SPEAKING
FREELY Lest we forget in
Myanmar By Nancy Hudson-Rodd
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
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The Myanmar
delegation to the United Nations in Geneva
complained last year that some members failed to
show due diplomatic respect by referring to their
country as Burma rather than Myanmar. Now most
diplomats and news publications refer to the
country as Myanmar as a reward the regime's recent
so-called reforms. But is this respect justified
and are long-time Myanmar observers now suffering
from selective amnesia?
Last year,
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, recently
released from years of house arrest, remotely
addressed the annual World
Economic Forum in Davos
"on behalf of the 55 million people of Burma who
have largely been left behind". Suu Kyi, who has
long supported Western sanctions imposed against
her country's military regime, appealed to
international participants to promote Burma's
genuine democratization, human development and
economic growth.
Her National League for
Democracy (NLD) party a week later detailed the
kinds of policies needed to promote positive
change and rebutted claims that Western sanctions
were only detrimental to Burma's people, not
leadership. The party argued that "criticism of
sanctions served to divert attention from the main
problems plaguing the country" which it listed as
blatant cronyism, corruption, and the military
regime's refusal to release their iron-clad grip
on power.
It also argued that the
legislative assemblies formed out of the 2010
elections, which the NLD did not contest and hence
was subsequently banned, are totally dominated at
both the national and regional levels by the
combined body of the military's Union Solidarity
Development Party and the non-elected military
representatives who account for 25% of all
legislative seats. Moves to designate these
assemblies as the country's only political forum
reduced democratization in Burma to a "parody",
the NLD said.
A year later, optimistic
reports of positive change flow freely from the
country. President Thein Sein has portrayed
himself as a leader who sincerely wants to improve
citizens' livelihoods, alleviate poverty and
include the NLD in the political process. He has
formed a new Human Rights Commission, opened
previously closed doors to international diplomats
and their corporate sponsors, and relaxed laws to
promote more international investment and
development.
The timing has been
impeccable. International corporations, many
nervous over Europe's debt crisis and America's
sustained sluggishness, are eager to find fresh
new places for their funds and Burma is suddenly
emerging as a possible destination. As the
chairman of the Singapore-based Rogers Holdings
told Bloomberg Television last November, "If you
can find ways to invest in Myanmar you will be
very, very rich over the next 20, 30, 40 years."
China and Thailand currently account for
more than 70% of total investment in Burma, but as
the executive vice president of the Stock Exchange
of Thailand recently said, "Every Western company
complaining about sanctions is looking around. The
more the merrier ... There are vast opportunities
in Myanmar."
Following those words, a
high-level American business delegation that will
include Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is due to
visit the country in February in the latest sign
of strengthening US ties with the long-isolated,
military-run country. European businesses are
known to be interested in various sectors,
including natural resources and infrastructure,
the President of the Thai-German Chamber of
Commerce recently said while opening the new
European-Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) Business Center in Bangkok.
There
are commercial reasons to be optimistic. Myanmar
is developing a US$8.6 billion port and industrial
complex at the coastal town of Dawei which is
designed to cover an area 16 times bigger than
Thailand's largest manufacturing park. Thanet
Sorat, head of the Federation of Thai Industries,
said recently "What makes Dawei interesting is
Myanmar itself. It was closed for so long and now
the government is more open. Thai companies see
many opportunities there due to cheap labor costs
and many natural resources."
However, the
government's and military's continued rights
abuses in the same region are less widely
publicized. The Human Rights Foundation of Monland
(HRFM) recently reported widespread violations
against citizens in Dawei's Tenasserim Division.
In fishing villages along its coastal areas, the
Navy's administrative unit extorts monthly
household fees, commandeers fishermen's boats and
drivers to transport staff and troops, demands
rations from the local population, and forces
people to act as security guards, according to
HRFM.
Last year, the same navy unit
allegedly confiscated over 1,000 acres [405
hectares] of rubber and perennial fruit
plantations from local farmers. None of the
agrarians were compensated for their lost lands.
Over 3,000 more acres of rubber plantations have
been surveyed for confiscation, according to
reports. Many local authorities now make money by
granting permission to displaced former land
owners to work as cheap labor on their confiscated
plantations for a monthly fee.
