Burmas "reign of fear" and the continuing protests

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Stuart
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Post by Stuart »

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Are you saying the generals are practicing that old tactic of deploying people from other parts of the provinces to suppress revolts in other parts of the provinces?
Everybody does that. Standard operational practice. My point though is that suppressing rioting civilians is just about the only thing the Tatmadaw is good for, as a real army they're on the risible side of ludicrous
Apparently, there's more information out there that doesn't end up in the local papers.
Quite a bit more. The local accounts were pretty sparse. THIS gives a very good account of the action and friends of mine in Thailand say its pretty close to the truth although a touch exagerrated. There was no tank-to-tank engagement for example
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Post by Sidewinder »

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:
Stuart wrote:A tiff? At Mae Fae, the Royal Thai Army bitch-slapped the Tatmadaw into a stupor. The Tatmadaw took months to recover from the shock (it didn't help that they took hours to overrun a Tahan Phran outpost and got bled badly doing it, then got hit by Thai regulars who showed them what fighting a real army is like). The RTAF bombed a golf course in Myanmar which was a very pointed message to the golf-loving Myanmar junta.
Apparently, there's more information out there that doesn't end up in the local papers.
According to Wikipedia (which spells the Thai district in question as Mae Sai), the Thahan Phran (Thai Rangers) fought with Myanmar troops in February 2001 and October 1981.
Wikipedia wrote:On the western frontier, where there is sporadic fighting, the Thahan Phran work closely with the RTA and the Border Patrol Police. On the eastern border, facing Laos and Cambodia, they now have primary responsibility for border surveillance and protection. Many Rangers have been killed or wounded in recent years during cross-border attacks by Myanmar troops or their allies, the United Wa State Army and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army. In February 2001, a 19-man Thahan Phran base designated Unit 9631, situated at Ban Pang Noon near Mae Sai on the Myanmar border, was captured by 500 Myanmar troops. In a major victory for Thailand and the Thahan Phran, in October 1981, a Thahan Phran squad from Pak Tong Chai was used to force the drug warlord Khun Sa to move his headquarters from northwest Thailand across the border into Myanmar.
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Fingolfin_Noldor
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Post by Fingolfin_Noldor »

Sidewinder wrote: According to Wikipedia (which spells the Thai district in question as Mae Sai), the Thahan Phran (Thai Rangers) fought with Myanmar troops in February 2001 and October 1981.
Still not much more than what appears in the papers. But I am not surprised. Nations in Asia in general prefer to stuff it under the rug, unless there was some political reason they needed to show off for some reason.
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montypython
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Post by montypython »

Any effective international action at this point would probably need to be on the level of the South Africa anti-apartheid campaign to be significant.
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Post by Darth Wong »

There won't be any international action, because nobody gives a shit. The fact is that a decade of seemingly continuous humanitarian crises around the world have left a lot of First World citizens in a state of emotional fatigue. In effect, they've started writing off large swathes of the developing world as irredeemable shitholes, thanks in no small part to the fact that they never see any news from those places that doesn't involve refugees, starvation, civil war, human-rights violations, or some other form of human-inflicted misery.

The only time we can rouse ourselves up out of our apathy is when the disaster is natural, because then we figure we can do something about it, and the people might actually welcome our help.
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Post by ray245 »

By the way, isn't Burma split between many warlords or something?
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Post by Fingolfin_Noldor »

ray245 wrote:By the way, isn't Burma split between many warlords or something?
Er.. not quite. It is divided among some of the ethnic groups who do not recognise the central government's authority, and then you have a junta, which isn't exactly a monolithic authority either.
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Post by PainRack »

ray245 wrote:By the way, isn't Burma split between many warlords or something?
U have a centralised government, some rebels movements amongst the ethnic groups in the wilderness and that's about it........

Unless you start counting individual generals as warlords, which "may" be applicable as they each have their own court of power and wealth.
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Post by Sarevok »

It's beginning to disgust me as a neighbouring country of Burma our leaders haven't issued a single statement. Even worse is the muted reaction among the people. Except the Burmese refugees living here most people I talked to don't even know what is happening in Burma right now. When a US missile misses it's targets 6000 miles away in the mideast they riot in the street, when tyrants kill people across the border they dont give a shit ! what a depressing world we live in...
I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.
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