Burmese protest ‘silent genocide’

About 45 from Fort Wayne demonstrated.

By Jennifer Martinez

Knight Ridder Newspapers

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/local/14628535.htm

WASHINGTON — A small but noisy demonstration broke out Friday in front of the Burmese embassy as Burmese refugees from the Mon ethnic group protested their home country’s repressive military dictatorship and recent attacks on Burma’s ethnic minorities. The protesters, about 60 in all, wore red headbands, waved the Mon flag and chanted, “Burmese Army, stop killing Mon people! Burmese Army, stop raping Mon women!”

 

Many, including 45 protesters from Fort Wayne and seven from High Point, N.C, bore posters with drawings of Burmese troops harassing Mon women and executing Mon men. “Our people have been executed, houses have been burned down; there’s not any change. It’s silent genocide,” said Michael Mon, 35, of Fort Wayne, who organized the demonstration. Michael Mon and his wife, Ma Hla, fled Burma four years ago.

 

The Burmese government, which has renamed the country Myanmar, offered no response, except from one woman who peered out from the embassy at the demonstrators from behind a white curtain on the second floor. She turned away after about 10 minutes.

 

The Burmese refugees’ cause got lots of attention this week from U.S. lawmakers, however. The Senate on Thursday passed a resolution urging the United Nations Security Council to undertake a national reconciliation effort in brutally repressed Burma. On the same day, President Bush renewed sanctions against Burma that were to expire today. A measure similar to the Senate’s is pending in the House of Representatives. Repressive military juntas have ruled Burma since 1962. The current regime placed under house arrest Aung San Suu Kyi, who led her pro-democracy party to victory in the last national election in 1990. The dictators have refused to accept the election results. Although awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 as part of a global campaign to restore democracy to Burma, she remains in detention. So do more than a thousand leaders and loyalists from her National League for Democracy party.

 

Military ruler Than Shwe’s government, which is from the dominant Burman ethnic group, has cracked down on most ethnic minorities, including the Karen and Shan, as well as the Mon. The Mon, from a kingdom in lower Burma absorbed in 1757, make up 1 million of Burma’s population of about 52 million.

 

According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a rights group for the refugees, government attacks on ethnic minorities in eastern Burma have intensified recently, killing untold numbers and making refugees of tens of thousands more. “We were exiled by the government. It’s unforgettable what’s happening to the Mon people,” said Nai Kim Mar, a worker at FFNZ, a High Point furniture manufacturer. Also participating was Min Htaw, 52, of Fort Wayne, who spent16 years as a refugee in Thailand before obtaining a U.S. visa. Min Htaw, who’s now learning English and translating for his countrymen at the Salvation Army, fled Burma after participating in a 1988 demonstration against the military government in which thousands of protesters were killed.

 

The Senate resolution, which had broad bipartisan support, condemns “the military junta in Burma for its recent campaign of terror against ethnic minorities” and calls on the UN Security Council to “to pass immediately a binding, non-punitive resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Daw (Aunt) Aung San Suu Kyi and all other prisoners of conscience in Burma.”

 

Earlier this week, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu pushed for the same issue in a meeting with Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice in Washington. “This is just a huge crisis that hasn’t been on the world agenda, but with these recent attacks it’s been put to the forefront,” said Jeremy Woodburn, campaigns director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. Friday marked the 249th anniversary of Burma’s absorption — by genocide, the Mon say — of what was once the Mon kingdom, located in southern Burma.

 

The U.N. World Health Organization ranks Burma last among 190 countries in health care spending, and Transparency International, which ranks countries by perceived corruption, ranks it 163rd out of 167 countries tallied.