Ban the Bastard -- from Sapio magaz

[cd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Could not agree more with that this so called professor be exposed and 
discredited for his retrogressiv and criminally insane denigration of
democracy and the human rights struggle in Burma. If anything, this guy
should be barred from teaching and denied tenure so as no longer able to
advocate ill-spirited nonsense.

metta, dawn star

brelief@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> Several questions arise after reading Michael Hoffman's summary of Kenichi
> Ohmae's recent article in Sapio magazine.
> 
> 1)  Is this man really a professor at UCLA?  If so, where is his office?
> Shouldn't his views be protested there by Burmese democracy activists?  (Our
> search of UCLA's website didn't find him listed on the faculty.)
> 
> 2)  Don't we have an obligation to correct his mistaken views?  Shouldn't he
> be sent, preferrably via e-mail, the most recent human rights, health, and
> economic reports that clearly contradict his position?
> 
> 3)  What can be done to counter his distorted picture of SLORC's Burma and
> balance his article for Sapio readers?  How can we provide accurate,
> detailed information to Sapio's editors, in hopes they will see fit to
> present the other side?
> 
> Sapio Magazine
> Shogakkan
> 2-3-1 Hitotsubashi
> Chiyoda ku
> Tokyo 101-01
> Tel:  03-3230-5800
> (They will not accept e-mail or fax letters to the editor.  They probably
> will not welcome anything not in Japanese either, but what the heck!  Let
> 'em return it.)
> 
> 4)  Anyone wishing to write to Mainichi Daily News editors may do so at
> <mdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Burmese Relief Center--Japan welcomes all suggestions.
> 
> With metta,
> 
>  - - - - - - -
> Democracy not everything in Burma
> 
> from Mainichi Daily News
> Nov. 13, 1997
> - Asiascope, Features on Asia from Japanese magazines summarized and
> presented by Michael Hoffman
> 
> Democracy not everything in Burma
> 
> Is Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and ? if elections confer
> legitimacy ? the legitimate President of Burma, becoming a millstone around
> her country's neck?  Japanese management consultant and UCLA professor
> Kenichi Ohmae thinks so.  Writing in Sapio (11/12), Ohmae congratulates the
> military junta on a job well done and relegates its leading nemesis to
> history's shadows.
> 
> "In another year or two, Suu Kyi will be a figure of the past," he says.
> 
> True, Ohmae concedes, she did win by a staggering majority (though under
> house arrest at the time) national elections held in 1990, and true, her
> victory led her not to office but to five more years of incarceration.  But
> Burma's SLORC ? the State Law and Order Restoration Council ? did not invent
> the coup d'etat; in fact, Ohmae points out, roughly half the world's 189
> countries have experienced similar trauma at one time or another.  The key
> question in his view is not how SLORC came to power but what it has done
> with that power since.  He reviews the record in glowing terms.
> 
> He begins by quoting the chairman of the South Korean textile and appliance
> conglomerate Daewoo as saying, "Compared to 10 years ago, (Burma) today is
> like heaven.  There is big money to be made, and workers' enthusiasm is rising."
> 
> There are goods in the marketplace, a broadening infrastructure? and no
> troops in the streets.  "One has absolutely no feeling that this is a
> country under a military regime."  Martial law, in Ohmae's view, is
> gradually shedding its more onerous features.
> 
> SLORC's Burma as Ohmae sees it is a well-ordered, peaceful land, its cities
> among the few in Asia where one can walk alone at night without fear.  There
> are no slums, because rural farmers are all landowners whose economic
> self-sufficiency spares them the need to pour into cities in search of
> nonexistent jobs.  The economic statistics are not impressive ? per capita
> GNP is 300 dollars to 400 dollars ? but in a largely rural economy "that is
> not a minus."  The yawning gap between rich and poor, manifest in countries
> like Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, is not in evidence here.
> 
> SLORC has the business community 100 percent behind it, Ohmae maintains.
> "All the businessmen I spoke to say the same."  Their common fear is that
> Suu Kyi in power would be a rerun of Corazon Aquino's presidency in the
> Philippines? excellent intentions marred by political ineptitude.
> 
> Of course the business community is not the whole country, and Ohmae admits
> that if an election were held tomorrow "the lady" would emerge the
> overwhelming winner ? three to one, he figures.  But is that sufficient
> reason, he asks, for the United States to elevate Suu Kyi to Joan of Arc
> status and to impose a trade embargo on the country?  China, he points out,
> is no democracy, and yet the United States is going to great lengths to woo
> it as a trading partner.  Why is Burma different?
> 
> One reason is the drug traffic based in Burma's impoverished north ? traffic
> the United States claims SLORC encourages and profits from.  An
> exaggeration, counters Ohmae, quoting a SLORC official that "the government
> is risking its life" in a war on drugs.
> 
> Whether it is or not, business is flourishing, new highways are drawing once
> inaccessible regions into the economic bonanza, and "the times are moving
> beyond Suu Kyi."
> 
> If so, it is a poor return for the martyrdom of thousands and the suffering
> of thousands more.
> 
> 
> http://www2.gol.com/users/brelief/Index.htm