The human rights situation in Burma (Myanmar) is appalling. Everyone knows that but is anyone doing anything? The Tatmadaw or as the Burmese army is called has been accused of serious human rights violations including rape of village girls, use of child and forced labor and oppression of the ethnic minorities.
The ruling junta likes to call its regime as the ‘State Peace and Development Council’ (SPDC). Peace and Development indeed. Thousands of the ethnic Burman people as well as Karens, Chins, Shans, Mons and other non Burman people have faced extreme brutality and fled the country and taken refuge in neighboring Thailand or even in Bangladesh and India.
The Burmese ruling military junta encourages the trade and production of large amounts of amphetamines and heroin and killing of thousands is a routine ‘political’ process. To add to this, Burma also has this great and unique distinction of being the only country in the world which has successfully detained and imprisoned a Nobel Laureate for many years now.
It is absolutely unthinkable that we are living in a civilized world in the 21st century, and that a respected Nobel Laureate like Aung San Suu Kyi is in detention for years and that the international community chooses to do nothing or very little about it.
UN officials do pay occasional goodwill visits to her and enquire about her health and well-being and in a recent book Britain’s finance minister Gordon Brown has praised her efforts to bring democracy in Burma. But is that not a bit farcical? Of course US sanctions are in place and Burma has no support from the UN or the US.
But ‘sanction politics’ and ‘bomb politics’ seem to be the only methods that the world political leaders follow. What about ‘negotiation politics’? What about putting political pressure on the military regime to improve the country’s human rights situation? What about extensive negotiations and discussions with Than Shwe and the military leaders in Burma? What about worldwide demonstrations to release Aung San Suu Kyi? Is the world bothered? Is it because she is a woman? Is it because the international community does not bother about a relatively insignificant Asian country like Burma? Or is it because the Burmese military strictly controls, monitors and restricts all media and press reports so the real situation of the country does not even seep through and reach the outside world? The EU, US, UK have all paid lip service to the cause of democracy in Burma and have done really nothing. The EU leaders have shown absolutely no concern for the Burmese political and human rights situation. The country has been under military regime since 1962, and the human rights situation has only worsened. This has not been going on for a few months or a few years but for decades now and it is high time that people around the world at least show some concern and take action in a unified and systematic manner.
Despite US sanctions there are no changes in the regime and no plans to allow democracy in any form and all students uprisings are also suppressed along with any form of democratic movement, yet many countries continue diplomatic relations with Burma. Of course, Suu Kyi has fought for a unification of all factions and her party the National League for Democracy (NLD) has been very moderate in its criticism of the military.
Following the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Suu Kyi may have been too good and too graceful with her opponents. Despite landslide political victory and the Burmese people at her side, she was never allowed to establish democratic rule in Burma. Only time will tell whether her non-violent efforts will pay off and help the country to attain democracy in the near future. As of now, the world needs to support her more actively and as Suu Kyi has urged, ‘we have to use our own liberty and free thinking to promote the freedom of the oppressed people of Burma’. The world will have to turn its attention towards Burma and towards its most influential political leader and prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi.