At the moment, there is a lot of press and exposure on the issue of democracy in Burma. As you may know, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate of 1992 , Aung San Suu Kyi, has been unjustly under arrest since May 30th. She had been out of prison for over a year and was building support for her party, the NLD (National League for Democracy), when the military regime imprisoned her again. The NLD won an overwhelming number of votes in the election of 1990. The military regime, however, has never upheld the results; in fact, they used the results to gather the names of the supporters and further oppress the democratic movement. Many members of the NLD have been in prison since the elections.

There is a global outrage at the detainment of Aung San Suu Kyi. On July 30th, George Bush signed the "Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act" to ban imports from Burma. The new law will also freeze the overseas assets of Burma's regime, prohibit the regime's leaders and their associates from traveling to the United States, block loans and grants from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to the regime, and increase U.S. support for Burma's democracy movement, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The new sanctions are the strongest international response yet to the regime's violent ongoing crackdown against the democracy movement and its leaders.

Visit other Burma sites for more information.

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