Diana Mawdsley explains her son James's commitment to the people of Burma,

and pleads for the West to isolate the vicious junta that has imprisoned them
How our indifference feeds the intolerable
reater love hath no man, titan a man lay down his life for his friend."
Our son has placed his life and freedom on the line for those of a different race, a different culture and, by and large, a different creed. To James all men are his brothers and sisters. The suffering of the people of Burma has become so close to his heart that it has developed into a passion, a passion to tell the world the terrible truth and to tread a single-minded path in the pursuit of justice.
There have been no disasters in this lovely land, no earthquakes, plague or famine where if one were so minded, one could rail against the Almighty. The tragedy of Burma is man-made a coun try put in chains by its government. Those chains are reinforced and strengthened by financial assistance and investment by countries outside its borders. This prolongs this intolerable regime giving the junta, the State Peace and Development Council, desperately needed foreign currency, so enabling it to stay in power.
The profits to these investors are paid for with Burmese blood. James is one of many political prisoners who, if not murdered, are given vicious jail sentences, generally accompanied by torture. Under supervision he has written to us, his family, one letter a month. Not one has reached us; all remain in the hands of military intelligence. But he is more fortunate than the Burmese; he is visited monthly by a member of our consular staff, and on one occasion by His Excellency, the British Ambassador Dr John Jenkins, himself a man of faith. He is not permitted a pen and paper, but dictates his messages.
One of these was: "It is not lack of resources or development which is causing the deep suffering but because the military regime does not regard the people of Burma as human beings."
A damning indictment of a government indeed! A government which took power by force and retains it by violence and cruelty; a government which has institutionalised murder, rape, slavery and genocide; a government responsible for millions of its own people internally or externally displaced; a government which has imprisoned my son because he spoke in defence of the defenceless; a govern meat which is a member of the International Labour Organisation but which practises slavery; a government which has a seat on the United Nations and is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
IWAS BORN in Australia to a family with a long military tradition. Our daughter held a Short Service Limited Commission before taking her university place. Our youngest son serves in the Royal Artillery, the same regiment as his father once did. I served in Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. The British Army owes its allegiance to the Queen, and its function is as a servant of the Crown and state, whereas the Burmese army, the Tatmadaw, has turned its guns on its own people. It has no unfriendly borders, but fields the largest army in South East Asia. The Karen, Karenni, Shan and Mon ethnic minorities are hunted like animals. The
soldiers are indoctrinated during training and part of the brutalisation that this training involves is to refer to the Karen as "ringworms", something to be eradicated.
Quite apart from this offence against morality, the Karen were among the bravest and most loyal of our wartime allies, and their courage and commitment undoubtedly shortened the war in the Far East. How better can I express myself but with James's own words: "As citizens of established democracies we are graced with political freedom. The real beauty of this is not that we are free to clamour for our elected governments to implement our ideas and dreams, but that we can actually work towards them ourselves. We have freedom of movement and association, freedom of assembly and expression, we have economic freedom to earn and save money. These opportunities mean we do not have to rely solely on official channels to carry out our hopes. In my case, they mean I am free to take my point of view straight to the Burmese junta."
His most recent message is to Her Majesty's Government "The clock is ticking for certain ethnic groups. If we do not strain ourselves to stop the genocide, then their blood will be on our hands too.
"1 picture the nine-year-old Karen girl I saw, several days ago. What is her future? Is she not the indisputable reason for my actions? That she starts life an innocent. Grows up clearly loving her parents (and she does). She is sweet and beautiful and childishly childish. But there will come a time when she questions the world around her. Why must she live in a miserable refugee camp, or suffer the deprivations enforced by SPDC? So she will challenge it, and she will challenge it until her fingers are so burnt that there is no challenge left. The SPDC will ensure that. It is their job — otherwise they will vanish. So they will starve her, beat her, work her close to death. They will gang rape her, torture her, detain her indefinitely. They will do whatever they have to do to break her spirit, to cease her questioning, to crush her challenge, her will to life. That is their job. They will do it. Otherwise they cannot survive. She can give up at any point. Her choice when to break and cease to be a human being — but the will to life is too strong. She or others will not give up. They will even die for freedom. But my question is, as you look into her face, her adorable young innocence, then how can you let her face that future? How can you let her struggle alone? How can you turn your back?"
Our family asks for your prayers and support for Burma and for our son. James told me when I visited him in prison last November: "Mum, I feel the prayers being offered."
The situation now is that James has started an official appeal through the Burmese courts in order to secure his release. Lord Brennan QC has kindly agreed to represent James and is willing to work with a Burmese lawyer to build an appeal case. One district court has already dismissed his case and we are now preparing to take the appeal to the High Court. James wants to use the appeal to draw attention again to the other political prisoners held in Burma and to the wider systematic abuse of human rights in Burma.
Together with the Jubilee Campaign, we are working to gain James's release and raise the public awareness of the situation in Burma. If you are interested in getting further involved in this issue, please contact the Jubilee Campaign at St John's, Cranleigh Road, Wonersh, Guildford GUS OQX, 01483 894787, for a Burma pack.
I will conclude this article with James' own words: "For a short time I lived in the jungle of Tenesserim with Buddhists and Muslims and some like me who were Christians.
"And though we studied different texts, and though we called God by different names, I came to see that more and more of our actions were the same.
"It is not what we say that counts, nor even what we profess to believe. What matters is whether or not we seek the truth."