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re EBN, NYTimes & Clinton's China B



Subject: re EBN, NYTimes & Clinton's China Burma policy- is Daw Suu nuked in the Great Game

PARIS --- Dear Free Burma Activists, EuroBurmaneet readers and Friends: 
the following comment precedes an opinion article by reknowed New York
Times journalist A.M. Rosenthal, published in the International Herald
Tribune, December 14-15 weekend edition, and in the New York Times. 

But first, a note on Clinton's China-Burma policy. Is Burma and Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi, a hapless innocent pawn in the Great Super Power game.
Surely, she does not need any spiritual enlightment from Clinton and his
White House cronies. Larger US policy issues are at stake in Burma, of
course. Perhaps DAASK is preparing a mission abroad for 97 - first stop,
in her own words, oil-enriched Norway.  If Clinton refuses to meet the
Dalai Lama, can he pressure China to pressure Slorc. Where's the trade
off. The Great Game is cruel, indeed.Whatever, Slorc appears a nuisance
to all its neighbors, an embarrassemnt to Human Rights Hillary, and a
chip in the Great Game that has yet to be played out.

 Clinton's China Policy gravely resembles Nixon's Open Door policy  in
the seventies and American hysteria for business there. Of course, then,
hardly a soul talked about Ne Win's Burma nightmare.

Years ago I witnessed the American euphoria, plutot hysteria shared
by enthusiasts engulfed in proChina Open Door Business diplomacy -  in
US Foreign Affairs business conferences. It was wrong and pathetic,
then, and more so now. America, the great destructor, constructor,
destroy and build over, populations, environments, from rags to riches,
all for control and power, as the world prepares for nuclear war and
colonization in space. If this is progress,  my friends, do you want it?

Please send comments to EuroBurmanet, and to the IHT <iht@xxxxxxx> 

In a diplomatic game of high stakes and uneven odds, President Clinton's
sudden turn of the century diplomacy in his second administration China
policy is far course and doomed to uneasy contradiction. Failure here
will serve no good to either partner while leaving Daw Aung San Suu Kyu
and the democratic opposition in Burma evermore deep in peril.  

After Beijing's announcement to cease any further nuclear testing,
Communist China gets the red carpet treatment. Now, clearly the world is
a  forgiving witness when China sends the butcher of Beijing, General
Chi Haotian, its heinous minister of defense who once ordered Chinese
troops to fire on Tiananmen Square in 1989, to the National Defense
University in Washington,  of the US Defense Department, hitherto the
toasted guest of President Clinton's generals. Meanwhile, the United
States sends a token messager Kent Wiedermann, to meet with Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi, in a senseless test of wills with Rangoon.

Despite all the political manoeuvering, nothing has changed for the
better in Burma. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi herself has appealed to the world
for economic sanctions on the Burmese junta, saying that repression has
increased rather than the contrary. Is Clinton so stymied in Burma that
this is the way he seeks Chinese cooperation towards a peaceful
democratic settlement in Burma - apart from the overshadowing nuclear
issues in China, Pakistan and North Korea?

This is neither shuttle nor secret diplomacy, but brazen arrogance by a
superpower  assuming empire status  flexing its muscle over a puny
backward dictatorship under the heel of China. Everyone knows that when
Beijing flaps its wings, the ground trembles in Rangoon, in spite of
apparent disregard by the club of Asean nations recently assembled in
Jakarta. 

Furthermore, it is indeed extraordinary that Clinton picks his wife to
stand up for human rights around the world as he gambles for the China
prize. Nor will the cabinet shuffling placing Ambassador Madeline
Albright and Congressman Bill Richardson, both allies of Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi, necessarily push Slorc towards moderation and democratic
reform. Thousands of political prisoners remain behind bars, in dog-cage
cells and inhuman conditions, tortured and dying, while the generals in
both Washington and Rangoon raise their glasses to China.

America and the West has not learned much from the history of this
century. It is indeed reminiscent of the once-favored-status granted
Joseph Stalin after World War II, and before the icing of the Cold War.
More than fifty years after Yalta, when Churchill, Roosevelt and the
West ceded to Stalin's hegemony over eastern Europe, abandoning millions
of innocent people to graves and gulags, Clinton's treatment of Chinese
tyrants  with honored respect due to great nations and superpowers
leaves in  the wake of  a fragile if not ritual stand-off in Rangoon
pitting tanks and troops against democratic students, reminiscent of
1988 in Rangoon, overshadowed by China's butchery the following year.
Another imaginary Maginot line? She and the freedom-loving Burmese
people deserve much better than cynical double-speak.

In the name of appeasement of power and a  run for cheap markets
-currently flooding  European and American homes with Communist
Chinese-produced Christmas decorations and goods, President Clinton
would be wiser to reflect on history and the millions of people killed
by Hitler, Stalin and Mao, all in the name of appeasement and short-term
political advantage,  rather than to roll out the red carpet to
butchers. Its ironic and a hell of a way to prepare for a religious
holiday by concessions and treachery. Would it not be in the interest of
even-handed prosperity of all to work harder for human rights, than pay
less for cheap goods and markets delivered on the back of slavery and
injustice? 

Indeed, President Clinton's diplomatic postering before Communist China
ressembles French business-inspired concessions of the human rights
agenca during the recent visit to Paris by the Chinese President
punctuated by a timely refusal by President Chirac to meet the Dalai
Lama, as Quai d'Orsay prepares his visit next year to Beijing, in his
own words " to sell France . "

It seems President Clinton will do almost anything to get a deal, --
even sell out Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as a pawn in the Great Game, like a
cat playing with a mouse, the bully picking on a small grunt nation, at
the same time building a superpower alliance with China and laying the
ground for America's 21st century of power. That's exactly what great
nations do. Hitler and Stalin tried, and  failed. Will China's fate be
more kind and terrible? At Munich Britain capitulated, Churchill bought
time. What is Clinton to buy? What cards is he holding  up his sleeve.

