Posted on 06/15/2005 9:11:52 PM PDT by HAL9000
The Associated Press -BANGKOK, Thailand - The Georgia-based rock band R.E.M. will broadcast a song dedicated to Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi into the military-ruled country via satellite television to mark her 60th birthday, a U.S.-based activist group said.
The group will perform the unspecified song for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at its June 19 concert in Dublin, Ireland, and air it inside Myanmar though an Oslo-based dissident television station, the U.S. Campaign for Burma said in a statement dated Wednesday.
Myanmar was formerly known as Burma.
The broadcast is part of a series of global events, including protests at Myanmar embassies and the release of a song by Irish musician Damien Rice, scheduled for Sunday to draw attention to Suu Kyi's plight as she marks her 60th birthday and 2,523rd day under military detention.
Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy party, was detained most recently after a mob of junta sympathizers attacked her convoy while she was on a political tour of northern Myanmar more than two years ago.
She has remained under house arrest at her family's compound, which is sealed off around the clock by security forces in the Myanmar capital of Yangon.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current regime seized power in 1988 after brutally crushing a pro-democracy uprising. The junta held elections in 1990, but refused to cede power when Suu Kyi's party won overwhelmingly.
Although the junta periodically releases political prisoners, more than 1,300 are estimated to remain in its jails, including many who are old and in poor health.
R.E.M., which became a fixture of the Athens, Ga., rock scene in the 1980s and later rose to international fame, will speak about Suu Kyi onstage at their Dublin concert, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
"Her dedication, resolve, courage and patience are the mark of a leader," the band's lead singer, Michael Stipe, was quoted as saying. "We stand tall for her, as she will again stand tall for herself."
That part of the performance will be broadcast in Myanmar, where there are an estimated 2 million satellite dishes believed to reach up to 10 million of the country's 53 million people, through a station operated by the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Oslo-based dissident group.
To me...REM..means Rapid Eye Movement..and that's it.
To me it Really E-Noying Music
"Myanmar was formerly known as Burma."
It is still known as Burma to the U.S.
: )
Michael Stipe is like deep and stuff....
I'm glad Aung San Suu Kyi is getting attention
... staged by affluent celebrities from their limousines. Well, not the celebrities themselves, exactly, but their publicists are darn concerned about those poor people or whatever.
I'm sure Aung San Suu Kyi appreciates the serenade, but she could really use 7 or 8 motivated SEALS, not a bunch of carrot-munchin' girlie boys.
I don't think the Myanmar government will lose any sleep over it.
Saw an interview with stipe some years ago. He was wearing a skirt and said that he refused to be labelled heterosexual or homo. Haven't listened to them since. I'll bet Suu Kyi is emboldened to know that a cross dressing girlie man has got her back. Then again maybe he doesn't, I mean, not that way, but,the other, sorta. These things are so confusing.
Impress me, Mikey.
Fortunately, the people listening to the radio in Burma won't see the skirt. I hope they get the message about democracy.
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