In March 2008

It just occurred to me I never really post anything about what I have been up to. It's not as if I am to my neck with a million things, I just conveniently forget to put in into writing. I mean, that's the very reason why I started out this blog - to let the wide wide world who cares or gives me 5 seconds of their time a glimpse into my life here in Sierra Leone. 

So let me give you a prosaic account into what I've been up to lately since the mid of March..

1. During the Easter break (5 days holiday here!), we went to Mama Beach for a camping trip. The initial idea was to drive up to Conakry (Guinea) and spend the Easter weekend there, bumming around, behaving all touristy. Asaf, T and myself were so keen to do this. Until my bosses' boss who's also my boss technically said "NO". And a NO from this man means something. Soon we found out that it's just not that safe and convenient to drive up there for a variety of reasons (bandits, car registration, boring place, too much to be spent bribing officials, visa etc.). So we shelved the idea aside for another time. Eventually we ended up going camping - German style in African conditions. German style because we went with 3 other Germans and we were all fully equipped with 'army' tents, torches and of course plenty to drink. It turned out to be a great, relaxing and definitely enjoyable trip inspite of the sandy sleeping conditions. 

Mama Beach is a magical place when the sun sets. If you stand along the shoreline, with the warm water trickling your feet, and you looked around you, you see the hills outlined against the dark sky and that I must say was one of the most memorable moment of the trip. In the evening, we had a fire going. Asaf brought his guitar and we sang what we could. We toasted mashmallows, drink and chat the night away.. it's was surreal considering that we are in Sierra Leone, a country so devastated by  a decade of civil war and yet standing there amongst the untouched beauty, one feels so extremely blessed. I was feeling so, for sure. We did a fair bit, cooking fish, barbequing, swimming, a ride on Henry's boat to Banana Island. So that was what we did during Easter. Other than that, I woudn't say I have been up to anything exciting really. Ooh, we hosted a party for our favourite Bolivian, Antonio who's leaving at the end of March. The party was fantastic! BBQ, drinks, good friends and good laughs plus plenty of Latino folks and of course enough salsa music to shake things up! Lovely! You should have been there. 

singapore and burma: friends to the end

Yesterday, 20 years ago, 23-year-old Phone Maw, a Burmese student at the Rangoon Institute of Technology was gunned down by security forces. That resulted in the birth of the 1989 student uprising. Of course, that news never made headlines yesterday. Except maybe only on the commentary of The Irrawady – an independent news agency covering Burma and Southeast Asia. When Buddhist monks went to the streets to protest, the world suddenly took notice and then when the hype was over, eyes were trained to focus elsewhere. Burma was again forgotten.

In Burma, March 13 has been proclaimed by pro-democracy movements as Burmese Human Rights Day. The date was installed to honor the memory of RIT students who were gunned down by the military on March 13, 1988. In 1989, came the student uprising that saw too many dead civilians and many more fleeing the country in search of help and safety. Today, any talk of Phone Maw can result in sporadic arrests by security forces followed by imprisonment. The litany of human rights abuses committed by the Burmese junta under the rule of General Than Shwe has long been a fact known to the international community but too often ignored. In particular, I am ashamed that my government (the Singapore authorities) have done almost nothing to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the repressive state.

It is a well-known fact that Singapore has strong business interests in Burma and there is a lot to lose should the generals ever lose grip of power. Powerful technocrats in Singapore, specifically those who work for Temasek Holdings, know far too well, how much they have invested into Burma and that this VERY source of funding is what is keeping the Burmese junta alive. From weapons to telecommunications systems, Singapore has been the most prominent supporter propping the Burmese government. Singapore does not care about human rights abuses. After China, it has perfected the art of compulsory executions for drug traffickers. It has also helped to keep drug lords from Burma afloat.

The Singaporean authorities must have been on edge when the entire world was focused on the protests in Burma. They must have heaved a sigh of relief when it was over and quietly retreated back to resuming relations with their Burmese counterparts. Singapore has been contented to put up a diplomatic show but we all know it has been nothing more than the occasional hand-wringing. If I may put it bluntly, we are a bunch of self-interested bastards.

Let me tell you something. Singapore is a pretty, little island-state, with stretches of shopping malls, great food, and cheap electronics. But we are also a country of mandatory death sentence for drug traffickers, where you get fined for a lot of things, where freedom of expression is very much curtailed. So don’t be deluded by the pretty images you see. We are a rich country but very poor in morals.

www.khrg.org
This is a site by the Karen Human Rights Group documenting news and reports relating to their struggle and atrocities committed by the Burmese junta. The pictures in the photosets can get really gruesome but they are perhaps a reality we have far too often simply choose to ignore.

catherine lim

This is Dr. Catherine Lim. She is a writer and a political commentator. She is a Singaporean like me. There aren't many like her today. I wish I was brave like her, tough, focused and bold in so many ways. I met her once in 2003 in a small cafe I used to waitress in. She had a quiet aura about her, which had a calming effect whether intended or otherwise. I merely said a meek hello, I think. She challenges the Singapore government. I think I know what she is talking about. I have never voted and my political liberties have perhaps been non-existent. A few times, when I speak up in public fora, I can feel the eyes glazed upon me in disapproval. I don't like the reasoning used by the government to focus on bread-and-butter issues and leave the rest aside. Times are changing and Singaporeans like myself are exposed to the globalising forces more so than previous generations. We are aware of the effects. We see the world, and we asked ourselves why are we so fearful of the government and why do we let them so? Lawsuits against opposition parties for defamation, no criticisms allowed. Catherine's recent open letter to the Prime Minister was rejected by The Straits Times (it's published on her website). As a Singaporean, I am tired of the overly dependence attitude , I am sick of complying and complying over and over again. Yes, I am proud of where we are today - an extremely successful country that has turned from 3rd world to 1st world status in a leap of a generation. I am proud of that. What I am not proud of and disgusted by is where we are heading, down that slippery road.

I wish we were different. I wish we would become more questioning and more critical.