For immediate release: Tuesday 27th June 2006

(Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

An unprecedented 503 MPs from 34 countries have today written to members of the United Nations Security Council, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling for a binding resolution to address the crisis in military ruled Burma. The letter is believed to be the largest number of MPs that have written to the Council in this way.

The move comes as Security Council members consider holding their first formal discussion on Burma. A draft resolution has also been circulated by the United States.

In their letter the parliamentarians write, “There is ample precedent for a Security Council resolution on Burma. The Council has passed resolutions on many countries, including Haiti, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Liberia, when internal breakdown was underway. In many of these countries the Security Council failed to act swiftly, resulting in many innocent lives being lost. This must not be allowed to continue in Burma.”

Support for a non-punitive Security Council resolution on Burma has grown in recent months as the situation in Burma continues to deteriorate. The ruling military junta has increased attacks on ethnic minorities in eastern Burma, an escalation of a campaign that has driven half a million people from their homes as internally displaced persons and over 700,000 refugees over Burma’s borders into neighbouring countries. Shockingly, at least 2,700 villages have been burned or otherwise destroyed by the junta.

The junta has also forcibly recruited more child soldiers than any other country in the world. At the same time harassment of members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party – the National League for Democracy – has increased and 1,100 political prisoners remain in jail, facing horrific forms of torture.

One month ago, UN Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Gambari Ibrahim travelled to Burma to meet with the leader of the military junta and Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Gambari raised hopes after his trip by stating that the military regime may end attacks on ethnic minorities and release Suu Kyi and 1,100 other political prisoners. He proclaimed the military junta was ready to “turn a new page” with the international community. One week later, the military regime rebuffed his every request, even extending Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention for one year and increasing attacks on ethnic minorities.

Subsequently, the United States, UK, France, and other countries indicated their support for what could become the first-ever UN Security Council resolution on Burma.

In the letter, the 503 parliamentarians endorsed a proposal by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Bishop Desmond M. Tutu and former Czech President Vaclav Havel that calls for a non-punitive, binding UN Security Council resolution that calls for national reconciliation in Burma. Tutu and Havel commissioned a legal study – A Threat To The Peace – that found the Security Council has the legal authority and an obligation to take action on Burma.

The letter was organized by a grouping of parliamentarians from 6 Southeast Asian countries called the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC). The letter is signed by elected representatives from countries including; Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Denmark, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia, US, UK, Austria, Romania, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, China (Hong Kong), India, Australia, Norway, Italy, Thailand, Canada, Sweden, Hungary, Mongolia, Germany, South Korea, and Pakistan.

“We, as elected representatives from all over the world have joined forces to support our fellow MPs in Burma who were never allowed to take their seats,” said AIPMC members on behalf of signatories to the letter.

“They are calling for a binding resolution on Burma and we support them in that call. It is now time for the United Nations Security Council to intervene. It has the power to pass a binding resolution requiring the regime to engage in genuine negotiations and begin a transition to democracy in Burma, through a process of peaceful national reconciliation.”

Many of the signatories retain considerable power in their own countries, including party leaders across the political spectrum. Signatories represent conservatives, moderates, and liberals, showing the powerful international consensus developing around the need for UN Security Council action in Burma.

“We have been overwhelmed by the support for this initiative,” said Zaid Ibrahim, Chair of the AIPMC and a member of parliament from Malaysia adding, “Action by the Security Council is long overdue”.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

AIPMC Secretariat: info@aseanmp.org or at +6012-3750974 (Roshan Jason, AIPMC Executive Secretary). AIPMC website: www.aseanmp.org

KUALA LUMPUR: Southeast Asian lawmakers called on Tuesday for Myanmar to be hauled in front of the UN Security Council, saying its neighbours were ‘lost’ on how to deal with the country’s military rulers.

Expressing growing frustration across the region, the bloc’s main committee on Myanmar said there had been no sign of change despite calls for democracy and the release of political prisoners like Aung San Suu Kyi.“We urge the United Nations to take the issue to the Security Council,” said the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), Malaysia’s Zaid Ibrahim.

“There is no democratic progress in Myanmar and ASEAN is lost on what to do,” he said in a telephone interview from the Indonesian capital Jakarta where some 20 council members gathered to decide on future action plans.

