Zar Ni has not communicated with his family for one year. He has not seen them for more than eight years.

As the principal organizer for the Free Burma Coalition, Zar Ni has abolished all ties with his family in Burma in order to further the fight for freedom in Burma.

Zar Ni spoke last night to about 50 people gathered in the Franklin building to learn how they can help the Free Burma Coalition.

The coalition is working to get PepsiCo Inc. to pull its business out of Burma because it says the Burmese government forces slave labor that benefits the American company. Workers are forced to work on farms at gun point for no pay, Zar Ni said.

"We won't be satisfied until Pepsi has complete and utter withdrawal from Burma," said Zar Ni, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. "They must sell all stocks and cut all ties."

PepsiCo Inc. announced last week that they will divest all business from Burma, and yesterday, a spokesman from the company said, "Pepsi no longer has employees and assets in Burma."

The company sold its share of a bottling company in Rangoon, Burma, but still allows its logo to be used and supply syrup to the company.

Zar Ni also encourages boycotting Unocal, which has joined with several other companies to build a pipeline from the Indian Ocean through Burma to Thailand.

"Any village that is in the way of the pipeline gets slashed and burned," Zar Ni said. "Most people are relocated to different places, mostly shanty towns. A lot of people flee the country before the military comes through. This causes a huge refugee problem."

Zar Ni left Burma a month before an August 1988 massacre in which 5,000 to 10,000 people were killed by the Burmese military during peaceful demonstration.

"I saw the massacre on television when I was living in Tokyo with a few other Burmese students. We found ourselves crying at the lives that were lost."

Eiei Gaw, a UA alumna, is from Burma and has visited her home several times.

"Before you go anywhere, you have to tell (the military) your schedule," Gaw said. "Our relatives had to show their ID cards to go to our hotel. They even gave us different hotel rooms to separate us."

Zar Ni started the Free Burma Coalition two years ago, and since then it has increased to 40 organizations in 15 countries. In the United States, 70 college campuses have started their own coalitions.

Chris Ford, a UA student and one of the UA chapter's creators, said that the chapter was created about two months ago by six or seven students.

"We have to let dictators know that U.S. people will not accept these types of practices," Ford said."No matter what people think it is relevant to people's lives. People are being killed and suppressed. We have to remember that the massacre in 1988 (killed) students like us."