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RESOLVED, That the San Francisco Board of Supervisors commends the people of Burma (now also known as Myanmar) for their 46 years of struggle against a brutal dictatorship, and honors the 20th Anniversary of the 1988 popular uprising in Burma by declaring August 8, 2008 as "Burma Day" and further declare August 8 as Annual Burma Day; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to San Francisco's Congressional delegation with requests to forward the Resolution to Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman, State Peace and Development Council of Burma; President Hu Jintao of People's Republic of China; Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh of India; Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand; President Lee Myung-bak of Republic of Korea; Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan and President George W. Bush of the United States, by way of their Missions to the United Nations, as well as to the Board of Directors of the Chevron and Daewoo corporations; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to President George W. Bush urging him not to attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in protest of China's refusal to meet its promises to the international community to cease human rights abuses in Burma, Tibet, Darfur and inside China; to provide U.S. aid with or without permission from Burma's military; and to take affirmative diplomatic measures to persuade China and Russia to vote on the United Nations Security Council in support of aid to the Burmese people and for the protection of their human rights; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to the President of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, Liu Qi; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to: the United Nations Secretary General, The Honorable Ban Ki-Moon; the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Honorable Louise Arbour; and the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations for Political Affairs, the Honorable Ibrahim Gambari; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to the Olympic TOP Partners (sponsors): Coca-Cola, McDonald's, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Visa, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Manulife Financial, Atos Origin, and Omega, communicating the City of San Francisco's opposition to human rights violations by the government of the People's Republic of China and its opposition to the political cover that these companies give the Chinese government through their sponsorship of the Olympics in China.
Thanks,-----------------
1. San Francisco to vote on Burma Day Resolution on July 15
2. Board of Supervisors to contact for its passage
3. Background information on Burma related resolutions in the Bay Area
4. The text
of the Burma Day Resolution
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1. San
Francisco to vote on Burma Day Resolution
Supervisor Tom Ammiano has
introduced the Burma Day Resolution to the San Francisco City Board of
Supervisors at the July 8, 2008 meeting. The resolution will be voted by the
whole Board at the July 15, 2008 meeting on coming Tuesday. If approved, the City of San Francisco
shall declare August 8, 2008
as Burma Day (and August 8 as Annual Burma Day) in honor of the 20th
Anniversary of the people of Burma’s 1988 popular uprising against Burma’s
military regime.
The July 15 full Board meeting will be held in the Legislative Chamber - Second
Floor; and it will start at 2 pm. Burma Day is at the agenda item 115 as follows:
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115. 080970
[Burma Day - August 8, 2008] Supervisor Ammiano
Resolution declaring August 8th "Burma Day" in San Francisco in honor of the
20th anniversary of the people of Burma's 1988 popular uprising against
Burma's military regime.
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View July 15 Agenda online at the City Website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_page.asp?id=84251
Download the resolution in PDF file format:
http://www.badasf.org/2008/BurmaDay/080970-BurmaDayResolution.pdf
2. Contact Your Board of Supervisors and request to support its passage
Please contact your San Francisco Board of Supervisors before Tuesday July 15 Board meeting and request them to support the passage of the Burma Day Resolution sponsored by the Supervisor Tom Ammiano.
