Freedom and Democracy in Burma.

Honorable U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

Burma is ruled by a tyrannical military regime, one of the worst dictatorships in the world. The people suffer, as many reports have shown, from displacement; the usurpation by the unchecked military of land, food, and personal goods; forced labor and forced portering; child labor; the burning of entire villages. The regime uses rape against ethnic groups. More than 1,100 political prisoners, often tortured, are being held for speaking or acting on their belief in freedom and democracy. The Nobel Peace Prizewinning, democratically elected, populist leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been held incommunicado under detention for much of the past seventeen years; most recently she has been imprisoned since May 2003.

All of these things are unconscionable. There is no excuse for the inaction of the United Nations.

Thousands of Burmese exileswho fled because they were dispossessed, or would be imprisoned or tortured or killed because of their political beliefs or merely for their ethnicity, or because there was no way remaining for them to make a living at homeare being abused or ignored as illegal immigrants in Thailand and other countries. Many more thousands of exiles living abroad are deeply and passionately committed to freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people. They have supporters, like me, all over the world. For the sake of the voiceless, invisible Burmese people, we demand action.

In Burma the media are suppressed, and foreigners not allowed to see much. There is no accountability or transparency in the way the regime goes about its systematic repression of the Burmese people. Until the United Nations demands a permanent presence in the country, with free access to villages, prisons, hospitals, schools, and civic buildings, this will not change.

Since 1990 the United Nations has sent numerous letters to the Burmese regime. Without any serious threat behind these letters, the regime has simply ignored all pleas and behests to change its behavior and make any real attempt to institute democracy. It is time the United Nations, with your urging, took a real stand. It is up to the international communitythe United Nationsto stop the regime from doing as it pleases to Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma. The time to act is now.

The International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma (USA) is staging a hunger strike from September 18 to October 4 in front of the United Nations Headquarters. I strongly urge you to act on their demands, which have been delivered to you on several occasions. Or visit the groups website at www.progressiveburma.org/icfab.

I hope to hear back from you that you intend to take the Burmese issue up at the UN General Assembly convening this month.