| U2'S ALBUM
BANNED IN BURMA |
nNovember
28 2000 | 03:00 PM EST | ROLLINGSTONE |--Richard
Skanse
It's been a long time since
Bono marched around stage waving a white
flag, but the outspoken Irishman and the
rest of his cohorts in U2 apparently
still have a knack for buggin' certain
people, particularly when they mean
to. The band's new album, All That You
Can't Leave Behind, has been banned
in Burma by the country's ruling military
dictatorship. The
reason? The song "Walk On,"
which is dedicated in the album's liner
notes to Daw Aung San Sun Kyi, the leader
of Burma's pro-democracy movement who has
been under virtual house arrest since
1989 along with other members of her
National League for Democracy. The liner
notes also list a Web and mailing address
for the pro-democracy Burma Campaign.
According to a BBC transcript of a
Burmese opposition radio report, Burma's
SPDC (State Peace and Development
Council) military intelligence office has
barred the import of any magazine,
journal or tape that so much as mentions
Aung San Sun Kyi's name. Doing so carries
a fine of three to twenty years in
prison.
U2 have devoted space on
their newly launched Web site, www.U2.com,
to the plight of democracy in Burma,
crediting the nation's military
dictatorship -- a "destructive
tyranny" which has ruled since 1962
-- with "one of the worst human
rights records in the world."
Charges against the regime include the
use of more child soldiers than any other
country in the world, the forced labor of
eight million men, women and children, an
ethnic cleansing campaign against half a
million Shan, Karen and Karenni people
and the detainment of more than 1,500
political prisoners.
According to their Web
site, U2 was scheduled to film a video
for "Walk On" last week in Rio
de Janeiro with Swedish director Jonas
Akerlund, who shot their recent clip for
"Beautiful Day." "Walk
On" will be the band's next single
in America. (A different single,
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out
Of," has been picked for the
European market -- with a video set to be
filmed this week in Los Angeles).n
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