"Star Trek" VS "Tyranny"

[Gajandra D]

THE Star Trek actor Walter Koenig yesterday urged fans of the iconic sci-fi series to turn their wrath on Burma's military junta, an earthly "outpost of tyranny".

Koenig, who battled alien Klingons and Romulans as an original member of the Starship Enterprise crew, said he hoped to mobilise Trekkies to join a campaign against the ruling generals blamed for human rights abuses in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the junta.

"I can tell people what I experienced, meeting people without limbs, the ex-political prisoners, the squalor, all that I have seen in these brief days," Koenig, 70, said after visiting a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border last week.

Thailand is home to about 140,000 long-term Burmese refugees, the UN refugee agency says, but half a million more have been internally displaced by attacks on villages in eastern Burma, home to one of the world's longest-running civil wars.

The United States has labelled Burma an outpost of tyranny and imposed economic sanctions, but the junta has avoided total isolation by using its vast natural gas reserves to befriend energy- hungry China and India.

Koenig, the son of persecuted Russian Jews who fled to the US at the turn of the century, said the campaign against injustice in Burma would resonate with Star Trek fans.

The original television series was cancelled in the late 1960s after only three seasons, but it developed a strong cult following due partly to themes dealing with social justice, race relations and even Cold War tensions.

"Star Trek fans are very receptive to humanitarian causes.

There is an extraordinary sense of philanthropy and benevolence among people who watch a show in which there is a company of characters who embrace all ethnicities and all races.

"I think they would respond to real world circumstances as well and spread the word," said Koenig, who plans to write a blog about the trip on his website, www.walterkoenigsite.com

His trip was organised by the US Campaign for Burma, which is taking a page from other human rights campaigns by raising awareness through celebrities.

But the campaign is struggling to attract the same attention as similar efforts for the Darfur region of Sudan, which has drawn the likes of Hollywood big guns George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.

"We feel the world has not woken up to how severe things are in eastern Burma," said Burma Campaign spokesman Jeremy Woodrum.