Junta Joke
Didja hear the one about the Burmese yukmeister? If you didn’t, you’ll have to wait 59 years to hear it.
A court inside Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison sentenced a comedian who has criticized the government’s cyclone response to 14 more years Thursday, bringing his total prison term to 59 years, his lawyer said.
Comedian and activist Zarganar was given a 45-year prison sentence last week after he was convicted on charges related to interviews he gave to foreign media outlets.
In the interviews, he said the government was too slow in responding to a May cyclone that killed more than 84,000 people.
Stop, you’re killing me! Or, well, him:
Zarganar’s lawyer, Khin Htay Kywe, said he was convicted Thursday for causing public alarm, a reference to his interviews with foreign media, and for communicating with exiled dissidents, among other charges.
Zarganar, whose birth name is Maung Thura, was among at least 100 people to receive sentences of two to 65 years since early November. Many of the trials were held in closed sessions, sometimes without defense lawyers or family present.
He has been imprisoned several times before, including a three-week stint for providing aid to those who demonstrated last year.
Show of hands of anyone who’s spared a moment of thought for Myanmar in the last week…. Month…? Six months…?
Do I have to remind you? Little, jungley country wedged in between Thailand and some other place I can’t think of right now? Lots of skinny, bald Buddhist monks in saffron robes? Repressive military regime which keeps frail ladies under house arrest?
Hello? Ring a bell?
I really should start charging for political advice. I told the monks not to start what the junta would most assuredly finish. I told the junta not to worry about a few weeks of bad press—the attention of the world and its news media would soon fly away and alight in some other diseased corner of the world. (Check the archives.)
And I’m not even very smart.
But I read a fair bit and remember a little bit of what I read.
Darfur has Mia Farrow; the African continent has Brad and Angelina—but who weeps for Burma? Save your tears.
Carol said,
November 29, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Oh, the left just loves its totalitarians, doesn’t it. Burma, for example, gives them someone to compare other predators to and by that comparison, the left’s pet dictators don’t look so bad. I mean, really, does Hugo Chavez even hold a candle to the dung ruling Burma?
Besides, what would be the point to disposing of the Burmese Dung? We are still reviled for ridding the world of the Butcher of Baghdad and his two worms. Imagine if we were to dispose of the “government” of Burma and liberate them?