Rachel Goldwyn "The Express" (r)

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

hi there! how much did the goldwyns get paid for this gutless self
promotion. Its shameless. Think of JAMES MAWDSLEY! Please contact the
Express and find out. MAYBE GOLDWYN SHOULD NOW SING TINY TIM SONGS WITH
YUKULELEE ON MTV.

Roger Bunn wrote:
> 
> Burma Out! makes no comment upon what follows.
> Why? Because we have yet to read it. So? In an
> effort for fairness, you can judge for yourselves,
> whether from what follows, Rachel Goldwyn and
> family are friends, foes or just out for a jolly good time.
> 
>                                 <   <^>   <^>   >
>                                       <  /  \ >
>                                           ^ ^
> 
>      Burma : Riots have a way of cheering people up
> 
>                       From Seattle to Sydney
> 
> RELAXING: In the garden of her parents' home in south-west London
> They placed a white hood over my head and marched me to my cell
> 
> RACHEL Goldwyn was jailed for seven years hard labour in Burma for
> singing a pro-democracy song. While in jail she suffered psychological
> abuse at the hands of her captors and witnessed the full horror of a
> regime run on fear.
> 
> But Rachel, 28, the youngest of three daughters, was freed after two
> months thanks to her parents who convinced the authorities she was part
> of a normal English family and not a revolutionary.
> 
> Here, in her own words, Rachel reveals what drove her to give up her
> freedom for a country on the other side of the world and why she will
> fight on until Burma achieves democracy 'The secret police who monitor
> foreign tourists had been watching me earlier in the day. But now it was
> 4.45pm and with my heart pounding I checked the area: no soldiers, no
> police. As my protest banner unravelled, people stopped to stare:
> demanding human rights in Burma is a jailable offence.
> 
> Chained to a street sign, I began to sing. I had arrived in Burma three
> weeks earlier but had planned for a year to fill these streets with
> words of democracy and freedom - to stand up for oppressed people who
> have no voice.
> 
> I knew I would be arrested, maybe worse, for the simple gesture of
> showing support by singing a pro-democracy song. A sea of quizzicle
> faces amassed in front of me, the hubbub of shoppers and traffic fell
> silent. And the expected response was rapid.
> 
> My protest lasted 13 minutes before four plainclothes officers wearing
> sarongs dragged me off to a police station 200 yards away. I was
> handcuffed and people were taking my mugshot. I kept trying to break the
> tension by sticking my tongue out. At the police station tensions were
> running high. But in a country where people are shot dead for protesting
> it was a relief to have been detained unharmed. However, I was alone and
> at the mercy of a military regime that has no respect for human rights.
> I had told my parents and my two sisters that I had gone to Germany as I
> knew they would try and stop me from going to Burma.
> 
> I had been brought up to fight for what I believe in. My mum Charmian, a
> doctor, and dad Edward, who is a TV producer, had instilled in the three
> of us - Ruth, Naomi and me - to stand up for other people and those who
> cannot defend themselves.
> 
> That has been extremely important to me. But it was my oldest sister
> Ruth who gave me my political education. Even as a 12-year-old she had
> taken me on political demonstrations. Having worked as a producer for
> television documentaries and studying at university I thought I was
> worldly wise but nothing could prepare me for Burma. I knew my family
> would find this difficult but I also knew they would understand. It was
> only later that the Burmese would use them and our very close
> relationships to undermine me.
> 
> My first taste of Burma's 50-year-long forgotten war - in which tens of
> thousands have been killed - was in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma
> border.
> 
> It was 1997 and for me the start of two years travelling in the Far
> East, the majority spent working as a teacher in the camp. It was there
> I saw many victims of Burma's oppressive regime. They had escaped from
> forced relocation into concentration camps and from being used as human
> mine sweepers.
> 
> Many of the women had been raped. All bore deep scars. One of my
> students, Nyu Min, described how, at the age of 8-years-old, his father
> had been dragged from his side and murdered by the military for
> suspected resistance involvement. At 16 he himself had joined the
> resistance, and now wanted to learn English to tell the world of his
> people's suffering.
> 
> "We want democracy, to end the tyranny of military dictatorship" a
> frightened young national confided, "but we're terrified to protest. On
> the 8th August 1988 thousands of peaceful demonstrators were
> massacred in the streets by the military, if we protest again on the 9th
> September...I don't want to die." I had longed to divulge my plan to him
> but couldn't take the risk, fear and tight control has bred a society
> riddled with informers. Armed with these horrors I had to make my stand
> and felt ready for the inevitable interrogations that would follow my
> arrest.
> 
> When it came, I had a screaming row with one officer. "How can you live
> with yourself, working in a regime that butchers innocent people, that
> commits genocide against the ethnic minorities, that rapes women to
> breed out ethnicity?" I demanded of my interrogator. He and his fellow
> officers must have been taken aback. I was demanding more answers from
> them than they of me. I'd heard of brutal tortures under interrogation,
> of cigarettes being burned into flesh, of beatings, of standing up to
> your neck in a pond of maggots, but I was lucky.
> 
> Deprived of sleep, day two of the interrogation began. Requests to call
> the British Embassy were denied and officials lied. "We're just holding
> you for questioning, you'll be released soon," they told me. Lies, lies
> and more lies. Only by putting myself at risk could I achieve my rights.
