BY DAVID GOSLING

CANBERRA — One-hundred-and-fifty Burmese and solidarity activists rallied outside the Burmese embassy on June 19 against the current crackdown by the military regime, and to mark Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday.

Burma's junta has held onto power for more than a decade, following the 1990 elections in which an 80% majority voted for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. Dialogue between the junta and Suu Kyi ended when it attacked Suu Kyi and her supporters on May 30. Some 200 people are believed to have been killed; 115 NLD members are still missing. Suu Kyi and her deputy U Tin U are still in detention “for their own safety”.

Burmese activists want the Australian government to recognise the results of the 1990 elections and give official status to the exiled Committee Representing the People's Parliament. But the Coalition government is continuing to defend its policy of “limited engagement” with the junta. At the recent ASEAN meeting, Downer refused to support the US call for sanctions.

On the same day, inside federal parliament, the ALP was watering down a Greens-initiated Senate resolution on Burma. The motion which eventually passed had been gutted by Labor, which refused to support the call for a tourism boycott, to downgrade diplomatic relations with the regime and to recognise the democratic leadership in exile.

Burma activists plan to join others protesting the international arms trade outside the Defence and Industry Conference here on June 24.

From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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