Statement on Burma Human Rights Day

[mandalay@xxxxxxxxxx]

Statement on 11th  Anniversary of Human Rights Day

1.Today is the 11th Anniversary of the day on which the riot police of the
BSPP military dictatorship shot down and killed Ko Pone Maw and Ko Soe
Naing,two students of the Rangoon, Institute of Technology,On March
13,1988.On this 11th  Anniversary of the Human Rights Day of Burma, we bow
our heads in honor to Ko Pone Maw and the martyrs, who have sacrificed
their innocent lives, in the struggle for basic human rights.
2.The thrust of March 1988 students movement for their lost rights and the
uprising of 1988,participated by the entire people, was able to remove the
ruling BSPP from power. However, the military dictatorship, after changing
its name from the BSPP  to the SLORC and then to the SPDC, has continued to
perpetrate widespread violations of fundamental human rights, up to this day.
3.After the fall of the BSPP one-party dictatorship, as the usurper of
power, the SLORC /SPDC military dictatorship, has been ruling the country
with extreme repression, the human rights situation of Burma, today, is
worse then the human rights situation during the BSPP days. The people of
Burma have to struggle on as human beings whose human rights have been
violated the most in the world.
4.Due to arbitrary acts and inhuman repression by the SPDC military
dictatorship, its oppressive bureaucratic system and the secret police, the
people of Burma have no rights to perform with freedom in the political,
educational, economic, social, etc. fields,  in accordance with human rights .
5.An example of the intensely detestable violation of human rights by the
SPDC is the attempt by it, daily, to destroy, by evil and treacherous
means, the National League for democracy which has been in existence as a
legal political party and which won a land-slide victory in 1990 general
election, and the arbitrary arrest and detention of more than 100 elected
representatives of the people, up to this day.
6. So long as the SPDC is in power , there will continue to be serious
violations of human rights. Only when the military dictatorship ceases to
exist and true democracy emerges, the people of Burma will be able to fully
enjoy fundamental human rights. Accordingly, we would like to urge the
entire people of Burma to join forces with us and concertedly struggle on
for the cessation of the SPDC military dictatorship.


March 13, 1999.
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