Olympic Torch report

Torch approaches Downing Street with protesters opposite

The totaloutofburma.org group joined with Burma Campaign UK and the Burmese to protest for Burma as the Olympic Torch came to London on April 6th. We were positioned just opposite the gates of Downing Street, next to the Tibetan protesters who must have numbered well over a thousand.

We brought banners asking for a UN Arms embargo against Burma. The British government has stated that it would support a UN Arms embargo, but we need other security council members, particularly China and Russia to support or at least not veto such a resolution. Sadly China gives a lot of support for the corrupt Burma junta supplying weapons and finance and has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called on the regime to begin transition to democracy.

Indymedia has a summary of the London Olympic Torch protests here: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/395922.html

The Olympic Torch procession originally began in the 1936 Berlin Olympics when it was used for propaganda by the Nazis and taken through countries they conquered a few years later. The BBC has a long history of Olympic protests here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7334362.stm.

We are not anti-China or anti-Chinese and hope that China will achieve humanitarian success in future as well as economic success.