Letter to Congress

[I sent the following letter to my Senators and Representative in the United States Congress. I can only pray that it works. Feel free to use all or part of it in your own letters, e-mails and phone calls.]

Ave [Senator Isakson, Senator Chambliss, Representative Linder],

I am generally somewhat of an isolationist when it comes to international affairs. I make exceptions, however, for severe human rights issues. The situation coming to a head now in Burma is one such issue, and I cannot sit silently and watch it unfold.

Around 200 peaceful protestors, including Buddhist monks, have been killed in Burma for nothing more than wanting liberty and democracy. This number doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Hundreds more have been beaten and/or arrested. Over 3000 civilian villages have been attacked and destroyed by the Burmese military. Buddhist monasteries have been ransacked. Rape and torture are used as tools of social control. What we have here is not a case of a sovereign nation taking care of its own internal business in a manner which we find to be slightly distasteful; it is a full-blown atrocity which we, as liberty-loving Americans and as a moral people, must confront.

I understand that the UN has attempted to come to some decision on this matter, but has been stalled-out by China’s refusal to cooperate. China, of course, has its own sordid history of human rights violations (to use the polite term), and is now facilitating yet more slaughter and degredation of Buddhist practitioners (who, regardless of faith, are fellow human beings first and foremost) in yet another nation.

I humbly but passionately ask that you, and your colleagues in Congress of all political parties, do something, anything, in your power to help the UN in moving forward on this issue. I am not advocating military action, but diplomatic and economic actions which are well within the power of the UN and UN member nations.

Until such time as there is some level large-scale of decisiveness by the international community, I will be eating mostly rice and drinking only water to show my solidarity with the Burmese people and to illustrate a small part of their hardships: the diets of the internal refugees, displaced populations from the destroyed villages, consist mostly of rice and water as they do their best to hide from military forces who will arrest, beat, rape, and murder them on sight.

Thank you, and God bless.

In Peace Profound,
Nicholas Graham [last name withheld]