3rd Burma Forum Canada Photos

ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံ Saskatoon ၿမိဳ႕မွ ၂ဝ၁ဝ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒအား ကန္႔ကြက္ဆန္႔က်င္ဆႏၵျပပြဲ

3rd Burma Forum Canada Saskatoon Declaration, Canada

March 7, 2010



The 3rd Burma Forum Canada was successfully held from March 6 to 7, 2010 in Saskatoon, Canada. More than 50 Burmese organizational representatives including ethnic nationalities across Canada and representatives from National Coalition Government of Union of Burma (NCGUB), the Burmese government in exile, Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) and Euro-Burma Office (EBO) participated. A wide range of Burma-related issues such as international policies towards Burma, analysis on 2010 elections and possible scenarios, and the role of ethnic nationalities in the political process in Burma were discussed. The Forum participants unanimously agreed to announce the following:

Current Situations & Concerns in Burma

The Forum is increasingly concerned that the military junta continues to ignore calls by Canada and the larger international community to show concrete commitments to political reforms. The Forum is also concerned by the ongoing military offensives, and other forms of atrocities including displacement, religious persecution, politically motivated and arbitrary arrests in the context of the elections planned for later this year.

Appreciations:

1) The Forum wholeheartedly welcomes and appreciates the official announcement made at the Forum by Ms. Kelly Block (MP- Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar) on behalf of the Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation that the Government of Canada would continue support for Burmese refugees and displaced persons living in Burma's border areas in the amount of $15.9 million over five years;

2) The Forum would also like to express the deepest appreciation on strong political and financial support provided by Canadian NGO Committee (CNC) consists of Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), Rights and Democracy, Inter Pares and Primates’ World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF), and Saskatoon Burmese Community, and Euro-Burma Office (EBO), as well as other organizations and individuals who helped make this important Forum happen;

3) The Forum also thanks the Government of Canada for strong and consistent support for national reconciliation and democracy in Burma including political and economic measures against the Burmese military junta in November, 2007 and conferring the Canadian Honorary Citizenship Award to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in May, 2008.

Policy issues:


The Forum strongly believes that:

a) The 2010 elections is not a solution and will not bring democracy to Burma;

b) The deteriorating political and human rights conditions in Burma are not favorable to hold a multi-party election. This is the time to work to resolve existing problems through a proper consultation with all the stake-holders in the nation.

c) If SPDC forcibly continues to go ahead without having meaningful and inclusive dialogue with democratic and ethnic leaders inside the country, the election will not be internationally acceptable and credible;

d) All prisoners of conscience including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must be freed unconditionally, and all Burmese citizens must be able to freely participate in the political process so that the elections can be considered credible, free and fair.

e) Military offensives, gross human rights violations and all kinds of atrocities, especially in the ethnic nationalities areas must be ceased;

f) Only the people and their trusted leaders inside the country have the legitimate mandate to decide whether or not they should take part in the elections. The Forum will respect their decision.

The Forum also strongly believes that:

a) Recognition to the crucial role and active participation of ethnic nationalities in the national political process is essential for long-lasting peace and prosperity in Burma. A tripartite dialogue remains the best viable means towards achieving these goals.

b) Federalism and democratic governance is the only path towards a united, peaceful and prosperous nation.

c) Any dialogue between the military junta and the opposition should be pursued within a time-bound framework.

d) Respect for the rights of women and their active participation in the national political process are essential to the democratic governance and social harmony.

The Forum calls upon the Government of Canada:

a) To maintain the existing political and economic measures towards Burma until all the concerns of the Canadian government and people are adequately met by the Burmese authorities.

b) Express concerns over Burma’s obvious nuclear ambition and questionable relations with the North Korean regime, and to put pressure on the military junta to comply with the international non-proliferation treaty especially with regards to UN Security Council Resolutions 1874 and 1718.

c) To reiterate the importance of having a direct and meaningful dialogue between Senior General Than Shwe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, which will lead to a level of national dialogue participated by all key stakeholders, including the ethnic nationalities.

d) To extend Canadian government’s effort and support at the multilateral level including an UN ‘Commission on Inquiry’ of Crimes against Humanity in Burma;

e) To have active coordination with its international partners for the emergence of “International Forum on Burma” in Asia as soon as possible;

f) To demand that the military junta immediately stop ongoing attacks on civilians in eastern Burma, including the renewed attacks on Karen civilians in recent months.

g) To demand that the junta cease the unjustified pressures being exerted on the ethnic cease-fire groups to become the “Border Guard Force” ahead of the elections.

h) To substantially expand its resettlement program for the vulnerable Burmese refugees including political dissidents.

i) To ensure all humanitarian assistance package provided by Canadian government to the targeted groups and people in need.

In conclusion, the Forum participants reaffirm their commitment to continue to work together, and call upon diverse Burmese community across the globe to stand united until the people of Burma overcome the existing political, socio-economic and humanitarian crises and able to freely enjoy their full democratic and human rights in the Union of Burma.

3rd Burma Forum Canada

Ottawa,27 March

၂၀၁၀ ခုနွစ္ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲအား

ကေနဒါေရာက္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ား ျမန္မာသံရံုးေရွ ့တြင္ ကန္ ့ကြက္ ဆႏၵျပေနႀကစဥ္

Ottawa

Parliamentary Friends Of Burma

The Parliamentary Friends of Burma (PFOB) was officially launched on December 7th 2006 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Membership included 25 MPs and Senators from various Canadian political parties.

Attending the event were, Dr. Sein Win, Prime Minister of the exiled Burmese government; Mr. Charles Chong, the head of Singaporean Parliamentary Caucus on Burma and member of ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC); Dr. Tint Swe, representative of Members of Parliament Union (MPU-Burma); and Dr. Thoung Htun, UN representative for the exiled government and other Canadian MPs, government officials, representatives of civil society and Burmese delegates from across Canada. Dr. Sein Win delivered the keynote speech during the reception.

PFOB membership includes important figures such as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the ruling party’s Caucus Chair. The group also consists of leading political figures such as Mr. Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Chair of Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights, and the Foreign Affairs Critic from Bloc Quebecois.

Canadian MPs have supported the Burmese movement toward democracy following the 1988, nation-wide Democratic Movement in Burma. The Parliamentary Friends of Burma (PFOB) has existed in the Canadian Parliamentary system for over ten years. The first attempt to officially form the group took place on November 30th 2005; however, it was postponed due to an early dissolution of Parliament on November 28th 2006.

The support by Canadian MP’s for democracy in Burma has steadily increased over time. In particular, on June 27th 2006, fifty MPs signed a letter addressed to UN General Secretary, Kofi Anan, and members of the UN Security Council, calling for UNSC action on Burma. Subsequently, September 15th 2006, UNSC formally added Burma to its agenda.

The most significant outcome from the PFOB was the passing of the first-ever, yet most comprehensive resolution on Burma. May 18th 2005, the majority of the MPs voted in favour of the resolution that called for: trade and investment sanctions, UN Security Council intervention, and the provision of ‘tangible support’ for the Burmese democratic movement. The existence of the PFOB ensures that the elements of the resolution will be implemented.

Overall, the primary function of the PFOB is to support the democratization process in Burma by promoting Burma issues at a national level. The PFOB works with similar parliamentary groups from around the world as well as ASEAN in an attempt to help the 52 million Burmese people realize their dream of the restoration of democracy and fundamental human rights in their homeland. The PFOB also works to voice issues and concerns at various international and regional events, conduct fact-finding missions and makes recommendations to the Canadian Government.

The establishment of the PFOB ensures ongoing parliamentarian support, extensive debate, advocacy, and a concentrated effort on the issues associated with Burma.

For further info: Tin Maung Htoo (CFOB) at (613) 297-6835, or Melissa Delaney (Secretary to PFOB) at (613) 995-9368

Burma VJ Theatrical Opening & 21 anniversary of 8888 in Toronto Video Click ဒီမွာနိပ္ပါ

မတ္ လ ၂၇ ရက္ေန ့ ၂၀၁၀ ေအာ္တာ၀ါ ျမန္မာ သံရွံုးေရွ ့ မွ ျမန္မာ ့နိုင္ငံေရး လွုပ္ရွားသူတို ့၏ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ အားဆန္ ့က်င္ဆႏၵ ျပပြဲဓါတ္ပံုမ်ား Photo Click ဒီမွာနိပ္ပါ

Press Release of Burma Forum 2010

3RD BURMA FORUM TO BE HELD IN SASKATOON, CANADA
Gathering of dissidents/representatives of Burmese Diaspora Communities in Canada

Saskatoon (Canada) March 2, 2010 – Burmese dissidents and representatives of Burmese Diaspora communities across Canada will gather this weekend (March 6 and 7) in Saskatoon to discuss the political situation in Burma.

The Burma Forum Canada, set up in the summer of 2004 with Burmese origin activists across Canada, is a policy consultation place for Burmese Diaspora communities in Canada. It has already produced two policy-oriented reports following its previous Forums in 2004 and 2006. This is the third time in six years for Burmese activists in Canada to come together to discuss pressing issues in Burma.

A representative from the Government of Canada will take part in the opening session on the morning of March 6.

The Forum is scheduled to include discussions on Canadian, U.S. and EU foreign policies towards Burma and the role of the United Nations in the restoration of democracy in Burma. They will also touch on the upcoming 2010 elections and the role of ethnic nationalities in Burma.

Upon the completion of the two-day Forum, Burmese activists are expected to develop policy recommendations for the Government of Canada and Canadian civil society organizations working on Burma.

The 3rd Burma Forum Canada is sponsored by the Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB) with the support of the Canadian NGOs Committee on Burma (CNC).

Venue: Sandman Hotel, Saskatoon, Canada
Date: March 6-7, 2010 from 8:30am-6:30pm

Note: The Forum will be carried out in Burmese language except a special proceeding of the government announcement.

Organizing Committee - Burma Forum Canada

For media interview arrangement, please call at 613-297-6835
For the rest, please contact Min Naing at 306-880-5355, or Htay Aung at 778-322-5385.
Email: BurmaForum2010@gmail.com
Forum related information at http://groups.google.ca/group/BurmaForumCanada
Burma Forum Background:
In the summer of 2004, a group of Burmese activists gathered in Ottawa with the objective of establishing a stronger and more inclusive consultative process among Burmese activist communities in Canada. Attended by 22 individuals from Ottawa, Toronto, London, Calgary and Vancouver, the meeting concluded with recommendations calling on the government of Canada to be more proactive on Burma. In the fall, the Forum came up with a 47-page report containing an analysis on specific areas of concern with Canadian foreign policy towards Burma.

The 2nd Forum was also held in Ottawa in March, 2006. It included 50 participants who represented democracy activists from Burma including ethnic nationalities across Canada and the United States. The Forum touched on all Burma related issues with an emphasis on the humanitarian crisis, political issues and Canadian foreign policy towards Burma and expressed common positions on many issues. The Forum produced a 2nd Report with in-depth research on Canada-Burma relations and a wide range of recommendations including an increase humanitarian aid to the Burma border and a more proactive foreign policy towards Burma.

Saskatoon Declaration ( Canada )

3^rd Burma Forum Canada

Saskatoon Declaration

Saskatoon, Canada

March 7, 2010

The 3^rd Burma Forum Canada was successfully held from March 6 to 7, 2010 in Saskatoon, Canada. More than 50 Burmese organizational representatives including ethnic nationalities across Canada and representatives from National Coalition Government of Union of Burma (NCGUB), the Burmese government in exile, Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) and Euro-Burma Office (EBO) participated. A wide range of Burma-related issues such as international policies towards Burma, analysis on 2010 elections and possible scenarios, and the role of ethnic nationalities in the political process in Burma were discussed. The Forum participants unanimously agreed to announce the following:

Current Situations & Concerns in Burma

The Forum is increasingly concerned that the military junta continues to ignore calls by Canada and the larger international community to show concrete commitments to political reforms. The Forum is also concerned by the ongoing military offensives, and other forms of atrocities including displacement, religious persecution, politically motivated and arbitrary arrests in the context of the elections planned for later this year.