> At 4am I announced I was going on hunger strike. Three hours later - on
> the 9th September (9-9-99), I was moved to the notorious Insein jail --
> a name that spreads terror for the torture and suffering inflicted on
> it's 11,000 prisoners.
> 
> "Poun san" the jail supervisor shouted, standing above me, arm raised to
> strike. Poun san, the humiliating and degrading position of subservience
> all prisoners must perform takes various forms: sitting, standing,
> squatting, and on tip toes, for beatings. All new prisoners spend
> several days in a jail instruction room where they must learn poun san
> and suffer regular beatings to break their morale. Intense international
> media interest saved me this horrific experience, I suffered only
> intimidation but I learnt it nonetheless. The clanking of prisoners
> chained together at the ankles rang in my ears. A white hood was forced
> over my head and I was marched to a solitary cell, two-and-a-half metres
> wide, with a wooden slat bed, a little plastic bucket and a water pot.
> 
> They offered meals of boiled egg, rice and fried vegetables twice a day,
> but I refused. I hadn't eaten anything for five days by this time. They
> became really worried about my health, taking my blood pressure and
> weight. In my cell I reflected on my situation and where they watched me
> 24 hours a day. I'd expected to serve a year for my "crime", but since
> James Mawdsley, another English activist who had been arrested for
> distributing pro-democracy leaflets a week earlier, had been sentenced
> to 17 years I wondered if my incarceration would be longer. I'd heard
> from London about James' sentence days before I was due to make my
> demonstration, but decided to go ahead.
> 
> Now, as a result of my hunger strike, my brain became sluggish, my
> movements slow. The heads of the jail threatened to put a tube down my
> nose and to take away my water if I didn't eat. Some of the time I could
> handle it - at others I thought, 'Aargh, I want to go home'. I had a
> hard time coping with going to the toilet with an audience but I got
> used to it.
> 
> The other difficulty was the isolation. It was very lonely. I lived my
> life through four female wardens who didn't speak English. They were
> kind but it's an incredibly hard situation to cope with. We had a lot of
> jokes but there were also times that I got infuriated because they
> peered in at me through the bars. But I learned to be patient and how to
> get myself heard.
> 
> These, however, were minor irritations compared to the violent treatment
> of Burmese political prisoners on hunger strikes: 18 inch rods shackled
> between the legs, in 6 foot dog cells, beaten twice daily. My close
> friend and colleague Ko Aung, who served 5 years and 7 months as a
> political prisoner in Insein had his water pot smashed by angry wardens
> trying to break the hunger strike. After 9 days and close to death, he
> and the other prisoners conceded.
> 
> I passed the time by exercising. I also walked around the room a lot,
> murmuring songs to myself - prisoners were not allowed to sing.
> 
> Gradually I was allowed access to books and learned to read and speak
> the language a little. I was allowed outside walking time and supervised
> use of a pen. Seven days after my arrest, I finally received my first
> Embassy visit. International law states it should be within 48 hours.
> 
> The Vice Consul presented me with a desperate letter from my parents,
> begging me to behave, so that I might return home as easy as possible. I
> knew that my incarceration would upset my family, and had shut this out
> of my mind. But here were the words of parents sick with worry. My
> cockiness left me, my body crumpled into poun san and, humbled, I
> returned to her cell.
> 
> Two days later my court case formally opened. The night before I had
> marched around my cell, planning my defence. I thought of Ko Aung who
> had been kept in a 20 ft deep pit for six days with a rotting human
> corpse. I had asked him what to do if I felt afraid. He'd told me to
> remember that I was in the right.
> 
> I hoped I could force the British government to stand up for the Burmese
> people. Yes, I was ready for court but nothing could prepare me for the
> anger of the junta. Camera flashes in my face, videos everywhere, I was
> whisked into the Insein courtroom, notorious for never having acquitted
> a defendant. The decision was made before the trial began. The verdict:
> Seven years with hard labour...' ?TOMORROW: THE ORDEAL OF RACHEL'S
> PARENTS
> © Express Newspapers, 1999
> 
> 
> Follow the plea by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the appreciations
> of HH the Dalai Lama, the Shan Democratic Union,  film maker John
> Pilger, the Free Burma Coalition,  author Alan Clements, Dennis
> Skinner MP, Tony Benn MP, Ann Clwyd MP, Congress-woman
> Maxine Waters,  Socialist Workers' Party,  Dr and Welsh rugby
> star JPR Williams, Hendrix  bassist Noel Redding,  S African jazz
> pianist Abdullah Ibrahim,  All Burma Students Democratic
> Organisation,  All Burma Students Democratic Front, Tasmanian
> Trades & Labour Council,  SACP (South African Communist Party),
> COSATU,  Tim Gopsill, editor.  The.Journalist@xxxxxxxxxx, and
> numerous others.
> 
> Supporting a Genuine war upon drugs and human rights abuse.
> Sydney 2000 : Burma Out!
> http://www.mihra.org/2k/burma.htm
> 
> Music Industry Human Rights Association
> http://www.mihra.org / policy.office@xxxxxxxxx
> 
> Rachel and James http//:www.mihra.org/2k/rachel.htm
> Union Action http://www.mihra.org/2k/Union.htm
> 
> Founded during UN50. Mihra's roots are in music and anti-racism and
> was first in line in calling for a sports boycott of Burma for the Sydney
> 2000 Olympic Games. Mihra also advances protection of creators rights
> in an anti-cultural market, currently 93.8% monopolised by the recording
> / publishing Grand Cartel.
> 
> Major solo work "Piece of Mind". With orchestra, Holland 69. same
> time as Beatles "Abbey Road".   http://onlinetv.com/rogerbunn.html
>                           ========================