Use your own 

to stop Burmese Dictators in their tracks. Deny them the foreign investment they use to buy guns and bullets. Find out how this can be done.

Copy/Paste or Drag/Drop

Link your web pages to it and let's mobilize.

This running debate, conducted at a furious pace for two weeks with an anonymous  supporter of the Military Junta that has governed Burma since 1962, began sometime in December 1998 with the following curt entry in Burma Ruby's Guest Book and my brief but courteous reply:-

 Round One of this debate ended on March 13, 1999 with a dramatic revelation of my critic's true identity. Please read on and decide for yourself who won the argument.

What, I wonder, gives you the right to interfere in the running of another, independent country? I suppose it is your colonial attitude which refuses to leave you. Permit me to remind you: Myanmar Naing-ngan daw is NO LONGER a British colony, and therefore keep your dirty, pernicious, interfering nose out. What would you say, you neo-colonialist axe-handle, if we Myanmars started telling you how to run your country?

Moreover, that woman you keep harping on about has never been elected in any capacity whatsoever; chose to stay away from Myanmar and benefit from a privileged Western education for 20 years, and, as a result of the Constitution established by her late father, is prevented from ever holding office in Myanmar.

So stop meddling once and for all.

Email: Burmahtrvl@aol.com

Dear U Kyaw Kyaw Win,

Thanks for your reply. I will ignore your personal attack and stress instead that I share your desire for the prosperity and happiness of all the people of Burma, I must, however, take issue with you over "that woman". Presumably you refer to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (also known as Mrs Aris to your publicity machine).

Why do you and your masters hate and distrust her in inverse proportion to the love and trust shown to her by the vast majority of your countrymen and women? You are right. She was not elected. Not being interested in a political career, she did not stand for election, but chose instead to use her international reputation and national prestige as daughter of your country's national hero, Bogyoke Aung San, to lead a political Party (The National League for Democracy) as their General Secretary. The candidates of that Party won a landslide victory in the 1990 election, only to be illegitimately denied power by your military masters, who clearly show much greater trust in the bullet than the ballot. If Daw Suu Kyi wasn't an elected member of the 1990 Parliament, why did Burma's military dictators deny the NLD their legal right to run their country? "That lady" has repeatedly confirmed that she has never held any passport other than that of her own country. What is it in your Constitution, drawn up by her late father, that can prevent her holding any official post in the land of her birth? There are other questions on

which democrats around the world want your masters to answer. Perhaps you can deal with those too. You may also be interested in visiting

It contains a full length interview with Dr Zar Ni who set up the Free Burma Coalition. So there are Burmese Nationals in exile and not just ex-colonialists like me who activly oppose the enslavement of people and the denial of their human rights in your country.

I look forward to our continuing debate.

Stanley Barden

You fill your site with gossip, rumours and mistruths. I ask you just three simple questions: how many times have you visited my country, when was the last time, and how many residents of the country have you spoken to in person inside the country to confirm what you have written  here is the truth?

Email: Burmahtrvl@aol.com

Dear U Kyaw Kyaw Win,

Thank you for your prompt response to my last letter. I've been thinking about your description of me as a "neo-colonialist". "Colonia", a Latin word, was used by Romans to describe the settlement of a minority amongst a hostile majority in recently conquered territory. The real neo-colonialists in Burma are your SPDC Generals. How else could you describe Dictators controlling Burma with their army and acolytes since 1962? How else can you describe the regime of a military junta, imposed on the people of their own country against their free will expressed in fair elections 35 years ago? The Generals allowed this General Election in 1990, arrogantly confident that the Burmese majority was bound to anoint its hold on their country with democratic approval, torn apart as it was by civil war since gaining independence in 1948. But, the Generals lost their gamble and stubbornly refused to pay the proper price for defeat at the polls. The free world is still waiting for them to come to their senses.

Now to your questions, Born in Rangoon, I lived there with my family until I was seventeen, when the Japanese invasion in 1942 forced us to leave. I have never been back to Burma since, but would very much like to do one day. How long are visitors permitted to stay in your country, and can they travel freely without an official escort? And if I wanted, could I visit Mrs. Aris at her home in Rangoon?

I belong to the Burma Church Association which meets in London every year and regularly talk with people who have visited Burma recently. I also have access to all reports on your country issued by UN, and the US and UK Governments. All the material on my web pages come from such reports and from feedback from the Free Burma Coalition run by exiled Burmese nationals who do not have the privilege of a free press in their own country.

You know all about me from my web pages but I know nothing about you. Are you writing from Burma, or do you live and work in the US or UK in some official capacity for the Burmese Government? How about including a photograph of yourself with your e-mail reply. Looking forward to hearing again from you.

