The event started off with the reading out of statement by Rachel Zeng, on the sham election and the lack of democratic progress in Burma.

This was followed by a speech from Seelan Palay, who highlighted the Burmese regime relationship with the autocratic government of Singapore and how they compliment and learn from each other.

Immediately after that, Choon Hiong addressed the crowd on how he felt that the junta was more of a mafia organisation, rather than a government. Through brute force and undemocratic means, the junta is able to exert its influence on the Burmese citizens. Hence, dealing with the junta is akin to dealing with a mafia entity.

Last but not least, Danny the Democracy Bear was there to lend his support to the cause. He gave his maiden speech by introducing himself as Danny the Democracy bear, who love democracy and  Aung San Suu Kyi.

The event concluded with a group photo with all participants.

More pictures available here: http://burmatoday.net/photo2005/2010/201010/101031_singapore/

Join us at Speakers’ Corner on Saturday, 30 October 2010 from 4pm to 4.45pm to say “NO TO BURMA’S SHAM ELECTIONS” .

Come for a photo session and get your voice heard with a large placard that reads “No to Burma’s Sham Elections”. As a gesture of solidarity, do wear a red shirt for the event.

The Burmese Junta is determined to push through with elections on 7 November 2010. This is being done despite electoral laws that clearly do not allow a free and fair election.

Long-time dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest while many political prisoners are still held in prison. Meanwhile, the Burmese people are living in constant fear of torture and harassment under the military regime.

Join us as we stand in unity with the people of Burma. Let us come together to say “No” to the planned election – a sham election that does not represent the true voice of the people.

No to Burma’s Sham Election!

Twenty-two years ago on 8 August, Burma’s army brutally massacred as many as 3,000 peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators marching against increasing poverty and oppression, and calling for an end to the military dictatorship. The serious human rights violations and economic mismanagement that led to the national uprising in 1988 have continued to worsen under the current regime.

On Sunday 8 August, 2010, several hundred activists, students, and members of civil society gathered at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the 8.8.88 uprising in Burma. The event in Bangkok also marked the beginning of a new photo petition calling for a commission of inquiry into serious international crimes in Burma, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. It was only one of many commemorative events happening in various cities around the world this weekend, including Seoul, Chiang Mai, Mae Sot, Melbourne, Berkeley and Washington D.C.

Burma Partnership coordinator, Khin Ohmar, remarked how it is truly amazing how the spirit of 1988 has not died. “It has been 22 years, but still people are not giving up in the fight for democracy and freedom in Burma. 1988 was a significant moment in Burma’s history because it planted the seed of change in the hearts of millions of people of Burma, which has grown so much over the years.” Every year, 8.8.88 anniversaries highlight the vibrancy of the movement, and the commitment of the new generation of Burmese democracy activists to continue to push for the change that captured the hearts of thousands of demonstrators all those years ago.

8.8.88 marked a moment of nationwide unity in the Burmese democracy movement. The demonstrations were held in a “spirit of unity, sacrifice and setting aside differences – be they political beliefs, ideology, ethnicity, religion, or gender,” Khin Ohmar reflected, “From the 8.8.88 uprising, we were able to bring down a 26 year old military dictatorship because we were united as a country. It was so pure, that spirit of unity. We were able to transcend our differences for our common unified vision of justice and democracy for all. My greatest wish is for us to retain that same spirit of unity that captured the nation’s imagination over twenty-two years ago, as that cohesiveness is our only chance for genuine national reconciliation and democracy in our country.”

This year’s 8.8.88 anniversary is a particularly significant occasion; with the 2010 elections looming, the fundamentally undemocratic and divisive lead-up to the elections is an affront to the spirit of democracy, hope, unity and change that spread through the country in August 1988. The international community must nourish the spirit of 8.8.88 in honor of the all those brave demonstrators who banded together twenty-two years ago in the vision of a just and democratic Burma.

To read more about Khin Ohmar’s experiences during 8.8.88, please view her reflections in the Irrawaddy

It is especially significant for people in Singapore to continue to advocate on behalf of her and the Burmese people, because the government of Singapore would rather support and prop up the military regime.

On this day, we reaffirm our commitment to the noble struggle for peace, human rights and democracy in Burma. It is our sincere hope that Daw Aung San Suu Kyii will one day be free to take her rightful place as the leader of Burma.

Happy Birthday Aung San Suu Kyi.

Free Burma Campaign Singapore (FBCSG)

Burma is trying to develop nuclear weapons, according to exiled
journalists who claim to have uncovered evidence of a nascent missile
programme.

Reporters working for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a respected
dissident radio station that broadcasts into South-east Asia out of
Oslo, say they have collected files and photographs which suggest that
the country’s ruling junta is mining and experimenting with uranium
with the aim of one day creating a bomb.

