Dear Presidents and officers,
As many of you have already known, the atrocity against the ethnic
Chinese in Indonesia is one of the most inhumane pogroms. They were
tortured, killed, raped, and burnt to death. Their properties were
looted. Their houses and shops were destroyed and burnt. Hundreds of
Chinese Indonesian women and children were gang-raped in public, and in
front of their families. Many of the victims remained traumatized and
some women killed themselves after their ordeals. Recent reports suggest
that the situation is not improving, on the contrary, things are
becoming worse and worse for the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia.
The Harvard Chinese Students and Scholars' Association (HSCCA) has set
up the Care-for-Chinese-Indonesian Special Committee to campaign against
such atrocity. Our goal is to win basic human rights for the Indonesian
ethnic Chinese. Currently we are contacting MIT, Brandeis, Tufts, and
Boston University for the Greater Boston Delegation to participate in
the Aug. 7th Washington DC demonstration.
We urge your organizations to take the leadership role in New York State
and New York City to participate the Washinton DC demonstration. We
would also appreciate if you can provide help to our delegation for the
night of Aug. 6th.
This campaign is a chance to show our unity, our ethnic spirit, show
that we care, we will not tolerate, and we will fight until material
changes happen in Indonesia. We will win sympathy from all over the
world and establish this new image of Chinese. My dear friends,
together, we can make history.
HCSSA does not consider the Washington DC Demonstration is the end to
this campaign. It considers it a new beginning. The Demonstration send
out our message. The world shall take note. We shall follow up the
extraodinary work initiated by Mr. Xingguo Li and UCincinnattiCSSA.
Hence I propose that, after the demonstration, all CSSAs participate in
a representative meeting and discuss what's our next action, what is the
best strategy to achieve it, and how to coodinate among us.
My dear friends, this is a cause bigger than anything else. Together, we
can make a difference.
Suhua Zhang, Ph.D.
Co-Chair
HCSSA Care-for-Chinese-Indonesian Special Committee
Note:
HCSSA(Harvard Chinese Student and Scholar Association)