The people who are in Australia Don

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Subject: The people who are in Australia Don't Miss It!


	Pilger File (Land of Fear) promotesban on Burma
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	Journalist John Pilger has called on the Australian Government to 
ban business investment inBurma and to launch a campaign to discourage 
tourists to the country.

	If it was serious in its intent to honour resistance leader and 
1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi with the Order of 
Australia recently, then it should not collude in ayyempts to snuff out 
all hopes of a victory by her pro-democracy movement, he says.

"That's fine that Australia has announced it had given her the metal and 
it undoubtedly helps to support her but, at the same time, [Minister for 
Trade ] Tim Fisher is saying that we should take a more flexible apporach 
to the regime and that Australian companies shold be allowed to invest 
there," says Pilger, on a visit back to Australia from the United Kingdom.

	"But Western investors shouldn't invest there and tourists 
shouldn't go. We need to put pressure on the regime from outside.

	"I think Suu Kyi sees outside world as a lifeline now because the 
regime itself has decided it wants investors and tourists for their 
foreign exchange and she says they should be denied that. Both 
governments have had a two-faced policy towards her. They say she's a 
wonderful woman, but on the other hand that we should encourage 
'constructive engagement' so everyone can get on with doing business.

	"But I would have thought that if the Australian Government is 
serious about supporting Suu Kyi, then it should be very clearly saying 
to Australian business that it shouldn't goto Burma and that Australian 
tourists shouldn't not go."

	Pilger was speaking on the eve of the Australian broadcast of his 
documentary, INSIDE BURMA - Land of Fear. Shown in Britain last month, it 
provoked a tremendous rush of feeling from viewers there.

	Lines set up for people to phone in after the program were busy 
until 3am the next day, with callers asking what they could do to help 
Suu Kyi and support the democratic movement in the country.

	Pilger hopes the audience for tonight's ABC broadcast will react 
even more passionately, since we are so much closer to Burma, 
geographically and politically.

	Posing as travel consultants and using small cameras, the 
film-making team of Pilger and David Munro travelled widely around Burma 
to collect evidence of the crisis in the country. They show harrowing 
scenes of children as young as 10 toiling in temperatures of 35C to build 
an extension to the notorious "Death Railway" started under Japanese 
occupation in World War II, which at that time cost the lives of 
thousands of Allied and Asian prisoners.

	Ironically Pilger and Munro, who have won British Academy of Film 
and Television Arts and Emmy awards, were only able to make this film 
because of the regime's declaration of 1996 as the year of the Tourist.

	With security relaxs at airports as a result, the film-makers 
were able to bring in their cameras and give the slip to intelligence 
officers who were following them. At the end of their trip, knowing it 
would be their most perilous move, Pilger and Munro went to visit Suu Kyi.

	"She everying and more that you might imagine," says Pilger. "She 
has undoubtedly 99 per cent of the country behind her."

[By Sue Williams, 05 June 96]

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Tonight:
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	The Land of Fear (Inside Burma) will be showed on ABC - Channel 
	2 - at 8:30 pm.

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Boycott Burma?
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	"The ruling junta has turned Burma into a vast slave labour camp 
	in order to 'develop'."

	- from this month's New Internationalist magazine, a special 
	issue on Burma edit by John Pilger.

	Should Australian tourists, investors and companies boycott Burma?

	Subscribe now to the New Internalists to see what can be done. ( 
	Only price $5.60 for 4 monthly issues with starting with the special 
	issue on Burma edited by John Pilger.)

	Contact to New Internationalists, 7 Hutt St, Adelaide 5000 Australia.
	Phone to (61) (08) 232 1563
	Fax to (61) (08) 232 1887

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