Please Fax Before You Invade

Kerry Howley | November 8, 2005

Weird Burma story of the day: The country's ruling generals are officially leaving the Capital for Pyinmana, a remote and completely undeveloped part of the country -- and taking the entire government with them. (A friend e-mails to tell me he walked into one of Rangoon's ministries last week to find the place utterly abandoned.) No one seems to know why, although my money is on paranoia over a U.S. invasion. ("They want our jade," an official explained to me last year.) Financial Times reports:

Foreign diplomats and international aid workers said the move suggested the military junta was retreating into a physical bunker.

In its statement, the foreign ministry advised diplomats: "If you need to communicate on urgent matters, you can send a fax to Pyinmana."

Comments

|11.8.05 @ 2:16PM|#

I suspect this bodes ill for the citizens in the short term, but well for a change of government leading to reform in the long term. Not that the odds of the latter are terrific.

|11.8.05 @ 2:16PM|#

I don't know how joe felt about the Burmese junta before, but now that they have moved into a bunker in the middle of no mans land, they will really be feeling his wrath.

|11.8.05 @ 2:27PM|#

So they've taken on the role of a Ottoman Sultan (and other Asian emporers and kings) or the Sun King. :)

|11.8.05 @ 2:41PM|#

Actually, joe would be thrilled with the regime retreating to their bunkers. He'd zone their secret hideout as "Dictators only" and zone the rest of the country as "Non-dictatorship." To encourage the spread of democracy he'd build polling places and forums for debates, and specifically bar the construction of military barracks in urban areas. To prevent the construction of secret prison systems, all prison construction plans would face a public comment period.

To prevent the generals from leaving their secret hideouts and destroying the democratic society that he's planned, he'll put wildlife preserves (no roads) between the bunkers and the populated areas.

Jeff P.|11.8.05 @ 2:56PM|#

"No blood for jade!"
Perhaps Cheney is secretly on the Board of Directors of Pier One Imports...

|11.8.05 @ 3:01PM|#

Does seem odd. If their fear was US/UN/Western invasion, why isolate yourself and present such a clean (minimal civilian infrastructure) target? One would think surrounding oneslef with civi's is the best defense against western war power.
Only strategic sense I could see is escaping from said civi's. Seems very "Kim" of them to say the least.

|11.8.05 @ 3:15PM|#

It's probably just a bachelor party or something...

|11.8.05 @ 3:16PM|#

Actually, the oil conglomerates don't want you to know that jade contains virtually unlimited energy pot..

(Sound of gunshot and body slumping forward)

|11.8.05 @ 3:18PM|#

He who controls the Jade controls the universe..

|11.8.05 @ 3:28PM|#

Jade is the active ingredient in Burma Shave.

Beneath this stone
Lies Elmer Gush
Tickled to death
By his shaving brush
Burma-Shave

|11.8.05 @ 3:32PM|#

Poor Myanmar.

Not even a collective attempt by all of their high ranking officials can rise anywhere near to the level of kooky, paranoid nutjobbery of one Kim Jong Il.

|11.8.05 @ 3:47PM|#

Jade? Geez, if the U.S. staged a fake invasion of Myanmar on the Home Shopping Network (which is apparently the only T.V. available there)the Junta would probably flee the country in fear.

|11.8.05 @ 3:59PM|#

SEE! George Bush has scared the rest of the world so much that they have to retreat into bunkers! And we probably ARE going to steal their jade! It's the sort of thing he does, you know! *Sob*- I dont know if we'll ever get our standing back with the peace-loving dictators of the world.

|11.8.05 @ 4:38PM|#

Jade's pretty and all, but it's only semi-precious, and invading someone for the sake of semi-precious stones is just common. Now, if they had rubies or emeralds, then maybe...

|11.8.05 @ 5:12PM|#

Kerry commenting on some weird thingy in some country no one cares about -- its a bit unexpected...

|11.8.05 @ 5:53PM|#

"Jade's pretty and all, but it's only semi-precious"

Really fine pieces of jade are sold by the carot and can bring some astonishing prices. I actually found it cheaper to replace a lost jade cab with emerald one time.

Tuol Sleng, Anybody?|11.8.05 @ 6:02PM|#

Uh oh ... the last time a small Southeast Asian country started moving everything to the countryside, they also reset the calendar to Year Zero and killed everyone who wore glasses ...

Tuol Sleng, Anybody?|11.8.05 @ 6:02PM|#

Uh oh ... the last time a small Southeast Asian nation started moving everything to the countryside, they also reset the calendar to Year Zero and killed everyone who wore glasses ...

|11.8.05 @ 6:49PM|#

we'll never find them there.

|11.8.05 @ 7:38PM|#

Whaddya bet Bashir Assad has an extra detail about now diggin' hidey holes?

Hell, after that tornado near Evansville, maybe the UN should lobby for an international Hidey Hole Day.

