Author promotes human rights in Burma during campus speech

Author Edith Mirante spoke on campus last week in an effort to promote human rights in Burma. Mirante recently wrote the Burmese Looking Glass about her experiences in Burma. Mirante said that when she first visited the small South Asian country in 1980, she found a deteriorating economy and a raging civil war. "Anyone buying or selling anything was breaking the law," she said. "The black market was so bad that one could find complimentary airline soaps being sold on the street." Mirante worked to smuggle information from northern Thailand to Burmese rebel soldiers protesting the abusive government of General Ne Win, whom she said sanctioned the use of torture and rape as a military tactic in an attempt to drive the natives out of the country. "It was as if World War II had never ended in Burma," Mirante said. She blasted the Reagan administration for providing fatal chemicals containing Agent Orange to the Burmese government in order to destroy the opium fields. Ne Win used the chemicals to drive out the native hill peoples that were "a security risk to the Burmese government," according to Mirante. The author urged her audience to write letters of protest and to boycott the oil companies that drill in Burma, as well as companies like Pepsi that do business there. Looking towards the future, Mirante called for more trade embargoes and sanctions by the U.S. government. "I hope for a more human rights-given approach to foreign policy in the Clinton administration," Mirante said.