Look To The Stars News: Aung San Suu Kyi

World Leaders Ask For UN Help In Burma

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:30:00 -0000

A massive group of former world leaders, presidents, and prime ministers – including Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair, and George Bush Sr – have written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to ask him to secure the release of all political prisoners in Burma by the end of this year.

“We write this letter to applaud your public consideration of traveling to Burma, also known as Myanmar, before the end of the year,“ the leaders wrote in the letter. “We encourage this trip because it would illustrate for the world whether or not the Burmese military regime is serious about making changes called for by the United Nations Security Council and your good offices.“

The Burmese military regime is currently trying to silence the people of Burma through a major crackdown on human rights activists, but the leaders from 50 countries have joined the effort to set them free and make their voices heard.

“As you are aware, on October 11, 2007, the United Nations Security Council issued a Presidential statement calling on the Burmese military junta to release all political prisoners in Burma, including the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.

“We urge you to make it clear that all political prisoners in Burma must be released by the end of this year, regardless of whether you travel to Burma. If the Burmese junta continues to defy the United Nations by refusing to make these releases by the end of the year, we urge you to encourage the Security Council to take further concrete action to implement its call for the release of all political prisoners.“

Several human rights groups, including the US Campaign for Burma, are currently trying to get the full letter published in this Sunday’s edition of the New York Times to publicize the leaders’ involvement in the cause and raise awareness of the issue.

“The Burmese people are counting on the United Nations to take the required action to achieve the breakthrough they desperately need to both restore democracy to their country and address the serious humanitarian and human rights challenges that they face.“

The full text of the letter can be read here.

Will Ferrell Launches Human Rights Awareness Month

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:30:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Funnyman Will Ferrell launched Human Rights Awareness Month earlier this week with a passionate plea to help Burma.

“You know when you hear about something happening in the world that is so awful, so violent and terrible and evil and wrong and you think wait – I have to do something about this,” he said in a PSA. “But it just seems too big… this month, all that is going to change for you. A human rights crisis is happening right now in the South East Asian country of Burma… Today we’re launching a 30 day campaign for human rights and democracy in Burma.”

Ferrell announced that over the next month, special videos featuring stars such as Jennifer Aniston, Woody Harrelson, and Jackson Browne will be featured on the US Campaign for Burma YouTube page, to talk about the Burmese fight for freedom from an unjust and violent military regime.

“You’ll also get to know one of my heroes, an extraordinary woman called Aung San Suu Kyi, ” said Ferrell. “She sacrificed her freedom to lead a non-violent protest movement against oppression in Burma. Stay with us for 30 straight days, alert all of your friends, speak at school, speak at your churches, talk to strangers in the street… invite them to join with us, the US Campaign for Burma, as we build a coalition of millions of people who care about human rights. People power counts. Let this month be the month you join an effort to change the world.”

The full PSA can be viewed here.

Mia Farrow To Discuss Political Rights Of Women

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:30:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Actress Mia Farrow is to attend a special seminar next week to discuss the political-rights crises faced by women in Thailand and Burma.

The seminar – to be held in Thailand’s Chiang Mai University on July 21 – will be led by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams, and will feature female activists from all around the world. Organized by the Nobel Women’s Initiative, the seminar will cover a range of issues relating to the treatment of women in the political arena, and will include video testimony from Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Laureate who has been under house arrest in Burma.

“We don’t have such a special event very often in Thailand, let alone Chiang Mai, so I do hope that it will create interest, more understanding and support for women’s causes,” said Virada Somswasdi, president of the Foundation for Women, Law and Rural Development. “The efforts of NWI members and other women involved in the delegation to Thailand are not only to keep alive the issues of peace with justice and equality, which include violence against women and the crisis of political rights, but also to highlight the importance of a just and peaceful global community for women."

Organizers hope the seminar will promote the unseen work of women in local governments in Thailand and Burma, and give them a chance to speak out.

Other well known activists expected to attend include labor rights activist Qing Zhang from China and Dr Sima Samar from Afghanistan.

Aung San Suu Kyi - Birthday Wishes That Can't Be Heard

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:38:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

On June 19, Burma’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi will spend her 63rd birthday as a political prisoner in Burma (Myanmar). And to mark the occasion, the US Campaign for Burma have organized over 200 events to help Americans learn more about her and the struggle for human rights and democracy in her military-led country.

Aung San Suu Kyi is a brave and courageous woman whose face is now more well-known than her name. But it is a face etched with sincerity, a face that has retained its youthful vigor despite the hardships it has endured, despite the years spent watching her fellow people suffer, and the lines that now run over it only add a look of wisdom and determination to her dogged drive and dedication.

