FURTHER INFORMATION Help to free Aung San Suu Kyi: Bono, Bob Geldof, and Chris Martin from Coldplay are backing a joint campaign by music television station MTV and the Burma Campaign UK, to free Aung San Suu Kyi. MTV is broadcasting campaign films asking people to visit its website and send a campaign email to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Burma Campaign UK campaigns for human rights and democracy in Burma. BCUK provides analysis to the media and government, and lobbies and campaigns to improve government and commercial policy on Burma. News: Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is believed to be on hunger strike, having again been detained by the country’s junta. UNISON's Burma campaign: UNISON is working closely with the Federation of Trade Unions Burma and with the Burma Campaign UK. We ask you as members to get involved in the campaign.

The tragic news that Burmese independence leader Aung San Suu Kyi is on hunger strike – rigorously denied by the junta in charge – means she may never live to see all she has fought for. Demetrios Matheou reports

Death before democracy

As a non-violent campaigner for democracy in a country blighted by oppression, and a person willing to make huge personal sacrifices on behalf of her people, Aung San Suu Kyi is to the Burmese what Nelson Mandela was to black South Africans – inspirational, irreplaceable, a symbol for a better future.

The leader of Burma’s pro-democracy party, The National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi represents her country’s best, perhaps only hope of escaping crippling poverty and repression.

When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 – collected by her sons because she was under house arrest – the chairman of the prize committee called her “an outstanding example of the power of the powerless”. One newspaper editorial this week said Suu Kyi was “the only national leader in Burma worthy of the name”.

For much of the past 15 years Suu Kyi has had to battle for her country’s freedom while herself being in some form of detention, jailed by the junta that is tearing Burma apart.

Now the 58-year-old – already believed to be in ill health – is on hunger strike, according to the US State Department, “to protest her illegal detention by the military regime”.

It could be her final, tragic gesture against her detention and her country’s repression.

Burma’s brutal dictatorship is responsible for forced labour, child labour, trafficking in prostitution and the imprisonment of political prisoners. It is the world’s largest producer of illegal opium. It is one of the world’s worst violators of human rights.

UNISON believes this is a situation where trade unionists around the world should unite behind fellow workers in a beleaguered country.

The union is committed to supporting Burma’s struggle for democracy, “enabling the Burmese people to have a chance of living a life we all take for granted, a life free from oppression and violation of human and workers’ rights by a brutal military regime”.

This is a crucial moment in Burma's history – for without Suu Kyi, any chance of democracy may be doomed.

A key reason for the affection with which Aung San Suu Kyi is held by the Burmese is that she is the daughter of General Aung San, leader of the country’s independence movement against the British. Suu Kyi was only two when her father was assassinated, during the transition period in July 1947, six months before independence was won.

In 1960 she travelled to India with her mother, Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Burma’s ambassador to Delhi. Four years later Suu Kyi went to Oxford University, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics, and where she met her future husband, Michael Aris.

Married and with two children, she had settled down to the life of a wife of an English don, when in 1988 her own mother fell ill. Suu Kyi travelled to Rangoon alone, to care for her – only to find her country embroiled in another fight for independence, this time against the dictator General Ne Win.

Students, office workers and monks were taking to the streets, demanding democratic reform. “I could not, as my father’s daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on,” Suu Kyi said at the time, speaking of “a second Burmese struggle for independence”. Inspired by the non-violent campaigns of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi, she organised rallies and toured the country calling for free elections.

In September 1988 the army seized power in a coup. The junta, calling itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council, called national elections in May 1990. Suu Kyi stood and despite her party winning convincingly at the polls, the army refused to hand over power.

Since then, Suu Kyi has spent three periods in detention, totalling many years. She was told that she could leave Burma if she wished - but would never be allowed back. Refusing to turn her back on her country, she has been denied the family life she had started in England. In 1999 her husband died of cancer.

John Casey, a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and a family friend, said in the London Standard this week: “Here is a woman who has given up everything most people would consider essential, for the sake of her cause – freedom, a stable life, every personal comfort. Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the world’s authentic heroes.”

In May this year she toured her country to celebrate a year out of confinement. The euphoria was to be short-lived. Her convoy was ambushed by government thugs, 100 people killed and Suu Kyi, along with other leading figures from her party, was again jailed.

As concerns for her health grows, the human rights group Burma Campaign UK has called for the UN Security Council to take action.

“Britain has just taken over as chair of the Security Council,” says the campaign’s director John Jackson. “They must use this position to put Burma on the agenda.

“If Aung San Suu Kyi is on hunger strike it is a last resort, as she has been abandoned by the UN. In the three months since her arrest the UN Security Council has taken no firm action. Her arrest and the massacre of 100 of her supporters have only been discussed for a few minutes under ‘any other business’. It’s a disgrace.”

UNISON international officer Polly Jones, who has been in close contact with the BCUK, says: “Aung San Suu Kyi has not been in strong health recently, so this is an extremely serious development. But it’s a clear sign that she is keen to keep the issue of Burmese democracy on the international agenda and to push the UN to respond.”

The Burma Campaign UK is calling for a ban on arms and new investment to Burma, and a ban on Burmese exports of oil, gas, gems, garments, minerals and timber. These sectors provide the regime with the majority of its income.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been calling for such sanctions for years, but the US is the only country that has responded to her call. Possible EU sanctions are being blocked by Germany.

The BCUK is adamant that the situation in Burma needs a concerted, international effort. “You have to wonder what it will take for the UN to act,” says John Jackson.

“The regime has already tried to kill Aung San Suu Kyi once this year. If the UN doesn’t act soon it could be too late.”

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BURMA - THE FACTS Burma is a former British colony, receiving independence in 1948 Of its 50 million population, 400,000 are soldiers The International Labour Organisation, an United Nations agency, has charged Burma's regime with a "crime against humanity" for its widespread use of forced labour – involving millions of men, women and children There are one and a half million refugees within Burma’s borders The military regime is holding at least 1,500 political prisoners, many of whom have been detained for decades There are 50,000 child soldiers in Burma – more than in any other country in the world Burma is the world’s largest producer of opium Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won 82% of the seats in the 1990 election. But the military junta refused to hand over power

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