Contact: Naw May Oo, 202-299-4989

Burmese Freedom Fighters Step Up Efforts
The Free Burma Coalition Re-aligns Itself to Face the Challenges of Post-sanctions Burma

Washington, DC (Sept 9, 2003) – The Free Burma Coalition (FBC), the world’s largest activist coalition that links exiled Burmese democracy campaigners and its supporters, announced today the completion of its divestment campaigns directed against foreign investors with ties to the military-ruled Burma. FBC has also re-aligned itself to better respond to the needs of the movement at large more strategically and effectively.

The coalition’s announcement is a direct response to Burma’s ruling military junta unveiling of the so-called “roadmap” for the democratic transition from dictatorship, a blatant sham to ease widespread international outcry and demand for the release of the country’s democracy leader and Nobel Peace prize recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was reportedly on a hunger strike behind bars.

“With the enactment of the second round of U.S. economic and diplomatic sanctions, FBC boycott campaigns ended successfully. One of our original missions was to weaken the regime economically and to deprive them of much-needed foreign currency. The country, as well as our freedom struggle is at a crossroads,” said Dr. Zar Ni, the founder of the coalition and a prominent Burmese political exile, referring to the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 signed by President George W. Bush this summer.

He added, “The generals have, in effect, challenged the democratic world, with their official roadmap for Burma. They have absolutely no intention of bringing about genuine changes in the country. Our coalition is viewed by Burmese dissidents as the group capable of taking international Free Burma campaigns one notch higher than a citizen’s boycott and lobby campaign. So we are stepping up and expanding the scope of our work.”

Since its founding as a campus activist group at the University of Wisconsin at Madison eight years ago, the coalition has grown to become one of the world’s first and largest Internet-based networks and has spearheaded nearly 100 successful divestment campaigns, including its illustrious, worldwide Pepsi boycott which forced the soft-drink giant to leave Burma in 1997. It also rallied American public’s support for the enactment of economic sanctions laws against the Burmese regime. While the coalition’s effective campaigns led Aryeh Neier, President of the Open Society Institute, to nominate FBC for the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award for Human Rights in 1997 the Burmese regime has lashed out against the coalition accusing it of being “a tool of Western neo-colonialists” bent on destabilizing Burma and ruining the country economically.

The coalition is currently re-inventing itself as a more politically oriented network and exploring strategies and venues to strengthen Burma’s freedom struggle. When asked what the new mission and strategies would be, “As an umbrella group, we are indeed interested in strategies and political initiatives that include the end-game solutions to our country’s long-standing political crisis,” said Min Zaw Oo, the new Director of Outreach and Strategy at the FBC’s Washington Office. He stressed, “But that doesn’t mean we will deviate from our commitment to the non-violent means for genuine political change for Burma.”

At 15, Min participated in the Burmese democracy movement in 1987-88 when he was attending high school in Rangoon. Like thousands of Burmese student peers, Min joined the armed All Burma Students’ Democratic Front in Burma’s rainforests, following the bloody crackdown of the peaceful nation-wide demonstrations in 1988. Seven years ago, Min came to the United States as a refugee student under the US State Department arrangement and completed his American education in Government and Conflict Resolutions at the University of Maryland and George Mason University. He is now working full time with the coalition.

Naw May Oo, who recently joined the FBC as the spokeswoman, said, “one of the new responsibilities for the FBC is to tell the international community the Burma story in its entirety and as truthfully and accurately as it should be.”
She added, “We have three pillars in our freedom struggle: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her non-violent efforts inside Burma for genuine political change through a dialogue; the ethnic nationalities’ armed resistance out of their desperate need for self-defense; and the Burmese diaspora’s lobby and other peaceful political campaigns.”

The coalition’s leaders stressed that it will continue to do outreach on campuses and amongst grassroots communities throughout the world. However, they pointed out the real job of freeing Burma has to be done by the Burmese themselves. Accordingly, the coalition will be working more closely with leading opposition groups such as the Thai-Burmese border-based National Council of the Union of Burma, the single largest coalition of multi-ethnic, pro-democracy organizations carrying out different political initiatives inside Burma to restore freedom, ethnic equality, democracy and human rights in that country.

The Burmese military regime is widely condemned throughout the world for its human rights violations. The long list of regime’s rights violations include forced labor, the use of chemicals such as pesticides to destroy whole-sale populations of indigenous minorities, forced relocation of communities, holding 1,500 political prisoners throughout Burma. The current regime came to power in 1988 in a bloody crackdown of nation-wide, popular democracy uprisings. It held multiparty-elections in 1990 and has ignored the elections results according to which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won 82% of the parliamentary seats.

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Further information, visit www.freeburmacoalition.org or email info@freeburmacoalition.org.