Media : SDU Statement....

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[1]
1 April 1999:

SDU/SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION - Press Release, March 29, 1999

On behalf of the people of Shan State, we extend to Daw Aung San Suukyi
and her sons, our sorrow and condolence for the loss of Dr. Michael Aris.
We are deeply moved. The people of Shan understand what it is to suffer,
to be victims of those who purport to govern and claim to have kept the
country "united".

We call upon the military junta - SPDC/State Peace and Development
Council -- to facilitate the travel and return of Daw Aung San Suukkyi to
attend Dr.Michael Aris's funeral in England.

It is disgraceful enough that the military junta chose to play politics
with the suffering of both Dr.Aris and Daw Suukyi, and their sons. The
junta has no one to blame but itself for the fresh round of condemnation

from the United Nations -- General Secretary, Mr.Koffi Anan, no less --
various governments, and decent people everywhere. At the very least,
Foreign Minister Win Aung should resign for his mishandling of the
matter.

Rangoon ruling generals like to pose as good Buddhists. But their daily
circuses at pagodas and monasteries ring hollow: they are contradicted by
their patent lack of Buddhist compassion and metta for fellow human
beings -- Daw Suukyi, Dr.Aris, their two sons and many thousands of Shan,
Karen, Karenni, Mon, Rakhine, Chin who have been evicted at gunpoint from
their homes, fields, gardens, and killed, raped, robbed, pauperized, and
thousands of children orphaned and traumatized.

We call upon the military junta to recognize and deal with reality
instead of being driven by illusions, illusions born out of fear and 
greed and hatred. One reality is that Daw Suukyi is a citizen of Burma, 
and another is that as a citizen, she has the right to live in her 
country, and she moreover has every right to point out -- as she has done 
-- that the country belongs to the people, that Burma is not the private 
estate of men in uniform.

SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION/SDU
March 29, 1999.
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[2]
SDU/SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION -- Press Statement: March 26, 1999.

We, the SDU, approve of and support the actions of the United States,
Great Britain, Governments of the European Union, and NATO forces in
Yugoslavia, in defence of the rights of the Albanian people of Kosovo to
life, property, livelihood and human dignity. We likewise condemn the
genocidal and ethnic-cleansing actions of the Yugoslav-Serb regime.

Although we sympathize with the ordinary Serb citizens of Yugoslavia in
such times of danger, we appeal to decent, ordinary Serbs in Yugoslavia
and overseas, not to be seduced by circumstances into offering the Serb
despot and his regime support for their genocidal, inhumane policies and
actions. We appeal to decent Serbs everywhere to declare their solidarity
with their Albanian brothers and co-citizens, the victims of state
sanctioned terror and genocide.

We appeal to the United Nations and the Governments of Allied forces,
especially the United States, Great Britain, to go a step further: to
recognize and sanction of the unequivocal right of the victims of
genocidal and lawless governments and regimes everywhere, the Right to
Self-Defence.

The Right of Self-Defence of the victims of genocide and ordinary
citizens against despotic, lawless governments and regimes is vital to
the peaceful settlement of such problems. The defacto recognition of the
Right of Self-Defence of the Bosnia Muslims was pivotal to the acceptance
by the Serb Yugoslavia regime of the Daytona Peace Accord. Without the
defacto recognition on the part of the international community of the
right of Bosnian Muslims, the Daytona Accord would not have worked.

Although we appreciate the role of the sanctity of internationally
recognized borders and its contribution to a stable world order, we wish
to point out to the fact that international respect and sanction for
national borders also contributes to world disorder. It allows despotic,

murderous regimes to kill, rape, plunder, oppress, repress, and even to
deprive ordinary citizens the right to livelihood, and the right to even
rest in peace in cemetries -- this has been the case in Burma for over
thirty years (since 1962, when the military usurped power). A country is
thus turned -- as Burma now is -- into a concentration camp or a killing
field.

The people of Burma, especially the ethnic nationalities, have been
subject to brutal and lawless rule, by those who systematically employ
state-terror to remain in power and to deny ethnic nationalities the
right to equality and self-determination.

The people of Burma do not ask for international intervention as it is 
now taking place in Yugoslavia and Kosovo.

What the people for Burma need and wish for, is for the international
community -- the United Nations and democratic, legitimate governments
everywhere -- to recognize and sanction, defacto and dejure, the
unequivocal right of victimized peoples to self-defence against state-
directed and -sanctioned rape, murder. pillage, and destruction.

SDU/SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION
March 26, 1999.
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