Hers’ is an incredible and powerful story in a country that is struggling – a story of an academic based at Oxford University in England who returned to her native Burma to oppose the brutal military regime in her homeland, risking her life and leaving her husband and children behind. She led the National League for Democracy to a staggering win – with 80% of the votes – at the 1990 elections, only to have her post as Prime Minister nullified, and she has been imprisoned almost ever since. She even had to wait under house arrest when her husband was diagnosed with cancer. She was prevented from seeing him before he died, not allowed to comfort him at his bedside or help her children through their pain.

Aung San Suu Kyi is a remarkable woman – immortalized in the U2 song “Walk On” and the only Nobel Peace Prize winner kept imprisoned anywhere in the world – her crime was her desire to see her people free. And tomorrow yet another birthday will creep by, its shadow filling the cracks that run through her extraordinary life. But it will not go unobserved, and the US Campaign for Burma – an organization dedicated to empowering grassroots activists around the world to bring about an end to the military dictatorship in Burma – is urging people to join them in marking the occasion.

As part of the organization’s efforts, thousands of their members have pressed the U.S. Congress to award Aung San Suu Kyi the highest U.S. honor – the Congressional Gold Medal; they have organized over 60 former Presidents and Prime Ministers from every single continent to issue a united call for Suu Kyi’s release; they have pressed the United Nations Security Council to issue its first-ever acknowledgement of Aung San Suu Kyi as a democracy leader of Burma in a presidential statement; and they have rallied 30 celebrities to record short videos about Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for human rights in Burma.

To find events the campaign has organized, or to donate to their cause, visit the US Campaign for Burma website.

Time's 100 - Peter Gabriel By Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:57:00 -0000

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote about Peter Gabriel’s contributions to humanity for this year’s Time 100 list:

“I did not know Peter Gabriel from a bar of soap when I met him for the first time on his friend Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Virgin Islands. But within moments, he had charmed me. I heard him sing his Biko, which still moves me to tears each time I hear it, as we stood round the piano he was playing. He volunteered to give me my first swimming lessons and was a great hit with two of my grandchildren who met him there.

“What is his secret? He has a heart—in our part of the world, we would give him our highest accolade and say, “He has ubuntu.” It is that marvelous quality that speaks of compassion and generosity, about sharing, about hospitality. Peter founded WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance), presenting 50 festivals in more than 40 countries and conducting workshops in schools around the globe. He is a passionate human-rights advocate who participated in the 1988 Human Rights Now tour, and he co-founded Witness, which provides cameras and computers to activists.

“In 2007 he and Branson co-founded the Elders, which Nelson Mandela and his wife Graça Machel launched in Johannesburg on Mandela’s 89th birthday. With our world battered by so many problems—ethnic conflict, oppression of women and children, climate change—their idea was that a group of eminent people would serve as Elders for our global village. A dozen of us—including Kofi Annan, President Jimmy Carter and Fernando Cardoso (with an empty chair for Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma)—have accepted their offer and challenge.

“Peter, 58, has received many awards, including the Man of Peace award given by Nobel Peace laureates. He has ubuntu, and he deserves this latest accolade richly.”

Bishop Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, and founded the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre support and promote peace throughout the world.

Celebrities Raising Voices For Burma

Wed, 07 May 2008 10:46:12 -0000

Written by Myrlia Purcell

Will Ferrell and Jennifer Aniston have joined the US Campaign for Burma, and are asking others to do the same for the Burma: It Can’t Wait Campaign. Stars are on a mission to raise one million voices in 30 days against the human rights atrocities occurring in the Southeast Asian country.

The people of Burma are being attacked by their own government, and, just as the world stood together to demand the freedom of Nelson Mandela, the campaign is asking people to speak up for the leader of Burma’s democratic party, Aung San Suu Kyi. The world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Suu Kyi has been deprived of her freedom for 12 of the last 18 years. She has appealed to people around the world, saying, “Please, use your liberty to promote ours.”

To make matters even worse, southwestern Burma was hit by a cyclone on Friday, May 2, leaving up to 60,000 dead, with tens of thousands missing and hundreds of thousands displaced or homeless. It is being called the worst natural disaster in Asia since the 2004 tsunami. Despite knowing about the approaching cyclone days in advance, the government did not warn its citizens. The U.S. Campaign For Burma is accepting donations to help with relief efforts in the medium-term, as the Burmese government is currently blocking international aid agencies from offering their support.

Join Woody Harrelson, Sarah Silverman, Julie Benz, Eddie Izzard and the others who are speaking out for the brave young people fighting for democracy and struggling through the wake of Cyclone Nargis. For more information visit the U.S. Campaign For Burma, and to view the celebrity videos, go to BurmaItCantWait.org.

Look To The Stars News: Aung San Suu Kyi

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