Appreciations:

1) The Forum wholeheartedly welcomes and appreciates the official announcement made at the Forum by Ms. Kelly Block (MP- Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar) on behalf of the Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation that the Government of Canada would continue support for Burmese refugees and displaced persons living in Burma's border areas in the amount of $15.9 million over five years;

2) The Forum would also like to express the deepest appreciation on strong political and financial support provided by Canadian NGO Committee (CNC) consists of Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), Rights and Democracy, Inter Pares and Primates’ World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF), and Saskatoon Burmese Community, and Euro-Burma Office (EBO), as well as other organizations and individuals who helped make this important Forum happen;

3) The Forum also thanks the Government of Canada for strong and consistent support for national reconciliation and democracy in Burma including political and economic measures against the Burmese military junta in November, 2007 and conferring the Canadian Honorary Citizenship Award to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in May, 2008.

Policy issues:

The Forum strongly believes that:

a) The 2010 elections is not a solution and will not bring democracy to Burma;

b) The deteriorating political and human rights conditions in Burma are not favorable to hold a multi-party election. This is the time to work to resolve existing problems through a proper consultation with all the stake-holders in the nation.

c) If SPDC forcibly continues to go ahead without having meaningful and inclusive dialogue with democratic and ethnic leaders inside the country, the election will not be internationally acceptable and credible;

d) All prisoners of conscience including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must be freed unconditionally, and all Burmese citizens must be able to freely participate in the political process so that the elections can be considered credible, free and fair.

e) Military offensives, gross human rights violations and all kinds of atrocities, especially in the ethnic nationalities areas must be ceased;

f) Only the people and their trusted leaders inside the country have the legitimate mandate to decide whether or not they should take part in the elections. The Forum will respect their decision.

The Forum also strongly believes that:

a) Recognition to the crucial role and active participation of ethnic nationalities in the national political process is essential for long-lasting peace and prosperity in Burma. A tripartite dialogue remains the best viable means towards achieving these goals.

b) Federalism and democratic governance is the only path towards a united, peaceful and prosperous nation.

c) Any dialogue between the military junta and the opposition should be pursued within a time-bound framework.

d) Respect for the rights of women and their active participation in the national political process are essential to the democratic governance and social harmony.

The Forum calls upon the Government of Canada:

a) To maintain the existing political and economic measures towards Burma until all the concerns of the Canadian government and people are adequately met by the Burmese authorities.

b) Express concerns over Burma’s obvious nuclear ambition and questionable relations with the North Korean regime, and to put pressure on the military junta to comply with the international non-proliferation treaty especially with regards to UN Security Council Resolutions 1874 and 1718.

c) To reiterate the importance of having a direct and meaningful dialogue between Senior General Than Shwe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, which will lead to a level of national dialogue participated by all key stakeholders, including the ethnic nationalities.

d) To extend Canadian government’s effort and support at the multilateral level including an UN ‘Commission on Inquiry’ of Crimes against Humanity in Burma;

e) To have active coordination with its international partners for the emergence of “International Forum on Burma” in Asia as soon as possible;

f) To demand that the military junta immediately stop ongoing attacks on civilians in eastern Burma, including the renewed attacks on Karen civilians in recent months.

g) To demand that the junta cease the unjustified pressures being exerted on the ethnic cease-fire groups to become the “Border Guard Force” ahead of the elections.

h) To substantially expand its resettlement program for the vulnerable Burmese refugees including political dissidents.

i) To ensure all humanitarian assistance package provided by Canadian government to the targeted groups and people in need.

In conclusion, the Forum participants reaffirm their commitment to continue to work together, and call upon diverse Burmese community across the globe to stand united until the people of Burma overcome the existing political, socio-economic and humanitarian crises and able to freely enjoy their full democratic and human rights in the Union of Burma.

3^rd Burma Forum Canada

တတိယအႀကိမ္ ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံလံုးဆိုင္ရာ ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံေရး လႈပ္႐ွားသူမ်ား ေတြ႕ဆံု ႏွီးေႏွာဖလွယ္ပြဲ

( ဟစ္တိုင္ ကေနဒါ)

တတိယအႀကိမ္ ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံလံုးဆိုင္ရာ ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံေရးလႈပ္႐ွားသူမ်ား ေတြ႕ဆံုႏွီးေႏွာဖလွယ္ပြဲ

