For Immediate Release: March 26th, 2006
Contact: Jeremy Woodrum and Aung Din (202) 223-0300
(office) or (202) 246 7924

(New York/Washington,
D.C.)—Legendary musician and activist
Peter Gabriel will visit the U.S. Senate on
April 4th to host a film screening and discussion
on the need for continued support in ending
egregious human rights abuses in the Southeast
Asian country of Burma, where more than a million
people have been forcibly displaced and the
“modern-day slavery” of forced labor
prevails. Gabriel plans to press for U.S. leadership
in passing a UN Security Council resolution
on Burma.

The event, on Tuesday, April 4th at 3:00 pm
in room SC-4 of the U.S. Capitol Building, is
sponsored by WITNESS, the nonprofit human rights
organization founded by Gabriel, and the U.S.
Campaign for Burma. The event is open to the
public.

“It is long overdue for the UN Security
Council to respond to the deepening crisis in
Burma,” said Gabriel, “we need people
of conscience to act now.”

Gabriel will introduce the video “Always
on the Run: Internally Displaced People in Karen
State,” produced by WITNESS’ partner
organization Burma Issues, as well as recent
footage and testimony showing the increasingly
desperate situation inside eastern Burma. Representatives
from WITNESS and U.S. Campaign for Burma will
be available to answer questions on the situation.

“Always on the Run” captures the
fears and hopes of people caught in one of the
world’s most serious humanitarian crises—forcible
displacement in eastern Burma. Over the past
decade, Burma’s dictator Than Shwe has destroyed
2,700 villages in a brutal anti-insurgency campaign
that has left over half a million people homeless
in the country’s eastern jungles and forced
millions to flee the country. Child mortality
and malnutrition rates in eastern Burma are
now comparable to those among internally displaced
persons in the horn of Africa.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights
and General Assembly have passed 28 consecutive
resolutions condemning the atrocities. Instead
of honoring these nonbinding UN resolutions,
soldiers of Than Shwe’s military regime continue
the onslaught—in the past few weeks thousands
more persons have fled their homes in fear to
hide in the jungle, or cross into neighboring
Thailand.

Concerned about the situation in the country
and its impact on regional peace and security,
the UN Security Council considered Burma for
the first time in history in an informal briefing
on December 16th, 2005. South Africa’s
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu and
former Czech president Vaclav Havel have launched
a global campaign for the Security Council to
go further and pass a formal resolution demanding
change.The video offer insight into just one
of the reasons UN Security Council action is
merited. Reports make clear that the ruling
military junta has engaged in a deliberate policy
to repress the democracy movement led by Aung
San Suu Kyi, the world’s only imprisoned
Nobel Peace Prize recipient; and that it also
conducts a scorched earth policy against ethnic
minorities that includes the destruction of
food storage, production sources and even entire
villages. Additionally, the military junta (considered
one of the world’s most brutal military
regimes) has forcibly recruited 70,000 child
soldiers—more than any other country in
the world—forced millions into what the
International Labor Organization calls “modern
slavery,” and locked up over 1,100 political
prisoners.

Please RSVP to: info@uscampaignforburma.org
or matisse@witness.org.

The event will take place in the U.S. Capitol
Building, room SC-4. The entrance to room SC-4
is on the north side of the Capitol building.
To walk from Union Station, exit the front of
the station and walk up Delaware Avenue straight
to the Capitol Entrance. Attendees are advised
to arrive 15-20 minutes early to pass through
security checkpoints.

Contacts:
Jeremy Woodrum (US Campaign for Burma), (202)
223-0300, jeremy@uscampaignforburma.org
Matisse Bustos (WITNESS), (718) 783-2000 ext.
306, matisse@witness.org

WITNESS is a human rights organization founded
by Peter Gabriel that trains groups around the
world to use video as a tool to document and
advocate for human rights.

U.S. Campaign for Burma is an organization working
to promote international action to bring an
end to Than Shwe’s rule and promote democracy
and human rights through peaceful negotiation.

Burma Issues is a Thailand-based grassroots
organization devoted to a peaceful resolution
to Burma’s struggle for human rights that
produced the video to be screened at the event.