10  theSun | THURSDAY AUGUST 13 2009

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UN divided over
Suu Kyi verdict
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama led a global
Taiwan scrambles
to rescue 1,000 in
wave of outrage at Aung San Suu Kyi’s (pix) extended de-
tention but the UN Security Council broke up an emergency
meeting with no condemnation of military-run Myanmar.
Obama called for the democracy leader’s “immedi-
ate, unconditional release” after veteran strongman Than
Shwe’s junta on Tuesday prolonged her house arrest for
another 18 months at the climax of a marathon trial.

landslide villages
But the Security Council, which counts China and Rus-
sia among its five veto-wielding members, failed to sign
off on a US-drafted statement condemning a verdict that
removed Suu Kyi from the stage for Myanmar elections
next year.
Britain’s UN Ambassador John Sawers, who is chairing
the council this month, said some delegations insisted on
sending the draft statement to their capitals for instructions CHISHAN (Taiwan): Taiwan yes- stepped up, Maj-Gen Richard Hu
and that debate would resume later. terday began airlifting out nearly said: “We have found around 700
US Ambassador Susan Rice conceded that other council 1,000 people found alive in a clus- people alive in three villages on
members may take “different views” on the controversy, ter of villages flattened by muddy Tuesday night and 26 more early
a sign that Myanmar backers such as China and Russia landslides, as survivors recounted Wednesday. We are deploying 25
might seek to dilute the statement. the horror of watching their homes helicopters to evacuate them.”
A prison court in Yangon con- vanish. Marines found some 250 villag-
victed the 64-year-old Suu Kyi of The island-wide death toll from ers later Wednesday before heavy
breaching the terms of her deten- Typhoon Morakot rose to 103 last rain temporarily halted the airlift,
tion, following a bizarre incident night with 61 others still missing the military said, adding 192 people
in which an American man swam following Taiwan’s worst flooding had so far been ferried to safety.
uninvited to her lakeside home in in half a century over the weekend, Hu said he was unable to con-
May. with entire villages submerged in firm how many people had been
The Nobel peace laureate has water and mud. buried or killed by the landslide in
been confined for much of the past The latest toll included 32 bodies Hsiaolin.
20 years, since the military regime found buried under mudslides in a Officials have downplayed media
refused to recognise her National remote mountain hot spring area reports that up to 600 people had
League for Democracy’s landslide in Liukuai, Kaohsiung county, the been killed just in Hsiaolin. Rescu-
victory in the last elections held in National Fire Agency said. ers said on Tuesday that around
1990. Meanwhile eye-witness accounts 100 people there were feared to
French President Nicolas We emerged of the devastation wrought have been buried alive.
Sarkozy’s office said the trial was believe on one of three villages in southern “We believed that some were
designed solely to stop Suu Kyi “from waging her struggle that some Taiwan, Hsiaolin, as survivors were buried but it’s not possible to es-
for a democratic and free Burma”. The European Union ferried out by helicopter. timate how many at this moment
threatened new sanctions against the junta. were “I saw the mountain crumbling as almost 90% of the houses were
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, Myanmar’s buried but in seconds almost like an explosion buried,” Hu
former colonial power, denounced the “sham trial” and it’s not and bury half of our neighbour-
called on the Security Council to impose a worldwide possible hood,” said Huang Chin-bao,
embargo on the sale of arms to the junta. 56.
However, the Than Shwe regime has proven impervi-
to Huang said he and 40 neigh-
ous to existing US and EU sanctions. estimate bours were guided by his two
In Bangkok, Thailand the current Asean Chair, has how dogs to higher ground. “The dogs
expressed disappointment over Suu Kyi’s verdict. In a many are our saviours,” he said.
statement issued by the Thai Foreign Ministry, a day after at this Feelings were running high at
the verdict, Thailand reiterated calls made by the Asean a school outside the disaster zone
Foreign Ministers at their annual meeting last month, moment where relatives of the missing had
where they had called for the immediate release of all as almost gathered. Police and soldiers had
those under detention, including Suu Kyi. 90% to push back some who tried to
Thailand said their release was important to enable of the storm their way onto helicopters
them to participate in the 2010 General Elections. heading to the zone.
“Such actions will contribute to national reconcilia-
houses “I cannot wait any more. I want
tion among the people of Myanmar, meaningful dialogue were to look for my family,” a man in
and facilitate the democratisation of Myanmar,” said the buried.” his 40s shouted as he argued with
ministry. – Hu soldiers.
Thailand, which is due to hand over the chairmanship He said he had not heard
to Vietnam during the 15th Asean Summit in October, said anything from his family since the
only a free, fair and inclusive general elections would pave typhoon dumped a record three me-
the way for Myanmar’s full integration into the interna- tres of rainfall on southern Taiwan
tional community. – Agencies over the weekend. EPAPIX
As the military rescue operation

