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Reminder to Support Burma's Four Nines
September 3, 1999 Media Advisory
What: Rally/Vigil/Fasting
When: September 9, 1999, 9am to 9pm, Candle-light vigil at 8pm
Where: Parliament Hill
Who: Ottawa Burma Roundtable 237-8056
Support Burma's "Four Nines" Uprising
The Ottawa Burma Roundtable is one of the many groups across Canada and
the world supporting the upcoming September 9, 1999 uprising in Burma.
Joining the ranks of Burma pro-democracy advocates in over 30 countries,
the Roundtable will be fasting and holding demonstrations, from 9:00 am to
9:00pm on Parliament Hill.
Burmese dissidents in exile are predicting that September 9 - the
numerologically significant 9.9.99 - will be the day the masses in Burma
again rise up against the junta. They base their hopes on a similarly
auspicious date 11 years ago - August 8, 1988 (8.8.88) - when massive
pro-democracy demonstrations began in Rangoon and spread across the country
until they were brutally crushed by the army and thousands of peaceful
protestors were killed.
The Ottawa Burma Roundtable will be holding a one-day fast on Parliament
Hill to draw support for the people of Burma's resistance to military rule.
The aims of this action are as follows:
To demand that Burma's junta enter into dialogue with Burma's
democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) and leaders of
the ethnic nationalities.
To call on Burma's generals to immediately and unconditionally release
all political prisoners.
To demand Burma's military stop all violations of human rights, in
particular the unlawful coercion against the NLD members and other
pro-democracy supports and the brutal repression of Burma's ethnic
nationality groups.
To demand the cessation of forced labour, which according to the United
Nation's International Labour Organization (ILO) is widespread throughout
Burma.
To educate Canadians on the human rights situation in Burma which
includes: rape, torture, summary execution, arbitrary arrest, forced
labour, and forced relocation, and to demonstrate the global
interconnectedness of human rights (i.e. that abuses in one part of the
world affect those in other parts of the world).
To urge the Canadian Government to impose full economic sanctions against
Burma so that Canadian companies cannot continue to invest hundreds of
millions of dollars in, and import millions of dollars worth of garments
from, Burma's military apparatus. The money in turn goes to propping up
Burma's "Narco" Dictatorship.
To urge the Canadian Government to impose full economic sanctions also as
a way to bring down a regime which depends mostly on foreign investment and
trade and, to a large extent, on the illegal drug trade. Canadians are
feeling the effects of Burma's massive opium industry as heroin addiction
and trafficking continues to explode in Canadian cities. Most of the heroin
comes from Burma.
To call on the Canadian parliament to recognize the Committee to
Represent the People's Parliament (CRPP) as the legitimate instrument of
the will of the Burmese people. The CRPP was formed by the NLD on September
16, 1998 with the legal authority of the majority of NLD elected members of
parliament.
To urge Canadians to do what Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has
requested time and time again: "that you use your liberty to help promote
ours".
For more information, contact the Ottawa Burma Roundtable at (613) 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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