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Haiku d'etat against Mitsubishi



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PRESS RELEASE

Haiku D'Etat
Mitsubishi Out of Burma

March 20, 1996
Osaka, Japan

March 20, the Vernal Equinox, marks the beginning of Spring and
the start of the boycott of Mitsubishi products in Japan.  

More than forty Burmese democracy activists and members of
Burmese Relief Center--Japan from around the country gathered at
11 o'clock AM in Osaka to mark the occasion with a peaceful
protest on the historic bridge at Shinsaibashi-Dohtomburi.  

* HAIKU  Protestors displayed scores of original haiku poems
urging Mr. Minoru Makihara, President of Mitsubishi Corporation,
to end support for the Burmese military dictatorship and to stop
destruction of the rainforest. 

*  DRAMA Costumed and masked activists performed a lively
street theater that graphically showed how Mitsubishi's investment
in Burma causes environmental destruction and enables the
Burmese dictatorship, which spends nearly half the national budget
on the military, to continue to enslave the people and deny them
the most basic of human rights.  

* BOYCOTT  The boycott of Mitsubishi products called for by
Burmese Relief Center--Japan, a Nara-based NGO, joins an
ongoing boycott organized by the U.S. Rainforest Action
Network. 

This  March 20th protest comes one month after a high-profile
visit to Burma by Mitsubishi President Minoru Makihara, during
which he met with top leaders of the SLORC to discuss investment
prospects in Burma.  Activists believe Makihara's visit shows
Mitsubishi's contempt for the democratic aspirations of the
Burmese people and the eloquent appeals by Burma's pro-democracy opposition, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,
for foreign investors to wait until progress has been made towards
democratic reform.

The Burmese Relief Center--Japan argues that because foreign
investment is tightly controlled by SLORC, it benefits only
SLORC.  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won an
overwhelming victory in the 1990 elections, but has been denied a
governing role, has said: "Aid, investment, such things should be
dependent and linked to the situation of all the people rather than
that of one person. So if you are asking should investment now
come pouring in because I've been released, I shall simply say,
'No.'"

This March 20th event spotlights Mitsubishi's responsibility for
environmental destruction around the world and in particular
condemn Mitsubishi's investments with the Burmese junta, which
U.N. human rights investigator Professor Yozo Yokota has just
condemned for continuing "violations ... against innocent villagers,
in the form of summary executions and arbitrary killings, which
often occur in the course of forced labor, rape, forced relocation
and confiscation of property." 

The Burmese Relief Center--Japan urge the Mitsubishi leadership
to stop investing in a government that tortures, rapes and kills its
own people. And until Mitsubishi does stop, we urge the Japanese
public to join us in our boycott of all Mitsubishi products.

Aung San Suu Kyi, reflecting on her years in Japan, said, "I felt
that many Japanese people cared about more than just business. 
But I think the consciousness of some Japanese people perhaps
needs to be aroused a bit, and (there is a) need to give voice to the
many many people in Japan who do care about peace and justice. 
Perhaps those who care about peace and justice are not speaking
loudly enough." 

We urge the Japanese people to show that they care by boycotting
Mitsubishi while Mitsubishi trades with SLORC!   We want to
show Mitsubishi that abetting crimes against humanity does not
pay.

BURMESE RELIEF CENTER JAPAN
266-27 Ozuku-cho, Kashihara-shi, Nara-ken 634, Japan 
Tel: (07442) 2-8236   Fax: (07442) 4-6254  e-mail:brelief@xxxxxxx


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