Zaid said that regional heavyweights China and India must also play a bigger role in ending Yangon’s repressive policies and campaigning for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. “We think it is not in the interest of China and India to allow the political situation in Myanmar to remain stagnant as it poses a problem to its neighbours,” he said. Last December the United States pushed the UN Security Council to hold a briefing on human rights and other problems in Myanmar for the first time.

“The United States reiterates its call on the Burmese regime to release all political prisoners and initiate the genuine dialogue with all elements of political life needed to bring about true national reconciliation,” State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said.

agencies

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

KUALA LUMPUR: Myanmar could be referred to the UN Security Council over its repressive policies and failure to release Aung San Suu Kyi UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown said on Monday.

“I think there is a possibility,” the official Bernama news agency quoted him as saying when asked about a referral.

Malloch Brown, who was visiting Malaysia, told Bernama that several members of the Security Council, apart from the United States, were pursuing the matter.

The UN official said that while Asia’s human rights record had improved over the past decade, Myanmar was among the slowest in introducing reforms, releasing political detainees and moving towards democracy. Washington has been lobbying for an unprecedented UN Security Council resolution calling on Myanmar’s military regime to change its repressive policies.

ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus members said on Monday that Myanmar must receive a stern reprimand such as suspension from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for dragging its feet in instituting democracy and freeing dissidents.

“Burma’s position in ASEAN must be reconsidered. I believe something must be done so that the international community do not accuse us of backing an unjust, military regime who do not want to consider human rights at all,” ASEAN Caucus President Zaid Ibrahim from Malaysia said.

Myanmar has proposed a seven-step “roadmap to democracy” and the junta says step one, drafting a new constitution, has been underway. Its ASEAN neighbours think the process has been too slow while the West views the plan as more of a delaying tactic than a serious attempt at reform. Last December the United States pushed the UN Security Council to hold a briefing on human rights and other problems in Myanmar for the first time. agencies

by Kraisak Choonhavan

The Jakarta Post

19 June 2006

Today [19 June] is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 61st birthday. Once again, the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), will wake trapped in her own home with only the company of her radio, and by all accounts, not in the best of health.

Like Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s people, too, are trapped and not in the best of health. The military regime’s severe oppression and misgovernance that ails Myanmar is worsening and threatening the entire region.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) publicly committed itself to the principles of comprehensive security in the 2003 Bali Concord II. The Concord acknowledges the fundamental linkage between good governance with traditional and non-traditional models of security. It is time for ASEAN leaders to fulfil that commitment and act to address the threat that the military regime in Myanmar poses to us all.

Unfortunately, informal talks about the spill-over effects of Myanmar’s problems, the favored approach of ASEAN to address such problems, have proved insufficient. In the past year, the military regime of Myanmar led by Senior General Than Shwe, has increasingly shown its contempt for ASEAN and its regional partners. Only recent moves to take Myanmar to the UN Security Council have sparked any positive reaction at all from the Senior General’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). This is proof the UN Security Council represents our “final frontier” in ensuring that genuine political and economic reforms take place in Myanmar that will, in turn, improve regional security.

When Myanmar joined ASEAN in 1997, the Myanmar authorities assured us that it was engaged in a “step-by-step” process to achieve democracy. Such “roadmap” initiatives have been an opportunity for the regime to issue assurances to the international community of “progress”, whilst simultaneously marching backwards on genuine political and economic reforms.

Besides rounding up hundreds more of political prisoners, more ethnic leaders and MPs have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms in the past year. Shan State Peace Council Chairman (SSPC) Gen Hso Ten was sentenced to 106 years in jail; Shan Nationalities League for Democracy Chair and MP Hkun Tun Oo was sentenced to 76 years. Rohingya MP-elect U Kyaw Min was sentenced to 47 years in prison while his wife and children each received 17-year prison terms.

It is only right that the NLD has refused to engage in the “roadmap” initiatives of the regime until the commencement of political dialogue. The bitter lessons learnt by the NLD and ethnic political parties from their previous participation in such processes prove that engagement would be futile without prior political dialogue based on the fundamental principles of democracy and human rights.

Myanmar’s military has continued its campaign of terror against the country’s ethnic nationality groups. There are an estimated 540,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Eastern Myanmar alone; the current assault on ethnic Karen has displaced 18,000 since November. In Western Myanmar, the SPDC has targeted ethnic Muslim Rohingyas. Meanwhile, UN statistics conservatively estimate that there are 688,500 Myanmar refugees in Thailand, Bangladesh, India and Malaysia.

