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Times on Rachel (r)



In our country's history, Rahine and Tanintharyi divisions are occupied by 
the British in 1824, the lower part of the country in 1852 and the whole 
country in 1885. General Aung San the father of DASSK fought the British to 
gain our independence and our country became the sovereign country in 1948 
again.

How many of the British youth today know about it? We think enough is enough.

ok

In a message dated 9/21/99 6:51:14 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
stuart_albright@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

<< Times (London)
 September 19 1999  FAR EAST
 ©Goldwyn: 'Cared too much'
 Jailed Burma protester 'had ties with radical campaigners'
 Tom Walker
 
 
 BURMA activists in London claimed yesterday that Rachel Goldwyn, the 
 28-year-old British woman jailed last week by the Rangoon junta for singing 
 a protest song, was linked with a group of around 40 radicals who had all 
 planned to be arrested in Burma.
 The activists said underground contacts in the country had warned against 
 mass action, saying it would play into the hands of the military regime 
 because the junta's propaganda blames foreign insurgents for internal 
 unrest. Goldwyn apparently decided to go ahead anyway.
 Said one Burmese source: "The tragedy of what's happening inside Burma 
 should not be deflected by foreigners."
 The imprisonment of two Britons in three weeks - first James Mawdsley, a 
 former Bristol University student who was sentenced to 17 years, then 
 Goldwyn, from Barnes, southwest London, who was jailed for seven - has 
 exposed divisions among groups hoping to force change in Rangoon.
 "It's become a soap opera," said John Jackson, of the Burma Action Group. 
 "The stories shouldn't be about Rachel and James."
 Nobody was interested in the 500 people who had been arrested in Burma in 
 the past six weeks, he said.
 Rachel's father Ed Goldwyn, a television producer, was anxious to 
 distinguish her from radical groups of middle-class youngsters from America, 
 Europe and Australia whose travel experiences in Asia encourage them to 
 fight the oppression that they have witnessed.
 "Rachel should not become the symbol of a political idea. It's a personal 
 story," he said.
 Friends of the family were also keen to emphasise the differences between 
 her protest and that of Mawdsley who, at 26, is a veteran campaigner against 
 the Rangoon generals. Burmese diplomatic sources have acknowledged that the 
 cases are seen as separate.
 Mawdsley's father, David, has circulated his latest accounts of being 
 threatened with torture in jail, believing it is all-important to keep the 
 case in the public eye. But for the moment both families appear wary of any 
 joint campaign.
 On Friday, after visiting Dr Kyaw Win, Burma's ambassador in London, Ed 
 Goldwyn was optimistic that his daughter would be released early.
 Hannah Gough, a close friend, has insisted Goldwyn's story is "not of a Che 
 Guevara or a Joan of Arc, it is of a kind, ordinary girl who cared too 
 much". She believes Goldwyn was angered by bickering between Burma action 
 groups.
 "Something must have short-circuited in her and she lost all sense of 
 reality. The sacrifice is huge, brave and very misguided," Gough said.
 
  >>