Aaron Peskin
<http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=4637> *
District 3 / * Board President
(415) 554-7450 - voice
(415) 554-7454 - fax
Aaron.Peskin@sfgov.org
Jake McGoldrick <http://www.sfgov.org/mcgoldrick>
District 1
415) 554-7410 - voice
(415) 554-7415 - fax
Jake.McGoldrick@sfgov.org
Michela Alioto-Pier <http://www.sfgov.org/alioto-pier>
District 2
(415) 554-7752 - voice
(415) 554-7843 - fax
Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
Carmen Chu <http://www.sfgov.org/chu>
District 4
415) 554-7460 - voice
(415) 554-7432 - fax
Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org
Ross Mirkarimi <http://www.sfgov.org/mirkarimi>
District 5
(415) 554-7630 - voice
(415) 554-7634 - fax
Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org
Chris Daly <http://www.sfgov.org/daly>
District 6
415-554-7970
chris.daly@sfgov.org
Sean Elsbernd <http://www.sfgov.org/elsbernd>
District 7
(415) 554-6516 - voice
(415) 554-6546 - fax
Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org
Bevan Dufty <http://www.sfgov.org/dufty>
District 8
(415) 554-6968 - voice
(415) 554-6909 - fax
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
[The resolution sponsor; no need to ask for support, but to thank]
Tom Ammiano <http://www.sfgov.org/ammiano>
District 9 //
(415) 554-5144 - voice
(415) 554-6255 - fax
Tom.Ammiano@sfgov.org
Sophie Maxwell <http://www.sfgov.org/maxwell>
District 10
415) 554-7670 - voice
(415) 554-7674 - fax
Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org
Gerardo Sandoval <http://www.sfgov.org/sandoval>
District 11
Gerardo.Sandoval@sfgov.org
(415) 554-6975
Fax: (415) 554-6979
3. Background information on Burma related resolutions in the Bay Area
The city of Berkeley has already passed the Burma Day Resolution unanimously by consent on Tuesday, June 10, 2008. Besides declaring the August 8, 2008 as Burma Day, the city of Berkeley will fly the Burmese flag annually on August 8 until a genuine democratic government has been established in Burma. (More information: http://www.badasf.org/2008/BurmaDay.htm)
The Burma Day resolution introduced to the City of San Francisco is similar to the Berkeley's Burma Day resolution with one notable difference: Berkeley will fly Burmese Flag on August 8 annually, but the City of San Francisco shall declare it as Annual Burma Day.
The cities in the San Francisco Bay Area have the history of passing the resolutions in support of people's struggle for freedom in Burma. One important trend: Berkeley is always the first to initiate the resolutions while San Francisco is always there to follow suite. For example, last October after the crackdowns against peaceful protests in Burma, the City of San Francisco passed the Burma Resolution Urging Neighboring Nations and Major Investors to Defend Peaceful Pro-Democracy Demonstrators in Burma. It was of course after a similar resolution was introduced to the city of Berkeley.
Similarly, in 2005, both Berkeley and San Francisco declared June 19 as Aung San Suu Kyi Day to honor her 60th birthday. Recently, after the Cyclone in Burma, the City of Palo Alto has passed a Burma Resolution urging the Untied Sates Government to continue pressuring Burmese Junta. (More information: http://www.badasf.org/2008/BurmaResolution.htm).
The most visible impact as a result of San Francisco Bay Area cities passing such Burma Resolutions occurred in April of 1996 --- the pull out of Pepsi Cola from Burma. As always, Berkeley was the first city to approve the Burma Selective Purchasing Law on February, 28 1995. Forteen months later, San Francisco approved the similar law on April 22, 1996 (and Oakland approved it on April 23, the following day) effectively baring its purchasing agents from buying goods or services from companies that do business in Burma. On April 25, 1996 Pepsi-Cola announced its partial pull out followed by a complete divestment from Burma in 1997. More information: http://www.burmalibrary.org/reg.burma/archives/199612/msg00291.html and http://www.irrawaddy.org/research_show.php?art_id=457 )
The text of the Burma Day Resolution
The following is the final text for Burma Day Resolution that we have submitted to the Tom Ammiano office. For accuracy always rely on the actual resolution here: http://www.badasf.org/2008/BurmaDay/080970-BurmaDayResolution.pdf
[Burma Day]
Resolution declaring August 8th “Burma Day” in San Francisco in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the people of Burma’s 1988 popular uprising against Burma’s military regime.
