Aung San Suu Kyi's 63rd Birthday

Dear friends,

We want to quickly thank everyone who helped out on Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday.

Also, we want to share with you a short but powerful essay written by a woman human rights activist who is "on the run" hiding from the military dictators in Burma. She has been separated from her young daughter now for over 10 months as the military regime is trying to arrest her. This courageous woman risked her life by exposing her conscience in the writing of the essay -- reminding the world that we are working not only to change statistics about human rights, but to help our fellow human beings -- everyday people who share our values and beliefs in liberty and human rights.

Her essay is pasted below. First though, quickly, we wanted to highlight a few things that happened leading up to Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday. Our goal of "celebrating" her birthday is to keep her in the news and at the forefront of discussions in governments, at the United Nations, and everywhere else we can. Burma campaign groups throughout the world worked very hard on this.

A few highlights:

- Because of our work, Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday was reported by over 500 news organizations throughout the world

- Inside Burma, the All Burma Monks Organization issued a call for the leader of the military dictatorship in Burma, Than Shwe, to be taken to the International Criminal Court and tried for committing crimes against humanity

- Also inside Burma, hundreds of protestors led a demonstration calling for Aung San Suu Kyi's release -- at least one dozen were arrested and we greatly fear for their well-being

- Our campaign Burma It Can't Wait was profiled on the MySpace celebrity section (http://celebrity.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=celebrity.impact)

- French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a joint call for Aung San Suu Kyi's release. It is very uncommon for French and British leaders to unite on any issue, so we are quite pleased.

- In the United States, we organized over 200 events across the country. At most events, participants "arrested themselves" -- staying at home for 24 hours in solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. During a portion of their "arrest", they invited friends and family over to watch videos on Burma, enjoy Burmese food, and raise money for US Campaign for Burma.

- Many women Nobel Peace Prize recipients (from Kenya, United States, Iran, etc.) issued a joint call for Aung San Suu Kyi's release.

- After pressure from Congress, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spoke about Aung San Suu Kyi at the UN Security Council

- In the U.S. Congress, over 100 supporters of human rights, members of Congress, and others gathered to issue a joint, public demand for Aung San Suu Kyi's release

- A few weeks ago, Anjelica Huston held a press conference inside the United Nations building calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi -- the first-ever press conference by a entertainment/cultural figure on Burma.

All human rights struggles are long and difficult, but with your support the efforts of Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people are growing stronger by the day. For example, over the past year, our email list has expanded from under 6,000 supporters to over 50,000.

There is still much work to be done, but we wanted to take a minute to THANK YOU for all of your work, compassion, and dedication.

Many warm thanks,

Jeremy and Jack

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Who Will Save Burma's Women and Children?

By Nilar Thein
Published on June 19, 2008 (The Nation)
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/06/19/opinion/opinion_30075891.php

"I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night. I was with my daughter, playing in a small garden.

We were playing hide and seek. I was looking at her from behind a tree. She was so beautiful, with the prettiest smile on her face, looking for me happily. I couldn't hide anymore. I wanted her to find me. I wanted to hold her in my arms and kiss her face gently. I started to show myself to her, but, suddenly I saw three men -with black coats and ugly faces - watching from the shadows near my daughter. I stepped back. I wanted to be found by my daughter, not by them. I still saw my daughter, still looking for me with her innocent smile. I didn't want to hide anymore. I wanted her to find me, but these men would take me away and put me in hell. Then I woke up, with tears on my cheeks.

I have been separated from my daughter for nearly ten months. A midnight knock at our door in August last year changed our lives dramatically. The military junta's security forces took my husband Kyaw Min Yu (also known as Jimmy) on the night of August 21, 2007. He is a leader of the prominent dissident group, the 88 Generation Students, comprising former student leaders and former political prisoners. He and other leaders were taken from their homes that night by the authorities. As a former student activist and a former political prisoner myself, I knew very well how my husband and friends would be treated in the junta's interrogation cells. Therefore, when they came back to arrest me, I went into hiding.

But I must continue to lead the 88 Generation Students with my other colleagues, so that Burma may realise its freedom, and find justice and democracy someday. I must avoid being arrested. However, there are so many difficulties and hardships in moving secretly from one hiding place to another, and I didn't want my daughter to share these hardships. Therefore, I decided to send my three-month-old baby to my parents. Now, I miss her so much.

My mind wanders to University Avenue, where "the Lady", Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has been detained under house arrest for so many years. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, will have to spend her 63rd birthday today alone in detention. She will be missing her two sons, too. Her strength and determination helps me and many women in Burma stand up for justice. I thank her for being with us and leading our movement. She is a great reminder to the world that the military junta that rules our country forcibly separates mothers and children.

Coincidentally, the UN Security Council will hold a debate in New York today on "Women, Peace and Security". This debate is a discussion of UNSC Resolution 1325, which was passed unanimously in October, 2000. Resolution 1325 "Calls on all parties to armed conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict." It also "Emphasises the responsibility of all States to put an end to impunity and to prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes including those relating to sexual violence against women and girls, and in this regard, stresses the need to exclude these crimes, where feasible from amnesty provisions."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to chair the debate, with many world leaders discussing the development of women, peace and security. Will they discuss Burma? Will they remember Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the women of Burma who are suffering all forms of abuse by the military junta?

