Burmese Activist Recounts Torture

On a nationwide speaking tour to raise awareness of human rights abuses in Burma, former political prisoner Ko Bo Kyi made his second-to-last stop at Harvard Law School on Friday.

Bo Kyi, a former executive in the national student union, was imprisoned for a total of seven years for his pro-democracy protests and refusal to serve as a government informant.

Bo Kyi spoke about the coerced interrogation and psychological torture that rendered many political prisoners permanently disabled.

“There is no rule of law, no separation of power [in Burma],” said Bo Kyi. “Political persecution is the state policy.”

Bo Kyi moved to Thailand after his release from prison in 1998 and founded the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma, an organization that provides humanitarian support to political prisoners and documents torture in Burma’s prisons.

“We want students from Harvard and other American universities to know that [pro-democracy] student leaders in Burma are in prison,” Bo Kyi said. “They need your help to freedom and a chance to study.”

Bo Kyi’s tour was coordinated by the United States Campaign for Burma (UCSB), a group that also pushed for the Burma Freedom Act of 2003. In February, Bo Kyi testified before Congress for the renewal of the act, which bans imports from Burma in order to discourage forced labor under the military junta.

“It’s an honor to have someone who’s shown such dedication to democracy and freedom,” said Amy K. Lehr, a student at the Law School who worked for an NGO in Burma. “I found it encouraging that he thinks there’s a lot of opportunities for change in Burma in the current generation.”

Speaking fluent English, Bo Kyi said he learned the language one sentence at a time from a fellow prisoner who was formerly a professor.

“I ate a lot of dictionaries in my prison times,” he joked.

“Bo Kyi’s trip is very significant in that it can ignite a new wave of student activism on Burma at Harvard,” Billenness said, according to Simon Billenness, treasurer of USCB.

Harvard students have in the past been active in promoting democracy in Burma, according to Billenness. In 1996, Harvard students successfully persuaded the University Dining Services to grant their soft drink contract to Coke instead of Pepsi, in criticism of Pepsi’s business operations in Burma. Coke itself is now the target of student activists at Harvard who allege that the company violates the rights of workers in Colombia.