Five kilometers (about 3 miles) is just within range of an 81 mm mortar.  You may not care, since there’s none pointed at you, but families in Ler Per Her IDP camp (within range of the mortar mentioned above) are increasingly concerned by them and some are heading to Thailand in case their camp (housing about 1200 people) is attacked again.  (It has been burned down several times in the past by the Burma Army.  (See today’s report from the Karen Human Rights Group ) for details.

The US Campaign for Burma lists ways we can all help speak for their freedom.   In other countries, murderers go to jail. Here they are in charge, while the UN and others make statements showing their concern….  
Partners Relief & Development is helping ethnic leaders provide basic necessities for those impacted by the continuing oppression of the Burma Army, including the new arrivals at Ler Per Hur.  They can use our help!

The following  from the US Campaign for Burma tells one way you can help!

For years, Burma’s military regime has carried out brutal human rights abuses against its own civilians.  Their abuses include the conscription of tens of thousands of child soldiers, the destruction and forced displacement of over 3,300 ethnic minority villages, widespread rape of Burmese women, the killing of civilians, and forcing hundreds of thousands of Burmese people into forced labor, what some call modern-day slavery. These are not simply human rights abuses — they are mass atrocities called “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes,” meaning that they are illegal under international law such as the Geneva Conventions and Rome Statute.  In the past, the United Nations Security Council has voted to create a “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate abuses of a major magnitude — such as in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region of Sudan.  The Commission of Inquiry then makes recommendations to the U.N. Security Council for action. However, no such Commission of Inquiry been created for Burma. Now, two leading members of the U.S. Congress, Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Don Manzullo (R-IL) have organized a letter to President Obama asking him to press the U.N. Security Council to create a Commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Burma’s military regime.  They are circulating a letter in  Congress and asking other Congressmembers to sign-on.  They want as many members as possible to sign the letter, which will then be sent to President Obama. We need your help to get more members of Congress to sign. When members of Congress organize letters like this they are called “Dear Colleague” letters.  We want you to call your member of Congress and ask them to sign this “Dear Colleague” letter. Every American is represented in the U.S. Congress by one member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  We would like you to call your Congressional office to urge your member of the U.S. House of Representatives (NOT the U.S. Senate) to sign the “Dear Colleague” letter along with Congressman Crowley and Manzullo.  You do not have to be a citizen; just live or work in your Congressperson’s district. Below are specific instructions on how you can do this.

Click here for the rest of the instructions…….

The trial of Aung San Suu Kyi  continues.  She is accused of harboring a man who broke into her home and refused to leave.  For this “crime” she could receive up to five years in prison.  Coincidentally, this would get her out of the illegal governement’s way while the sham election takes place in 2010.  Coincidence, or part of the government’s plan?

The illegal government (which makes having an uninvited, unreported overnight house guest a crime and commits crimes against humanity, not fearing any reaction stronger than more words from Asean or the UN), has allowed some diplomats and some journalists (without cameras) to be present for the moment.

Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2100 other political prisoners remain inprisoned for crimes such as trying to help those who suffered from the devastation of Cyclone Nargis, or participating in protests against the regime that has used raped, murder, forced relocation, and forced labor against them for decades.

Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and taken to prison because an uninvited American swam across a lake and stayed at her house, refusing to leave.  Coincidence?  Or set up by the Burmese government– an excuse to extend her illegal detention, which was set to expire?  The Nobel Prize winner, who has spent more than 11 of the last 19 years under house arrest, has been taken to Insein prison to await trial.  (see details).

Burma Campaign UK has a letter writing link set up…please speak out.  She is the victim, not the criminal.  She could spend the rest of her life in prison because of this incident.  Please ask the UN to send high level envoys to request her release and that of other political prisoners.  She has already spent 13 years and 202 days in detention and committed no crime.  Her detention has been declared illegal under international law.  As she has said before, “Please use your freedom to speak for ours.”

The US Campaign for Burma blog (see link below) lists the growing number of people in Burma being arrested for simple things like blogging, using a computer, doing a comedy routine, speaking for justice-and facing prison sentences of up to 65 years for it.   http://doiyeh.wordpress.com/  

More hidden from view, is the ongoing military oppression and human rights abuses going on in the ethnic areas of Burma.  (For current documentation and pictures, see the Free Burma Rangers site, and the Karen Human Rights Group site).  

Each Sunday afternoon when we go down to Kent to church with our refugee friends from Burma, I am reminded that this is people’s stories being shown on these sites above.  This is not a news item.  These people I try to converse with in spite of language barriers are people who fled those kind of injustices and are trying to make a new life for their children in a country where they hope for all the same things for their kids we do for ours.   Everyone comes with a story and a history and a dream.  

One of the most powerful moments for me, in visiting a refugee camp the 1st time, was when we were leaving, and an older gentleman shook my hand and said, “Please do not forget us.”  Several years later, we were in another camp, and through an interpreter, we asked the headman what he would like the people to in America to know.  He said that they pray for us, that we will not forget them, and that we will use our freedom to speak for theirs.

God help us never to forget those around the world longing for the same thing.