Burma Archives Project

"In the early morning on the day of my house arrest [July 20 1989], a hundred or so armed military personnel surrounded my house. Why they didn't immediately enter the compound I don't know, but those extra hours gave my wife and other family members the time to tear up and flush down the toilet every NLD document, letter and address that was in my office."

Early summer '98 a group of Burma related librarians, scholars, journalists and activists, together with IISH' Asia Department launched the Burma Archives Project. 
The Burma Archives Project exists to support and actively encourage the compilation, collection and safe preservation of documentation -in written and audiovisual form - particularly, but not exclusively, of material on Burma deriving from the 1980s onwards. A coordinated effort is needed to seek out material such as posters, photographs, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence, memoirs, political and ethnic groups' records. The creation of archives that preserve what has been called the 'collective memory of development' - material documenting social movements and social transformation, minority peoples and other subjects relevant to civil society - is essential to Burma's future development. 
The International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam offers a safe archival repository for the preservation of such material. Members of the Burma Archives Project (academics, librarians, and independent scholars and researchers) are concerned to use their contacts and expertise to help locate material and to ensure, on behalf of the individual or group from which it emanates, that it is safeguarded. It is planned that, as material accumulates, archival and conservation training and assistance can be given to those from whom the material originates, and that research, documentation and publication projects will develop.
The Burma Archives Newsletter is designed to keep BAP members in touch with latest developments and to become a forum for the exchange of ideas and reports on progress.

For more information, please contact the Asia Department at asia.department@iisg.nl

Burma Archives Newsletter, No. 1, July 1998 (pdf,  33 Kb)
Burma Archives Newsletter, No. 2, May 1999 (pdf, 148 Kb)
Burma Archives Newsletter, No. 3, October 2001 (pdf, 132 Kb)