ျပန္လည္ေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲ၊ မွတ္တမ္းတင္ဓါတ္ပံုမ်ား Photo Click ဒီမွာနိပ္ပါ

Burma Forum (Canada) ဟာ ကေနဒါတႏိုင္ငံလံုးမွာ႐ွိတဲ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ဒီမိုက
ေရစီအေရးလႈပ္႐ွားသူမ်ား၊ ၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္သစ္၊ မ်ိဳးဆက္ေဟာင္းမ်ား၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား အဖြဲ႕အစည္း
မ်ား၊ ပါတီအင္အားစုမ်ား၊ ကေနဒါအစိုးရကိုယ္စာလွယ္မ်ားႏွင့္ NGOs မ်ား စသည္ျဖင့္ စံုလင္စြာ တက္ေရာက္စုစည္းေဆြးေႏြး
ႏိုင္ခဲ့တဲ့ ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံတ၀ွမ္းလံုးရဲ႕ တခုတည္းေသာ အစည္းအေ၀းပြဲျဖစ္တဲ့အျပင္

(၁) လုပ္ေဖာ္ကိုင္ဖက္ျခင္း အျပန္အလွန္ ႐ိုးသားမႈ
(၂) လုပ္ေဖာ္ကိုင္ဖက္ျခင္း အျပန္အလွန္ စည္းလံုးမႈ
(၃) လုပ္ေဖာ္ကိုင္ဖက္ျခင္း အျပန္အလွန္ တန္းတူေလးစားမႈ
(၄) လုပ္ေဖာ္ကိုင္ဖက္ျခင္း အျပန္အလွန္ နားလည္အသိအမွတ္ျပဳမႈ

စတဲ့အခ်က္ေတြေပၚမွာအေျခခံၿပီး ရည္႐ွည္ လက္တြဲလုပ္ေဆာင္သြားေရးမူျဖင့္ ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံရဲ ့ျမန္မာ့
ႏိုင္ငံေရးမွာ ႀကီးမားတဲ့အခန္းကန္ဏတရပ္အေနႏွင့္ ကေနဒါအစိုးရႏွင့္ ခ်ိတ္ဆက္လုပ္ေဆာင္သြား
ၾကဖို႔ႏွင့္ တာ၀န္မ်ားကို အတူတစ္ကြႀကိဳးစားထမ္းေဆာင္သြားၾကမွာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ။

ဗန္ကူးဗားၿမိဳ႕႐ွိ ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံေရးလႈပ္႐ွားသူမ်ားမွ ၂ဝ၁ဝ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲအား ဆန္႔က်င္ကန္႔ကြက္ဆႏၵျပ

ဗန္ကူးဗားၿမိဳ႕႐ွိ ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံအေရးလႈပ္႐ွားသူမ်ားစုေပါင္းၿပီး
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ စစ္အစိုးရမွ ျပဳလုပ္မည့္၂၀၁၀ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲအား ဆႏၵျပကန္႔ကြက္ၾကစဥ္

New Coordinating Team of Burma Forum Canada

New Coordinating Team of Burma Forum Canada (Updated)

The 3^rd Burma Forum Canada held on the weekend of March 6 and 7, 2010 in Saskatoon selects the following cross-country coordinating team consists of 34 Burmese-Canadians including five executive members out of 56 participants in attendance. As a result of the 3^rd Burma Forum Canada, the Forum also issued an important document entitled “Saskatoon Declaration,” available to download at http://groups.google.ca/group/BurmaForumCanada

