Narinjara News

3/25/2007

ASEAN legislators yesterday urged their governments to take a stronger stand and recognize the seriousness of the human security problems being caused by the Myanmar regime, according to a press release from the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus issued on 24 March.

The call for attention came out during a press conference of ASEAN parliamentarians that was held yesterday in the town of Mae Sot on the Thai-Myanmar border.

In the press conference, many parliamentarians from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore attended, including: MP Mr. Charles Chong of Singapore; MP Ms. Ann Mu’awanah of Indonesia; MP Mr. Djoko Susilo of Indonesia; MP Mr. Jeffrey Johanes Massie of Indonesia; Senator Dato’ Yip Kum Fook of Malaysia; MP Teresa Kok of Malayisa; MP Datin Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail of Malaysia; and Observer – former Ambassador to the UN Mr. Asda Jayanama of Thailand.

Participating parliamentarians at the press conference stressed that ASEAN governments should realize the urgency of the situation caused by the Myanmar junta’s brutal human rights violations and grave economic mismanagement.

Moreover, the parliamentarians mentioned their belief that the regime’s lack of democratic rule continues to negatively affect its neighboring countries and ASEAN as a whole.

“Over the past ten years the Myanmar authorities have been assuring us that there are ceasefires and roadmaps to democracy but the number of refugees fleeing has increased! About 50 percent more refugees are arriving from Burma in Thailand. In Malaysia, the numbers have gone up 300 percent. This is a human security catastrophe!” declared Dr. Wan Azizah, Member of Parliament from Malaysia, during the press conference.

The press conference was held in Mae Sot during a visit of the members of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus to the Thai-Burma border to speak with recent arrivals from Burma, as well as with those who have been there for many years now, and to witness for themselves the situation of Burmese refugees.

The team of parliamentarians also visited a refugee camp and the Mae Tao Clinic run by Magsaysay awardee Dr. Cynthia Maung. They met with various Burmese and non-Burmese organizations that work on various issues – such as health, education, environment, and migrants – which related to the struggle of Burma’s people.

The parliamentarians were reminded of their need to speak up for the people of Burma in the reports of continued torture, oppression of women, rape, forced labor, displacement, flooding of villages for dam building, and the many other human rights violations occurring in Burma.

“This visit has given us an opportunity to see the human face of the Myanmar problem. It has certainly strengthened our resolve to keep up our efforts for genuine reforms in Myanmar,” said MP Charles Chong of Singapore.

The visiting parliamentarians also acknowledged the need for ASEAN governments to protect refugees and migrant workers in their respective countries and ensure these vulnerable groups of people are accorded all their rights as governed by international standards and laws. “This is the 21st century, this tragedy must not be tolerated anymore. ASEAN must take strong steps at a regional and international level to stop the abuses that are forcing people out of their own country. I sincerely hope that my country, Indonesia, will use its seat on the UN Security Council to resolve this serious security problem,” said MP Djoko Susilo from Indonesia.

“In the meantime, our governments should also take responsibility for the protection of these refugees. After all, ASEAN is partly to be blamed for allowing the situation in Myanmar to drag on for decades. Regimes like the Myanmar junta rightfully should not exist in this day and age,” he added.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees report “2005 Global Trends”, among others, Burma is the world’s third larges source of refugees after Afghanistan and Iraq. By the end of 2005, at least 700,000 Burmese refugees had fled their country. #

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For immediate release on: 24 March 2007

Mae Sot, Saturday: – ASEAN legislators today urged for their governments to take a stronger stand and recognize the seriousness of the human security problems caused by the Myanmar regime.

Speaking at a press conference at the town of Mae Sot on the Thai-Myanmar border today, the participating Parliamentarians from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore stressed that ASEAN governments should realize the urgency of the situation caused by the Myanmar junta’s brutal human rights violations and grave economic mismanagement.

The Parliamentarians strongly believe that the regime’s lack of democratic rule continues to negatively affect its neighbouring countries and ASEAN as a whole.

“Over the past 10 years the Myanmar authorities have been assuring us that there are ceasefires and roadmaps to democracy but the numbers of refugees fleeing has increased! About 50% more refugees are arriving from Burma in Thailand. In Malaysia, the numbers have gone up 300%. This is a human security catastrophe!” declared Dr Wan Azizah, Member of Parliament (MP) from Malaysia.

The Parliamentarians, members of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), were on a visit to the Thai-Burma border to speak with recent arrivals from Burma, as well as with those who have been there for many years now, and to witness for themselves the situation of Burmese refugees.

