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Benefit Reading for Burma by Karen Connelly
BENEFIT READING FOR BURMA BY KAREN CONNELLY
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Chapter's downtown location - June 10, 1999 at 7:30 pm.
Burmese nibbles and tea provided
Donations much appreciated
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Karen Connelly, Governor General Award Winner for non-fiction, will read
from her work in progress, a story of a Burmese songwriter imprisoned in
Burma for political reasons. Karen spent the last three years researching
life under the Burmese military regime, which is widely regarded as one of
the worst human rights offenders in the world. In 1997, she was denied
re-entry into Burma by the military and consequently began to focus her
attention on the refugee situation on the Thai-Burma border. From
experiences on the border, she plans to write a book of essays, photographs,
and interviews about refugee and revolutionary culture.
Connelly's interest in Southeast Asia was first captured in Touch the
Dragon, a Thai journal which won her the Governor General's award for
non-fiction in 1993 and went on to become a best-seller. Other books include
The Small Words in my Body, This Brighter Prison, One Room in a Castle -
Letters from Spain, France and Greece, and most recently, a collection of
poetry entitled The Disorder of Love. Her work is also published in the UK,
Australia, Germany and Asia.
Burma and Canada
Although Burma is thousands of miles away, the results of heroin trafficking
from Burma is something many people are facing here in Canada right now. In
fact, Vancouver declared a state of emergency in 1993 due to the human and
material cost of this explosion of heroin addiction. It is well-documented
that Burma is the biggest supplier of heroin to North America. Moreover, the
brutal military dictators have given safe havens to the infamous drug lords
who are under indictment charges by the U.S. government.
British Columbia just passed a resolution condemning Burma's military regime
for its gross human rights violations, which mirrored a recent United
Nations Human Rights resolution passed April 23. The resolution condemned
Burma's military regime for a list of human rights abuses including torture,
summary execution, abuse of women, systematic forced relocation and
widespread forced labour.
Sponsored by: Canadian Friends of Burma: 237-8056
The Ottawa Burma Roundtable
Chapters on Rideau
For more information, call Canadian Friends of Burma at 237-8056
Canadian Friends of Burma
145 Spruce St.#206
Ottawa, Ontario
K1R 6P1
Canada
Tel: 613-237-8056 Fax: 613-563-0017
email: cfob@web.net www.web.net/~cfob
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