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Some day, perhaps soon, a democratic Burma will bear the faint stamp: “Made in Indiana.” Burmese dissidents and constitutional scholars are drafting a new constitution in Bloomington. Ties between the state and crisis-ridden Burma will intensify if things turn badly, too: Indianapolis is the major destination for refugees from Burma, and we will get a lot more if the goons in Rangoon respond as brutally as they have in the past.

When: Thursday October 4, 3:30-5:00 PM
Where: International Center of Indianapolis 32 E. Washington St. Indianapolis

In recent days tens of thousands of Burmese Buddhist monks, students and democratic activists, and ordinary citizens have taken the streets to protest an oppressive government. Why are they risking their lives? Will the Burmese government respond as brutally as it has to previous challenges? How might this crisis be resolved? What should the US government do? And what can we in Indiana do to help? Join Burmese activists and scholars from Indiana University’s Center for Constitutional Democracy in Plural Societies, US foreign policy-shapers, students and refugees from Burma, and concerned Hoosiers to discuss the current situation.

Folks in Indiana may not appreciate just how closely connected our state is with Burma. Burmese are becoming part of the fabric of our daily lives. We are one of the leading destinations for Burmese refugees, mostly Karen and Chin ethnic minorities who have been huddled in refugee camps on the Thai border.

Perhaps even more significant to the political future of Burma is an extraordinary initiative in Bloomington, the Center for Constitutional Democracy in Plural Societies (CCDPS). Burma is witnessing two rival constitutional processes. On the one hand, the military government has been promising constitutional reform for a long time, yet many doubt whether the military will ever turn power over to a freely elected government. In 1990, after losing Burma’s last election by a landslide, the military refused to convene and transfer power to the newly elected parliament. There is reason to believe, therefore, that the military may be using the constitutional process as window-dressing for its resolution to stay in power, whatever the cost: the guidelines for constitution reform the Burmese military released in September are among the least democratic in recent memory.

In opposition to the government, Burma has a broad-based democracy movement, which has recently initiated its own constitutional process with grass-roots participation from every significant association and ethnic group. At risk to its members’ lives and liberty but with broad-based participation, the movement has developed a proposed constitution that provides for democracy, federalism, and individual rights. In April of 2006, that process yielded preliminary approval for a draft constitution for Burma. The CCDPS served as consultant to that process for several years, in Bloomington and in Asia.

Thanks to the International Center of Indianapolis (”the ‘knowledge broker’ for international information in Indiana) and CCDPS, Provocate is pleased to offer this excellent opportunity to hear from individuals who not only understand the changes on the edge in Burma … they are part of the changes. See short bios of the participants coming up from Bloomington on October 4. We will also be joined by staffers from local Senate and Congressional offices, members of the Burmese community, businesspeople and academics. It will be an interesting and important discussion.

If this sounds interesting … check out the multi-media event “Burma Beautiful/Burma Brutal” on October 5. The discussion of Burma in crisis October 4 is worth clearing your Thursday afternoon schedule to attend; the event at Harrison Center for the Arts on October 5 is worth coming home early from vacation. And go to the candlelight vigil for peace and democracy in Burma at IUPUI’s Democracy Plaza at 6:30 Wednesday October 3.

May Oo (Aye) fled Burma as a high school student following the crackdown of Burma’s 8/8/88 popular revolt and took refuge in the Karen National Union-controlled areas from 1988 to 1993. In 1993 she came to the United States as a refugee and has been active in the exiles’ efforts to help bring about change in Burma. As one of the founders of the Women’s Affairs Department of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (in exile), May Oo was involved in the United Nations human rights initiatives in Geneva and New York sponsored by the UNHCR, the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW). She was elected President of the Karen National League (1997-2002), an umbrella network of five Karen organizations in North America, Australia and Thailand. She was a James J. Robinson Fellow in Graduate Legal Studies at Indiana University Law School and a Snyder Research Scholar (2002) at the Lauterpacht Research Center for International Law, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. May Oo earned B.A in Speech Communications from San Francisco State University and LL. M from Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington with the thesis titled “Governance and Public Health: Analysis on Malaria and Public Health Law in Burma.” Since coming to the U.S.A. in 1993, May Oo had made twenty four trips back to the Karen National Union-controlled areas of the Union of Burma. She has both led and or participated in many refugee community-based initiatives such as education, women empowerment, peace and reconciliation, post-conflict reconstruction, public health and so on. She has also held policy discussions with various governmental and non-governmental organizations and agencies including UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department of International Development. As Director of Communications for the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition, May Oo co-authored a comprehensive report on the political situation in Burma and prospects for national reconciliation in that country (Common Problems, Shared Responsibilities: FBC Report, 14 September 2004).

Ngun Cung “Andrew” Lian is a candidate for the SJD degree at the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington. Formerly a revolutionary soldier resisting the military government, Lian fled Burma and earned his BA from Valparaiso University and his LLM from the School of Law. In 1996, he received a Burmese Refugee Scholarship from the United States Information Agency. Since 1988, Lian has been actively working with organizations such as the Chin National Front, the Chin Human Rights Organization, the Chin Forum, the Burma Fund, and the Burma Lawyers’ Council. He has been a James J. Robinson Fellow for Graduate Legal Studies and an Earl Snyder Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University. Lian is currently completing a dissertation, “Ethnopolitical Conflict, Constitutional Crisis, and Federalism Discords in Contemporary Burma.”

Professor David C. Williams graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School after earning the Sarah Sears Prize for being first in his class. Williams then clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and taught at Cornell Law School before relocating to Indiana University in 1991. The John S. Hastings Professor of Law, Williams was named the Indiana University Distinguished Faculty Research Lecturer in 2003. He has also won the school’s Wallace Teaching Award. Williams has written widely on constitutional design, Native American Law, the constitutional treatment of difference, and the relationship between constitutionalism and political violence. He is the author of The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment: Taming Political Violence in a Constitutional Republic (Yale University Press, 2003). Williams has been meeting extensively with members of the Burmese democratic movement.

Professor Susan H. Williams graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she served as the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review and earned the John Sears Award for being second in her class. She clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and taught first at Cornell Law School. She is the Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law at Indiana, where she has taught since 1991. Williams is the recipient of the Office of Women’s Affairs Distinguished Scholar Award (2000), the Wallace Teaching Award (2004), and a Presidential Citation for Service to the Profession from the Indiana State Bar Association (2003). She has been involved in judicial education on issues of feminist theory and critical race theory, both within Indiana and nationally. She has written numerous articles on constitutional law, particularly about freedom of speech and religion, and on feminist theory. Her book, Truth, Autonomy, and Speech: Feminist Theory and the First Amendment (New York University Press), was released in the spring of 2004. Williams has participated in several meetings with members of the Burmese democratic movement.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 7:03 am and is filed under Events, Democracy, Foreign policy, Violence, Crossing borders, Law & justice, Journalism, Human and civil rights, China, Globalization, Taking action, Provocate Event, Buddhism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.