“This is the 21st century, this tragedy must not be tolerated anymore. ASEAN must take strong steps at a regional and international level to stop the abuses that are forcing people out of their own country. I sincerely hope that my country, Indonesia, will use its seat on the UN Security Council, to resolve this serious security problem,” said MP Djoko Susilo from Indonesia.

“In the meantime, our governments should also take responsibility for the protection of these refugees. After all, ASEAN is partly to be blamed for allowing the situation in Myanmar to drag on for decades. Regimes like the Myanmar junta rightfully should not exist in this day and age,” he added.

The AIPMC members were visibly moved from their visit to the Thai-Myanmar border. They visited a refugee camp and the Mae Tao Clinic run by Magsaysay Awardee Dr Cynthia Maung. They were met with various Burmese and non-Burmese organisations that work on various issues – such as health, education, environment, migrants – all of which relate to the struggle of all Burma’s people.

Reports of continued torture, oppression of women, rape, forced labour, displacement, flooding of villages for dam building purposes and many other human rights violations served to remind the Parliamentarians of their need to speak up for the people of Burma.

“This visit has given us an opportunity to see the human face of the Myanmar problem. It has certainly strengthened our resolve to keep up our efforts for genuine reforms in Myanmar,” concluded MP Charles Chong of Singapore.

Parliamentarians also acknowledged the need for ASEAN governments to protect refugees and migrant workers in their respective countries and to ensure these vulnerable groups of people are accorded all rights as governed by international standards and laws.

ENDS

For more information, please call:

Roshan Jason (AIPMC Executive Director): +6-0123750974 (Malaysian number) or +66870460886 (outside Thailand) / 0870460886 (within Thailand)

Participating Parliamentarians:

MP Mr. Charles Chong – Singapore

MP Ms. Anna Mu’awanah – Indonesia

MP Mr. Djoko Susilo – Indonesia

MP Mr. Jeffrey Johanes Massie – Indonesia

Senator Dato’ Yip Kum Fook – Malaysia

MP Ms. Teresa Kok – Malaysia

MP Datin Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail – Malaysia

Observer:

Former Ambassador (to the UN) Mr Asda Jayanama – Thailand

Background note:

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees report titled “2005 Global Trends” and other reports:

Myanmar is the world’s third largest source of refugees after Afghanistan and Iraq. By the end of 2005, at least 700,000 Burmese refugees had fled their country. During recent years (1995 – 2005), the flow of refugees has increased by between 48% and 800% in Burma’s neighbouring countries. This trend indicates a chronic problem, which will have alarming implications on Burma’s neighbours, as the exodus of refugees from Burma continues unabated.

March 18, Xinhua General News Service

Yangon: Lao President Choummaly Sayasone will pay a state visit to Myanmar in the near future to boost bilateral and regional ties with the Southeast Asian neighbor, an official announcement from new capital Nay Pyi Taw said Sunday without giving specific date of the visit.

Choummaly’s trip will mark a return visit to the one to Vientiane in May 2003 by Myanmar top leader Senior-General Than Shwe, who is chairman of the State Peace and Development Council.

During Than Shwe’s 2003 visit to Laos, the two countries signed an agreement on the promotion and reciprocal protection of investment.

Over the past two years, prime ministers of the two countries also exchanged visits, with General Soe Win of Myanmar touring Vientiane in April 2005 and Bouasone Bouphavanh of Laos traveling to Nay Pyi Taw in November 2006.

Myanmar and Laos are friendly neighbors with good bilateral relations. In January this year, Myanmar and Laos upgraded the two countries’ respective border check points to meet international standard to boost arrivals of world tourists and those from a third country to visit the two countries’ border areas.

These checkpoints are Wan Pong in Tachilek of Eastern Shan state on the Myanmar side and Ban Muang Mom on the Lao side. The Mekong River flows between the two towns as a border line.

Meanwhile, Myanmar and Laos have been placing emphasis on peace and security and development in the two countries’ border areas, cooperating in drug control and agreeing to prevent trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances, and control banned chemicals.

Besides, Myanmar and Laos are also cooperating in agricultural, forestry and marine sectors.

Both Myanmar and Laos are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation.

