NEW: 20th Anniversary of 8/8/88 Protests Event in Toronto. For details read the events page or download the pdf HERE.
An Urgent Call for Global Action against a Brutal Military Dictatorship and in Full Support of a Democratic Burma.
Canadians embrace the 2007 nation-wide peaceful movement for democracy led by courageous monks all over Burma. We are united in our condemnation of General Than Shwe and the criminal military regime which has ruled Burma for 45 years.
We deplore Burma's history of human rights violations and the junta's arrogant refusal to recognize the democratically elected government of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The elected government never officially formed, apart from NCGUB (National Coalition Government of Burma), represented by some MPs in the border area in 1991. International groups, including the UN, demand that the junta honor the election result and begin tripartite dialogue between the SPDC, NLD and ethnic leaders that can lead to National Reconciliation. We can no longer refuse to act given the recent crackdown on thousands of peaceful protesters, including monks and nuns.
In 1988, during the last peaceful protests, thousands of innocent students and civilians were gunned down by the Burmese army. This human rights disaster, unlike Tiananmen, a year later, went largely unrecorded, and the junta escaped the world's outrage. September 25, 2007, thanks to the internet and courageous bloggers inside Burma, the world has seen the pictures: an army, estimated to be 500,000 soldiers, turning China-supplied guns on its own people.
According to latest sources inside Burma, an estimated 550 civilians, including monks and nuns, have been killed; 6,000 have been arrested and are living in deplorable conditions in prison.
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.
ENDORSEMENTS FOR
Canadian campaign for Free Burma
- Asian Solidarity Network (Toronto)
- Canada-Hong Kong Link
- Canadian Auto Workers
- Canadians Committed to Ethnic Voice in Indonesia
- China Rights Network
- Law Union of Ontario
- Toronto Association for Democracy in China
- Urban Alliance on Race Relations
- Workers Action Centre
- Stephen Lewis, Professor in Global Health, Faculty of Social Sciences McMaster University and Former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa
- The Machinists Union
- Dr. Joseph Y.K. Wong, Founding National President of Chinese Canadian National Council
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