people

now, i don't know how many of you noticed the myanmar thing at the top of my sidebar, or my single myanmar post with the banner, in which all i did was chuck in an extra wiki link.

however, i kinda expect that most of you catch up with the news even more than i do (why yes, i'm a typical ignorant frog in the well), so you all will already have a general idea of what's going on. however, it's pretty pathetic of me to just post up a link in my sidebar and a single blog post without saying anything on the crisis. defeats the purpose of spreading the word, really.

so well, what exactly is going on?

from my limited knowledge *cough*

about a month ago, the Buddhist monks (and er, nuns too) started a call for democracy through peaceful marches and demonstrations. to fully appreciate what they are fighting for, we must understand that myanmar is ruled by a military regime for decades. from what i have gathered so far, the military regime is a dictatorship that seized power by force back in 1988. a coup, so to speak. however, in 1990, aung san suu kyi's political party won the elections, but the ruling military regime prevented it from forming a government.





thousands of Myanmar people have joined in the protest together with the monks. many of them, civilians and monks alike, were brutally attacked by the military regime. there are casualties, but i'm not too clear on the death toll.








anyway.

*begins copy pasting*

there is a petition calling on Myanmar's powerful ally China and the UN security council to step in and pressure Myanmar's rulers to stop the killing. The petition has exploded to over 500,000 signatures in a few days and is being advertised in newspapers around the world, delivered to the UN Security Council, and broadcast to the Burmese people by radio. they're trying to get to 1 million signatures this week.

*ends copy pasting*

please sign the PETITION. the first step is to stop these brutal killings on people who are fighting for nothing else but their rights.





thank you, kind compassionate people.