As the situation in Myannmar/Burma continues to heat up - you may want to
know about 'what we can do' to support the democracy forces in that
country. Below are two recent mailings with resources for action.

Mary Anne



Dear friends,

Burma's generals have brought their brutal iron hand down on
peaceful monks and protesters -- but in response,
a massive global outcry is gathering pace. The roar of global public
opinion is being heard in hundreds of
protests outside Chinese and Burmese embassies, people round the
world wearing the monks' color red, and on the
internet-- where our petition has exploded to over 200,000 signers
in just 72 hours.

People power can win this. Burma's powerful sponsor China can halt
the crackdown, if it believes that its
international reputation and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing depend on
it. To convince the Chinese government and
other key countries, Avaaz is launching a major global and Asian ad
campaign on Wednesday, including full page
ads in the Financial Times and other newspapers, that will deliver
our message and the number of signers. We
need 1 million voices to be the global roar that will get China's
attention. If every one of us forwards this
email to just 20 friends, we'll reach our target in the next 72
hours. Please sign the petition at the link
below -if you haven't already- and forward this email to everyone
you care about:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/t.php

The pressure is working - already, there are signs of splits in the
Burmese Army, as some soldiers refuse to
attack their own people. The brutal top General, Than Shwe, has
reportedly moved his family out of the country
he must fear his rule may crumble.

The Burmese people are showing incredible courage in the face of
horror. We're broadcasting updates on our
effort over the radio into Burma itself telling the people that
growing numbers of us stand with them. Let's
do everything we can to help them we have hours, not days, to do it.
Please sign the petition and forward
this email to at least 20 friends right now. Scroll down our
petition page for details of times and events to
join in the massive wave of demonstrations happening around the
world at Burmese and Chinese embassies.

With hope and determination,

Ricken, Paul, Pascal, Graziela, Galit, Ben, Milena and the whole
Avaaz Team

_____________________________________


---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Burma Action Group
<burma@... <mailto:burma@...> Date: Sep 29, 2007
3:25 PM


Friends,

We are heartened by the many offers of support we are receiving every day.

On Monday, several of us will participate in KUOW'S Weekday program, from
10-11 am on 94.9 FM in Seattle. Please listen in and call in.

Afterward, we will be on the UW campus, either inside the HUB or just
outside the HUB, depending on weather, starting at noon. We will be
gathering signatures in support of Burma's Saffron Revolution and
providing updates on the local and international situation, and
marshalling support for several tasks still ahead. PLEASE COME AND JOIN
US.

The next meeting of the Seattle Burma Roundtable is WEDNESDAY (NOT
TUESDAY), October 3rd, from 6:30-8pm at the Greenwood Branch of the
Seattle Public Library, 8016 Greenwood Ave N. Email
burma@... <mailto:burma@...> for further
details. All are welcome.

The situation in Burma is dire. At least 200 people reported killed.
International outrage is high, with a focus on China, which has chosen to
support Burma's military thugs with weapons, cash and political support
for years.

Though the crackdown has been brutal and thorough, people have few
options. The economic situation is so severe that there is no "normal" to
return to. They are desperate. A relative who lived in Burma in the past
looked at all the photos coming out and said, "My God, everyone is so much
skinnier than they used to be!"

We're discussing actions to take here in Seattle, all suggestions are
welcome at this email address ( burma@...
<mailto:burma@...> ).

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE RIGHT NOW!!!!

*** The US Campaign for Burma is asking people to collectively gather 88,000
signatures from around the world, calling on Chinese President Hu Jintao to
compel Burma towards valid national reconciliation. Sign the
petition by going to:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/uscampaignforburma/petiti
<http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/uscampaignforburma/petiti>
on.jsp?petition_KEY=730&t=HomePage.dwt

*** You can also email the EU President to strengthen the EU position on
Burma, at http://burmacampaign.org.uk/eu_action.html
<http://burmacampaign.org.uk/eu_action.html>

*** You can send an email to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at
inquiries@... <mailto:inquiries@...> , urging him coordinate a strong
response to Burmese
repression at the UN Security Council, and reminding him that waiting, as the
UN did in Darfur and Rwanda, could cost untold suffering.

*** Go to http://earthrights.org/ <http://earthrights.org/> and sign petition
to Chevron CEO calling for Chevron to use its influence to halt violence.
Chevron is a partner with the junta is largest foreign investment in Burma.

*** MoveOn.org has a petition to sign, with an opportunity to add comments, to
Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council. Go to
http://pol.moveon.org/burma/ <http://pol.moveon.org/burma/>

*** Amnesty International has an action on Burma, go to
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/c.jhKPIXPCIoE/b.2590179/k.C43E/Take_Action_
<http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/c.jhKPIXPCIoE/b.2590179/k.C43E/Take_Action_>
Online/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=9315&tr
=y&auid=3037967

For news, Google news has tons. See also
www.uscampaignforburma.org <http://www.uscampaignforburma.org/> ,
www.irrawaddy.org <http://www.irrawaddy.org/> and
www.mizzima.com <http://www.mizzima.com/> .

Eyewitness report:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3007115.ece
<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3007115.ece>

Commentary by author Pascal Khoo-Thwe
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article3007092.ece
<http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article3007092.ece>

Also, photos and stories of the point blank killing of a Japanese
journalist, which has deeply shocked Japanese public:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23414112-details/The+last+moments+of+\
photographer+gunned+down+by+Burmese+troops+as+nine+die/article.do
<http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23414112-details/The+last+moments+of\
+photographer+gunned+down+by+Burmese+troops+as+nine+die/article.do>
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23414112-details/The+last+moments+of$
<http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23414112-details/The+last+moments+of\
$>

Below please see a commentary from the Economist magazine that clearly
delineates the path ahead. Let us be clear, though the brazen mureder of monks
and peaceful demonstrators has temporarily delayed the saffron
revolution, with your help it will succeed.

