By Gurmukh Singh in Ottawa and Lucy-Claire Saunders in Vancouver

It was hoped that with Cyclone Nargis in Burma, would come winds of change. This was the military junta’s opportunity to open itself up to the world and a chance to reconcile internal political dissidence.

But it quickly became apparent that instead of change, the status-quo remains firmly rooted in the new half-built capital of Naypyidaw, a fortress of power unaffected by the cyclone.

Disheartened by the continuing secrecy, paranoia and repression in this beleaguered South Asian nation, women across Canada are joining their sisters around the world in a unique global campaign to rattle Burma’s military leaders.

They’re sending a political message . . . on their panties.

Playing on the junta’s "superstitious fear" of female undergarments, Canadian women are being encouraged to scribble a slogan on a pair of their panties and mail them off to the Embassy of the Union of Myanmar (Burma) in Ottawa.

The Panties for Peace! campaign was launched last week in Montreal, where feminists and civil groups, working in conjunction with the Rights & Democracy Student Network and the Quebec Women’s Federation, appealed to Canadian women to inundate the embassy with their most personal effects.

"The Panties for Peace! campaign is basically aimed to play on the military junta’s superstitious fear that contact with a woman’s undergarment will rob them of their power," said organizer Mika Levesque of the Rights & Democracy Student Network.

"We appeal to every Canadian woman to clean up her drawer, choose one piece of panties, glue a picture of the military rulers on it or scribble some slogan or message for the junta and then register it with us before sending it to the Myanmar embassy in Ottawa. Registering with us will help us to keep track of how many panties have been sent to the embassy."

Added Levesque: "Myanmar’s military junta fears that any contact with panties will spell disaster for them. So ours is a non-violent method to force change in Myanmar."

Men can also play a role, she said, by reminding their wives, mothers and sisters to help send a message that the world is not oblivious to the junta’s authoritarian antics.

Levesque said that despite mounting hope that international aid workers have finally been permitted entrance to the cyclone-ravaged nation after sitting idle at the country’s borders for over two weeks, Burma’s military junta has done little for its people in the aftermath of the storm, which claimed 63,000 and left another million homeless.

Women in Australia, Singapore, The Philippines, Brazil and across Europe have joined in the Panties for Peace! campaign, sending their panties to Myanmar’s embassies in their respective countries as an expression of solidarity with the suffering women of Myanmar and in protest against human rights violations by the military regime.

Levesque, who is also the Asia regional officer of the Rights and Democracy Student Network, said Canada’s Panties for Peace! Campaign will continue through August 8.

"August 8 marks the twentieth anniversary of the popular 8888 (Aug 8, 1988) uprising in Myanmar," she told the Asian Post. "We want to tell the women of Myanmar that their sisters in the rest of the world think of them."

At least 70 groups across Canada are supporting the politically-charged underwear drive, added Levesque.

"Myanmar women have suffered the most at the hands of the military junta," she explained. "They bring women to barracks, rape and brutalize them and then dump them back in their villages.

"The world should enforce sanctions on them and try them for human rights violations," Levesque said.