Wednesday, 23 June 2010 15:55 Perry Santanachote
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Protests outside Burma’s permanent mission to the UN in New York were victim to junta violence of a singular kind at the weekend as a staff member made a rare appearance to enter the building, but not before putting his foot on the face of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi displayed on a poster.
Burmese activists often rally in front of the mission at 10 East 77th Street, Manhattan in continuing calls for the release of Suu Kyi and the more than 2,100 political prisoners held by Burma’s military junta, but its staff almost never show their faces.
However, during a rally in honour of Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday on Saturday, the employee’s act was one activists plan to name and shame throughout the international community. For Burmese, the head is the most sacred part of the body while feet are the most inferior. Even pointing one’s foot in another’s direction is considered highly offensive, let alone this official putting his foot on the venerated leader’s face.
Rights groups Amnesty International USA and Burma Point organised the gathering at which protesters donning matching T-shirts held up posters of Suu Kyi bearing the message: “I stand with Aung San Suu Kyi.” Activists also laid 65 yellow roses in front of the steps of the mission.
The Burma mission’s response was literally a kick in her face. As the employee walked through the crowd to enter the building, he paused to sweep aside the flowers with his foot then planted it on the poster directly over Suu Kyi’s face.
“He started yelling at us to leave the compound,” Aung Moe Win, an activist who witnessed the event, said. “All of us were in shock and angered by it.”
If the affront was meant to discourage the protestors, it had the opposite effect. The crowd simply crossed the street and peacefully but loudly shouted at the people inside the white-brick embassy.
“We chanted, ‘What do you want? Suu Kyi’s freedom! When do you want it? Now!’ for about 20 minutes,” Aung Moe Win said.
After the protesters moved on to the UN building about three miles (five kilometres) across town, Khaing Aung Kyaw, leader of the International Foundation for Burma National Congress, resolved to draft a statement on the event. He condemned the staff member for kicking the picture, saying that such actions were far from good diplomatic behaviour. He said his group found the rude act utterly intolerable.
The mission failed to answer its phones out after Mizzima’s repeated attempts to contact it for comment.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
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