Larry Dohrs
206-784-5742

==========================================

September 29, The Economist

The saffron revolution - The saffron revolution; To come

If the world acts in concert, the violence should be the last spasm of a
vicious regime in its death throes "FEAR", the lady used to say, "is a habit."
This week, inspired in part by the lady herself, Aung San Suu Kyi,
partly by the heroic example set by Buddhist monks, Myanmar's people
kicked the addiction.

Defying the corrupt, inept, brutal generals who rule them, they took to the
streets in their hundreds of thousands to demand democracy. They knew
they were risking a bloody crackdown, like the one that put down a huge
popular revolt in 1988, killing 3,000 people or more. In 1988 Burma's people
were betrayed not just by the ruthlessness of their rulers, but
also by the squabbling and opportunism of the outside world, which failed
to produce a co-ordinated response and let the murderous regime get away with
it. This time, soldiers are once again shooting and killing unarmed
protesters. Can the world avoid making the same mistake twice?

In New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Western leaders, led by
George Bush, harangued the junta, and threatened yet more sanctions.
They have probably already shot their bolt. Western sanctions have been
tried and have failed, in part because Myanmar's neighbours have for years
followed a different approach. Its fellow members of the Association of
South-East Asian Nations waffled about "constructive engagement" while
making economic hay in Myanmar from the West's withdrawal. India, too, anxious
about China's growing influence, and hungry for oil and gas, has
swallowed its democratic traditions and courted the generals.

China itself has built an ever-closer relationship. The two countries, after
all, have a lot in common beyond a shared border. Since the 1980s a
wave of "people-power" revolutions has swept aside tyrannies around the
world. Mercifully few regimes, and few armies, are willing to kill large
numbers of their own people to stay in power. Two big exceptions have been
Myanmar and China, whose government in 1989 likewise stayed in power
through a massacre.

Yet it is China that now offers the best hope the outside world has of changing
Myanmar for the better. Admittedly, it is a thin hope. There are
plenty of reasons to doubt China's willingness to upset Myanmar's
generals. China's traditional posture, heard again this week, is to oppose any
"interference in the internal affairs of another country". It trots
out this formula so often when foreigners criticise its own behaviour
that, even if it supports change, it is hard for it to utter more than
platitudes, as it has this month, about the desirability of a "democracy
process that is appropriate for the country".

China has also been the chief beneficiary of the partial Western boycott.
Myanmar offers two of the prizes China values most in its foreign friends:
hydrocarbon resources and a friendly army, willing to give it access to
facilities on its coast on the Bay of Bengal. China has become the junta's
biggest commercial partner and diplomatic supporter.

Nevertheless there are two reasons why China might now see its own
interests as best served by assisting a peaceful transition in Myanmar.
The first is that China wants stability on its borders, and it is becoming
obvious that the junta cannot provide it. The generals' economic
mismanagement has helped reduce a country blessed with rich resources to
crippling poverty. Fleeing economic misery as much as political
oppression, up to 2m migrants from Myanmar are in Thailand. And it was an
economic grievance - a big, abrupt rise in fuel prices - that sparked the
present unrest.


The junta has at least succeeded in cobbling together ceasefire agreements
with most of the two dozen armed insurgencies lining its borders. But the price
has been lawless zones where banditry and illegal-drug production
are rife. Myanmar's slice of the "Golden Triangle" on its Thai and Lao
borders was for a while in the 1990s the world's dominant heroin producer. It
has been largely priced out of that market by Afghan competition. But
it has successfully diversified into methamphetamines. The business relies
on precursor chemicals coming from China, but, just as heroin from Myanmar
brought China addiction and, through shared needles, HIV and AIDS, so
"ice" can wreak havoc. Nobody expects any transition to democracy to be
trouble-free. But, Chinese leaders must be asking themselves, can it be any
worse?

China must also be wondering nervously how all this will affect next
year's Olympic games in Beijing. Already, protests about China's support
for the government of Sudan, larded with comparisons to the 1936 Berlin
Olympics, have shown that its foreign policy as well as its human-rights
record at home is under scrutiny. Myanmar is justifiably a popular cause
in the West. If China proves actively obstructive to international efforts to
bring the junta to book, it may provoke calls for a boycott of the
games. It is of course wrong to assume that China can dictate to Myanmar.
In the generals' deluded world-view, only they can preserve Myanmar's
independence. They will take orders from no other country. China's role is
crucial, nonetheless. It must not blunt the impact of measures taken by
other countries and provide the junta with a shield to fend off demands to do
what it should.

That, at least, is easy to prescribe. It should stop shooting protesters;
free all political prisoners, including Miss Suu Kyi; scrap the
constitutional guidelines drawn up by its farcical "national convention"; and
start serious talks with all groups, including Miss Suu Kyi and her
party. The aim of those talks should also be clear: to arrange a
transition to civilian, democratic rule. For their part, provided free and fair
new elections are held, Miss Suu Kyi and her party should not insist
on the results of the election they won in a landslide in 1990 being
honoured. And, unpalatable as it is, they should offer the generals
whatever incentive they need to go quietly. This all sounds a pipedream.
It will certainly remain so if the outside world does not unite around a
set of demands, and agree on the sticks and carrots that might make deaf old
soldiers listen.


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