Burma Coalition Bumps Up Efforts

The Burma 88 Coalition, a humanitarian organization of Columbia students formed in the fall of 2006, has redoubled its activity this semester since the Saffron Revolution in Burma last September.

The coalition is headed by a coordinating committee of 11 students and a core group of nearly 20. Its e-mail listserv reaches 140 people and will likely continue to grow in the months to come, as the group plans to apply for official recognition from the Student Governing Board.

Geoffrey Aung and Emily Gayong Setton, both CC ’08, formed the group in fall 2006 as a “human rights and democracy promotion and advocacy organization for Burma,” which is ruled by a military dictatorship and has been racked for over 40 years by what Aung described as “the longest-running armed conflict in the world.”

The group members originally organized their events through Columbia’s chapter of Amnesty International, but eventually decided that they had developed enough of their own ideas and events to warrant having a separate group, according to Aung.

The group advocates a democratic Burmese government and calls for the release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s opposition leader who is currently under house arrest.

Setton compared the Burmese crisis to the situation in Darfur, which has received far more media and public attention.

“A total of 3,200 villages have been destroyed, which is significantly more than in Darfur, but most people haven’t heard about it,” she said.

The coalition’s first event was a symposium and film festival in the fall of 2006, followed by the creation of a temporary art gallery in Columbia’s Potluck House to raise money for a school in eastern Burma. Last September, activity increased sharply when a group of Burmese monks launched the nonviolent “Saffron Revolution” against the military dictatorship, garnering intense coverage from international media.

“It was kind of amazing, when the monks came out and the citizens came out to protest—it was incredible how much media attention that got, and that really resonated a lot with the international community,” Setton said.

On campus, the group organized almost daily vigils in front of Butler Library, which they sustained for about two weeks, and held a teach-in on the history of the conflict and the current upsurge in activity.

Most recently, several core members of the coalition attended the U.S. Campaign for Burma conference in Washington, DC held this past weekend. Currently, the group is working to raise awareness about Columbia’s investment in the energy company Chevron, a sponsor of the military regime.

“We feel ourselves to be part of not only a national movement but an international movement,” Setton said.

maggie.astor@columbiaspectator.com