If the evidence is substantiated, it could have severe implications
for how the international community deals with the Burmese regime, one
of the world’s most reviled and isolated military dictatorships. The
allegations prompted US senator Jim Webb to cancel an impending trip
to Burma.

The bulk of the evidence comes from Sai Thein Win, a major in the
Burmese army who was trained in missile technology in Burma and Russia
and has since defected. Sai Thein Win claims to have worked in a
series of secret facilities near the town of Myaing, 100km west of
Mandalay, where he was ordered to make prototype components for
missile and nuclear programmes. He also claims a further nuclear
facility is located at Thabeikkyin, a town north of Mandalay that he
visited on numerous occasions.

If Burma’s alleged nuclear ambitions are substantiated, it will
inevitably raise questions as to whether the junta is receiving help
from rogue nations such as North Korea. Last week, a leaked UN report
obtained by the Associated Press accused Pyongyang of defying UN
sanctions by using front companies to export nuclear and missile
technology to Iran, Syria and Burma. U.S. State Department spokesman
P.J. Crowley said Washington has “been concerned about Burma’s
relationship with North Korea.”

The full details of DVB’s investigations are due to be released on the
internet tomorrow, accompanied by a documentary which will air on Al
Jazeera in Europe and ABC in the US. Khin Maung Win, deputy director
of DBV, told The Independent yesterday: “We have been investigating
Burma’s nuclear aspirations for the past five years, but Sai Thein
Win’s evidence has been vital in proving that the intent to build a
nuclear bomb is there, even if they are a long way off producing one.”

Sai Thein Win began sending DVB photographs of Burma’s secret
facilities in November 2009 and continued to do so until early
February when he fled the country. He is now in hiding.

Bertil Lintner, a Burma analyst based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, said
obtaining such evidence from a high-level defector was very rare.
“It’s certainly some of the most extraordinary evidence I’ve ever seen
coming out of Burma,” he said, adding that Sai Thein Win’s revelations
were akin to Mordechai Vanunu’s exposure of Israel’s nuclear weapons
programme in 1986.

According to Sai Thein Win, a specialist “nuclear battalion” has been
created by Burma’s rulers to begin experimenting with nuclear
materials and long-range missile production.

He claims to have worked with precision machinery imported from
Singapore and Germany that the Burmese government bought for
“educational and vocational training”, but was in fact used for
uranium enrichment, and to produce parts for warheads.

DVB say they have had their evidence verified by two specialists:
Robert Kelley, a former intelligence officer at Los Alamos and
ex-weapons inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and
Geoff Forden, a military researcher at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

Mr Kelley, who co-authored DVB’s report, said he believed that Sai
Thein Win’s evidence showed that Burma has “no conceivable use for
this for anything other than a nuclear weapons programme”.

To read an executive summary of the dossier click here

Thein Sein claps as Singapore names an orchid after him

By Seelan Palay, as featured on DVB

As preparations for the sham elections in Burma get into full swing, it is not difficult to notice similarities in electoral practices between the Burmese generals in uniform and Singapore’s leaders in civilian clothes.

The Burmese regime is bending over backwards to stage the fraudulent elections while refusing to respect the results of the country’s polls in 1990 that led to the landslide victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD).

Why reinvent the wheel, when what happened two decades ago remains unfulfilled? The same military that massacred thousands of innocent civilians, including Buddhist monks, is now pretending that everything is hunky-dory.

It is an undeniable fact that the military regime holds close economic ties to Singapore – the top brass of the Burmese army are known to have parked their ill-gotten millions in Singapore’s banks, while they and their family members own properties in upmarket areas and their children go to top schools and drive flashy cars, flaunting their wealth to the envy of ordinary Singaporeans.

Burmese drug lords who are banned from entering the US freely come and go in Singapore and some even have offices in the posh commercial district along Shenton Way. It is no wonder that Singapore is the third largest investor in Burma, helping to prop up the pariah regime.

Singapore has even named a hybrid Orchid, its national flower, after the Burmese prime minister, General Thein Sein. Orchids in the same Singapore Botanical Gardens were previously named after Princess Diana and Nelson Mandela.

The similarities between Burma and Singapore do not stop there. The election process in Singapore is as opaque as it is in Naypyidaw, the new capital of the Burmese regime. Although Singapore claims to hold periodical elections to legitimise the rule of the People’s Action Party (PAP), the exercise itself is highly questionable.

To start with, there is no independent elections commission. Only a department that comes under the Prime Minister’s Office that decides on last-minute boundary delineation, exorbitant deposits for candidates (presently $US9,900 but expected to be raised to $US11,000 in the next election), and other regular gerrymandering practices, including what is known as the Group Representation Constituencies (GRC).

