Freedom We Love, Freedom We Deserve
October 22nd, 2006
http://www.liberatefreedom.com/archive/2006/10/22/freedom-we-love-freedom-we-deserve/
Posted in Human Rights, Activism
My country of Burma—a poor nation of 52 million people in Southeast Asia—has suffered under harsh military rule for over four decades. It is no wonder that freedom is the most precious and desired value for people from all walks of life in Burma, especially for the political prisoners—more than 1,200 of them locked away because of their courage to speak up for freedom.
These brave men and women have been challenging the ruling military junta every day and in every way available to them, from the time of our nation’s nonviolent uprising in August of 1988. They have one goal: a tireless determination to peacefully, nonviolently, free Burma from the brutality of dictatorship—from this violence, corruption, and terror that is imposed on the people by uninformed thugs who survive only by intimidation and the gun.
Burma’s prisoners’ of conscience are the true voice of the people. Although they suffer many hardships and brutalities forced upon them in prison, their head’s are held high, and their dignity grows by the day as they struggle to gain their freedom and the liberation of our people.
We know that freedom isn’t free. Its cost is measured in the bodies of dead democracy activists, broken families and years stolen from the lives of political prisoners. Not only are we undaunted we are emboldened. We are willing to do anything—pay any price whatsoever—to establish the quality of life that only true freedom and true democracy will bring.
To this vision of freedom and respect for human rights we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world, and we say to you, we are freedom fighters, not victims. Not only do we deserve our own “freedom,” we will also do everything we can to gain the freedom for our people.
Burma’s military regime is a force that is kept together through deception and terror. It is a regime that will not last. The 1990 elections proved this point, when voting precincts in areas inhabited almost exclusively by military personnel delivered overwhelming majorities for the National League for Democracy — the political party led by the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi. Burma’s own military has absolutely no ideological commitment to the ruling junta, to the generals themselves. Knowing this, they must be terrified.
In time, like so many other dictatorships and harsh regimes that ruled by fear and violence, they too will fall.
I look forward to the day when I am able to rejoin my family and friends in Burma. I look forward to telling them that during our darkest hour, when our struggle was far from certain, when despair had almost overcome hope, that it was the freedom loving people around the world that lifted the torch of democracy and lit our path to liberation.
As Aung San Suu Kyi has said “thank you for using your liberty to help us gain our own.”
by Aung Din
(Former Political Prisoner)
Policy Director
U.S. Campaign for Burma
www.uscampaignforburma.org
