Myanmar Detains Activist Comedian

YANGON, Myanmar-A popular comedian here who had been carrying out a private campaign to help the victims of last month’s cyclone has been detained by the police, his friends said Thursday.The comedian, U Maung Thura, 47, better known by his stage name Zarganar, or The Tweezers, was taken from his home in Yangon on Wednesday evening, the friends said.The police ransacked the house and seized his computer files, they said. The files contained photos and videos the military government would prefer that the world not see-victims of the May 3 cyclone and the 2006 “Champagne and diamonds” wedding of the daughter of the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, according to a friend of Mr. Maung Thura. The friend spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns.Mr. Maung Thura has been jailed at least three times in the past two decades for his outspokenness. The government has been growing increasingly intolerant of criticism of its handling of the cyclone as inefficient and callous. By the government’s count, at least 134,000 people have died or are missing. Aid groups say about 2.4 million survivors are in need of aid.On Thursday, four United States warships laden with supplies and 22 helicopters left international waters near the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar after more than two weeks of waiting fruitlessly for permission from the junta to unload the supplies.Private relief operations by Mr. Maung Thura and Buddhist monks, who said they were acting partly because the government was not doing enough, were widely seen here as a rebuke to the ruling generals.The junta has slowly been allowing some foreign aid workers to enter the delta; it insists that donations be distributed through official channels.“His arrest is a warning against Burmese who are trying to help fellow Burmese,” said a friend of Mr. Maung Thura. “This shows the worst in our government: the generals are concerned more about their security than the security of the people.” In an interview on May 19, Mr. Maung Thura said the government had been warning his group of volunteers who were delivering aid to remote delta villages. But he was undeterred.“These are my people,” he said. “I want to save my own people. That’s why we go there with any donations we can get. But the government doesn’t like our work.“It is not interested in helping people,” he added. “It just wants to tell the world and the rest of the country that everything is under control and that it has already saved its people. What we are doing contradicts its message.”Mr. Maung Thura organized five teams that began making almost daily aid runs to outlying villages in the delta.He said his operation was financed by hundreds of donors — fellow entertainers, rich people in business and other citizens who do not trust the government and “want to deliver donations themselves but cannot” out of fear for their jobs or safety. He said his group delivered roughly $6,500 worth of relief goods a day.Last September, when the junta cracked down on an uprising by monks, he was detained for a month.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/world/asia/06yangon.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

As in the days of Noah..