Articles on fast

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Thailand Times: Free-Burma fast gets underway world-wide
October 8, 1996

Bangkok: Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu will today announce the start of a 48-hour fast to be 
held in more than 60 universities and high schools across the United States in protest against the military 
regime in Burma and multinational companies that do business with it.

More than 5000 university and high school students and other are set to give up their daily meals for the 
next 24 hours in what they believed as a concerted effort to draw attention to the democracy movement in 
Burma, said the Free Burma Coalition, a grass-roots movement based in Madison.

A number of people from FBC's overseas colleagues are also joining the October 7-9  event with separate 
activities in Canada, Japan, South Africa, Australia, India and Thailand.

The organizers said they aim to get world leaders' response as happened in South Africa where apartheid 
had led to effective multilateral sanctions in the 1980s.

the fast followed weeks of recent political crackdowns in Rangoon ahead of opposition leader Aung San 
Suu Kyi's planned party congress. Nearly 800 democracy supporters and activists were rounded up in the 
military's nationwide swoop as it blocked access to Suu Kyi's house.

In response to the fast, Aung San Suu Kyi said, "There is a great need for the world to know that the 
people of Burma are suffering from continuous repression and injustice... The fast will help to focus 
attention on the essentially peaceful nature of the quest for democracy in Burma.

FBC is am Imternet-based grassroots movement founded by exiled Burmese students.

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Thailand Times: International campaign to halt investment in military run Burma
October 8, 1996

Any potential investors in Burma should listen to this.

With an increasingly poor record of human rights violations, the Burmese military junta is finding itself 
the target of worldwide condemnation. Its time to hit the dictatorship where it hurts- its pocket, writes 
Pratya Warin.

"More than 300 students and others across the United States as well as numbers of people in Canada, 
South Africa, and Australia, will participate in a 48-hour fast sponsored by the free Burma Coalition 
starting October 7, 1996."

If this message seems totally unconvincing to them, then they should stick out their necks and listen more 
carefully like their corporate brothers do, who have already invested in military ruled Burma.

The Free Burma Coalition, an internet-based grass-roots movement based in the University of Wisconsin 
in Madison, USA, is organizing a 48-hour three-day fast with the participation of hundreds of students 
from American universities and high schools. their aim is simple and clear: free Burma.

the organizers say they hope to draw attention to the situation in Burma with this international fast and 
related activities. The FBC fully supports the calls of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi that all foreign 
investors should immediately withdraw from her country, where the military has ruled since 1988.

As of Saturday evening, the number of faster's had risen to 600, organizers said. Thanks to the broad use 
of the internet, more people and organizations are joining the fast and other activities to be held during 
the three days of events throughout 61 college campuses in the US alone. No less than 10 high schools in 
the US will be participating in the fast to draw attention to the Burma democracy struggle and to call for 
divestment of multinationals from the Southeast Asian nation.

Although the fast is being held at short notice, prominent world figures are never far away from giving a 
boost to such a just cause. Harry Wu, internationally recognized Chinese human rights activist, will join a 
press conference at the University of California in Berkeley to launch the fast.

"I feel very sorry that the Chinese government is backing Burma's military dictatorship that is killing its 
own people, "Wu told an earlier news conference.

Several cities council members and representatives of congressmen in some states will also be joining 
hands with students to get this action done, organizers said.

"The Free Burma fast will help to focus attention on the essentially peaceful nature of the quest for 
democracy in Burma," said Nobel peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in a taped message, recorded for 
the event.

"Young people were the backbone of the public demonstrations of 1988 that swept away the rule of the 
Burma Socialist Program Party. The movement for democracy in Burma emerged from those 
demonstrations, in which many students lost their lives, "she said in response to the active participation of 
several hundreds of students in the fast.

Suu Kyi has been calling for the immediate withdrawal of foreign investment in her country, citing their 
presence as helping the military rulers' prolong their grip on power. Because of such calls, the opposition 
leader has been dubbed as anti-business and her party, the National League for Democracy, as lacking 
long-term economic plans.

But such accusations usually come from foreign investors, who have already committed business ventures 
with the ruling State law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the illegitimate regime in Burma.

"We want Burma to be free and prosperous. We are not anti-business, but we oppose investment in Burma 
today because our real malady is not economic but political. What we are really suffering from is not lack 
of investment or infrastructure, but misgovernance," said Suu Kyi.

Foreign investors and their local partners may have much to argue with Suu Kyi. International 
multinational companies that do business with SLORC claimed their presence in the country can help 
open the eyes and ears of local people and that their commitment in the country will bring more work and 
income.

But it can also help keep the SLORC in power. the regime's human rights record has been abysmal and 
has become a disturbing issue at international forums since it took power by brutally crushing a popular 
pro-democracy movement, killing more than 3,000 peaceful demonstrators.

Today, the SLORC continues to violate universal declaration of human rights, by widespread and fragrant 
use of arrests, torture, threats and rapes on democracy supporters and ethnic minorities. The junta has 
shamelessly rebuffed repeated calls of international human rights organizations and governments for an 
immediate end of such violations.

The junta's perception on accepted behavior and human rights standards in the international community is 
far from rational. Worse, using the pretext of non-interference, Burma's Asian neighboring are reluctant 
to point out what really is the trouble out there. To most of the 7-member ASEAN (the Association of 
Southeast Asian Nations) neighbors, less interference means more investment opportunity. More 
investment will give the junta more money and power, and thus further repression on its political 
opponents inside the country.

The Free Burma fast could not have come at a better time. Late last months, news of a renewed political 
crackdown in Rangoon brought the event forward.

"The fast that hundreds of students and citizens in eight countries and four continents are willing to give 
up their daily meals for 48 hours in protest of SLORC's thuggish behavior indicates that Burma has 
become a South Africa of the 90s," said Zarni, one of the fast organizers, who founded the FBC on the 
Internet in September 1995. 

The Madison-based Burmese exile said that fast will send a "very clear message  to the SLORC that the 
world is not going to sit by idly when atrocities and serious human rights crimes are being committed 
against 45 million Burmese people."

He called on the ASEAN countries and foreign investors, who have both placed their economic interests 
above human misery, to realize the true situation of Burma, which has become an issue of international 
concern, vowing the fast will highlight the complicity of foreign investors in the Burmese people's 
repression.

These messages may be heedless to the Burmese junta leaders who are adamant in their beliefs that the 
Tatmadaw is the only institution that can salvage the union from being disintegrated.

But, at the end of the 48-hour fast, US and other multi-nationals will certainly ponder whether they should 
deal with the SLORC. the fast organizers believe their action will draw attention of world leaders and 
further concerted boycott efforts against multi-national investors.

"Multilateral sanctions were effective in South Africa, and we urge the US, EU, and ASEAN in particular 
to enact sanctions against this regime," said Tony North, an organizer and graduate student of Penn State 
University.

Some US multinationals are smart and have down bowed to the strength of student's efforts. Last week, 
Apple Computers decided to withdraw its investment from Burma, citing the company's compliance with 
Massachusetts' law of selective purchasing.

Apple Computers became the first company to withdraw from Burma due to the selective purchasing 
legislation in Massachusetts, which became in July the first American state to ban city and state agencies' 
contracts with companies that do business with the Burmese regime.

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