Saturday, September 29, 2007

Burma needs action from the West, not cheap platitudes

Scotland's Sunday Herald has an excellent article - on the crisis in Burma- which laments the absence of deeds by the international community.
Here is a small extract:
"Earlier last week, our own foreign secretary, David Miliband, joined the fray. "I for one thought it was brilliant to see Aung San Suu Kyi alive and well outside her house last week. I think it will be a hundred times better when she takes her rightful place as the elected leader of a free and democratic Burma," said Miliband, addressing the Labour Party's annual autumn conference in Bournemouth.

It's easy to agree with Miliband's sentiments but rather harder to see exactly how much our own own government has been doing to ensure that "Mandela moment" arrives sometime soon for the resourceful and charismatic Suu Kyi, who has been the perennial symbol of resistance to the generals who run this impoverished nation despite being held under house arrest for many years. ................................................"
The full article is an eyeopener.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have recently received the following comment on my blog:

Hello,

People can send messages of support to the demonstraters in Burma via our web page and radio broadcasts. We are Radio Netherlands Dutch international broadcaster and we have Short Wave transmissions into the country our homepage www.radionetherlands.nl
best regards

Andy Clark - head English department Radio Netherlands Worldwide

John Barry said...

Thanks for this information Mike.