What about Burma and the democracy trade-off.  For how long will China
continue to traffic arms and opium south of its border. As long as the
generals want to. 

And we all know, generals that do not support democracies are bad
democrats.

Write to President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. Put
their policy announcement to a test. She has returned from Thai refugee
camps. Let her help the Burmese women and children. Ask her to intervene
to help free MA THIDA so she can walk free out of prison. 

President William Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500
(202) 456-1414

US President  Bill Clinton < president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Ambassador Madeleine K  Albright ( United Nations US Ambassador) Fax 
(212) 415 4443

*******************************************************

The following article is from the International Herald Tribune, the
December 14-15 weekend edition.
Beijing Wins Big and Rubs It In, by A M Rosenthal

New York -- With a superb sense of timing and of its own power,
Communist China picked the right messenger, the right message, the right
day, place and audience to humiliate the government of thet United
States. The only thing the messenger might not have known is that on
China the Clinton administration, his host, cannot be humiliated because
it has no shame.

The messenger is General Chi Haotian, minister of defense, the man who
ordered the troops to fire on the students in and around Tiananmen
Square in 1989. Now he is the guest of the US Defense Department,
treated with military and social  honor, touring American military
installations, including the nuclear.

The place was the National Defense University in Washington, and the
uadience US officers studying there, on their way up. It was
International Human Rights Day. 

The message was that Beijing has not a crumb of respect or concern about
what this administration thinks about the massacre of Chinese
dissidents, or about its warnings on the use of military force agaionst
Taiwan. It wants the world to know it.

As commander at Tiananmen, the general said he could report that no
students had been killed at the square. In the streets nearby there was
some 'pushing,' he conceded, but casualities were greatly exaggerated,
by the media. Western diplomatic and intelligence reports from the
killing grounds were of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of casualities.

Asked about any regrets or lessons learned, the general said students
should be beetter educated. About Taiwan, he said Beijing hoped for a
peaceful settlement but specifically refused to renouce fource. If
certain Taiwanese gained strength, obviously those favoring
independence, China would not 'stand idly by.'

The general's visit was especially significant for both sides. It was
America giving honored status to the man who ordered the shooting,
drawing the curtain on the whole Tiananmen tragedy.

Washington dreams of more trade with China, but China was seeking a
prize it sees as far more important. 

The whole rationale for the courting of China and Bill Clilnton's
decision to turn away from Chinese human rights is that American
forbearance would win trade for American businesses, and also make
Beijing more moderate, reasonable and honest about human rights and
Taiwan.

Wiothout that rationalization, the Clinton policy would be seen as one
more nasty stew of appeasement. Americans might even get upset about how
US business and government help build China militarily, how Washington
tries to ignore Chinese sales of millisles and nuclear technology to
other dictatorships.

The general deliberately stripped away the ratiionalizatings. The
objective was not just to put America in its place but once and for all
to kill the fantasy that China could be 'softened ' by foreigners, by
Chinese, by trade, or even by purposeful blilndness to its weapons
trade.

Beijing cannot tolerate that idea. It knows that the concept of more
freedom, unless squashed, could take hold in China. That would threaten
the essential instrument of Communist governance: police terrorism.

The Communists happily accept the economic fruits of US capitalilsm, but
the democratic benefits of capitalism are terrifying to them. They take
the economic advantage and bar the democratic.

The Clinton administration took what General Chi said in silence. It is
probably better that way. The spectacle of Clintonians explaining why
the butcher of Beijing became an honored guest and reamins one after his
lying unrepentance, while the president refuses to see the Dalai Lama or
Chinese dissidents -- no, it would have been too much.


end text 

Metta, thank you, peace, happiness and long life. Virtually yours, Dawn
Star

FREE DR. MA THIDA ! 
1996 Reebok International Human Rights Award Laureate
<http://www.reebok.com>

Dawn Star  (Paris)  <cd@xxxxxxx>
Euro-Burmanet  (Paris, France)

Burmanet / TOTAL Coordinator (France)
Free Burma Coalition
http://wicip.org/fbc/

NCGUB
815 Fifteenth Street NW
 Suite 910
Washington, DC 20005
<ncgub@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB)
P.O Box 6720
ST.Olavs Plass
0130 Oslo, Norway
Tel: 47-22-200021, Tel/fax:47-22-362525

Norway NCGUB you must make e-mail address to
level one (1)maung@xxxxxxxxxxx (the PM office e-mail)
level two (2)NCGUB Europe, U Nwe Aung  e-mail
<101564.2652@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

US President  Bill Clinton < president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Ambassador Madeleine K  Albright ( United Nations US Ambassador) Fax 
(212) 415 4443

All members of the House can be reached via the Congressional
Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

While some members have E-mail, electronic communication is not as
effective as a telephone call or fax.

President William Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500
(202) 456-1414

Mr.Warren Christopher
Secretary of State
Department of State
Main State Building
2201 C. Street NW
Washington DC 20520-7512
(202) 647-4000

Mr. Anthony Lake
National Security Advisor 
National Security Council
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500
(202) 456-9481

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Help support our effort. Write now, to :

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EC HUMANITARIAN OFFICE

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Directorate General 1B
External Relations
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Belgium
Fax:32-2-299-1047

EC Humanitarian Office 
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Join the Free Burma Coalition. Tel. 608-256-6572
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All members of the US House of Representatives can be reached
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And remember, while some members have E-mail, electronic communication
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Its effective.

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