Myanmar elections will be watched locally

August 16, 2010

The ruling military junta of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (formerly Burma) announced the first elections in the country for 20 years will be held in November and the Burmese community in Cranbrook and Kimberley will be watching carefully.

Shauna Jimenez with East Kootenay Friends of Burma (EKFOB), said they do not have any expectations the elections will be fair.

"It's a complete bogus sham because the people elected Aung San Suu Kyi, that's who the people still want and if she's not in the election then it's not a fair election," she said. "It will just be the horrible regime running the place now who are the only possible winners. It's totally skewed."

East Kootenay Friends of Burma has been bringing refugees into this area for 14 years, many of them from Myanmar, although they have also sponsored people to come here from Colombia and Eritrea.

The elections on Nov. 7 were announced Friday and have been dismissed by many as a sham designed to cement military rule. Foreign governments have urged Myanmar to ensure the elections include Aung San Suu Kyi, whose pro-democracy party won a landslide victory in 1990. Myanmar's military junta refused to honour those results and she has been locked away, mostly under house arrest, for 15 of the past 21 years. The election date comes days before her current term of house arrest is due to expire on Nov. 13.

Jimenez said the refugees still care very much for their home country and would like to see conditions improve there.

"They still care about their country and are still dedicated to democracy there one day," she said. "I wish there was a lot more pressure being put on the Canadian government to make sure Aung San Suu Kyi is free first of all and that she and her party (the National League for Democracy party) are in the elections."

EKFOB will continue to sponsor refugees to come to Kimberley and Cranbrook and Jimenez said they will be mainly focused on bringing people Karen hill tribe (indigenous people from Myanmar) people and people from Eritrea here.

Right now the group is working on bringing to Kimberley family members of the most recent refugees from Myanmar, who are Karen. Jimenez said she they hope they will arrive within the next year. She said she would like to see the government of Canada do more to help refugees from Myanmar.

"What really disappoints me is that the Canadian government, which did do a good job for a little while - they sponsored two or three thousand Karen hill tribe refugees - but now they aren't sponsoring anymore refugees from Burma, which breaks my heart," Jimenez said. "So what we're trying to do to counteract the Canadian government's lack of action around helping refugees is privately sponsor them, which means you and me have to buck up for them for the first year. That's what we can do, privately sponsor people from Burma, and these are people who have been in refugee camps for over 10 years.

"These are people who deserve a chance for freedom and have never done any crimes, just been victims of the Burmese military and would like a new start."

Jimenez said the group is always looking for more donations to help with the refugees coming in as they are responsible for them for the first year financially. EKFOB is a charitable society and can issue tax receipts and anyone wishing to help them in this way can call Shauna Jimenez at 250-422-3259. They are also always looking for volunteers to help the refugees get settled.

"It's wonderful because you can see first hand you're making a giant change in someone's new start to a new life," she said.(By BONNIE BRYAN bonnie@dailytownsman.com)