1. Min Naing Coordinator (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
2. Htay Aung Joint– Coordinator (Vancouver, British Colombia)
3. Htun Htun Oo Joint –Coordinator (Toronto, Ontario)
4. Timothy Zaw Zaw Joint–Coordinator (Toronto, Ontario)
5. Thet Thet Tun Joint–Coordinator (Montreal, Quebec)
6. Nai Ong Tala Member (Calgary, Alberta)
7. Daw Molly Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
8. U Nyunt Hla Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
9. Aung Nwe Oo Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
10. Slone Phan Member (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
11. Phone Tint Member (Vancouver, British Colombia)
12. Saion Nammao Member (Vancouver, British Colombia)
13. Mya Thwin Member (Vancouver, British Colombia)
14. Kyaw Zaw Htun Member (Lethbridge, Alberta)
15. Yan Naing Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
16. Klo Armstrong Member (Vancouver, British Columbia)
17. Soe Htay Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
18. Maung Maung Oo Member (Toronto, Ontario)
19. Kyaw Khaing Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
20. Toe Kyi Member (Ottawa, Ontario)
21. Tin Maung Htoo Member (Ottawa, Ontario)
22. Saw Ler Wah Lo Bo Member (Toronto, Ontario)
23. Min Thwe Member (Vancouver, British Colombia)
24. Zaw Gyi Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
25. Salai Jone Member (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
26. Nay Myo Hein Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
27. Htun Htun Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
28. Nay Lin Oo Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
29. Zaw Oo Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
30. Aung Lin Oo Member (Vancouver, British Columbia)
31. Hay Mar Zin Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
32. Sandi Htun Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
33. Thant Zin Member (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
34. Myint Naing Member (Letbridge, Alberta)
35. U Than Aung Member (Edmonton, Alberta)

Burma Forum Canada is a policy consultation body of Burmese Diaspora communities in Canada

Second Burma Forum ( Canada )

The Statement of the Second Burma Forum (Canada)

Ottawa, March 21, 2006
The 2nd Burma Forum (Canada) was held successfully at the Embassy West Hotel in
Ottawa from March 17 to 18, 2006. The forum participants widely represented
democracy activists from Burma including ethnic nationalities across Canada and the
United States along with representatives from Canadian Burma support groups. The
forum touched on all Burma related issues but mainly focused on the humanitarian
crisis, recent new political initiative of the National League for Democracy (NLD)
and Canadian foreign policy towards Burma.
It is indeed the second opportune time for Burmese Diasporas and Canadian
supporters across Canada to get together to exchange views and concerns on situation
in Burma and to generate collective policy recommendations to the Government of
Canada. After having two-day long frank and open discussion, the Forum
unanimously agreed the following messages to deliver to the Government of Canada.
Humanitarian Crisis in Burma
· The forum gravely concerns upon rampant humanitarian crisis in Burma and fully
supports the recent call of student leaders from inside Burma on urgent needs of
humanitarian assistance to Burma.
· The forum also agrees with the student leaders asking the establishment of a joint
mechanism comprise with the SPDC, democracy forces led by the NLD and
International donors to receive and manage the international assistance. (Statement of
the “88 Student Generation” can be found as attached)
· The forum fully supports the principles of the NLD on humanitarian assistance
that transparency, accountability and closed monitoring are fundamental necessities to
be an effective assistance delivery system.
· The forum believes that the humanitarian crises are not because of natural disaster
or scarcity of resources but only as a result of systemic failure of incumbent
authorities in Burma. Therefore, an urgent humanitarian intervention by international
community under the auspices of the UN Security Council is strongly recommended
in addition to provision of humanitarian aid.
· The forum urges the Government of Canada to increase humanitarian assistance
significantly in order to cope with appalling situation along the Burma border as well
as inside the country.
NLD’s new political initiative “Olive Branch” Offer
· The Forum fully respects the will of the people clearly expressed through the
1990 general elections and thus supports recent proposal by the NLD for power
sharing, as a practical solution for protracted political stalemate in Burma. (Statement
of NLD can be found as attached)
· The Forum expects the NLD’s political initiative will lead to a stage that will
allow equal participation of all ethnic nationalities in the political process as the best
means for national reconciliation in Burma consecutively expressed in the UN
General Assembly resolutions since 1994.
· The forum strongly urges the State Peace and Development Council, ruling
military regime of Burma, to get into gracious Burmese New Year, which will begin
from April 17, 2006, by responding positively to the mutually acceptable proposal of
the NLD.
· The Forum urges the Government of Canada to support the NLD’s initiative and
also encourages international community, especially ASEAN countries, China and
India to lend the ir support.
Canadian Foreign Policy on Burma
· The Forum appreciates and thanks on current measures and efforts by the
government and people of Canada for restoration of human dignity and democracy in
Burma but still believes that the Canadian Government could and should do more
effectively in both unilateral as well as multilateral levels.
· The Forum urges the Government of Canada to implement the Burma Motion,
which was passed by majority vote in the House of Commons in May 2005.
· The Forum welcomes and thanks the call of former Czech President Vaclav Havel
and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa,
calling for the UN Security Council (UNSC) to act in Burma.
· The Forum welcomes the first ever closed-door briefing of the UNSC on
December 16, 2005, on the situation in Burma and expects the UNSC will continue to
seize the matter. The Forum urges the Government of Canada to increase its
diplomatic effort to make this possible.
The Convening Committee is preparing for detailed report and will submit to the
Government of Canada soon.
The Forum deeply appreciates the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Canada, Euro Burma
Office and Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) for their strong support to make
this event successful.
The Forum also apprecia tes all Forum participants and volunteers for their hard work
for the success of this event.
The Forum sincerely expects that the Canadian Government will take these
recommendations, which reflect collective desire of the Burmese community in
Canada, into serious consideration.
Convening Committee
Burma Forum Canada
Further contact:
(1) Than Aung – 780-439-7555 (H); 780-710-3730 (M); thanaung@shaw.ca
(2) Kyaw Moe – 613-231-5228 (H); 613-240-2370 (M);
kyawmoe2000@hotmail.com
(3) Tin Maung Htoo – 519-860-4745 (M); mhtin88@gmail.com
(4) San Aung – 778-828-7433 (M); sanaung@canada.com

