I am writing to you in your capacity as Chinese President, as China has been Burma’s main trading partner and arms supplier. I am writing to urge you to compel Burma towards valid national reconciliation.

Burma’s military regime has been showing its true colors, firing automatic weapons at peaceful demonstrators and raiding monasteries, brutally attacking the monks and people, killing many. But the regime’s criminal disdain for human rights has also cast a harsh light on China, the principal commercial partner, strategic ally, and diplomatic protector of the junta. The regime has ignored pleas for restraint and responded with a brutal crackdown, reportedly killing hundreds.

The Chinese government must act immediately and impose tough economic sanctions on the regime. I urge you, as Chinese President, to ensure the government of China imposes a ban on new investment, a ban on financial transactions, an asset freeze of the regime and the generals and a ban on key imports.
Despite threats, arrests, intimidation and beatings, people in Burma continue to take to the streets in defiance of the regime. They need and deserve international support, not only in word, but also practical action. Any delay in imposing sanctions will be seen by the regime as a green light to continue killing. The Chinese government should take an action against the regime to prevent it from killing the Burmese people, monks, and the ethnic Karens, Rohingyas and Shans.

Burma is home to the world’s longest-running war. The regime has been engaged in protracted war, close to 60 years, against the ethnics Karens, Rohingyas, Shans and the junta has been targeting unarmed civilian communities. I ask you particularly to consider the immediate situation of ethnic minority civilians in eastern and western Burma who are currently facing massive regime attacks. I urge you to support a resolution from the UN Security Council that would, among other things, call for an end to attacks on these civilians, and unfettered access for humanitarian aid.

It is past time for the issue of Burma to be addressed by the UN’s most powerful body, the Security Council. A resolution on Burma must be passed at the UN Security Council today because the situation in Burma has deteriorated to the point where its political instability, widespread human rights violations, creation of over 3 million refugees, displacement of millions internally in Burma, tolerance of the production and trafficking of illegal narcotics, and indifference to the transmission of HIV/AIDS from Burma to other parts of Asia, all pose a legitimate threat to international peace and security.

I urge you to continue to make clear to the regime that the National Convention, as currently constituted, does not represent legitimate, meaningful progress. I urge you to call on the regime to release Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo, Hkun Htun Oo, and all other political prisoners, to initiate a credible and inclusive political process.

Respectfully yours,

Rafi Dwatt

Director, Head of the Burma Democracy Network
dwatt.rafi@gmail.com
burmademocracynetwork@gmail.com
http://www.burmademocracynetwork.info.ms