Here is an article I found interesting. The junta has built themselves a new capital out in the jungle. It is pathetic that they enslave their own people while they build themselves a grand tribute to themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/A ... ir.html?hp
Mark
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink.
The article cited above offers several suggestions as to the motivation behind the move - but fails to mention one that has been widely quoted in the western media: it seems that the members of the ruling junta are a very superstitious lot and that the new capital was suggested to them by a soothsayer.
From The Times, November 8 2005:
"Although government employees had expected a move from the old capital for nearly two years, most learnt of the order to go only at 6.30am on Sunday. They were told to leave their families behind, pack their belongings and join convoys moving about 200 miles north to Pyinmana, the city that only a year ago was little more than a collection of straw huts and rice paddies.
"The timing was believed to have been chosen as auspicious by astrologers. Moving the seat of government to an easily defensible valley surrounded by jungle is the latest sign of paranoia exhibited by a pariah military regime that fears both invasion by the United States, which has branded it an outpost of tyranny, and an uprising by its own downtrodden populace.
"A senior soothsayer may also have advised building a new centre of power, as BurmaтАЩs kings frequently did in the past. Astrologers play a key role in Burmese life and have prompted some of the strangest and most disastrous episodes in the countryтАЩs recent past."
"The fruits of peace and tranquility... are the greatest goods... while those of its opposite, strife, are unbearable evils. Hence we ought to wish for peace, to seek it if we do not already have it, to conserve it once it is attained, and to repel with all our strength the strife which is opposed to it. To this end individual[s]... and in even greater degree groups and communities are obliged to help one another... from the bond or law of human society." [Marsilio dei Mainardini (c.1275-1342), Defensor Pacis]
Maybe the plan should be to slip a few million baht to the chief junta astrologer with the proviso that he advise them to step down before a terrible calamity (brought down from the heavens) befalls the lot of them... Probably not, as the guy would be dead in an hour.
What I don't get is why they would want to isolate themselves in the jungle? I would think that a military junta would want to be close to the population centers in order to keep track of the populace. I guess I would make a lousy dictator.
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From The Times, November 8 2005:
"Although government employees had expected a move from the old capital for nearly two years, most learnt of the order to go only at 6.30am on Sunday. They were told to leave their families behind, pack their belongings and join convoys moving about 200 miles north to Pyinmana, the city that only a year ago was little more than a collection of straw huts and rice paddies.
"The timing was believed to have been chosen as auspicious by astrologers. Moving the seat of government to an easily defensible valley surrounded by jungle is the latest sign of paranoia exhibited by a pariah military regime that fears both invasion by the United States, which has branded it an outpost of tyranny, and an uprising by its own downtrodden populace.
"A senior soothsayer may also have advised building a new centre of power, as BurmaтАЩs kings frequently did in the past. Astrologers play a key role in Burmese life and have prompted some of the strangest and most disastrous episodes in the countryтАЩs recent past."
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink.
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