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23 de Enero, 2008
The Struggle Not On Our Screens
Categorized under Derechos Humanos | Tags: Burma/Myanmar, Hope, Power to the People
A REMINDER and an update on the struggle for human rights in Burma:
When the youths of Burma chanted "The whole world is watching!" through clouds of tear gas last September, it was—for once—an understatement. Cell phone footage of the junta's violent crackdown made the rounds from Beijing to St. Petersburg. Rebellious monks graced the front page of The New York Times (twice!), and global leaders cheered them on: Desmond Tutu, Laura Bush, the Dalai Lama, Gordon Brown. Everywhere you turned—from late-night TV talk shows to political newsweeklies—the Saffron Revolution was hot.But then came winter, with new battlegrounds de jour: Kenya, Gaza, Pakistan. In October, CNN's Anderson Cooper may have pledged his journalistic fidelity to Burma's 100,000-odd protesters—"We'll continue to cover this story, no matter how long it takes"—but a mere three months later, while hundreds of monks still languished in Rangoon's infamous Insein Prison and others continued to flee down the Moei River in inner tubes at night, Cooper had moved on to San Francisco, covering a death-by-tiger at the city zoo.
The regime is forcibly taking children, especially high school kids hanging out at the theater or wherever. The army truck pulls up and the kids are forced into the back of the truck and taken to the police station, where they are left to sleep overnight. The next morning, the sergeant shows up and tells them that they've committed a crime and that the only way to avoid jail is to join the military. [...]Stillman: What do you think is the most constructive role that American advocates can play in the pro-democracy struggle? What forms of action or protest would be most helpful?
Maung Maung: There has been a huge amount of moral support from American politicians, but the U.S. government hasn't fully delivered. Sure, Congress has done a lot, and there is even support from Laura Bush, but we have huge problems with logistics and implementation.
What it really comes down to is money: We need simple things like bicycles and satellite phones. People may laugh, but the movement really needs bicycles. In Burma, fuel is very expensive, so bicycles allow organizers to go around and speak with individuals in different areas.
We also need money for video cameras, digital cameras and cell phones—these things are transforming our movement. It's by bringing the eyes of the world back to the brutality of the regime that we can win out.
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Comentarios (1)
fash dijo:
Thanks for keeping us up to date on this. By the way, people can go here to make donations to the protesters.
Palabras por fash spat forth on el 23 de Enero, 2008 at 11:47 PM