Asian Tribune Thursday 8 March 2007

By Derek Tonkin

Zin Linn sets out passionately the dire situation in Burma in his article in Asian Tribune of 4 March 2007. It would indeed be very encouraging if the UN Security Council could pass a Resolution – any Resolution at all – which would help to bring peace and democracy to Burma. But China and Russia made it crystal clear even before “The Situation in Myanmar” was put on the Council’s agenda that they would oppose any draft Resolution presented to the Council.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guanggya could not have put it plainer when he told James Traub in an interview with the New York Times published on 3 September 2006 that he had “firm instructions” to block a US Resolution condemning Burma which was even then circulating in draft form. This was at least a fortnight before the Council agreed to put Burma formally on the agenda. The US sponsored initiative to use the Council to condemn Burma was regrettably doomed from the start.

Zin Linn refers to “a five point check list to bring any country on the agenda of the Security Council.” There is, with respect, no such internationally recognised check list. The idea has seemingly been taken from the September 2005 report commissioned by Václav Havel and Desmond Tutu, but it is not enshrined in any UN document, nor endorsed by any expert in International Law, nor accepted by any of the 192 member countries of the UN. In his “Handbook of International Law”, Professor Anthony Aust – a former UK Foreign Office legal adviser – says that a determination by any country of a “threat to the peace” requiring Security Council consideration “is a political act”. In making such a determination, says Aust, “Governments in practice ask themselves essentially political questions. Does something really have to be done? If so, what? Could it really be effective? Even if it would not be effective, do we still need to be seen to be doing something?”

There are thus no internationally agreed criteria to determine a “threat to the peace”. China is as entitled to make its own assessment of the situation in Burma as is the US, and neither is required to justify its determination in any forum. The Security Council is in essence a political body and Zin Linn cannot reasonably characterise the Council as a “Supreme Court”. In the case of “The Situation in Myanmar”, China and Russia have been immensely helped because no government within a radius of 3,000 kms has complained to the Security Council or to the UN Secretary General that Burma is a threat to their security and stability, while the US and the UK have had to declare a perceived threat almost in defiance of what all the countries of the region have said.

The cases of Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Rwanda, Liberia and Cambodia mentioned by Zin Linn are totally different from that of Burma because in all these cases, action at the Security Council was primarily based on representations from the neighbours of these countries as well as from regional organisations, and in one case – Haiti in 1993 – even from the elected Government. In the case of Burma, neither neighbours nor the regional organisation ASEAN have made representations.

This is also precisely what South African Ministers have said. Zin Linn quotes the UK’s UN Ambassador Sir Emyr Jones Parry as questioning South Africa’s vote against the Resolution on the grounds that “the UK did not walk on the other side when it passed sanctions against the internal apartheid policies of the then South African Government.” In fact, with trade turnover (goods and services) with South Africa running at some £4 billion annually in the 1980s, for much of the time the UK did walk on the other side of trade and investment sanctions, though the UN arms and the Commonwealth sporting embargoes were strictly followed.

In contrast to Burma, it was the apartheid regime which waged war against its neighbours – Angola, Mozambique and Zambia, attacking ANC guerrilla targets in both air and land operations. The “threat to the peace” from South Africa was both very real and universally condemned, and was a matter of constant and vigorous complaint by all of South Africa’s neighbours, who suffered under the assaults of the apartheid regime. Yet it was Nelson Mandela who was later to thank both Anglo-Dutch Shell and British Petroleum personally for staying on in South Africa under apartheid, for encouraging trade unions, training South Africans of all ages and adhering rigorously to the EU’s Code of Conduct for South Africa.

Burma may indeed be a “thorny topic” for the Association of South East Asians (ASEAN), as Zin Linn rightly says, but that is a far cry from representing any “threat to the peace”. A former Thai Ambassador Asda Jayanama may well have supported Security Council action, but he has never been the Thai Foreign Minister, and both the former Thai Foreign Minister, Kantathi Suphamongkon, when in office and the present Minister, Nitya Pibulsongram, have opposed action by the Council.

Nitya was quoted in the Hong Kong Standard on 12 January 2007 shortly before the vote took place as saying: “We think the Resolution should not be proposed in New York.” The influential Malaysian parliamentarian Datuk Zaid Ibrahim is indeed Chairman of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) which supported the Havel-Tutu recommendation for a “binding” Resolution against Burma, but it was Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, snubbed by the junta when he visited Burma last year and who has more reason than most to be upset by Burmese behaviour, who spoke for Malaysia when he was quoted in Bloomberg of 14 January 2007 as saying: “China and Russia have done the right thing on the question of principle. There have been too many abuses of the Security Council’s role by bringing matters and issues that are not security interests to the Security Council”.

