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IU Conference (r)



Message from the office of Dean Kenneth Rogers, Indiana University

					23 July 1996
Dear Burma Watchers:

	Our office has recently received several requests for more 
detailed information about the day of meetings we are holding this 
Friday.  The open invitation was posted on the Burma-net in mid-June.  
Below I am forwarding the final version of our agenda for this Friday's 
meetings and a memorandum which Kenneth Rogers, Associate Dean of 
International Programs and Director of the Office of International 
Services at Indiana University, has been circulating in an effort to 
raise scholarship monies for the education of Burmese refugees.  One of 
the main objectives of Friday's consultations is to formulate pragmatic 
plans for educational programs that will contribute to the development of 
Burma.  The discussion sessions will be in the form of an open forum but 
will be moderated in order to preserve the flow of discourse.  Various 
specialists in the fields of international education, Southeast Asian 
studies, international buisness, etc., have been invited and are expected 
to be in attendance but any and all with an interest are also invited to 
attend and encouraged to participate.  If anyone still has questions 
please contact me at: "taylward@xxxxxxxxxxx" or call (812) 855-9088.

					Sincerely,

					Thomas F. Aylward II
					USIA Burmese Refugee Scholarship
					Program Assistant





				A G E N D A

		   for a program of consultations regarding

		 DEVELOPMENT THROUGH EDUCATION: BURMA'S FUTURE

			   at Indiana University

		   10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Friday, July 26, 1996

		     Leo R. Dowling International Center

			   111 South Jordan Avenue

			    Bloomington, IN 47405



9:30 - 10:00 a.m.   --   Coffee, tea, light refreshments

10:00 - 10:15 a.m.  --   Welcome and Introductions by Dean
                         Patrick O'Meara, International Programs,
                         Indiana University

10:15 - l2 noon     --   Discussion re: Educational Strategies for
                         the Development of an Open Society and
                         Democratic Institutions, moderated by Mr.
                         John Elliott, Consultant on Asia, Inland
                         Container Corporation

12 noon - 1:30 p.m. --   Lunch (a list of nearby restaurants will be
                         available at the Center)

1:30 - 2:45 p.m.    --   Discussion re: Educational Strategies for
                         the Development of a Sound Economic
                         Infrastructure, moderated by Dr. Frank
                         Proschan, Associate Research Scholar,
                         Research Center for Language and
                         Semiotic Studies, Indiana University
 
2:45 - 3:00 p.m.    --   Break - light refreshments

3:00 - 4:00 p.m.    --   Conclusions and Recommendations,
                         moderated by Mr. Jason Lewis, Associate
                         Director, East Asian Studies

                                  ******

     Following the day's sessions there will be a 6:00 p.m. address by
His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Indiana University Auditorium.  The
staff will offer directions to the auditorium for anyone needing them.


                            M E M O R A N D U M


TO:	ICIP Board Members

FROM:	Kenneth A. Rogers, Associate Dean and Director

SUBJ:	Assisting Refugee Students from Burma - Canvass of ICIP
	Institutions for Interest/Support

DATE:	26 March 1996



   "I would like [Americans] to see us not as a country
   rather far away whose sufferings do not matter, but as
   fellow human beings in need of human rights who could
   do so much for the world, if we were allowed."  
                                           
						Aung San Suu Kyi*


   Indiana University has received a grant from the U.S.
Information Agency to administer its Burmese Refugee Scholarship
Program, which was established in 1990 under a Congressional mandate
to bring refugee students from Burma (Myanmar) who have been living in
exile in India and Thailand to the United States for further
study/professional training.  Under the Program, students and
professionals of Burmese nationality whose studies and/or professional
careers were interrupted by the political turmoil and events of 1988 in
Burma receive funding intended to assist them toward completion of a
U.S. degree or training course within two years.

