The Best Friend Burmese Library - Just my Opinion

As you probably know I’ve shifted my focus from elephants to the displaced people, especially children, along the Thai / Burma border.   At the present my efforts are directed toward two very different organizations, The Mae Tao Clinic and The Best Friend Burmese Library, specifically especially the Chiang Mai branch.   In fact, one of the ongoing projects is helping to raise funds for the Best Friend Library.   Why these two, I’ve been asked.   Understanding that what is written below is just my opinion let me try to answer in brief:

• The Mae Tao Clinic sees 300 to 400 people a day.  They are underfunded, primarily because big donors have rushed prematurely to put their donations on the Burmese side of the border.  The people seen by the Mae Tao Clinic are from Burma.  Some are migrant workers and some come from Burma for the day to seek medical treatment.  In Burma they would have to pay for any medical services, and then the quality and quantity would be lacking.

• The Best Friend Burmese Library is much more than a library that contains the best collection of books and videos about Burma in Thailand; a favorite location for researchers to congregate and study.  The Best Friend Burmese library is much more than a friendly place that offers free English language classes; a place where many Burmese come to improve their chances for a better life through language training.  In my opinion, The Best Friend Burmese Library is an organization dedicated to informing and educating people about the situation in Burma.

Big governments and big business are lining up, walking over each other and with amazing regularity ignoring their own statements about the importance of human rights so they can slop from the trough of resources that Burma has become!    One recent example, some 7 hours ago, is the posting of conclusions on Myanmar / Burma  by the Council of European Union.  Mark Farmaner commented on Twitter that “EU Conclusions on Burma reads like it could have been written by Thein Sein's office: “. I toally agree with him.  Please Judge for yourself, the document is linked here:
EU Conclusion on Burma

One thing that I am trying to do with this blog is provide as many relative links as possible.  I invite to spend some time at the various sites in my link lists to the right of this page.