WHEREAS, August 8, 2008 is the 20th anniversary of the nationwide Burmese democracy uprising known by its date, 8/8/88, when the people of Burma took to the streets to peacefully protest the increasingly repressive rule of the then 26 year-old military regime, which brutally crushed the 8/8/88 pro-democracy movement, killing more than 3,000 people and arresting, torturing, and imprisoning thousands more; and,
WHEREAS, The people of Burma and their supporters around the world annually commemorate the 8/8/88 uprising on August 8th to honor and pay tribute to the thousands who were killed and to remind the world of the need to liberate the 50 million Burmese people from the dictatorship in Burma; and,
WHEREAS, In response to the 1988 uprising, the dictators held elections, but when the National League for Democracy (NLD) won 88% of the vote, the government arrested and imprisoned the democratically elected leaders, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the General Secretary of NLD (who subsequently received the United States Congressional Gold Medal on May 8, 2008 (H.R. 4286) in recognition of her courageous and unwavering commitment to peace, nonviolence, human rights, and democracy in Burma); and,
WHEREAS, In August and September 2007, the people of Burma, led by Buddhist monks, took to the streets in peaceful demonstration to protest intolerable economic conditions resulting from a sudden 500% increase in fuel prices. The military regime killed hundreds of peaceful protesters and arrested, imprisoned, and tortured many thousands more including Buddhist monks. The violent actions taken against the peaceful protests were reported by Human Rights Watch (See December 2007 Report "Repression of the 2007 Popular Protest in Burma"), Amnesty International (See November 2007 briefing paper "No Return to 'Normal’”), and the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, based on numerous first-hand accounts by victims and eye-witnesses of: shootings, beatings, and killings of protesters and monks, monasteries being raided, arbitrary detentions and disappearances, torture, cruel and degrading treatment, and restraints on political activity and access to the media; and,
WHEREAS, On October 11, 2007, the UN Security Council, in a statement read by President Leslie Kojo Christian, deplored violence used against Burmese demonstrators and stressed the importance of releasing all political prisoners and the need for the Burmese military regime to create the necessary conditions for a "genuine" dialogue with all concerned parties and ethnic groups. It welcomed the regime's public commitment to work with the UN and the liaison officer, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but stressed the importance of follow-up action. However, none of the Security Council's concerns have been adequately acted upon by the military regime; and,
WHEREAS, During a mission to Burma in November 2007, the UN Special Rapporteur was denied access to the Ye Way municipal crematorium in Yangon where he had received reports of a large number of bodies – including some with shaved heads, indicating monks—being burned during the nights of September 27-29th. Amnesty International also indicated reports of secret cremation of bodies during the crackdown; and,
WHEREAS, in its report to the Security Council and its Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, the UN Secretary General expressed deep concerns regarding child-soldiers in Burma and urged the Burmese government to take action to stop the practice of using children to serve as soldiers in Burma (See November 2007 “Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Myanmar”–the first report on a nation prepared in accordance with the provisions of UN Resolution 1612 (2005)); and,
WHEREAS, the Burmese Army has the world's highest number of child-soldiers with more than fifty percent of its new recruits under the age of 18 years old and the Burmese Army practices kidnapping and other forms of forced service (See October 2007 Human Rights Watch article entitled, "Sold to Be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma”); and,
WHEREAS, Myanmar (Burmese) authorities failed to implement Resolution S-5/1 of October 2, 2007, passed by the Special Session of the Human Rights Council calling on the Myanmar government to, inter alia, "release without delay those arrested and detained as a result of the recent repression of peaceful protests, as well as to release all political detainees in Myanmar, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and to ensure that conditions of detention meet international standards and include the possibility of visiting any detainee"; and,
WHEREAS, The Burmese military regime ignores the will of the people, of the international community, and of the UN Security Council, by continuing to detain Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 1,200 political prisoners, and by forging ahead with its "Road Map to Democracy," which is widely viewed as an undemocratic attempt to further entrench military rule in Burma, to erase the results of the 1990 elections, and to prevent Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders from ever taking power; and,
