Karen rep given surprise welcome by Madrid

“The big surprise was that they were all new men,” said Saw Hsar Gay aka Saw Sarky, whose last visit to Spain was in April 2003. “Yet they knew about myself and Sai Wansai (Shan representative) as they had already gone through the records.”
 
The meeting with Dr Jose Luis Garcia Galan, Deputy Director for Southeast Asia, Pacific and the Philippines, and Jaime Moreno Bau, Desk Officer for Southeast Asia, Pacific and the Philippines, took place on 25 January, and lasted one and a half hours, 11:00-12:30.
_{Saw Hsar Gay}

They were interested to know about the changes brought about by the August-September protests and crackdown and what we thought about the latest tightening of EU sanctions, according to Saw Hsar Gay, who is also a KNU Central Committee member and Special Envoy to East Timor.
 
“I explained to them that the most important change was that Burma has become highly visible to the world”, he said, “but that I hoped that the non-Burman ethnic states’ issue has not been overlooked amid the furor”.
 
He then went on to explain to them about:

• The Panglong Agreement and the failure to implement it
• The abolition of the 1947 constitution that had made the Union legally defunct
• The UN General Assembly’s standing resolution on Tripartite Dialogue
• The ongoing efforts by the democratic and ethnic opposition to establish a federal democracy
• The continuing repression and military offensive in the ethnic states especially in Karen State

 
Regarding the latest sanctions imposed by the European Union following the bloody suppressions in September, Saw Hsar Gay said, “The tightening of sanctions and imposition of targeted sanctions have always been what we have asked for during our previous tours to the European capitals. However, we would also need to follow the results to make sure that they are not only effective but also constitute as clear messages to Burma’s military rulers of the EU stand.”
 
_{Sai Wansai}

The meeting also discussed a high level meeting for a Karen and Shan delegation in the upcoming months, according to him.
 
“All together, I believe we have achieve a lot in promoting Burma and especially the ethnic nationalities issue,” he conclude.
 
From 2001-2007, Saw Hsar Gay and Sai Wansai, General Secretary of Shan Democratic Union (SDU), had made 15 trips to 9 European countries to wage their two-men lobbying campaigns: Portugal (4), Greece (2), The Netherlands (2), Spain (2), Austria (1), Czech Republic (1), Italy (1), Norway (1) and UK (1). France and Germany, among others, are in their future agenda, they said.