US healthcare battle turns nasty Blow for Indonesia as

LEBANON (Pennsylvania): “One day
God is going to stand before you and
judge you,” shouted a fierce oppo-
nent of US President Barack Obama’s
healthcare plans, his voice trembling
with anger. August, normally a sleepy
month in the Washington political cal-
endar, has been anything but this year
with Obama lieutenants confronted
by a deafening clamour of abuse as
they try to sell his sweeping health
reforms.
The man quoted above was yelling
right in the face of Democratic sena-
tor Arlen Specter on Tuesday at a sup-
posedly intimate “town-hall meeting”
in his home state of Pennsylvania.
Similar scenes have played out
across the country as Congress’s
August recess has become the bat-
tleground for Obama’s flagship policy
to cover nearly 50 million uninsured
Americans.
He has dispatched senators and
congressman to school gymnasiums,
public libraries and fire halls across the
land, only to see them largely shouted
down by uproarious crowds.
Healthcare reform has bedevil-
led many administrations, including
that of former president Bill Clinton
who tried, and very publicly failed, to
change the system.
Republicans are loudly fretting
over the cost of Obama’s plans, with
some branding it “socialism” and
warning that the soaring US budget
deficit will sky-rocket if the president
gets his way.
A 35-year-old woman won a
standing ovation from the rowdy
gathering in Lebanon, Pennsylvania
when she called on Obama to return
government to its limits as prescribed
by the US constitution. She angrily ac-
cused Specter and Obama of seeking
to transform the United States “into
Russia, into a socialist country.”
This is an oft-heard cry from the
Republican right who have been
stoking fears that the president and
his allies are plotting a government
takeover of the private US healthcare
system and will raise taxes to boot.
Opponents also claim the result
would find the federal government
dictating healthcare choices and
ultimately lowering the standard of
coverage for people who already
have insurance.
Democratic allies allege an orches-
trated campaign of disinformation,
including plots to disrupt the lawmak-
ers’ “town hall” discussions.
Top Democrats in Congress Nancy
Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have criticised
protesters for drowning out opposing
views and described the boisterous
displays as “simply un-American.”
Some of the shouting has been
quite extreme.
Rush Limbaugh, the conservative
star of one America’s most popular
radio talk shows, compared Obama’s
healthcare logo on Thursday to the
Nazi swastika, drawing a furious
response from Jewish groups.
At a public forum Tuesday in New
Hampshire, the president singled out
conservative leaders and right-wing
media outlets for spurring the con-
frontations, saying those “who want
to keep things the way they are will
try to scare the heck out of folks.”
Obama said his political opponents
had sought to “create bogeymen out
there that just aren’t real.” – AFP
JAKARTA: A suspect shot dead in
Indonesia last weekend was not mili-
tant Noordin Mohammad Top and he
is still at large, police said yesterday,
dashing hopes for a breakthrough
in a hunt for the mastermind of a
string of attacks. Noordin is believed
to have planned last month’s near-
simultaneous suicide attacks on Ja-
karta’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton
hotels, which killed nine people and
wounded 53.
The police were at first confident
that Noordin had been killed during
an 18-hour siege at a remote farm-
house in Central Java. However,
they said yesterday that forensic
tests now showed they had killed an
accomplice, not Noordin.
Media reports quoting police
sources said Noordin probably fled a
few hours before the anti-terrorism
unit raided the house.
National police spokesman Nanan
Soekarna said the authorities be-
lieved Noordin was still in Indonesia
and expected him to keep on trying
to launch attacks. “The assumption
is that he will keep on doing so,” he
told reporters. Noordin, who formed a
violent wing of the Jemaah Islamiah
(JI) militant network, is blamed for
a series of attacks, including on the
JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in
2004 and in Bali in 2005.
His escape is a blow for security
forces and efforts to contain further
attacks in Southeast Asia’s biggest
economy.
“The fact that Noordin is still at
large means there’s still a possibility
of his group mounting other attacks
in the future,” said Sidney Jones, a
Jakarta-based expert on Islamic
militants at the International Crisis
Group.
“I think it’s got to be still the
number one priority of the police to
find out where he is and find out who
else was involved in the planning of
these attacks,” added Jones.
The man killed in the raid was
identified as Ibrohim, who worked
at the florist in the Ritz-Carlton hotel
in Jakarta and is suspected to be the
inside man on the attacks.
“We checked samples with Ibro-