Dear People of Iowa,

As you may have seen on the news or read in the newspapers, the Burmese military government has brutally cracked down on the peaceful demonstrators. Even the Buddhist monks are brutally beaten and killed by the regime.

Burma, a country with 52 million people, has been ruled by the military dictatorship since 1962. Although there were changes in the leadership in the Army, the country is still under the boot of the military regime. In 1988, there was a nation-wide uprising calling for democracy. Although it has never been confirmed the exact number of victims, about 3,000 demonstrators were thought to have been killed during the uprising.

The so-called State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is still refusing to hand over the power to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won 82% of the seats in the parliamentary elections in 1990. The NLD is led by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She spent most of her life under house arrest during the last nineteen years of the struggle of democracy and freedom. She is still under house arrest now.

In August 2007, thousands of people marched on the streets of Rangoon, the former capital city, over sudden fuel price hike. In September, the Buddhist monks started peaceful demonstrations in major cities in protesting against the violent crackdown on the monks, who demonstrated peacefully in Pakokku, a town in central Burma. As the government did not honor the request by the monks to issue an apology for the inhuman act, it becomes a nation-wide uprising called the "Saffron Revolution." This is a tipping point for the restoration of democracy in Burma.

Approximately 200 people were killed in September although there is no exact death toll. Several people are still missing. As many as 3,000 people are already detained including Buddhist monks. Currently, the government continues the arrest of the demonstrators.

Please help stop brutal killings in Burma. Please use your power to bring democracy to Burma. We urge you to pressure your federal government to make stronger actions on the junta so that the Burmese tyrannical government cannot use its military forces to violently crack down on peaceful demonstrators and kill its own people cruelly.

The followings are the activities that you can do to save lives of the people in Burma.

i) Contact your local Senators as follows:

Senator Charles Grassley (R)
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C, 20510
Phone: 202-224-3744
Email: chuck_grassley@grassley.senate.gov
Website: http://grassley.senate.gov/public

Senator Tom Harkin (D)
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: 202-224-3254, Fax: 202-224-9369
Email: tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov
Website: http://harkin.senate.gov/c

ii) Spread the news to your countrymen. For update news on current situations in Burma, please visit the following websites.

Burmese Activists in Des Moines
Email: BurmeseActivistsgmail.com