Burma Needs You

Burma Needs Your Attention!

I was thrill to read the immediate respond by the Canadian government, the Opposition Party and even the Green Party condemning the Burmese military charges against Burma’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi after May 5th accident. From White House to Thai parliament, the Ottawa Citizen to Irrawaddy News, Burma issue was on the front page and became the hot topic again. I thank them for their interest of Burma Issue. But apart from what was happening with Aung San Suu Kyi’s trail in Burma, I wonder if they know about what have happening in the other parts of the country (Burma) now. Daily repression and widespread abuses against villagers in Burma's ethnic-minority areas continue. The international community and Canadian government are quiet. I wonder if they haven’t read the news, no one has briefing them what is happening now or they keep quiet because they thought the attacks are not as important as the trail of ASSK. Are they not as important as human being like you and me??? I wonder!!

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro’s End Burma’s System of Impunity at the New York Times stated it clear there:
But while Suu Kyi has deservedly received a great deal of international attention over the past two decades, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities — more than one-third of the population — have suffered without international outcry. For Myanmar’s process of national reconciliation to be successful, the plight of the minorities must also be addressed.

The Karen Human Rights Group states the same thing about what is happening now in rural Burma.

Thousands of civilians in Ler Per Her, an internally displaced refugee camp inside Burma in Karen State, fled across Thai border a few days ago because the Burmese Army moved in to the area. In January this year, I had visited Ler Per Her and another IDP camp on my fact finding trip. I had celebrated Christmas and New Year with them. I had met with orphaned children, sick elderly and newly born babies and I wonder where they are now. I look back the photos that I took when I was there and I thought are they still survived because they couldn’t bring anything when they fled into Thailand. And it is raining season now in Thailand and Burma. Can you do something Canada? Please, I need your attention.

Please come back for update of the photos that I took while I was in the Ler Per Her camp. You will be amazed to see them.

Crimes in Burma

Crimes in Burma
Five of the world’s leading international jurists have commissioned a report from the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, calling for the UN Security Council to act on more than fifteen years of condemnation from other UN bodies on human rights abuses in Burma. The Harvard report, Crimes in Burma, comes in the wake of renewed international attention on Burma, with the continued persecution of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. The report concludes with a call for the UN Security Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.

Another piece of information is the UN secretary-general Mr. Ben is planning to visit Burma "as soon as possible" ‘Be patients my Burma’s citizens, changes is coming but just a matter of time’ (Quote from someone who told me) And I don’t know when it the right time when tangible changes could happen in Burma!

Listen Up TV

Listen Up TV

Global Day Prayer for Burma March 8,2009

Global Day Of Prayer For Burma Sunday March 8, 2009
Why pray for Burma??
over 3200 villages has been destroyed by Burmese military
Burma has over 70,000 child soldiers
a place where mass displacement, forced labor, rape, torture, and all forms of persecution are a common reality
Religious persecution
Hundred thousand of political prisoners
Drug productions
Human trafficking
The list will go on and on........................... But you can make differences, Please pray for change in Burma! Thank you.

http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=press&id=833

451,000 displaced in eastern Burma in 2008

Over 451,000 IDPs in Burma in 2008: Report

A new report released on Thursday by the Geneva-based International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said there are at least 451,000 internally displaced people in eastern Burma alone as of October 2008.
The report said that in eastern Burma, particularly in Karen, Karenni, Shan, and Mon states and Tenasserim division, IDPs are mainly the result of the Burmese military-government’s human rights violations.“IDPs living in areas in Myanmar [Burma] still affected by armed conflict between the army and insurgent groups remained the most vulnerable, with their priority needs tending to be related to physical security, food, shelter, health and education,” said the report.
To read a full report……

Warm welcome in Phoenix after jungles, wire fences

Always I have to run for my life
Boo Htoo and his family lived in Mae La refugee camp for more than ten years before he came to US in 2007. Htoo, now 29, recalls making the long trek with his parents to cross the border when he was about 5. "[It's] a very long way," he says. "We don't have a car, a plane. We don't have a bicycle to ride. My parents just take what they can carry, and then we started walking across the jungle, sleeping in the jungle."

Bring Burmese Military to International Criminal Court

Send SPDC to International Criminal Court

Emergency Assistance Team – Burma and Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights released a report: After the Storm: Voices from the Delta about the Burmese military neglects toward the civilians who have suffered from the cyclone Nargis destruction. The report said:
Crimes Against Humanity
The testimonies presented in this report, document 1) intentional disregard of some cyclone victims, including women and children, that could and may have led to mass loss of life 2) failure to address the health needs of rural women, and of women and children generally, in the cyclone affected areas 4) targeted interference with relief operations on the basis of ethnicity and religion 5) forced labor 6) forced relocation affecting women and children and 7) the use of forced child labor. Each is evidence of the junta’s violation of its legal obligations to uphold the provisions set forth in the CRC and CEDAW conventions. However, taken together, these systematic abuses may also amount to crimes against humanity, as defined by article 7(k) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, through the creation of conditions whereby basic survival needs of civilians cannot be adequately met, “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

You can read a full report here.