Burma is now in the midst of two conflicts. One is the 50-year-old civil war, raging between the Burmese military and the minority resistance forces, predominately in the eastern part of the country. Burmese troops are raping with impunity tribal women and girls, some as young as eight years old. Burmese soldiers use women in conflict areas as porters to carry their military equipment and supplies during the day, and use them as sex slaves at night. Many women have been brutally killed to erase the evidence of these crimes.

The other conflict is a 20-year old war, waged by the Burmese junta against its own unarmed citizens, who are calling for freedom, justice and democracy. Women activists are beaten, arrested, tortured and then put in prison for many years. Many female activists are mistreated and sexually assaulted by their interrogators and jailers. Children are used as bait by the authorities to get their mothers arrested. Of the 2.5 million people severely affected by Cyclone Nargis - many of whom the military junta simply left to die through starvation and disease - at least a million are women and girls. Recently, a UN expert said that up to 35,000 pregnant women, all cyclone survivors, are at extreme risk of death. However, they will never receive any care from the military.

I hope that Secretary of State Rice and other leaders at the UN Security Council will give consideration to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the women of Burma during their debate. Resolution 1325 is a great development, but implementation and enforcement is still in question. When the government itself is the abuser of human rights and the perpetrator of rape and other forms of gender-based violence, who will protect the victims? Who will end their tragedy? Who will secure the joyful reunion of mothers with their children?

The appeasement policy of some bureaucrats is shameful. Effective and urgent action from the UN Security Council is necessary to help the women in Burma. No more debate. Take action. Please let me be happily reunited with my daughter."

Nilar Thein is a former student leader in the 1988 democracy uprising in Burma and spent more than nine years in prison.

The End of Intervention

"Op-Ed Contributor

By MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT
Published: June 11, 2008

Washington

THE Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate.

The first and most obvious reality is the survival of totalitarian government in an age of global communications and democratic progress. Myanmar’s military junta employs the same set of tools used by the likes of Stalin to crush dissent and monitor the lives of citizens. The needs of the victims of Cyclone Nargis mean nothing to a regime focused solely on preserving its own authority.

Second is the unwillingness of Myanmar’s neighbors to use their collective leverage on behalf of change. A decade ago, when Myanmar was allowed to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, I was assured by leaders in the region that they would push the junta to open its economy and move in the direction of democracy. With a few honorable exceptions, this hasn’t happened.

A third reality is that the concept of national sovereignty as an inviolable and overriding principle of global law is once again gaining ground. Many diplomats and foreign policy experts had hoped that the fall of the Berlin Wall would lead to the creation of an integrated world system free from spheres of influence, in which the wounds created by colonial and cold war empires would heal.

In such a world, the international community would recognize a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations — to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide disaster relief when national governments were either unable or unwilling to do so.

During the 1990s, certain precedents were created. The administration of George H. W. Bush intervened to prevent famine in Somalia and to aid Kurds in northern Iraq; the Clinton administration returned an elected leader to power in Haiti; NATO ended the war in Bosnia and stopped Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of terror in Kosovo; the British halted a civil war in Sierra Leone; and the United Nations authorized life-saving missions in East Timor and elsewhere.

These actions were not steps toward a world government. They did reflect the view that the international system exists to advance certain core values, including development, justice and respect for human rights. In this view, sovereignty is still a central consideration, but cases may arise in which there is a responsibility to intervene — through sanctions or, in extreme cases, by force — to save lives.

The Bush administration’s decision to fight in Afghanistan after 9/11 did nothing to weaken this view because it was clearly motivated by self-defense. The invasion of Iraq, with the administration’s grandiose rhetoric about pre-emption, was another matter, however. It generated a negative reaction that has weakened support for cross-border interventions even for worthy purposes. Governments, especially in the developing world, are now determined to preserve the principle of sovereignty, even when the human costs of doing so are high.

Thus, Myanmar’s leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions. Sudan has been able to dictate the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur. The government of Zimbabwe may yet succeed in stealing a presidential election.

Political leaders in Pakistan have told the Bush administration to back off, despite the growth of Al Qaeda and Taliban cells in the country’s wild northwest. African leaders (understandably perhaps) have said no to the creation of a regional American military command. And despite recent efforts to enshrine the doctrine of a “responsibility to protect” in international law, the concept of humanitarian intervention has lost momentum.

The global conscience is not asleep, but after the turbulence of recent years, it is profoundly confused. Some governments will oppose any exceptions to the principle of sovereignty because they fear criticism of their own policies. Others will defend the sanctity of sovereignty unless and until they again have confidence in the judgment of those proposing exceptions.

At the heart of the debate is the question of what the international system is. Is it just a collection of legal nuts and bolts cobbled together by governments to protect governments? Or is it a living framework of rules intended to make the world a more humane place?

We know how the government of Myanmar would answer that question, but what we need to listen to is the voice — and cry — of the Burmese people.

Madeleine K. Albright was the United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001."

taken from The New York Times