"Editorial: Chaotic Burma"

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Burma has become a black-hole of chaos and corruptions under SPDC miliary rule.

Merchants and consumers both struggled Friday to cope with rising prices of goods and services in the wake of the military government's surprise nine-fold increase in the price of gasoline. The government holds a monopoly on the distribution of fuel.

Prices of consumer goods had already been creeping up along with a recent fall to historic lows in the value of the Kyat currency. Since the fuel price increase, transport costs have doubled in some cases, and food prices have also gone up as a result. Grocery store owners predict that prices would continue to increase as cost of transportation goes up.

Burma has had a rationing system in the capital since 1980. Vehicle owners who do not use their full quota often sell the excess to black-market vendors.

After the announcement of raised gasoline price, armed police, auxiliary fire brigade and ward authorities manned gas stations to prevent possible violence by motorists upset by the hike. There are news of unrest and arson attacks by angry motorists in some gas-stations in the Suburbs of Rangoon.

To complicate matters even further, a bomb exploded in the capital city of Burma on Friday, October 21.

According to a Rangoon resident, the bombs blasted in the evening near Trader Hotel in Rangoon but the causality is unknown and general public are frustrated if the explosion would lead to an unrest and turmoil in the country.

A source in Rangoon said the U.S dollar jumps rapidly from 1260 kyat per dollar to 1280 kyat after half and hour of the bomb explosion. Burmese currency falls down from 6.42 to 6.30 per Chinese Yuan. But the money market is very quiet as nobody wants to sell, only looking to buy the foreign currency at the moments.

So far the Generals haven't come clean about previous bombings exploded in Rangoon and Mandalay in May 2005, although dozens were killed and more than 160 others injured in those bomb explosions. It is reportedly widely believed that those bombings are carried out by the Generals themselves to strike fear into the hearts of innocent people, as well as to accuse the opposition political organizations of those bombings and to increase cruelties and oppressions on the opposition politicians.

Meanwhile, Burma is among the most corrupt countries in the world, the Transparency International reported.

``Corruption must be vigorously addressed if aid is to make a real difference in freeing people from poverty,'' said Peter Eigen, chairman of the Berlin-based Transparency International group.

Moreover, an environmental disaster is unfolding along the border that military-ruled Burma shares with China .

An army of Chinese loggers are stripping Burma 's mountainous northern Kachin state of its timber-rich forests.

"In 2004, more than one million cubic meters of timber, about 95% of Myanmar's total timber exports to China, were illegally exported from northern Myanmar to [China's southern] Yunnan province," states Global Witness (GW), a non-governmental organization. Large parts of forest along the China-Myanmar border have been destroyed, and Chinese logging companies are now moving even deeper into Myanmar's forests in their search for timber," the London-based environmental lobby revealed on Tuesday in a new report, "A Choice for China: Ending the destruction of Myanmar's northern frontier forests."

To prevent the outside world from knowing about the chaotic conditions in Burma , SPDC generals maintain strictest level of control on all types of media in Burma .

Burma is now 163rd ranking, near bottom, in World press freedom ranking 2005. Burma is widely regarded as a place where journalists have the toughest time and where government repression prevent the media operating freely. Journalists there simply relay government propaganda. Anyone out of step is harshly dealt with. A word too many, a commentary that deviates from the official line or a wrongly-spelled name and the author may be thrown in prison or draw the wrath of those in power. Harassment, psychological pressure, intimidation and round-the-clock surveillance are routine.

So, it's not an exaggeration to say that Burma has become a chaotic and corrupt black-hole under SPDC military rule.

WWW http://www.tayzathuria.org.uk/

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