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Visit Aung San Suu Kyi Square in Am (r)



Reply-To: Khin Ni Ni Thein <nin@xxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Visit Aung San Suu Kyi Square in Amsterdam 

What a happy surprise to read this article!!!
"Visit Aung San Suu Kyi Square in Amsterdam"

The NFB, Netherlands Friends of Burma wishes that as many tourists as 
possible should come to Amsterdam, and if it is possible, tourist Myanmar 
year should turn into tourist Amsterdam Year to visit "Aung San Suu Kyi 
Square!".

Having said that I would like to add a background story of how did we 
turn "Heineken Square" into "Aung San Suu Kyi Square".

The first master-mind is a gentleman called 'Kees' who works in ASeed 
Europe. He started the Heineken campaign. He did the few public 
demonstration against Heineken in Amsterdam and now he is currently calling 
for World wide Boycott! He got the idea which he thought was brillient, 
ie. rename the Heineken Square to Aung San Suu Kyi Square! Why 
not? he said. He put forward his idea to three other organizations 
(1) BCN, Burma Centrum Nederlands (2) X min Y and, (3) NFB, Netherlands 
Friends of Burma. Everybody said:- YES!!! LETS DO IT!

Thereafter, BCN was busy painting four sign-boards, ASeed and X min Y were 
busy with many organizing works stage preparations etc., NFB was busy in 
practising the official announcement in Dutch Language and persuing people 
to come on that day which is......

23 March 96,.....one of the great days in the history of the Democracy 
Movement of Burma. Several hundreds of people gathered in the square in 
front of Heineken Brewery, in the presence of the one of the elected(no 
need to say in NL) MPs of the Netherlands parliament, the NFB was asked to 
announce the new name of the square as "Aung San Suu Kyi Square".

In Netherlands, the truly democratic land, there are many Burma support 
groups who work as an effective network in fact most effectively send the 
frequent messages to the Dutch Public! They don't discover the wheel 
again but they effectively work in their related area and in cooperation 
with other support groups they effectively cover the whole Netherlands 
in geographical domain as well as in social, economical and political 
domains. Dear Burmese Freedom Fighters we all are with you.

Thank you very much U Nwe Aung for your support from the rest of Europe 
in general and from Germany in particular.

Sincerely yours,
NFB on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi square action group.


> From: Nwe Aung <101564.2652@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Visit Aung San Suu Kyi Square in Amsterdam
> 
> My best Happy Easter Greetings to all friends of Burma as well as a successful
> Burmese Thingyan and 
> New Year to come.
> Spring has just begun in Europe, when I was walking along the downtown of
> Amsterdam with the aim in 
> mind to protest solo in front of the Heineken brewery, which is doing dirty
> business with one of the world's most repressive military dictators known as
> "SLORC". Heineken is one of the largest and well-
> known breweries in Europe and is until recently supposed to have a good
> repercussion. But Heineken 
> beer  becomes bloody, when the brewery began to do dirty business with the
> blood-stained military 
> rulers of Burma. The Burmese inside and worldwide as well as the international
> friends of Burma refrain 
> from buying the bloody beer as a token of protest against the Heineken-Slorc
> collaboration. The Burmese 
> military junta Slorc is widely known as the champion of human rights abuses,
> which is repeatedly confirmed 
> by the successive consensus resolutions of the U.N.Human Rights Commission,
> severely criticizing the 
> Burmese military authorities for their unparallel human rights violations.
> Still walking along the street of Amsterdam, it reminded me something when a
> young handsome lady 
> asked me for a light, and when she saw my tripple five(555) brand she smiled
> curiously at me. But she 
> got later disappointed when the cigarette was not tripple ' four '. One of the
> Burmese dictator Ne Win's sons 
> Ngwe Soe used to enjoy ' 555' with No.4, a well-known indication in the world of
> drugs so as in Amsterdam.
> It is to be reminded that Burma remains the world's largest producer of opium
> and heroin. And the military 
> rulers Slorc made cease-fire agreements with the drug-trafficking armies
> including Khun Sa and his Mong 
> Tai Army. The 'dealings' between the Slorc and the opium armies are so perfect
> that the drug lords become 
> VIPs ( 'ethnic leaders' ) of the Slorc with very special privileges, and the
> drug-producing regions become 
> drug-trafficking havens where heroin is produced and trafficked without any
> risk, but with the support of the 
> Burmese army, so that the heroin-trafficking activities of the drug-armies are
> now, obviously with the bless-
> ing of the Slorc, considered part of the "legal fold". It is to be noted that
> the laundering of drug-profits has a 
> wide-spread (negative) impact on the national economy of Burma. And it is also
> interesting to monitor when 
> and whether Heineken is involving in money laundering in the poorest country.
> My imaginations on Heineken's collaborations with the Burmese military junta,
> the military junta's collabora-
> tion with the drug-traffickers and vice versa were suddently stopped, when an
> Amsterdamer police offered 
> his service to help me somehow. I told him that I was looking for the Heineken
> Square and he accompanied 
> me. When we were at the destination, to our great surprise while we were looking
> in all four directions, there 
> was not a single street sign with 'Heineken Plein' to be seen (Plein=Square in
> English). The poor policeman 
> insisted that this place is definitely the Heineken Plein. But on all four sides
> of the square, there were only 
> 'original' street signs with "Aung San Suu Kyi Plein". By shaking hands with my
> police friend, I told him that 
> we both at least were proud to be at the Aung San Suu Kyi Square in Amsterdam,
> which stands for peace 
> and purity of the human souls.
> Later it was learnt that  on a sunny day of the Spring beginning in 1996, the
> "Netherland Friends of Burma"
> ( NFB ) came over to the Heineken Square and renamed it into Aung San Suu Kyi
> Square as a symbolic 
> protest against the Heineken's greedy involvement in dirty business with the
> repressive military junta of 
> Burma. Media coverage was great on the following days. The NFB even suggested
> the City Council of 
> Amsterdam to accept the name officially in honour of the Nobel Peace Laureate
> Aung San Suu Kyi. The 
> democratic supporters are delighted to congratulate the NFB on the unique idea.
> To those who happened to be in Amsterdam by choice or by chance, I would like to
> recommend to have 
> at least a look at the Aung San Suu Kyi Square. Whether you see it or
> unfortunately not, there did exist no 
> doubt the Aung San Suu Kyi Square, the symbol of peace and prosperity of the
> city of Amsterdam.
> Do visit Aung San Suu Kyi Square when you are in Amsterdam!
> 
> In Solidarity,
> 
> Nwe Aung / Germany        
> 
> 
>