Second Burma Forum Canada

The Embassy West Hotel, 1400 Carling Ave., Ottawa, Canada

9a.m. - 4p.m. March 17-18, 2006

Tentative Agenda

March 17, 2006 – Friday (to be conducted in English)

9:00 - 9:20	Breakfast
9:20 - 9:40	Welcome & Introduction of Agenda by Master of Ceremony, Toe Kyi
9:40 - 9:50	Introduction of Participants
9:50 - 10:10	Opening Statement of the Burma Forum Canada: · Than Aung, Joint-Coordinator, Burma Forum Canada (BFC)
10:10 - 10:30	Keynote Speech: · U Bo Hla Tint, Minister, National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma
10:30 - 10:50	Presentation on US Campaigns on Burma: · Aung Din, Policy Director, US Campaign for Burma, Washington DC, USA
10:50 - 11:00	Questions & Answers
11:00 - 11:20	Presentation on Canadian Campaigns on Burma: · Tin Maung Htoo, Coordinator, Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB)
11:20 - 11:30	Questions & Answers
11:30 - 12:30	LUNCH
12:30 - 15:30	Panel Discussions (Interruption allowed with the permission of Panel Chairs) 12:30-13:30 Panel 1: Humanitarian crisis in Burma - Chaired by Kyaw Moe, Ottawa; Panelists: Saw Ler Wah, Toronto and Htun Htun Oo, Toronto, San Aung, Vancouver 13:30-14:30 Panel 2: New Political Initiative - Chaired by Than Aung, Edmonton; Panelists: Aung Tin, Toronto and Salai Za Ceu Lian, Winnipeg, (U) Tha Zul 14:30-15:30 Panel 3: Canadian Foreign Policy - Chaired by Tin Maung Htoo, London; Panelists: Chan Toik, Calgary and Salai Za Uk Ling, Thunder Bay, Tala Rod, Lennoxville.
15:30 - 16:00	Day One Wrap-up

March 18, 2006 – Saturday (to be conducted in Burmese)

9:00 - 9: 30	Breakfast
9:30 - 12:30	In-depth Group Discussions on Panel's Topics & Open the floor for further inputs 9:30 –10:00 Group Discussions: Group – I : Humanitarian crisis in Burma, Moderated by Kyaw Moe Group –II : New Political Initiative, Moderated by Than Aung Group – III : Canadian Foreign Policy on Burma, Moderated by Tin Maung Htoo 10:00 -10:30 Presentation by Group-I 10:30 -11:00 Presentation by Group-II 11:00 -11:30 Presentation by Group-III
11:30 -12:30	LUNCH
12:30 - 13:30	Strengthening Ties among Burma Related Activists, Moderated by Aung Tin
13:30 - 14:30	Discussion on the future of the Burma Forum Canada, Moderated by Than Aung
14:30 -15:30	Drafting recommendations
15:30 -16:00	Conclusion

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