs in the cemetery…quiet and lonely! I wished to see someone and greet them but the situation here is not the same as our home land… hear my say… my fellow friends… you might be surprised when you get here! We walked along the street corner by corner; it was breezy, cold and lonely! After walking for a long distance, we got tired then we sat down at one of the corners, looking around and talking to each other.

As by chance, we saw a man, age about 40, riding a bicycle on the road we were sitting on. We looked at him and smiled at him with our heart saying that, ‘we are happy and excited to be in your country’. Maybe he is happy to see us and could read our heart as well. As this was also our fifth day in Australia, so he replied our smiling faces with his greeting starting with the letter “F” …. What the Fucking are you looking at!!!! You Fucking kids!!!! You idiot!!! …then he murmured along the way as he was cycling. How do you feel if you were me? This is my first greeting I have ever heard on the road in Australia that I cold never forget. We came back home, took a rest and went to sleep.