Freedom
Writ Large
By John Pilger
29 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
This is John Pilger's
address to a London meeting, 'Freedom Writ Large', organized by PEN
and the Writers Network of Burma, on October 25.
Thank you PEN for asking me to
speak at this very important meeting tonight. I join you in paying tribute
to Burma's writers, whose struggle is almost beyond our imagination.
They remind us, once again, of the sheer power of words. I think of
the poets Aung Than and Zeya Aung. I think of U Win Tin, a journalist,
who makes ink out of brick powder on the walls of his prison cell and
writes with a pen made from a bamboo mat – at the age of 77. These
are the bravest of the brave.
And what honor they bring
to humanity with their struggle; and what shame they bring to those
whose hypocrisy and silence helps to feed the monster that rules Burma.
I had planned tonight to
read from my last interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, but I decided not
to – because of something Suu Kyi said to me when I last spoke
to her. "Be careful of media fashion," she said. "The
media like this sentimental version of life that reduces everything
down to personality. Too often this can be a distraction."
I thought about that, and
how typically self effacing she was, and how right she was.
In my view, the greatest
distraction is the hypocrisy of those political figures in the democratic
West, who claim to support the Burmese liberation struggle. Laura Bush
and Condoleezza Rice come to mind.
"The United States," said Rice, "is determined to keep
an international focus on the travesty that is taking place in Burma."
What she is less keen to
keep a focus on is that the huge American company, Chevron, on whose
board of directors she sat, is part of a consortium with the junta and
the French company, Total, that operates in Burma's offshore oil fields.
The gas from these fields is exported through a pipeline that was built
with forced labor and whose construction involved Halliburton, of which
Vice President Cheney was Chief Executive.
For many years, the Foreign
Office in London promoted business as usual in Burma. When I interviewed
Suu Kyi I read her a Foreign Office press release that said, "Through
commercial contacts with democratic nations such as Britain, the Burmese
people will gain experience of democratic principles."
She smiled sardonically and
said, "Not a bit of it."
In Britain, the official
public relations line has changed, but the substance of compliance and
collusion has not. British tour firms – like Orient Express and
Asean Explorer – are able to make a handsome profit on the suffering
of the Burmese people. Aquatic – a sort of mini Halliburton –
has its snout in the same trough, together with Rolls Royce and all
those posh companies that make a nice earner from Burmese teak.
When the last month's uprising
broke out, Gordon Brown referred to the sanctity of what he called "universal
principles of human rights". He has said something similar a letter
sent to this meeting tonight. It is his theme of distraction. I urge
you not be distracted.
When did Brown or Blair ever
use their close connections with business – their platforms at
the CBI and in the City London – to name and shame these companies
that make money on the back of the Burmese people? When did a British
prime minister call for the European Union to plug the loopholes of
arms supply to Burma, stopping, for example, the Italians from supplying
military equipment? The reason no doubt is that the British government
is itself one of the world's leading arms suppliers, especially to regimes
at war. Tonight (October 25) the Brown government has approved the latest
American prelude to its attack on Iran and the ensuing horror and bloodshed.
When did a British prime
minister call on its ally and client, Israel, to end its long and sinister
relationship with the Burmese junta. Or does Israel's immunity and impunity
also cover its supply of weapons technology to Burma and its reported
training of the junta's most feared internal security thugs? Of course,
that is not unusual. The Australian government – so vocal lately
in its condemnation of the junta – has not stopped the Australian
Federal Police from training Burma's internal security forces in at
the Australian-funded Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation in Indonesia.
There are many more of these
grand, liberal hypocrites; and we who care for freedom in Burma should
not be distracted by the posturing and weasel pronouncements of our
leaders, who themselves should be called to account as accomplices –
unless and until their fine words are matched by deeds that make a genuine
difference and they themselves stop destroying lives. We owe that vigilance
and that truth to Aung San Suu Kyi, to Burma's writers and to all the
other bravest of the brave.
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