The
recently released 38-page Burmese language book,
Forced Expropriations of Farmland and Partial
Victories, published by the Farmers Rights
Defenders Network, also tells the story of
villagers' struggle against army-backed companies
taking their land for industrial development.
To date the new National Human Rights
Commission, run by the Home Ministry, has not
investigated any of these claims. "There is no
real change and development yet in spite of the
government's claim. This is because the abuses
that locals in the region face are committed by
local military men, who do not seem to care and
respect the government's order and power,"
remarked a local former school teacher quoted in
the HRFM report.
Cosmetic change So are the positive changes supposedly taking
place in Burma more cosmetic than substantive? And
does Thein Sein's nominally civilian,
military-backed government deserve the
international recognition and rewards it has
recently and may in future receive, including the
lifting of economic and financial sanctions?
One condition for removing Western
sanctions has been the release of political
prisoners. Those who have been released by recent
presidential pardons committed no crimes yet at
any time may be sent back into prison to complete
their sentences if they do anything deemed as
improper by authorities. Significantly, the
amnesties have not been based on any law but
rather the whim of the leader.
Over 1,000
political prisoners still remain imprisoned,
according to the Thailand-based Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPPB).
The real number is unknown. No independent review
of prisons, prison labor camps, and agricultural
production camps have been allowed since 2005 when
the International Commission of the Red Cross was
denied access.
Despite all the talk of
reforms, none of the arbitrary laws and
regulations that have been used to crush dissent
have been changed. And there remain many
unanswered but highly pertinent questions that
Western governments looking to engage Thein Sein's
supposedly reformist regime should be asking.
For instance, where are products of
agricultural prison labor camps being sold? What
compensation schemes are in place for
government-confiscated lands, crops, and
resources? Where is the discussion of land
ownership and rights, particularly at a time
foreign investors look to establish presences in
the country?
To be sure, Suu Kyi's
announcement that the NLD will re-enter politics
confers a degree of legitimacy on President Thein
Sein and his nominally elected parliamentary
government. Her endorsement of what so far has
been a limited democratization process has
attracted eager corporate interest but little
improvement in civil liberties and human rights -
the reasons economic sanctions were imposed in the
first place.
All laws passed since 1988,
when the military slaughtered over 3,000
pro-democracy demonstrators, have been passed
through executive decrees rather than legislative
processes. There is no independent judiciary.
There is no rule of law. The 2008 Constitution,
rammed through in a sham referendum, is designed
to ensure continued domination of the military
regime. Anyone who speaks out against the regime
still risks being thrown into prison. The press is
still pre-censored. Change has been marginal, at
best.
Despite the pretensions to
democracy, Thein Sein's government still depends
on one of the largest armed forces in Southeast
Asia for its survival. With no serious prospect of
a foreign invasion, this standing force remains
solely to control the population. A culture of
impunity has long existed in Burma, where
government officials and military personnel have
gone wholly unpunished for a litany of widely
documented abuses.
The 2008 constitution
perpetuates that culture of impunity by giving
blanket amnesty for serious crimes committed by
former junta members, including former leader
Senior General Than Shwe. It also denies victims
the right to remedy for past violations as the
military still hold disproportionate influence
over Thein Sein's government. Authorities continue
to restrict access to mechanisms of citizen
complaint while harassing and taking legal action
against those who have dared to challenge the
military's authority over civilian affairs.
NLD stalwart Win Tin, who was held as a
prisoner of conscience for 19 years, has said he
sees "no difference, no change" with the new
government. He has argued that the newly
established Human Rights Commission is similar to
the previous ineffectual ones set up by past
military regimes. "There is no change. If you go
to the countryside you find poor people who are
facing violations of their human rights," Win Tin
said.
Win Tin's is the voice of moral authority few
Western governments and corporations want to hear
these days. But the long, hard fought struggle for
freedom and justice in Burma continues and truth
speakers should be supported rather than ignored.
While the West blindly supports Thein Sein's
shallow democratic transition, it increasingly
runs the rising risk of being on the wrong side of
Burma's history.
Nancy
Hudson-Rodd is a human geographer and honorary
senior research fellow at the Edith Cowan
University in Australia.
Speaking
Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows
guest writers to have their say.Please
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