WHEREAS, On March 21, 2008, labor rights activists and members of the main opposition party, NLD, in Burma urged the International Labor Organization (ILO) to take effective action on complaints about forced labor allegedly carried out by the Burmese military regime. Despite decades of continuous effort by the ILO to end the world's worst forced labor in Burma—including adopting a Resolution in 2000 under Article 33 of the ILO Constitution calling on ILO constituents and other agencies to review their relations with Burma and take appropriate action, a first ever invocation of Article 33 by the ILO against a member country in the ILO history—the Burmese military continues to exercise forced labor and child labor including harshly punishing those who complain to the ILO; and,
WHEREAS, According to UN reports, Burma is now the poorest country in Southeast Asia. The population spends approximately 75% of household income on food; one in three children under the age of five does not complete primary school; and the per capita Gross Domestic Product is less than half that of Bangladesh or Cambodia; and,
WHEREAS, numerous Housing, Land and Property (HLP) rights violations by the military regime have effectively displaced millions of Burmese people within Burma rendering them homeless or seeking refuge in neighboring countries (See the November 2007 Country Report entitled, "Burma: Displacement and Dispossession: forced migration and land rights" by the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)); and,
WHEREAS, As reported in the Boston Globe on April 26, 2008, "[t]he regime has announced plans to hold a 'referendum' on May 10 on a new constitution that conveniently disqualifies Nobel Prize laureate and democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from running in future elections. The penalty for opposing the draft constitution is life in prison" (See "New Urgency in Burma" by Michael Green). Regarding the life imprisonment punishment for opposing the draft constitution, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma, commented, "How can you have a referendum when you repress those who intend to say no? The process is completely surreal"; and,
WHEREAS, The May 2, 2008 natural disaster, tropical cyclone, Nargis, was compounded by the criminal negligence of the Myanmar regime, which refused to allow relief aid and workers prompt access to those in need and proceeded with the May 10th election despite this tragedy while criminalizing opposition to the referendum. According to UN estimates, by May 10th no help had reached 80% of those in need, yet the junta focused on the referendum for which some survivors were expelled from shelters to turn them into polling stations. CNN reported that the regime had seized aid shipments, put their names on the boxes, and redistributed them selectively. For these reasons, France insisted that aid be delivered directly to those in need, with help from non-governmental organizations, rather than by Myanmar's soldiers. On May 7th, this plan was rebuffed by China, Vietnam, South Africa, and Russia. By May 14th, the UN increased its estimate of those severely affected by Burma's cyclone to 2.5 million people; and,
WHEREAS, On May 30, 2008, the United Nations Children’s Fund said, “The military government in Burma, also known as Myanmar, is removing cyclone victims from refugee camps and dumping them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies”; and,
WHEREAS, On June 3, 2008, the New York Times reported that one month after a powerful cyclone struck Myanmar and 10 days after the ruling junta’s leader promised full access to the hardest-hit areas, relief agencies said that they were still having difficulty reaching hundreds of thousands of survivors in urgent need of assistance; and,
WHEREAS, Amnesty International’s report released on June 6, 2008 denounced the junta's forcible evictions of cyclone survivors from schools and monasteries where they had taken shelter, stating: “Amnesty International has been able to confirm over 30 instances and accounts of forcible displacement by the [military regime] in the aftermath of the cyclone, but anecdotal evidence from numerous sources strongly suggests a much higher number"; and,
WHEREAS, The Chinese government supports the Burmese military regime and vetoed a draft resolution before the UN Security Council on January 12, 2007 calling on the government of Burma to respect human rights and begin a democratic transition; and,
WHEREAS, The Chinese government has sold billions of dollars worth of arms to the Burmese regime that have been used to terrorize its own civilian population—including women, children, nuns and monks—by destroying more than 3,000 villages and creating one million internally displaced people and nearly two million refugees in neighboring countries; and,
WHEREAS, The Chinese Government continues to block the UN Security Council from taking concrete measures towards resolving the situation in Burma through a binding resolution calling for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, establishing a comprehensive arms embargo, and/or enforcing strong collective and comprehensive economic and financial sanctions; and,
WHEREAS, The people of Burma live in darkness due to electricity shortages while the Chinese government builds the Shwe Gas pipeline in western Burma that will channel Burma's gas at cut-rate prices to China's Yunan province to support China's burgeoning economy. The pipeline will provide billions of dollars to the Burmese military regime, which has reduced Burma to one of the poorest countries in the world even though Burma is among the richest in the region in natural resources; and,