   After the students who have been selected to receive USIA
Scholarships have been brought to the United States, Indiana University
will be responsible for providing them with a post-arrival program
consisting of (but not limited to) orientation, ESL and study skills
training, and assistance with gaining admission to an appropriate U.S.
institution of higher education.  The University will also be responsible
for administering each student's USIA Scholarship grant for a period of
up to two years.

                         *   *   *   *   *   *   *

   By means of an in-country screening/selection process
completed in January 1996, we have identified upwards of fifty well-
qualified young men and women students from Burma who have been
eking out a difficult and insecure exile in India and Thailand since being
forced to flee their homeland for having participated in a national pro-
democracy movement that was brutally crushed by the army in 1988. 
Six have been selected to receive USIA Burmese Refugee Scholarship
Program Grants which will enable them to complete up to two years of
full time study toward a bachelors or an advanced degree at a U.S.
college or university and/or to undergo professional training in the
United States.

   For the rest, prospects for being able to complete the studies
leading to a university degree that were interrupted by the tragic events
of 1988 -- which, in terms of lives lost, far exceeded the death toll of
the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 and its aftermath -- are
growing dimmer.  Most of the students who managed to escape to India
and Thailand in 1988, 1989, and 1990 are now in their mid-to-late
twenties or early thirties.  For those who have not yet succeeded in
gaining acceptance for entry into Australia, Canada, the United States, or
other countries as refugees, time is running out; with each passing year,
the difficulty of resuming university-level studies after a lengthy period
of time spent in squalid refugee camps and/or in the jungles along
Burma's border with India and Thailand increases.  Many of these
unfortunate young people belong to Burmese ethnic minority groups
(Chins, Kachins, Karens, Mons, Shans, and Was, among others).  As such, a
significant number are Christians, their forebears having been converted
by Baptist missionaries from the United States, Catholics from Ireland
and France, or Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians from Britain. 
American and other Allied troops who fought in Burma during World War
II received invaluable support and assistance from underground units
consisting of these "hill peoples" whose compatriots inhabit the rugged
mountainous areas that are found along Burma's borders with
Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, and Thailand.

   At present, most of the estimated three to four hundred
students from Burma in the United States are refugees.  Scholarships and
other forms of financial aid are needed to enable their compatriots who
remain in India and Thailand to complete university degrees which, in
turn, will prepare them for a productive future career -- hopefully, in
their beloved homeland.  Having been impoverished by the corrupt
mismanagement of a military dictatorship that has ruled the country
since 1962, Burma needs educators, engineers, entrepreneurs,
environmental and public health specialists -- professionals in virtually
all fields.  It is anticipated that the great majority of Burmese who are
now exiles in Australia, Europe, and North America would gladly return
home if and when conditions in Burma have changed for the better. 
While the present government -- known as the State Law and Order
Restoration Council or SLORC -- remains in power, however, it is
generally assumed that returning exiles would face persecution,
imprisonment, or a worse fate for having been active in the pro-
democracy movement of the late 1980s.

   Most observers consider the prospects for U.S. government
funding of additional scholarships for Burmese refugees to be uncertain,
at best.  Accordingly, we seek commitments of financial support from
interested private individuals and foundations, institutions of higher
education, and nongovernmental agencies to help the well-qualified
refugee students who were recently interviewed by special panels in New
Delhi and Bangkok to complete their university studies.  They must do
this now in order to be prepared to play a future role in rebuilding their
home country.  Therefore, in a very real sense, the future is now.

                           *   *   *   *   *   *

   Individuals, institutions, and organizations interested in
obtaining additional information with a view to assisting a Burmese
refugee student by means of a scholarship or other financial support
should contact me at (812) 855-9086 (Fax: (812) 855-4418).  My e-mail
address is kenroger@xxxxxxxxxxxx  


	*Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and leader of Burma's 
pro-democracy movement, on how she hopes Americans will view the Burmese, 
in an interview by Claudia Dreifus, The New York Times Magazine, 1/7/96.