Free Burma group needs student support

Thursday, February 11, 1999

Free Burma group needs student support

ASIA: World organizations say universities have opportunity to
end oppression with action

By Carol Richards

Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls Burma the "South Africa of the
’90s." Universities across the country now have a chance to lead
the way for democracy in Burma as they did against apartheid in
South Africa.

Pressure from universities was pivotal in the apartheid
struggle. They voted to divest from stocks in companies doing
business with South Africa, and refused contracts for goods and
services with those companies.

Sanctions worked. And the time is now to use the same tool for
Burma.

UCLA has already led the way on Burma. The UCLA Academic Senate
voted to recommend to the UC Regents a system-wide divestment and
selective contracting policy on Burma. The university of California
at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and the University of California at Irvine
(UCI) have followed UCLA’s lead, thereby bringing the matter to a
mail ballot among faculty on all University of California campuses
in the coming weeks.

UCLA once again has an opportunity to send a clear message to
the Regents, and ultimately to the repressive regime that has ruled
Burma with ever-increasing oppression. The campus can show moral
leadership as the Free Burma movement gains momentum.

By singling out Burma, Bishop Tutu invited the nation’s campuses
to once again step forward in support of basic human rights in a
distant land. His deep concern for Burma came in response to an
attempt to meet fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,
who is being held in house-arrest in Burma.

The junta prevented the meeting, fearful of international
pressure for reform. But they have not been able to silence Suu
Kyi, leader of the political party which won 82 percent of the
seats in a 1990 election which was quashed by the military. She has
stated with courageous clarity: Do not do business with the ruling
junta until there is genuine progress towards democracy.

"Putting money into the country," she said, "is simply
supporting a system that is severely harmful to the people."

In October, the U.S. State Department and Labor Department
released a 90-page report documenting forced labor on tourism and
infrastructure projects throughout Burma. They have confirmation
that more than 10 million people have been used as forced labor in
recent years. The dredging of the moat of the Golden Palace in
Mandalay using forced labor occurred directly across the street
from a U.S. diplomatic facility.

As many as 30,000 people were forced to build a runway extension
at Rangoon’s airport to handle tourist jets. This does not count
the untold number of women and men used as porters to carry army
weapons and as human mine sweepers.

A new international campaign against the use of child soldiers
led by Human Rights Watch cites Burma as one of the world’s worst
offenders. The United Nations special investigator for human rights
in Burma states that abuses "are so numerous and so consistent"
that they must be "the result of policy at the highest level,
entailing political and legal responsibility."

This is the junta that every company doing business in Burma
must work with.

This is the junta that benefits from every tourist group that
brings them precious hard currency to finance the Chinese-made
weapons they buy for use against their own people.

This is the junta that is a pariah regime on the planet.

The Burmese community in Los Angeles is deeply concerned that
Burma experts at the Asia Society in New York and Los Angeles are
willing to turn a blind eye on Burma’s human rights atrocities and
a deaf ear to Suu Kyi’s pleas. This prestigious organization, which
"presents art exhibitions, performances and international corporate
conferences" (according to their literature), has scheduled an
"Images of Burma" tourist trip to Burma that lends legitimacy to
the illegal junta and its corporate investors, notably Unocal
Corporation, headquartered in Los Angeles.

The tour promises "privileged access," and the only way to gain
that in Burma is by paying off, one way or another, the generals
who control the country. This tour will provide a propaganda
victory and hard currency earnings for the junta. Please let Asia
Society know they must cancel this trip by calling the California
office at 213-624-0945.

The time is ripe for change in Burma through international
pressure. Burma’s economic situation is precarious. International
condemnation is widespread and more vocal. Former supporters of the
junta, such as Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yu, have warned of lessons for
Burma from the fall of Indonesia’s Suharto.

The people of Burma have no choice, but we in Los Angeles do. We
can choose to support Suu Kyi’s call to stop propping up this
pariah regime.

What greater atrocities need to be uncovered before the Asia
Society, Unocal and other corporate supporters finally realize
their faults, and say, "I see."Richards is the coordinator of the
Burma Forum. For more information contact [email protected] or
check our Web site www.burmaforumla.org.

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