WHEREAS, As a UN Member State since October 25, 1971, the People's Republic of China pledged to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to achieve the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, however, China contributes to the brutal treatment of 50 million Burmese people through its military, economic, and diplomatic support of Burma's military regime. Moreover, the Chinese government continually blocks the strong and collective comprehensive measures at the UN Security Council, which might otherwise be the most likely means of reversing the military regime’s grip on power; and,
WHEREAS, August 8, 2008 is (in addition to being the 20th anniversary of the nationwide Burmese democracy uprising) the opening day of the Olympics Games in Beijing, which has been protested extensively worldwide and in the United States, including San Francisco, and is expected to be boycotted during the opening ceremonies by many world leaders including some in the European Union, due in part to China’s support of the Burmese regime; and,
WHEREAS, The Olympic Charter sets forth the conditions for the celebration of the Olympic Games and codifies the fundamental principles of Olympism. One fundamental goal is to place sports at the service of the harmonious development of humankind with a view to promote a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. China's bid to host the 2008 Olympics was granted by the international community based on a pledge made by President of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, Liu Qi, who stated, "To make the national capital peaceful and orderly, people must have a means of voicing their opinions, and the mechanism for solving social problems at the grassroots level will be improved"; and,
WHEREAS, the United States House Representatives, Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Joseph Pitts (PA), Eleana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Thaddeus McCotter (MA), John Doolittle (CA), Dan Burton (Ind.), Frank Wolf (VA), and Christopher Smith (NJ) co-sponsored House Resolution 610 (August 2007), which calls for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games because of on-going human rights violations in China; and,
WHEREAS, In October 2007, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a Resolution urging the people of San Francisco and the governments of China, Japan, and the United States to take action in defense of the peaceful demonstrators of Burma/Myanmar; and,
WHEREAS, In 2005, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a Resolution declaring June 19, 2005 “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Day” in recognition of the 60th birthday of Ms. Suu Kyi and the efforts of the Burmese/Myanmar people to reclaim their human rights and democracy, following other Resolutions adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 1999 against the repressive regime of Burma/Myanmar; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the San Francisco Board of Supervisors commends the people of Burma (now also known as Myanmar) for their 46 years of struggle against a brutal dictatorship, and honors the 20th Anniversary of the 1988 popular uprising in Burma by declaring August 8, 2008 as “Burma Day” and further declare August 8 as Annual Burma Day; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to San Francisco's Congressional delegation with requests to forward the Resolution to Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman, State Peace and Development Council of Burma; President Hu Jintao of People’s Republic of China; Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh of India; Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand; President Lee Myung-bak of Republic of Korea; Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan and President George W. Bush of the United States, by way of their Missions to the United Nations, as well as to the Board of Directors of the Chevron and Daewoo corporations; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to President George W. Bush urging him not to attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in protest of China's refusal to meet its promises to the international community to cease human rights abuses in Burma, Tibet, Darfur and inside China; to provide U.S. aid with or without permission from Burma’s military; and to take affirmative diplomatic measures to persuade China and Russia to vote on the United Nations Security Council in support of aid to the Burmese people and for the protection of their human rights; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to the President of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, Liu Qi; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to: the United Nations Secretary General, The Honorable Ban Ki-Moon; the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Honorable Louise Arbour; and the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations for Political Affairs, the Honorable Ibrahim Gambari; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Office of the Clerk of the Board shall send this Resolution to the Olympic TOP Partners (sponsors): Coca-Cola, McDonald's, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Visa, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Manulife Financial, Atos Origin, and Omega, communicating the City of San Francisco's opposition to human rights violations by the government of the People's Republic of China and its opposition to the political cover that these companies give the Chinese government through their sponsorship of the Olympics in China.
Thanks,
Nyunt Than
www.badasf.org
510 220 1323 (Cell)