PLEASE HELP SAVE BBC BURMESE SERVIC

[101470.1700@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: PLEASE HELP SAVE BBC BURMESE SERVICE!

Dear Friends on BurmaNet,

	Congratulations on the Heineken victory!  I have long admired all you
have achieved by your hard work lobbying.  The people of Burma owe you much!

	But here is another really worthwhile cause, and I do implore you to help
with it.  BBC World Service is at this moment being split up, and  subjected to
sudden and drastic changes without explanation or consent, that seem bound to
limit the effectiveness of its Burmese transmission severely.

	BBC, like DVB and VOA, every week broadcasts literally hours of material
into Burma on the latest developments there, interviews with Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, the latest human rights reports, and so forth.  All the same things that
are on BurmaNet, in fact!  And the advantage for the Burmese people is that it
is all fast, in Burmese and can be received by millions in Burma - unlike
BurmaNet itself.

	Maybe you suspect BBC people of sitting around in the canteen all day
drinking cups of tea - it's not true!!  Getting all that material requires the
most devilish ingenuity and hard work (as well as faxes and phone calls from
devoted Burmese people all over the world).  BurmaNet contributors know better
than anyone the efforts that have to be made to get past SLORC suppression of
the news.  The violence of SLORC attacks on the BBC and its staff is proof
enough of the good it is doing.  BBC Burmese staff have done enormous amounts
for the sake of the people of Burma; and the least they deserve in return is
backing from the central BBC!

	What seems very likely to happen now to the BBC Burmese Service is that
it will be forced to conform to a new set of rigid BBC guidelines - which will
in effect restrict it to conventional news-gathering, and prevent all the
unmentionable but highly effective ways that it has developed for getting the
real news to the people of Burma!

	WHAT TO DO:

*	Read the article "Save BBC World Service" by Mark Tully (to be
sent to you shortly)
*	Send e-mail protests to: 
   Malcolm RifKind (British Foreign Secretary) via
	 <worldservice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
   Sir Christopher Bland (BBC Chairman) on <postmaster@xxxxxxxxx>

	Please bombard these two men with e-mail messages - the more the better,
and from the more distant part of the world, the better.  You could send each
message to both men at the same time, if you like.

Do use your own wording - but the messages are:
	Save BBC World Service!
	Millions of people depend on it!
	Don't split up the World Service.
	Don't mess up BBC World Service.
	Don't take away our BBC World Service
	Etc etc.  There are plenty more points in the Mark Tully article.

	WHO I AM
	I am Derek Brooke-Wavell - and used to be BBC Burmese Section Head until
a year ago.  Because I am now outside the BBC, I can speak out.  People who are
still inside  risk losing their jobs if they do so.

	PLEASE, PLEASE HELP!  It's not just Burmese who will benefit, but
Chinese, Afghans, Cambodians, Ugandans - and oppressed people all over the
world.

	Thanking you deeply in advance,

	Derek Brooke-Wavell