Danger lurks everywhere!

|11.8.05 @ 7:53PM|#

Is it Burma or Myanmar?

|11.8.05 @ 8:14PM|#

"I actually found it cheaper to replace a lost jade cab with emerald one time"

Fire up the tanks, boys, we're going in... though if we were to set about invading mineral-rich countries, the Congo and South Africa should probably come first.

|11.8.05 @ 8:36PM|#

peachy,
I'm old, but I seem to have noticed more mineral water out there with the semi-regular bottled water. Is it because the Boomers are turning 60?
Did you know you can get a big box of bran flakes from WalMart for just a buck fifty?
Where was I?
Oh yes, bob mologna,
I'm sure you're aware of such minerals as opalized squids?

Would "No blood for opalized squid" make for a good bumper sticker, or what?
I'm taking orders.

|11.8.05 @ 8:45PM|#

bob mologna, you may now be responsible for the deaths of as many as a half-dozen people. Hope you're happy.

|11.8.05 @ 9:07PM|#

Dear god, what have I gone and done...?

|11.8.05 @ 9:20PM|#

"Actually, joe would be thrilled with the regime retreating to their bunkers. He'd zone their secret hideout as "Dictators only" and zone the rest of the country as "Non-dictatorship."

Actually, Thoreau, I respectfully disagree. My feeling is, that anything which 'exiles' or 'bunkers' a central authority, removing itfrom the day to day lives of its subje... citizens would make him uncomfortable. Without a central planning authority doing any, well, central planning would leave what's known in government as 'a leadership void'. And, as we all know, government types abhor a regulatory vacuum.

|11.8.05 @ 9:58PM|#

The jade story is kooky. It's rubies that Burma is known for. Rubies the color of barbera.

|11.8.05 @ 10:22PM|#

It must have been a clever misinformation plot from the junta - 'if the fiendish yankees knew about our rubies, they would certainly invade, but if they think all we have is jade perhaps they'll ignore us." Pretty cunning, you have to admit... at least until someone mentioned how valuable jade can be.

|11.8.05 @ 10:23PM|#

The British moved the capital from Mandalay to Yangon so what's wrong with the Burmese themselves moving the capital from Yangon to Pyinmana?

Burma is a corruption of the name of the majority race the Bamar - it's always been Myanmar or Mien or Mien Tien. Calling it Burma is an insult to the over 138 other ethnic groups that make up Myanmar.

|11.8.05 @ 10:54PM|#

So you're saying that I can insult over 138 ethnic groups at one time?

Hellz yeah.

|11.8.05 @ 11:05PM|#

lighten up gerry. I'll bet anything that when this hideous junta finally falls the country will change its name back to Burma regardless of the colonial implications, just to fully reject the current government. see: Cambodia, formerly known (more accurately) as Kampuchea.

|11.9.05 @ 12:25AM|#

Gerry:
Actually that's not quite true. Both names apply only to the ethnic Burmese. The name Bama is the colloquial name of the country and, in the past, was considered more inclusive than Myanmar which is the country's literary name (similar to Nippon vs. Yamato in Japanese usage). The reasoning that Myanmar is more inclusive was put forward by the military during the renaming in 89, but most suspect that the real reason was their suspicion of the colloquial tongue. Many minorities prefer the name Burma, which may or may not be derived directly from Bama, as it is a European corruption and, as such, somewhat removed from any racial connotations.

|11.9.05 @ 1:37AM|#

Most countries have common usage names that are nothing like what they call themselves, ie. Greece vs Hellas, Germany vs. Deutschland, etc. And most of these names were invented by foreigners to characterize a single tribe that were later applied to a whole population.

|11.9.05 @ 1:56AM|#

Not even a collective attempt by all of their high ranking officials can rise anywhere near to the level of kooky, paranoid nutjobbery of one Kim Jong Il.

We should start using the "Kim" as the unit of measurement for a dictator's craziness. One Kim could be equal to all the bizarre shit that has come out of North Korea. So, in my expert opinion, this action would put Than Shwe, head of the Burmese government, at about 360 milliKims, give or take.

|11.9.05 @ 2:15AM|#

I thought the Stalie was the standard unit of Dictatorial lunacy.

|11.9.05 @ 2:37AM|#

Nah, Stalin was too close to real evil to fit. Kim, on the other hand, is closer to cartoonishly menacing evil, even despite all the murder he carries out. Besides, mK looks more scientific than mS.

|11.9.05 @ 8:59AM|#

Besides, there's the matter of scale - how many current dictators would rate even a milliStalie? And the microStalie just sounds silly...

|11.9.05 @ 9:32AM|#

peachy,
I'm with you. To get the scale right, we should use the "Bush."

|11.9.05 @ 1:46PM|#

Gerry,

You'd find plenty of people among those "138 groups" who would bite your head off for calling the place Myanmar, largely because many of those groups are being oppressed by the government that renamed it that. And you'll find people among those same minorities who will hate you just as passionately for calling it Burma. I try using both intermittently in order to offend the maximum number of people.