While I well understand Zin Linn’s sense of outrage, I am not convinced that the interests of the people of Burma have been well served through the overzealous efforts of the US to try to force through a Resolution in the Security Council which was bound to fail, which has seriously disappointed the Burmese people and their democratically elected leaders, and which has only helped to entrench the junta in power and to delay the transition to democratically elected government. But I recognise that in the grander scheme of world politics, Burma may not be a policy priority for the US, that the country is after all in China’s backyard, and that Chinese support over Iran, North Korea and Darfur could be considerably more important to the US whose principal, if not sole interest in Burma is “human rights”. On this, the new US strategy, according to Grover Joseph Rees, the US State Department’s special representative for social issues, will be to raise its concerns at every possible international forum. Absolutely right.

The New York Times on 13 January 2007 reported US Under-Secretary for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns as saying: “We forced this issue on to the agenda for one reason. The Security Council is the only place that can deal with human rights.” China and Russia begged to differ. They said that the Security Council is where you deal with threats to international peace and stability. At the end of the day, it is what the UN Charter says that really counts. In the words of Article 24, the Council has been given by the members of the UN “the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. That is unlikely to change, however much the US might press for human rights to be included, and however much Zin Linn and I myself might wish this and press for this.

At the Security Council on 12 January 2007, it was China which said that it “sincerely hopes and expects that the Myanmar Government will listen to the call of its own people, learn from the good practices of others and speed up the process of dialogue and reform, so as to achieve prosperity for its nation, bring benefits to its people and contribute to peace, stability and development in South East Asia.” These words could almost have been written in Washington or London. In short, there is little difference in the assessments of Moscow, Beijing, Washington, London and Paris – the “Permanent Five” of the Security Council – that political and economic reform in Burma is essential. Where they do differ is on how this may best be achieved.

Derek Tonkin

British Ambassador to Thailand 1986-89,

Deputy Head of Mission British Embassy in South Africa 1983-86

Sun, 2007-03-04

By – Zin Linn*

Burmese people are surprised and frustrated by the media reports that South Africa President Thabo Mbeki has not helped their cause with his decision to lend support to China’s veto on Burma question at the UN Security Council.

In an interview to South African public broadcaster, SABC, Mbeki ticked off the Security Council for its resolution for democratic reforms in Burma. The interview came on 12 February, which the Burmese celebrate as Union Day.

In January, United States and Britain tabled a resolution in the Security Council calling on Burma’s military regime to free political prisoners, end sexual violence by the military and speed up democratic reform. When it was put to vote on Feb 12, China and Russia voted against the resolution. South Africa too opposed the text, taking the stand that the Security Council’s mandate was limited to matters that threaten world peace.

In his interview, Mbeki said that the Burmese issue should not be put forward unto the Security Council but the proper forum dealing with such cases is the UN’s Human Rights Council.

China and Russia came together to block the US move at the Security Council. It was the first double veto in nearly 20 years Washington invoked Burma junta’s poor humans rights record to table its censure of Yangon.

The Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said his country’s position is completely in accordance with the UN charter’s spirit. He did not elaborate but China’s UN ambassador said a pre-requisite for Security Council action is a threat to international peace. The vote and its aftermath dont take us to such a situation, he was quoted as saying.

There is a five-point check list to bring any country on the agenda of the Security Council. These are – (a) the overthrow of a democratic government, (b) conflict among factions, (c) human rights and humanitarian violations, (d) refugee outflows and (e) other transnational problems such as drug trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

Only some of these criteria were met in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Rwanda, Liberia and Cambodia. yet the Supreme Court felt it proper to discuss about them and even mandating action against them. Burma fits the criteria on all five counts. yet , the powers that be did not consider Burma a fit case for world body’s agenda at least. What a pity!

President Mbekie need not be reminded that South Africa gained enormously from UN activism against a despotic apartheid regime. So, he and his countrymen will appreciate that their decision on Feb 12 only provided unsolicited and undeserving relief to a military junta which has been trampling on people’s rights and incarcerating democracy activist..

Focusing to the point, China and Russia, abetted by SA, have fabricated a logistic assumption of their negative response by arguing that the oppressive conditions and conflicts are domestic affairs of a sovereign state and such circumstances do not correspond to a threat toward peace and stability in the region. They also took the plea that no neighboring country identified Burma as a regional threat, although Burma/ has repeatedly proved a thorny topic for fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

A Malaysian parliamentarian compared the Burmese senior general to Hitler and Stalin. Former Thai ambassador to the UN Asda Jayanama supports the UN action as a big step forward in the making of democratic Burma. Zaid Ibrahim, the chairperson of the inter-parliamentary Burma caucus (AIPMC), called on Asean to suspend or expel the regime.

