MISSION STATEMENT

OVERVIEW

A Long Struggle aims to increase international awareness of Burma's minority ethnic peoples.

The documentary presents the filmmaker's journey inside Burma, and excerpts from selected interviews with ethnic leaders and Internally Displaced People living in temporary settlements inside Karen territory.

BACKGROUND

Burma (Myanmar) is a Southeast Asian country of approximately forty-seven million people consisting of eight major ethnic nationalities. Burma has been ruled by a brutal and repressive military dictatorship for more than four decades, resulting in widespread, systemic violations of basic human rights and high levels of political and economic insecurity. The country has been ravaged by military confrontations since World War II, with distinct conflicts between the military junta - the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the pro-democracy movement, between the SPDC and the minority ethnic nationalities, and among the minority ethnic groups.

The SPDC's Burmanization campaign attempts to eradicate minority ethnic culture through forced marriage and pregnancy, prohibition of teaching minority ethnic languages and history, and state violence and systematic murder against minority peoples.

These oral histories from ethnic minority groups focus on personal accounts of political conflict, forced labor, forced relocation, narcotics, displaced persons, and continuing diplomatic struggles.

OBJECTIVES

A Long Struggle aims to:

• increase international awareness of Burma's minority ethnic peoples;
• collect information about indigenous resources for peace and human security; and
• prevent the annihilation of the collective memory of Burma's cultural groups, currently endangered by the State's Burmanization campaign.

New knowledge about indigenous experiences of human security will potentially enhance negotiation and mediation efforts in Burma, as well as the struggle for human rights and international justice. Furthermore, it is hoped that it will aid in promoting the agency and ingenuity of minority ethnic communities.

A Long Struggle addresses these issues by documenting and smuggling out images and histories of individuals from the minority ethnic groups.

ORAL HISTORIES PROJECT

To be expanded into a larger oral histories project, A Long Struggle documents individuals from minority ethnic groups in Burma. Funding is currently being sought to compile the oral histories of ethnic leaders, IDPs and refugees, and to develop an online resource center.