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The Irrawaddy FiascoThis, the latest round in the Irrawaddy fiasco. I guess it comes from the samebloke who wrote the 6-page memo to the donors after Aung Zaw fired him. (I hope itdidn't come from an editor--it's fairly tortured prose.)Dear Irrawaddy Donor,Whilst it pains us to describe the situation at The Irrawaddy magazine(and getting personal about it is distasteful), that situation hasdeteriorated so much that it now behooves us to speak.The magazine needs new leadership. It has become anemic, largelybecause it is divided internally. Its esprit de corps has evaporated.Though it still produces some worthy material, it has lost its bite asa critic of one of the world's most terrible regimes.Through 2006, and long before, there have been regular staff andeditorial departures - most of them rancorous - many involvingjournalists of a high caliber. We believe this will continue through2007, as the erratic behavior of the Editor, Aung Zaw, has made themagazine unworkable. The Irrawaddy is now wistfully referred to bysome of its own senior staff as 'The Irrelevant'.The Editor's people-management skills (donors aside) are problematic;as are his lack of editing and writing skills (mainstream pressarticles bearing his name are written by other staff), and lengthyabsences from the job. But the following, whilst not being a completecatalog, are in our view more serious problems:• Misuse of sponsors' money.(i) The Editor's brother has been given a senior job at The Irrawaddy- one much beyond his competence in the view of the magazine's staff.(ii) The Editor accepted a new 4-wheel-drive vehicle from theNetherlands government for 'traveling to the Burmese border'. In factthe vehicle does little more than transport him to and from thefour-bedroom, four-bathroom home he has built in the Chiang Mai hills.It rarely if ever travels to the border.(iii) We haven't done the math, but the magazine's long history ofwhimsically spiked stories, departing staff members, and thealienation of contributors, sources and allies, must translate intoserious, preventable, financial losses.• Abhorrence of Christians. Whilst the actions of Christianmissionaries in this part of the world have not always been blameless,Christian organizations, and individual Christians, now provideirreplaceable help to those made homeless by regime depredations inregional Burma . To attack these brave people as mere 'Bible-bashers'(which they mostly are not) is to misconstrue their work, and howdeeply it is appreciated by the Karen, Shan and others.It is especially cruel (and almost unbelievable from an IrrawaddyEditor) to say that, by virtue of their religion, Christian regimevictims 'deserve their fate'.• Anti-Americanism. In light of the US government's support for