Hollywood urges UN chief to act for Myanmar's Suu Kyi
Sep 5, 2007
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Twenty-eight Hollywood celebrities have written asking UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to personally intervene to secure the release of
military-ruled Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
"We urge you to take action to secure her immediate release," said the
celebrities, including movie stars Jennifer Aniston, Dustin Hoffman, Owen
Wilson, Robin Williams, and Anjelica Huston, in their letter sent Wednesday.
The world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, 62,
has been held under house arrest in Myanmar for 11 of the past 17 years.
Her National League for Democracy won elections in 1990, but the military rulers
of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, never recognized the result.
Although she was an elected leader with her party winning 82 percent of the
seats in parliament, "the military regime cruelly locked her up along with many
members of her party," the celebrities told Ban.
They also noted that according to the UN, the military junta had burned down or
destroyed over 3,000 villages in eastern Myanmar, forcing over one million
people to flee their homes.
"This courageous, brave woman whom many call 'Burma's Nelson Mandela' should be
released and the military regime should end its attacks on civilians," they
said.
Their effort, organized by Oscar-winning actress Huston along with two groups,
the Human Rights Action Center and US Campaign for Burma, came as pro-democracy
supporters staged rare street protests against the junta in Myanmar.
Defying a clampdown on dissent that had drawn sharp condemnation from US
President George W. Bush, the protestors have been staging a series of
demonstrations against a staggering increase in fuel prices.
The almost daily protests mark the most sustained demonstrations against the
military regime in at least nine years.
"The situation inside Burma is grave, similar to that in Darfur. The silence of
the world on Aung San Suu Kyi is unconscionable," said Jeremy Woodrum,
co-founder of the US Campaign for Burma.
Aung San Suu Kyi, among about 1,200 political prisoners in Myanmar, "is a woman
that is taking on a brutal military dictatorship with nothing more than the
truth in her heart and the support of her people," said Jack Healey, founder of
the Human Rights Action Center.
Two of the signatories, Hollywood stars Eric Szmanda from the television show
"Crime Scene Investigation" and Walter Koenig from "Star Trek," recently
traveled to refugee camps on the Thailand-Myanmar border to press for more UN
help.
Huston became interested in Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar after learning about
the situation from Healey.
Her father, the director John Huston, led efforts against McCarthyism -- a
period of extreme anti-communist suspicion inspired by the tensions of the Cold
War -- in 1950s Hollywood.
In Alphabetical Order
Jennifer Aniston
Anne Archer
Kabir Bedi
Julie Benz
Jane Birkin
Jim Carrey
Jorja Fox
Kris Hahn
Jack Healey
Dustin Hoffman
Anjelica Huston
Eddie Izzard
Mimi Kennedy
Walter Koenig
Christine Lahti
Padma Lakshmi
Laura Linney
Jimmy Miller
Damien Rice
Christina Ricci
Susan Sarandon
Liev Schreiber
Jason Schwartzman
Eric Szmanda
Bonnie Timmerman
Robin Williams
Owen Wilson
Elijah Wood
Robin Wright
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