Jane Birkin to march for Myanmar at Cannes film fest
PARIS (AFP) — British-born singer and actress Jane Birkin will join a protest on the sidelines of the Cannes film festival Monday to highlight the critical ordeal of the two million survivors of Myanmar's cyclone disaster.
"We are trying to touch people, we will go to Cannes, we will take to the streets, where important people from around the world are gathered," Birkin told a support rally in Paris on Saturday.
Some 50 people including Birkin's daughter the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and members of the pressure group Info Birmanie gathered at the foot of the Eiffel Tower under banners reading "Solidarity with the Burmese people".
"They are dying. We implore the United Nations, the international community to act now. Please support us, please help us," Ashim Sopaka, a monk from Myanmar, told the crowd.
Myanmar's military regime has been heavily criticised for a slow-moving relief effort after Cyclone Nargis, two weeks after the cyclone left nearly 78,000 people dead and 56,000 missing.
The junta Saturday allowed in nearly 80 Asian medics to help, one of the first significant movements of foreign aid workers into the disaster zone.
The head of this year's Cannes jury, US actor-director Sean Penn, took aim at the junta's response as the festival opened on Thursday.
"When these things happen, all these governments, and I include mine, their control over people ... their keeping people from getting help when they need it, they've got to be pushed out of the way by people," he told reporters.
Info Birmanie said it had contacted several actors and directors at Cannes for them to join Monday's protest.
