The pro-democracy activists of Burma Point celebrated their 5th anniversary with a Sunday luncheon at the Win Shwe Hall in Woodside.

Moe Chan, executive director of the Committee for International Movement of Burma Point - whose strength comes from the 10,000-member Burmese community living in Woodside, Sunnyside, Elmhurst, and East Elmhurst - briefed participants on the political and social conditions in Burma, outlining the prospects for democratization and the national election scheduled for this year.

“Burma Point views that the (ruling) State Peace and Development Council’s (SPCD) delaying tactics in responding to the request of dialogue made by the national leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) leading up to the national election is not justified,” he told the crowd.

Win Hlaing, a member-elect of the Burmese parliament who, along with other members of the NLD, was not allowed by the SPDC government to take his seat in 1990, added, “We continue our 20-year struggle for democracy and human rights against a brutal military dictatorship and ask people around the world to join our fight.”

The NLD reports that the 2008 constitution drawn up by the SPCD does not insure democracy and human rights, and by setting aside 25 percent of seats in parliament for the military virtually ensures the continuing dominance of the junta in politics, despite the election. Additionally, a section on eligibility for political office would prevent Suu Kyi from competing, since she was formerly married to a foreign citizen.

“All people must participate for a free and fair election, and there must be a revision of the 2008 constitution to allow this to happen,” explained Hlaing. “Without a successful national reconciliation dialogue, I cannot support the election. So we will wait and see what happens.”

Among the NLD dialogue demands is freedom for Kyi - who has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years - and the release of over 2,000 political prisoners, many of whom have been subjected to torture, serving sentences from 50 to over 100 years.

Also there must be opportunity for opposition party candidates to freely campaign for office, and an election process meeting the standards of and supervised by the U.N. and other international monitoring groups.

Recently, President Barack Obama called for senior-level diplomatic engagement with the Burmese officials while indicating he could quickly tighten banking sanctions against Burma if talks were not fruitful.

“Yes, we support this effort,” said Hliang. “But, we remind the U.S. to approach the regime with caution. They break their promises.”

Chan said that the dialogue must address deeply entrenched and long-standing ethnic minority problems that have reached the level of genocide and crimes against humanity. .

In eastern Burma, the regime has been conducting a brutal military campaign against people of the Karen, Karenni, and Shan groups, and in northern and western Burma, the Chin and Kachin

“A recent government crackdown on ethnic Chinese minorities caused 40,000 Kachin people to flee over the border into China straining relations wit that important supporter,” alleged Chan.

Over the years, international human rights organizations have documented the vast atrocities of the Burmese regime.

For example, on December 11, 442 lawmakers from 29 countries called for a U.N. Security Council resolution “establishing a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma and imposing a global arms embargo” against the regime.

"For too many years, the Security Council has ignored widespread and systematic crimes carried about by Burma's military regime, including the destruction of over 3,300 ethnic minority villages, widespread rape of ethnic women, the forced displacement of over 1 million refugees and internally displaced persons, the recruitment of tens of thousands of child soldiers, and the prolific use of modern-day slave labor," the letter said.

"The longer the council waits, the more people in Burma will die," the document concluded.

Chan welcomed the letter.

“We encourage all such international action because it publicly pressures the regime to respond,” he said.

However, one major obstacle to Security Council action in recent years is that Russia and China have vetoed any strong measures against the Burmese regime

“For our future as a nation, we must develop trust among the various ethnic groups to work together to meet people’s basic human needs,” Chan added. “For me, the national reconciliation dialogue is most important; elections alone will not solve the problem.”