by frog
All Wellingtonians should come on down to the vigil in support of Burma’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi this lunchtime. The vigil is being held at Midland Park at 12:30.
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma’s democracy movement, was put on trial earlier this week and charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest. She has been imprisoned in the notorious Insein Jail.
Green MP Sue Kedgley will be speaking at the vigil.
New Zealand has recently signed up to a free trade deal that includes Burma (or Myanmar as the military junta re-named Burma in 1990). Green MP Dr Kennedy Graham spoke against the Bill in the House and brought up the issue of Burma in his speech.
Both National and Labour supported the Free Trade Agreement that involved trading with Burma. Crikey, we even call Burma, Myanmar – the name given to Burma by its military rulers.
It may seem like a small thing but, surely it would send some sort of message to those supporting democracy in Burma, if New Zealand actually reverted to the name favoured by the democratically elected Government of 1989.
Our Keith always makes a point of using the name Burma when he hi-lights other countries – such as the United Kingdom – imposing trade sanctions on Burma while New Zealand seems to have its head in the sand.
Keith may have an ally in the new Foreign Minister Murray McCully on using the name Burma when talking about…Burma.
Last year in his regular email missive McCully.co.nz, Murray slammed New Zealand’s usage of the word Myanmar.
As has previously been reported in this publication, the worldwide headquarters of mccully.co is firmly of the view that it should be BURMA. As previously quoted, a leading UK Burma campaigner explained the difference thus:
Often you can tell where someone’s sympathies lie if they use Burma or Myanmar. Myanmar is a kind of indicator of countries that are soft on the regime.
Perhaps now would be a good time for Murray to advise the mandarins at Foreign Affairs to make the change?
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Thu, May 21st, 2009
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
“It may seem like a small thing but, surely it would send some sort of message to those supporting democracy in Burma, if New Zealand actually reverted to the name favoured by the democratically elected Government of 1989.”
the Burmese governmetn of 1989 democratically elected? are you sure of that, Froggy?
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Their Regime is one of the Worst – Johnny Pilger has the goods on Burma.
Brutal & repressive – took them 2 weeks to get Foreign Aid to it’s own people last year.
Khun Shaa has been the ersatz ruler since the 80’s…..too much opium 4 the Yanks to ignore
Where there is money, it’s long shadow of corruption remains unreported – we jail ‘blue collar’ criminals almost exclusively.
The World Court is far more functional than the UN.
Any move we can make to encourage freedom from repression should be made.
Strings: Peace in Sri Lanka!!?! Good hey?
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Kahikatea: The 1989 elections were democratic, but the junta annulled them and took back control of the country,
So, yes a government was democratically elected, but it is just not the government that ended up ruling the country.
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“In May 1990, the government held free elections for the first time in almost 30 years. The National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 out of a total 489 seats, but the election results were annulled by SLORC, which refused to step down.”
So maybe 1990 is correct. Point is NLD was democratically elected and the Junta squashed it and changed the country’s name.
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Source? Wikipedia of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma
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I see now – you mean the government that was democratically elected in 1990 but never allowed to actually govern the country.
Of course, the dictators called it Burma up to 1990, too.
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greenfly your over the top
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Where’s greenfly?
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Apparently Valis, I’m somewhere ‘over the top’!
(looks like I’ve got worms)
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no Fly; when they run out of ideas they challenge your sanity(supposedly).
The last refuge of an irredeemable Rascal…Twitter Tweak Twoll
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Who coined the name New Zealand? Do Europeans have some kind of God-given role to establish democracies in all lands they colonize?
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drsbanerji,
Its not known for certain, but new Zealand is a couruption of the name ‘Nova Zeelandia’, given to it by the dutch, by Cook.
The right is not god-given, but i call it military force
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