International activists stage demonstration in front of Chinese Consulate at Chiang Mai, Thailand

June 14 (NMG) - Nearly forty international human rights activists staged a demonstration in front of Chinese Consulate at Chiang Mai on 11 am yesterday morning and urged China to put pressure on Burma’s regime as well as to stop supporting the military by submitting a memorandum at the consulate.

Friends of Burma Coalition- Thai-Burma border recently started targeting on two superpower neighbors of Burma, China and India, who kept silence on Burma’s current political crisis.

In their appeal letters, the campaigners urged China and India to put pressure on Burmese general "to call for the immediate, unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi, NLD leaders and all other political prisoners, to cease providing the regime with arms and military equipment, to engage the regime pro-active efforts to dialogue with the pro-democracy movement and ethnic nationality groups, to actively support the efforts of the UN and other key stakeholders to achieve peace, human rights and democracy in Burma; and to put Burma and the current political crisis as a priority agenda in the upcoming Asean Region Forum (ARF) meeting."

In the mean time, an annual meeting of Asean Regional Forum (ARF) is going to be convened on next week in Cambodia. A total of 24 nations will sit together at ARF including ten-member ASEAN plus their global talk partners such as China, India, US, Canada, EU, Japan and Korea.

Asking why the campaigners targeted Chinese consulate, Bee, one Thai citizen submitted memorandum said "---to give the petition of the councilor of the Chinese and we urged the same thing with the Indian Consulate because we thought the Chinese is the current one of few strongest alliance of SPDC. And, with the sport of the China, they (SPDC) can be strong. And then, we urged China to stop support SPDC."

A three-member delegate of campaigners met a deputy officer on the behalf of consular to summit the petition.

Recently, the campaigners under initiative of Friends of Burma Coalition (FoB) also staged a demonstration and submitted similar appeal to India’s consulate in Chiang Mai on June 11, the reports said.

The petition presented to Burma’s two big neighbors were signed by human right advocates and activists from the Asia Pacific regions along with dedicated individuals. These organizations includes Free Burma Coalition (Thai Burma border), the Coordination Committee of Human Rights of Thailand (CCHROT), Thai Action Committee on Democracy in Burma (TACDB), NGO Coordinating Committee on Development (NGO-COD), Chantana Banpasirichota- Peace Way Foundation, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia), Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, and an organization from Malaysia, two from the Philippines, one from Indonesia along with individuals from India, Taiwan, Australia, France, Belgium and Mongolia.

The demonstration stated on 11 am in front of consulate was dispersed after Thai police requested to break the crowd due to traffic blockage.

China is currently one of the few strongest allies of SPDC. Last December, China has offered US$200 million in soft loans to Rangoon. Since 1988, China has been Burma’s foremost arms supplier, providing the regime with military equipment amounting to the value somewhere near US $3 billion. It has provided Burma with “friendship” deals involving a large volume and a wide range of arms, including fighter aircraft, naval patrol boats, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, field and anti-aircraft artillery, small arms and ammunition, as well as communications, electronic warfare, signals intelligence and other technical systems. There were joint signals intelligence facilities at several Burmese coastal sites and other comprehensive cooperation arrangements entered into by the two governments, mentioned in press release of FoB.

While the international communities such as US, UK, France, Thailand and along with several countries showed their deep concern on the recent May 30th ambush by government-affiliated thugs on the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy, China and India virtually kept silence.

Network Media Group