Keeping the Heat on Burma to Free Aung San Suu Kyi

Earlier this month in New Orleans, at Amnesty International’s All Rights for All People conference, the ongoing imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi weighed heavy on the agenda.

This year, after all, marks two big anniversaries for Burma. It marks 20 years since Suu Kyi was voted Prime Minister in the last elections held. Rather than hand over power, the military junta nullified the results, rewrote the Constitution, and put Suu Kyi under house arrest, where one Nobel Peace Prize and two decades later, she remains.

This April also marked the military’s 65th birthday — no small feat for a military that’s bit by bit become synonymous with the government itself. To celebrate, the Army marched past lavish, newly constructed buildings in the country’s capital, where a Senior General stopped to salute a hand-picked crowd, and promised the coming elections would be free and fair.

At the celebration, the military made no bones about saying, "God is good. We have a lot to be grateful for." Their “disciplined democracy” resembles a well-oiled machine these days. Even with elections planned for a yet-to-be-named date later this year, it’s unlikely much will change. There’s little threat to the junta’s monopoly on political, economic, and military power, or its Orwellian control over Burma’s 58 million citizens.

(Many refer to the country as Myanmar, the name put forth by its current rulers. Others — revolutionaries, leftists, big-mouthed bloggers included — insist on calling the country Burma to remind people that the current government was never lawfully elected and so has no right to rename the country.)

Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, has already boycotted the elections because unfair laws have essentially rigged the deck. Meanwhile, Suu Kyi continues to serve as the face of resistance, and the desire to move from dictatorship toward real democratization in Burma.

Suu Kyi is not alone, however. She is joined by 2,100 others currently in prison because their political beliefs do not match up with those in power. In Burma, protesting for free speech, the right to organize, or government accountability is a jailable offense. The military has gained control over parliament and the courts, and their civilian-led Union Solidarity & Development Association has been quite effective at intimidating, harassing, beating, and generally dissuading the political opposition.

With elections coming up, human rights advocates worry that violence will erupt. Peaceful protest is a contradiction of terms in Burma. Because no matter how civil the protesters, they are nearly always met with violence.

We long for a free Burma; yet we cannot stand the images of monks in their saffron robes being beaten into submission in the streets.

But here in the U.S., where free demonstration is possible, Amnesty International members let their imaginations run wild. Here are a few things we’d like to see to move us closer to the day when Burma’s political prisoners are set free, and elections mean something.

Let’s have 2,100 silhouettes of bodies with Aung’s face chalked onto college campuses, and hologram’ed onto city skyscrapers.

Let’s send Hillary Clinton to Burma to give the government a good tongue-lashing. While she’s at it, she needs to start taking China, North Korea, and Russia to task too; they are the main suppliers of arms in Burma.

Let’s get the creative folks at Improv Everywhere to manifest a mob of 2,100 people holding Aung San’s face on popsicle sticks on the steps of the United Nations in New York, and the White House in D.C.

Let’s persuade Angelina Jolie to stand on the steps of the Capitol and read all 2,100 names of those stuck in prison in Burma. Then step into Susan Rice’s office and demand the U.S. start speaking up on the issue.

Let’s hold a saffron robe march where people start in San Francisco dressed as monks and passing the torch ever eastward, Ghandi-style. Last year, half a dozen Burmese monks did this, traveling from Fort Wayne, Indiana to the UN. (Yes, we bet Angelina looks hot in a saffron robe. Brad too.)

My favorite … The day of elections, let’s have 100,000 supporters fax the Burmese government with a simple message: “Free elections? Only once you set Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners free.” Apparently, it’s not difficult to overwhelm fax machines so badly that the government actually would have to change its phone and fax lines moving forward.

We haven’t ruled out a rock concert starring the Beastie Boys, who were instrumental in the Free Tibet movement, Peter Gabriel who runs the NGO Witness, devoted to empowering human rights activists, and a few other celebs committed to peace.

But in the meantime, you can do this: Send a message to the Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary General of the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN), asking him to pressure Burma’s government for the release of the 2,100 political prisoners in custody.

If you want to learn more about the state of things in Burma, check out Human Rights Watch’s audio slideshow here.

Photo credit: Franz Patzig