Say a prayer

No matter what your religious persuasion, say a little prayer for Aung San Suu Kyi, the noble Burmese opposition leader  who has spent thirteen of the last nineteen years under house arrest without the benefit of a trial. She is in very grave health. Kyi is battling dehydration and blood pressure problems and is hooked up to an i.v..  She has been granted only limited access to medical care.

The Noble Prize winner has not eaten for the last three or four days.  Her party won the most recent real election in 1990 but the result was not accepted by the brutal and repressive military junta which has ruled Myanmar since 1962. Suu Kyi's Doctor, Tin Myo Win, was detained for questioning by the authorities Thursday evening.

Kyi, 63 years old, has been a tireless advocate of  human rights and nonviolent democracy. We who have the freedom to dissent must not forget the huge numbers of people on our planet who live under the shadow of truly brutal repression and violence.

Link to her website here.

Link to a website of international companies that do business with Myanmar here.

In The Quiet Land

(By Daw Aung San Suu Kyi)

In the Quiet Land, no one can tell
if there's someone who's listening
for secrets they can sell.
The informers are paid in the blood of the land
and no one dares speak what the tyrants won't stand.

In the quiet land of Burma,
no one laughs and no one thinks out loud.
In the quiet land of Burma,
you can hear it in the silence of the crowd

In the Quiet Land, no one can say
when the soldiers are coming
to carry them away.
The Chinese want a road; the French want the oil;
the Thais take the timber; and SLORC takes the spoils...

In the Quiet Land....
In the Quiet Land, no one can hear
what is silenced by murder
and covered up with fear.
But, despite what is forced, freedom's a sound
that liars can't fake and no shouting can drown.