Myanmar’s military regime is guilty of perpetrating egregious human rights violations – extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances, arbitrary detention, land confiscation and forced relocation are widespread. So is forcing civilians to serve as military porters, to act as human mine sweepers, and to work on infrastructure projects. Myanmar is notorious for having an estimated 70,000 child soldiers the largest number in the world and for systematically using rape as a weapon of war.

It is a well-known fact that Myanmar is the world’s number two producer of opium and heroin. A lesser-known fact is that Myanmar is Southeast Asia’s largest producer of amphetamine type stimulants (ATS). It is clear that the SPDC has contributed directly and indirectly to conditions that have allowed drug production and trafficking to thrive.

SPDC policies that restrict public health and humanitarian aid have created an environment where AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, filariasis, malaria and avian flu (H5N1) are spreading unchecked, and new disease strains are being incubated. Given this dismal scenario, Myanmar could very well become the epicenter for the avian flu pandemic. In the meantime HIV/AIDS, TB, and drug-resistant malaria pose a current and serious public health issues for all of us.

The regime is one of the key contributors to Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis through military operations against ethnic civilians, general neglect of the national population and serious economic mismanagement. The capricious move of Myanmar’s capital to a military stronghold has further bankrupted the population, making tens of thousands more vulnerable to human trafficking, economic exploitation and poverty-related disease.

ASEAN has had to expend considerable amounts of political capital in defending our recalcitrant neighbor. ASEAN’s diplomatic, political and economic influence has become a hostage to the Myanmar’s regime’s misrule and misbehavior. It is intolerable that ASEAN is compelled to defend the same misbehavior that continues to adversely affect regional economic and political stability.

I believe our ASEAN leaders are well aware of the security dimensions of Myanmar’s oppression but are afraid that taking a public stand may provoke a worse reaction from the regime, causing more problems for “frontline” states bordering the country. This short-sighted approach only serves to prolong and worsen the problem. Just as the Myanmar regime has failed to deliver on long-standing promises of reforms, ASEAN’s dithering is flouting commitments made through the ASEAN Security Community Plan of Action.

In absence of political will in ASEAN, I and my other colleagues in the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) believe that the most effective approach to restoring democracy in Burma is through action by the UN Security Council. We are not calling for military intervention but we do believe that a formal resolution with enforceable measures, followed by firm and leveraged diplomacy will deliver the results that the people of Myanmar and this region so urgently need.

Senator Kraisak Choonhavan is Chairman of the Thai Senate Foreign Affairs Committee & Vice President of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC)

Jakarta, June 19, 2006.

We are pleased to launch a booklet to mark the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, who turns 61 today. The booklet titled “Asian Voices: Myanmar’s Threat to Regional Security” strengthens our voice for ASEAN and the UN Security Council to work officially for the peaceful resolution of Myanmar’s problems which continue to threaten our regional security and stability.

While Myanmar does not yet pose a military threat to the region, it is obvious that Myanmar’s growing instability and misgovernance is affecting our human and economic security. This is why we are calling for stronger regional support for the UN Security Council to have a binding resolution on Myanmar to ensure that the Myanmar authorities honour their promises for reforms.

We wish to take this opportunity to condemn the recent extension of Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention. We also condemn the continued detention of 14 elected MPs from Myanmar, including the Shan leader Khun Htun Oo who was sentenced to 90 years in jail last November.

We are proud to have led the international initiative for a legislators’ letter to the UN Secretary General and UN Security Council members to adopt a Security Council resolution on Myanmar. Already, 451 legislators from 33 countries around the world have signed this letter which will be sent today.

On the occasion of Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday, we renew our commitment and resolve to support a peaceful political solution for the problems plaguing the people of Myanmar and, therefore, our region. We believe that political dialogue is the way forward and call on the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to immediately and unconditionally release Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners as a prelude to such dialogue. To this end, we will be implementing a broad range of activities, including an international conference on “Myanmar and Democracies in Transition” to be held a few days before the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting and ASEAN Regional Forum next month in Kuala Lumpur.

We also welcome the efforts of ASEAN leaders to push forward genuine reforms in Myanmar and urge them to devote more priority to pro-active and coordinated measures. In this context, we urge ASEAN leaders to be more vigorous in their engagement of India and China to secure genuine reforms in Myanmar.