It has been dawdling to put into practice a promised “road map” to democracy, and ASEAN countries have been pondered the creation of their own charter which would allow them to review over the non-intervention with internal affairs of member nations.

Inconsistent raison d’être of China, Russia and SA is really amazing whilst approximately 3-million Burmese have left their mother land and took shelter in neighboring countries; the IDPs (internally displaced people) are also in their millions wandering in the malarial mosquitoes-infested jungles. It is widely known that Burma as well as the military dictators are involved in international drug trafficking. It is notorious for forced conscription of children into the army.

According to the ILO, Burma still makes use of forced-labor to expand military-monopolized conglomerates. Complaints abound that the military members practice systematic rape as a weapon of war against Burmese and ethnic women. Although there is no foreign threat, Burma has enrolled up to four-hundred thousand in its army; the force usually attacks its own nationals to confiscate their lands and properties.

Unbiased observers can precisely make out that Burmese people have been facing – declining standards of living and increasing poverty, denial of citizen rights, denial of human rights, denial of political rights, jailing more than one thousand political prisoners, refusal of minority apprehension, ignorance of environmental dilapidation and situation of lawlessness, insecurity and fear.

The ugliest manifestation of human rights violation is the detention of Nobel Peace Prize-winner and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi for much of the last two decades. Her political party had won landslide victory in 1990 elections but the verdict was never honored. Many of her supporters remain behind bars.

On the other hand, the junta’s authorities involve in the drug trafficking, protect the drug lords and helps Burma becoming the world’s second largest producer of opium, and the world’s top producer of amphetamine-type stimulant or ATS pills. Thailand alone receives up to a billion ATS from Burma every year. That’s why the United States has been regularly charging the regime of torturing, raping and executing its own people, waging war on minorities and looking the other way while drug and human trafficking grows.

The draconian policies of the regime have led to a steady socio-economic downturn, as evidenced by rising rate of hyperinflation and commodity prices, infant mortality, malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. According to UN Reports, 75% of Burmese population lives under the poverty-line. A quarter of the household is facing minimum subsistence level. For example, 2 kg of rice price in February 2006 was 300 kyats in Burmese currency and now it rises up to 1000 kyats, compare to 500 kyats for a daily-waged worker. Over six hundred thousand people are HIV positive and one-third of children are moderately malnourished, one-tenth of those half-starved children died before five years of age.

A 2006-report by Dr. Chris Beyrer’s team says:” The epidemic of TB in Burma is closely linked to that of HIV. The WHO estimates that approximately 6.8% of TB patients in Burma have HIV, while in patients with living HIV infection, 60-80% also have TB, making this the most common opportunistic infection in AIDS. Today, Burma has the highest mortality rate amongst TB patients co-infected with HIV in South East Asia. An average of 600,000 new cases of malaria and 100,000 new cases of tuberculosis are documented per annum as the regime spent $ 22,000 for 600,000 HIV patients and $ 312,000 for tuberculosis infected people (40% of the population).” In the meantime, the junta’s most recent budget cited that it spent $ 1.1 per citizen on education and 40 ¢ on healthcare, compared to $ 400 on each soldier.

In his address on 13 February to the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, the UK’s ambassador to the United Nations Sir Emyr Jones Parry has questioned why, in view of SA’s apartheid past, the country did not vote to support a Security Council resolution to condemn the military junta in Burma for abusing human rights. The UK voted for the US-sponsored resolution along with majority on the council. SA was the only country to side with China and Russia.

Sir Emyr Jones Parry said: “The UK did not walk on the other side when it passed sanctions against the internal apartheid policies of the then South African government. We are not prepared to walk on the other side of an appalling situation in Myanmar.”

South Africa is the country of Nelson Mandela for every one of us. He is living symbol of campaign against any form of exploitation. Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of all South Africans who suffered and sacrificed so much and struggled for the human spirit over man’s inhumanity to man. Burmese people have noticed President Thabo Mbeki’s name in the autobiography of Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom. So, to them, Thabo Mbeki is a supporter for democracy and human rights. For the sake of the SA’s honorary past, Mbeki should review his opinion on military ruled Burma.

People of Burma hope that the people of SA strongly support their democratic right for social equality and end to military oppression. The world is changing. Any one who tries in vain stopping democratic waves will face the reprimand of the awakening populace throughout the world.

Zin Linn is an ex-political prisoner and exiled writer. He is an executive member of the Burma Media Association, which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers.

- Asian Tribune -