NZ Burma Support Group Plans Protes

[brelief@xxxxxxx]

Media Release
For More Information, Call: Burma Support Group
Etain McDonnell,                      Phone  (09) 529 2094
Paul Hitchfield                       Phone  (09) 489 5542
Fiona Thompson            Phone/fax  (09) 828 4955      For Release 11
PM

August 05, 1998

VIGIL for BURMA
10 years! Too long to wait for democracy

The Burma Support Group is holding a 24 hour vigil in Aotea
Square,beginning noon this Friday to commemorate 10 years since the
massacre of August 1988, when thousands of Burmese civilians were
slaughtered nation-wide for daring to call for an end to the despotic
regime which still controls the country. 

The group will camp in a refugee hut in downtown Auckland, on 7 to 8
August 1998, to provide New Zealanders with a glimpse of the conditions
of life inside Burma, and that of refugees who have fled to neighbouring
countries since the 1988 Uprising. 

Fiona Thompson says the group welcomes Don McKinnon's call to the
Burmese junta to give Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi more
freedom, after she spent six days in her car outside Rangoon in protest
at being blocked from meeting political colleagues.  "It is about time
our government said something about Burma, but calling Aung San Suu Kyi
an icon is too implistic," says Fiona Thompson. 

"Aung San Suu Kyi is a courageous woman who dares to express the
sentiments of the people.  She is the political leader of the National
League for Democracy, which won 82 percent of the seats in the 1990
parliamentary election that the military regime still refuses to
honour," she says.  "The New Zealand government should acknowledge this
and take an appropriate stance supporting the NLD's call to convene the
elected parliament on 21 August 1998."
 
"It is civilians who bear the brunt of Burma's oppressive regime.  Our
government could do more to support these people in their call for
democracy and an end to the all pervasive human rights violations," says
Fiona Thompson, spokeswoman for the New Zealand Burma Support Group,
which is also calling on the New Zealand government to offer a quota for
Burmese refugees. 

"At present only refugees connected to political movements are
considered for resettlement.  This is ridiculous as every aspect of
Burmese life is controlled by the military, even telling jokes can
result in political retaliation," she says.

Refugee camps in Thailand, Bangladesh and India are becoming saturated
due to the Burmese military offences against ethnic groups.  "Civilians
can't return to their own homes which have been burnt by the military.
They risk enforced conscription, torture, execution and rape by the
Burmese army," she says. 

"Hundreds of thousands of civilians are being forced into relocation
camps where they are vulnerable to a whole range of abuses, forced
labour, disease, lack of food and clean water.  But how often do we hear
about this?"  

"Burma is inescapably an international issue ," says Fiona Thompson.
Singapore has just recently shipped an arsenal into Rangoon for the
Burmese junta to produce arms and ammunition to use against its own
people.  The military is supported mainly by proceeds from poppy
production and Burma supplies 80% of the heroin entering Australasia. 

"It would be sheer negligence and totally inhumane to ignore the risk
Burma poses for South-east Asia, and with conditions exacerbated by the
Asian economic crash, the country is poised on the brink," she says.


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