FCC club lunch with Benedict ROGERS

Speaker: Benedict ROGERS
Author and Human Rights Campaigner
East Asia Team Leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Topic: Burma’s crimes against humanity: a test-case for the responsibility to protect

Benedict ROGERS has travelled almost thirty times to Burma and its borderlands. He will give an overview of the deepening political and humanitarian crisis in Burma, detailing the violations he has documented particularly in the ethnic minority areas along Burma’s borders with Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh, as well as the suppression of the democracy movement. With the continuing detention of Nobel Peace Prize winner AUNG SAN Suu Kyi, the outbreak of fighting along the Burma-China border, continuing offensives against civilians in eastern Burma and the regime’s preparations for new elections in 2010 and the implementation of a new constitution, Benedict Rogers will share his views on what the international community, including Burma’s regional neighbours, should do to address the deteriorating situation.

Mr. ROGERS is the author of A Land Without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma’s Karen People (Monarch, 2004) and has recently co-authored a biography of Burma’s dictator, Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant, to be published in 2010 by Silkworm Books. He is currently writing another book, Burma: A Captive Nation. He is a regular contributor to a variety of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Guardian and has been interviewed regularly in international media, including BBC and CNN.