SF Bay Area, Burma needs you to stand up for her on May 9
We need many hundreds of you yet again on May 9 (May 10 in Burma) to join in! This is a critical time. The people of Burma are being forced to approve a new constitution (on May 10), which was handcrafted by the military regime to enslave the people as well as erasing the 1990 Elections Results and eliminating Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her election winning party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). This draft constitution entrenches the illegal military regime as the ruling authority in Burma, and bars Aung San Suu Kyi and many in her party from holding any political office. Help us make sure that referendum is recognized in history as the sham that it is, and motivate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take immediate actions to increase US sanctions by making sure the Burma sanction bills passed by the House and the Senate are unified and approved without any further delay.
Friday May 9, 2008 (May 10 in Burma)
4 pm to 8 pm *** Come when you can.***
Sham referendum is taking place in Burma at this time.
(4–6pm Protest & Rally; 6-7pm Speakers; 7-8pm Prayers & Vigil)
San Francisco Federal Building/Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Office
450 Golden Gate Avenue (@Larkin), San Francisco, CA
Burma really needs you there: In the US, everything is based on numbers; unless you come and show your support for Burma in great numbers, our call to help Burma will not be heard.
Contacts/websites/ co-sponsors: badasf.org; bpf.org; uscampaignforburma. org; sasanamoli.org; info@badasf. org; 510 593 4388; 510 220 1323; 707 360 8452; Sasana Moli (International Burmese Monks Organization) , Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA), Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) and US Campaign for Burma (USCB)
Why Pelosi Office/Federal Building: To remind Speaker Pelosi, the US Congress and the Bush administration to impose (already promised) strong sanctions against the illegal regime without further delay. The saffron revolution has passed seven months already, but no new sanctions promised by the congress against the regime have been realized emboldening the brutal regime to forge ahead with its plan to eliminate opposition: the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi. Though that House and Senate have both passed the Burma bills, they are now stalled for months in reconciling the differences. Being a strong Burma supporter, we need Pelosi to step up and provide leadership to ensure urgently the passage of the very much needed sanctions to stop the madness of the regime in Burma. This is the best and most measurable and realistic gift that we the Bay Area Burma supporters can bring to the people of Burma. So… join in on May 9.
Why it is so important to stand up for Burma yet again: Remember that this regime is brutal and ruthless, has neither shame nor creditability, nor obeys the law including its own, spares no one even women, children, nuns and monks, and has even tried to kill Aung San Suu Kyi. So, in reality, the regime does not need a constitution to rule Burma.
Rather it wants to erase the 1990 elections results that give Aung Suu Kyi and her NLD legitimacy and also to fool the international community to ease pressure. With this, the regime is also testing the international community in its limit on how far it can go in eliminating the opposition. If the world just watches and let the regime claim an easy victory after the successful ruthless crackdown of the Saffron Revolution, we will loose Aung San Suu Kyi, NLD and many other opposition leaders and institutions. Besides, immoral and greedy neighbors such as China will come out swinging and feel more moral pressure to keep the useful dictators in Burma to continue to exploit more of her resources to support their burgeoning economy.
More About May 10 Sham Referendum: On May 10, 2008, a sham referendum of a ridiculous constitution that the military has crafted to legalize its brutal rule in Burma will take place. The National Convention (NC), which drafted the guidelines for the constitution, took more than a decade to finish, but involved no debate among the handpicked delegates and completely excluded Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, NLD, as well as the major representatives of the ethnic groups. Following the NC and hastily drawing of the constitution, the referendum is an another step in regime's effort to erase the 1990 election results in which people of Burma overwhelmingly voted for the NLD led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Instead of handing over the power to NLD, the regime brutally cracked down NLD and its top leaders Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo, U Win Tin and hundreds of elected representatives who are either in the prisons or in exiled or in hiding.
The referendum has been hastily scheduled and forcefully held by the regime to claim a quick and easy victory amid the continued and intense crackdowns that has been going one since the Saffron Revolution. Many monks and leaders are still on the run or in hiding. Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest and hundreds of opposition leaders and student's leaders are in prisons. Besides having to struggle daily to live hand to month, people of Burma are being repressed with arrests, torture, imprisonments, physical attacks and numerous threads daily to not shot down the illegal and sham constitution.
Besides, learning from the 1990 elections in which it has badly lost to opposition, the illegal regime has used every possible means to assure them a victory in the referendum in which no international monitors will be allowed. The regime has designed the process so that it can control the out come and assure its victory regardless of how people would have voted. It has even altered the constitution in the last minutes that the constitution needs only a majority of those that actually vote, not the majority of eligible voters regardless how few people have participated. Besides, the regime has also ordered/threatened all civil servants and soldiers to vote 'Yes'.
Realizing that the 1990 election results and NLD is on the line, the military will be even more hardened, the opposition will face more scrutiny and crackdowns, and the country will sink deeper into the dictatorship and slavery, the opposition (monks, students and NLD alike) -- with very little options they have, united in one voice and launched campaigns asking people to vote 'No' to help the NLD. There are numerous reports of a systematic and brutal crackdown of activists, with multiple arrests and including numerous accounts of attacks by the regime's thugs against NLD organizers resulting in severe head wounds and hospitalization.
The constitution shamelessly crafted by the military without the opposition and people's participation and revealed only a month or so ago, assures the military to keep its iron hands on the people of Burma. Here are some highlights of the rather remarkable constitution -- written in the 21st century of our time --- that is deigned to legalize the military enslaving of the people in Burma:
- Army chief will be the most powerful person and above the state's administrative, legislative and judiciary powers
- The army chief can seize power at will at any moment, and granted immunity of any wrongdoing
- 25% of the representatives in the parliament to be handpicked by the army chief
- The president must have a military background, but shall has no authority over the army chief
- There will be no independent judiciary, and it is impossible to amend the constitution without the military's (25%) approval
- Any one who is married to foreigners – that means Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is also not permitted to enter elections
- Political prisoners, many of them are opposition leaders and elected representatives of 1990 elections, will be barred from contesting
- Five hundred thousands monks, nuns, and millions of refugees, and internationally displaced can not participate in the voting process
So, all in all, Burma needs you again to stand up for her on May 9 (May 10 in Burma). Please join us and let's stand up for Burma the same way we did on April 9.
