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Barricaded in Burma

Background

Ever since the 1960’s(4) Burma has been ruled by a repressive military government. In 1958 (4), Burmese Prime Minister U Nu invited the military to temporarily rule and restore order. Although the military stepped down after 184 months, General Ne Win led a coup d’états in 1962(4) permanently establishing a military government. The government changed in 1988 following another coup d’états and became known as SLORC (4)(State Law & order Restoration Council), although still ruled by military officials. Under the SLORC , the country opened up to foreign investment and attempted to shed the xenophobic image Ne Win set for the country years before.

After the 1962 coup was staged by General Ne Win he developed the Burma Socialist Programme Party and he then came up with a policy to wipe out ethnic minority groups who had believed that after independence they would gain some sort of autonomy. In the 1970’s he introduced the 4 cuts program which was his attempt to cut off food, information, recruits, and financial support to these groups (5). This policy mostly affects the villagers that are in these ethic areas. The military has enacted human right abuses against them including forced relocations, killings, rape, village destruction and forced labour (6). This increases the number of Internally Displaced People in Burma. (3) These people are either forced to leave their home by the Burmese military or are fleeing to avoid military human rights abuses. (9)

Only a year after General Ne Win’s government took office, the 8888 Protests(August 8, 1988) took place (2). There were pro-democracy protests that began on August 8th, 1998(hence 8888) Initially started by students of the YTU(Yangon Technical University) protesting the withdrawal of multiple currency notes (4). The economy of Burma, at this time, was in a state of deterioration and as currency notes were withdrawn, many lost all of their money over night (2). On March 13, 1988 a student of YTU was shot dead for protesting, and this incident triggered the widespread (2). As Buddhist monks became involved, they symbolically held their alms bowls upside down as a refusal to take handouts from the military. As the pro-democracy protests continued, the government warned that military would shoot straight, and not into the air. Over 3,000 were killed and many more injured (2). Today, similar protests are taking place (4).

In 1990 the government promised to hold democratic elections, but failed to hand over power. The NLD(National League for Democracy) won a landslide victory with over 80% of the popular vote (10). Ang Sun Suu Kyi, the daughter of Ang Sun(an national hero) was elected as Prime Minister. She and many other democratic leaders have been held under house arrest for many of the 18 years since the elections. In 1997 the SLORC changed its name to the SPDC(The State Peace and Development Council), but failed to shed its repressive and degrading policies (10).

The Issue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZd3_deZj7k

The Solution

Our solution will get our whole school involved and will allow the student body to become aware of this issue. First we will be putting up red square cloths, which are the same color as the robes that the monks wear in Burma. We will then put fake Halloween blood on the cloths. We will be putting these put all over the school, in the bathrooms, the cafeteria, in the halls and in the library. This will cause students to wonder what the heck is going on? We will confuse them. Then a couple of days later, the actual day where we are doing activities will occur. On this “Save Burma Day”, we will go on The Morning Show and tell people what the cloths were for and then show our YouTube video on the air as well.

This is the day; we will unveil our collage of pictures and facts that we will have made. It will be on a bulletin board up on a wall and have black and white pictures of Burma and also some facts that relate to our topic. In the middle of the collage will be, in red, our charity that we choose, www.uscampignforburma.org. To get students to read this, all the history teachers in our school, will set aside 10 to 15 minutes to have a discussion about Burma and all the issues surrounding it. If students go to read our collage before there history class, then when they are having the discussion in class, if they say how the board impacted them and what they learned, the teacher will give them extra credit, depending on the teacher and how well the student presented the material.

This solution will allow students to become aware of Burma and how it relates to them today. Our collage will be an everyday reminder about this issue and allow students to become more aware of their surroundings.

The Charity

The charity that we chose is the US Campaign for Burma and on this web site one can read about what human rights violations are happening right now and also they can take action. One can donate money to this safe charity and uses the money to help Burma and the Burmese people. Also someone can view the different chapter around the world that get together and help the Burmese people. All this can be done online and there is information to contact the organization.

http://www.uscampaignforburma.org

The Video

Under the issue.

MLA Bibliogrpahy

1. "Background Note: Burma." Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. June 2007. U.S. Department of State. 26 Sep 2007 .

2. "Burma's 1998 Protets." BBC News. 25 September 2007. BBC. 2 Oct 2007 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7012158.stm>.

3. Fink, Christina. Living Silence: Burma under Military Rule. London: Zed Books Ltd, 2001

4. "Human Rights in Myanmar." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 2 Oct 2007 .

5. "Human Rights." The Burma Campaign UK. 8 Feb 04. Campaigning for Human Rights in Burma. 25 Sept 2007 <http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/aboutburma /humanrights.html>

6. "Karen Human Rights Group." Understanding Burma. 25 Sep 2007 <http://www.khrg.org/>.

7. "My Gun Was As Tall as ME." Human Rights Watch. October 2002. 26 Sep 2007 <http://hrw.org/reports/2002/burma/>.

8. "Women's Rights." Burma Human Rights Yearbook 2006. June 2007. Monitoring Human Rights in Burma. 25 Sep 2007 <http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs4/HRDU2006-CD/>.

9. "The Ongoing Military Junta Offensive Against Civilians in Eastern Burma." Shoot on Sight. 19 August 2007. Witness. 24 Sep 2007 <http://www.witness.org/index.php?option=com _rightsalert&Itemid=178&task=view&alert_id=53>.

10. "Politics in Burma." Wikipedia . Wikimedia Foundation Inc.. 20 Oct 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Burma>.

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