This so-called electoral system has led to almost half of the seats in parliament being uncontested on Nomination Day. Presently, Singapore’s “parliament” has 84 MPs, of which 82 are from Lee Kuan Yew’s PAP. And that is “democratic elections” in Singapore for you!

The paradox of Singapore’s elections is that the electorate, some of whom are nearing their 50s, have never voted in their entire lives. This so-called anomaly is glaring in Singapore, where voting is compulsory under the Parliamentary Elections Act.

With all these well-entrenched undemocratic practices, it is not surprising to even a distant observer to understand how the ruling PAP has been in power since 1959.

What is worse is the irrefutable reality in Singapore that one man, by the name of Lee Kuan Yew, has been in power for the last 51 years. The octogenarian Lee, who is now 87 years old, calls himself Minister Mentor in the cabinet headed by his prime minster son, Lee Hsien Loong.

Compare this to the reality in Burma where the army generals have held sway since the 1962 coup, ousting the democratically elected government of U Nu. Even against this, Lee Kuan Yew’s grip on power extends longer by three years, but he continues to claim that elections in his republic are based on the Westminster model of democracy.

Anyone who believes in democratic values could easily see that it is next to impossible to continue to have a one-party dominated parliament in the name of freedom and democracy. Obviously the uniformed generals are under tutelage by the authoritarian regime in Singapore, clad in civilian clothes.

While the Burmese generals continue to not recognise the results of the 1990 elections, preparations are in full swing to hold yet another elections based on its 2008 constitution, aimed at hoodwinking the people. Singapore too is notorious for amending its constitution just before every general election to give a legal facade to what is clearly an illegitimate exercise.

The Burmese generals also appear to have been keen and obedient students to their teacher, Singapore. Burmese intelligence agents are known to visit on a routine basis to study the latest electronic eavesdropping gadgets for their surveillance of Burmese political dissidents, including the NLD leaders.

The recent announcement by NLD to boycott the army-orchestrated sham elections is the right move. How can the elections be legitimate when NLD’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest and barred from taking part? Singapore too, has a history of barring genuine opposition leaders who were daring enough to challenge, through constitutional means, the regime of Lee Kuan Yew.

Victims of Lee’s political vendetta include prominent figures such as the late J B Jeyaretnam, Singapore’s former solicitor-general Mr Francis Seow (now in exile in the US), Singapore’s leading corporate lawyer Mr Tang Liang Hong (now in exile in Australia), and Dr Chee Soon Juan, who remains bankrupted and unable to stand for elections.

These are well-known democrats who stood up against Lee Kuan Yew, who had openly declared in 2003 that, “If we had considered them serious political figures, we would not have kept them politically alive for so long. We could have bankrupted them earlier.” Is this not what the generals in Burma are doing while loudly proclaiming to the world that there will be “free and fair” elections in the country before the end of the year?

While Singapore leaders are shedding crocodile tears and sermonizing the Burmese generals on the need for free and fair elections, is it not appropriate for them to look at their own backyard?

When Singapore’s Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong met the Burmese generals, including Than Shwe, last year, he urged them not to allow the ongoing trial of Suu Kyi to affect the national reconciliation process and to make sure that the proposed elections are free and fair.

It is better for Goh to take a hard look at himself in the mirror: he will then be able to see the ugly features that include a well-documented law providing for indefinite detention without trial, under which detainees are subject to regular physical and mental torture. It is also common in Singapore to prosecute opposition politicians for speaking in public and distributing flyers; laws that are no different from the Burmese junta.

Goh Chok Tong’s “advice” is double-speak at best. What right has he got to advise the generals when the same despicable acts are committed at every election in Singapore? Are elections in Singapore free and fair in the first place? Is the media in Singapore free and pluralistic for the voters to be informed before they go to the polls to choose their representatives to parliament?

Burma’s media laws are the strictest in the world, and so are Singapore’s, the most notorious being the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act that gives sweeping powers, including the appointment of editors to the 14 daily newspapers that are all under the control of the PAP government. Burma is ranked 171 out of 175 countries in the recent Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. Singapore is also in the miserable position of 133, several ranks below that of even Angola and Congo.

The Singapore Press Holdings, whose chairman was a former deputy prime minister, runs all the newspapers of which its flagship daily is the Straits Times. It’s a known fact that intelligence operatives masquerade as reporters and journalists in Singapore’s media scene. The Straits Times has its equivalent in Burma, the New Light of Myanmar, which is nothing but a mouthpiece of the military regime.

Similarities between the autocratic rule in Singapore and the equally notorious regime in Burma are endless. Learning from Singapore on how to perpetuate one-party rule through sham elections is a natural progression for Burma under the bloodthirsty generals.

Seelan Palay is an artist and activist from Singapore. He works with Free Burma Campaign Singapore and blogs here.