Stanley Barden

Dear  Sir,

As I suspected, you have not been to Burma for almost 60 years. This is so typical of the so-called do-gooders today: you rely wholly on second - even third - hand reports. How you can pass off such alleged accurate information based on reports of other people, the majority of whom themselves (such as the FBC) have also not been to the country for many years defies credence. Such evidence would never hold up in any court of law - it really is the height of effrontery and arrogance to make a site such as yours available to the general public and purporting to provide authentic information, when the proprietor himself hasn't seen the country himself for 57 years. Perhaps I should open a site on Burkina Faso or Algeria or Mali or Malawi or Paraguay, etc, etc.

Tourists may stay for up to 4 weeks with a valid tourist visa, available on application at any Myanmar Embassy and virtually the entire country is now accessible thanks to those former insurgent groups having returned to the legal fold as a result of the cease-fires obtained by the Government.

Yours sincerely

Kyaw Kyaw Win (Mr)

Dear U Kyaw Kyaw Win,

My thanks again for your prompt reply. I take your point about my not having any recent personal experience of life in Burma. How about yourself? I know almost nothing about you, your age, when you were last in Burma and whether you work for the Burmese Government. Please tell me what qualifications you possess to personally justify what Europe, the United Nations and the United States, not just me, wholly condemn.

Why is it taking so long(over 6 years) for the new Constitution to be announced? The Generals say they want "disciplined democracy". What does this mean?

I would like to be convinced that I am wrong. If you can do that I will gladly admit it on the Internet.

Yours in good faith,

Stanley Barden (Dr)

Dear Sir,
For your information, I was last in Burma in October 1998, being my 21st visit in 8 years to the country. As you may have read, Lt.-Col. Hla Min, whom I met on my most recent trip, has already declared that there may be elections within 2-3 years.

Yours sincerely
Kyaw Kyaw Win (Mr)

Dear Mr. Kyaw Kyaw Win,

Thank for the prompt reply. I must confess to being disappointed though, because you tell me nothing about yourself. Allow me to act the detective from some obvious clues concerning your identity and come to the following conclusions:

(1) Your e-mail address and frequent visits over  only 8 years suggest that you don't live in Burma, neither were you born there, nor have a Burmese family. Rather, you were probably born an American citizen who lives and works on the East Coast of the USA organizing tourist visits to Burma. This would explain your ready access to the senior Army Officer, Lt. Col. Hla Min, who is probably in the Ministry of Tourism.

(2) The name, Kyaw Kyaw Win, you use is  an alias, not your own. I deduce this from the fact that you are uneasy with my use of U as prefix, and prefer the western prefix - Mr.

(3) You are very selective in the answers to my questions. I asked, for example, whether a visit to Mrs. Aris in her Rangoon home would be allowed if I went to Burma for a holiday, or would that brand me as a trouble-maker with the risk of a long jail sentence from courts and judges who are under strict political control? I also asked to explain the meaning of "disciplined democracy". To me that sounds very much like the system they operated in the old Soviet Union and its East European satellite States, "People's Democracies" all, now thankfully part of history.

Of course I could be quite wrong and would be delighted if I was. I hate to think that you are merely a publicist for the Burmese Generals because you work for them. You would be a much more credible disciple of the current Burmese Military Government if you were not dependent financially on them.

I have copied the following paragraph from pgs. 260/261 of "East and West", an excellent book by Chris Patten, who was Governor of Hong Kong for 5 years until the territory was handed over to China:

"The law constrains just as it enables. It acts as a brake, so that liberty does not slide and slither into anarchic license. It draws lines in the sand, protects the weak from the strong, defines the public interest in an orderly and balanced way, and ideally acquires the moral authority to do all that by the extent to which it can demonstrate its own evenhandedness and by the manner in which it is made. If the process itself is suspect, who will obey the law? If you distort the making of the laws, you undermine the rule of law. A free parliament makes the law, independent courts and judges arbitrate, an uncorrupt police enforces - those institutions provide the core software in any society where it is safe and profitable to do business, and safe and enjoyable to bring up a family".

When Burma has a free parliament, free elections, independent courts and judges, I shall be a much happier man. Just remember the shock Stalin must have felt when the British people voted Winston Churchill out of office in 1945 at the end of WW2 when he was at the height of his power and influence over world events, or what Brezhnev felt when the Americans forced their President Nixon to resign. That is what freedom really means, and that, I fear, is what Burma presently has not got.

Looking forward to getting to know you better and continuing our debate.

Yours sincerely,

Stanley Barden

Dear Sir,

We are contacting you to advise that Brig.-Gen. Kyaw Kyaw Win has returned to Myanmar to take up a senior post. As soon as a replacement has been appointed, you will be informed accordingly. 

Yours faithfully 

SPDC, Overseas Dept.