We heard from the BBC broadcasts on the morning of 13 July that police in London had identified four suspects who planted the four bombs that exploded on July 7. Police searched their homes within 5 days of the bombing.
People would remember, in similar manner, three bombs exploded in Rangoon on 7 May and about 60 or so people died. While London bombs were exploded in the space of the minutes, the bombs in Rangoon were exploded on timer within minutes of each other
as well. The scale of the devastation was so powerful that people petrified, chaos
and confusion ensued, but the similarities end there. The reactions to the bombs in two cities were the world apart.
Since the G-8 leaders were in England at the time of the bombing, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared on TV, flanked by the world leaders, including George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, Vladmir Putin
among others, declared he would spare no efforts to catch the perpetrators and
bring them to justice. The whole world community condemned the killings, while condolences came in
from all corners of the world and flooded the media.
After a few days, London Mayor, Ken Livingstone’s photograph on the subway appeared in the
British newspapers showing that London was back on business as usual.
Hardly anybody showed up on Burmese TVs to condemn the bombings and that was what they called transparency in Burma, Nevertheless, Government-controlled Burma Broadcasting Services put the blame on the foreign elements NCGUB, ABSDF, Shan Tatmadaws and so on. “Supreme Leader General Than Shwe” was nowhere to be seen, nor General Mg Aye nor General Soe Win, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Burma. No country openly condemned the attacks, even China, close ally of Rangoon regime, kept their silence on the news. The Singapore Straits Times editorial suggested, unless the generals from Burma changed their behavior more bombs would be expected to explode.
British police went through thousands of CCTV footages of security cameras around London and found out the four suspects
in group, together at King Cross station just before 8:30AM on 7/July. The bombs went off less than half and hour later in 4 places. They found the personal belongings of these 4 people in four different bombing sites. At least, one of them died and it was possible another two would be dead as well. The suicide bomb was their conclusion.
On the contrary, in Burma, even though it has been more than two months, the police’s search for bombers were getting nowhere. Basically they have no suspects and no leads. In the 21st century, they can get help for foreign expertise easily. Proper forensic analysis could be done if they invite the foreign experts,…within days if they wanted to. This led to the uncomfortable conclusion that the Burmese government is not really keen on searching the culprits. What they did was rounding up hundreds of innocent citizens, put them into prison and intimidated them…a usual sad story.
The world community watched in silence even amid the most barbaric act of terrorist, and misguided follow ups in Burma. What is amiss here?
What is the Government in Rangoon doing? They cling to power even though the country had shown them they were fed up of military dictatorship. They imprisoned the Democracy leaders including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and extended their illegal rule ever since 1990 election.
They suppressed those who questioned their rule by putting them into prisons and destroyed their livelihood. Education, health care, and economic life in Burma are in ruin under their misrules. Yet they refused to give up their power, and refused to engage to talk to the opposition for the national reconciliation that the whole country yearned for.
ASEAN was also fed up with their imminent refusal to forgo the chairmanship of the organization next year.
This bombing episode in Rangoon highlighted again that it is time for the world community to do something to stop the nonsense in Burma.