SPEAKING
FREELY Thein Sein a man of war, not
peace By Nancy Hudson-Rodd
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On April 22, Myanmar
President Thein Sein will be honored by the
International Crisis Group (ICG) as the recipient
of this year's "In Pursuit of Peace, Prosperity
and the Presidency Award" at a gala dinner in New
York City.
The award is given to recognize
and "celebrate inspirational figures whose
visionary leadership has transformed the lives of
millions and brought forth the promise of a world
free of conflict". ICG said Myanmar, also known as
Burma, is being rewarded for
"its remarkable and
unprecedented set of reforms since President Thein
Sein's government took over in March 2011, freeing
hundreds of political prisoners, liberating the
press and promoting dialogue with the main
opposition party".
Rising international
praise for Thein Sein's quasi-civilian regime has
meant turning away from many hard truths. A new
constitution enforced in a bogus referendum in
2008 ensured that the military maintained control
and power under the guise of democracy. Thein
Sein, who served as prime minister under the
previous rights-abusing military junta, was
appointed president after rigged 2010 general
elections were swept by predominantly
military-linked candidates.
Thein Sein's
image has benefited from his cold-turned-cordial
relations with pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu
Kyi, who spent 16 out of 21 years under house
arrest during the previous military regime that
Thein Sein obediently served. Suu Kyi said that
she felt Thein Sein meant well and was a sincere
man after a one-on-one meeting last year many have
wrongly characterized as an equal dialogue.
After failing to kill Suu Kyi in an
assault on her caravan in 2003, and with
consistent international support for her and her
heavily harassed National League for Democracy
(NLD) political party, the military apparently
decided it would benefit more from having Suu Kyi
as an ally rather than enemy.
Thein Sein's
government created a loophole in the constitution
to allow her and the previously banned NLD to
contest and win 43 out of 48 seats in parliament
up for grabs during by-elections held last April.
When the NLD resoundingly won elections held in
1990, the military annulled the results and
maintained power, ruling with an iron fist. The
NLD now holds a mere 6% of the total seats in
parliament, where the military is reserved 25% of
the total seats.
Under the guise of
democratic reform, Thein Sein's regime is selling
off virgin lands and natural resources to the
highest bidders, more often than not military
cronies, across the underdeveloped country.
Foreign investors can now lease land for a period
of 50 years with two 10-year extensions, meaning
the land doled out to military cronies will soon
command First World rents for decades to come.
In undeveloped and remote areas of the
country, Thein Sein's government has announced it
will allow longer foreign investment periods. This
will effectively steal away for generations huge
swathes of land and ecosystems from local farmers
and villagers, jeopardizing their right to food
and secure livelihoods.
Hundreds of
political prisoners, whom the government had long
insisted did not exist, have been released through
presidential amnesties. Those releases have earned
Thein Sein praise in the international community.
U Myint Aye, a prominent human-rights defender and
supporter of people affected by the Cyclone Nargis
disaster, was released when US President Barack
Obama visited Myanmar in November.
Yet few
of the draconian laws that allowed for their
imprisonment have been amended or abolished. Those
released by presidential amnesty can be thrown
back into prison if they are perceived to break
the terms of their release, including by offending
the government. There have been no moves to offer
compensation to those who unjustly served time in
the country's abysmal prisons.
Meanwhile,
new arrests are being made, including leaders of
demonstrations against the Letpadaung Mountain
copper mining project in the country's north. The
mine, a joint venture of a Myanmar army-owned
business group and a Chinese company, would
displace local villagers and pollute the
environment, the arrested protest leaders say.
Violent police assaults on protesters camped near
the mine site, including the apparent use of
incendiary devices, left dozens of monks and other
citizens hospitalized, some with severe burns.
In November, Yangon police arrested six
leaders of a rally supporting the anti-mine
protest. They were charged with offences against
"public tranquillity" and are currently in prison.
Four shopkeepers in Kachin State were sent to
prison for filming a demonstration against the
relocation of a marketplace.
Prominent
former political prisoners, meanwhile, continue to
face harassment. U Gambira, a former Buddhist monk
and leader of the 2007 Saffron Revolution protest
has been denied residency by authorities in any
Buddhist monasteries. He has been disrobed as a
result of the government repression.
Instead of praising and rewarding Thein
Sein, the ICG and other international
organizations should encourage him to suspend
large-scale land transactions, demand a stop to
oppression of dissidents and the criminalization
of people defending their lands from
military-backed seizure and development, and call
for the release of the hundreds of political
prisoners still held behind bars. They should
also focus more attention on the plight of the
ethnic Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that has
faced an upsurge of violence since clashing with
Rakhine Buddhists in the country's western Arakan
State.
It is unclear why once-respected
groups like ICG have allowed themselves to be
seduced by socio-political doctrines and a
continuation of totalitarian terror for the sake
of some hypothetical peaceful future.
Why
are so many Myanmar citizens being denied the
international support they need now more than ever
to create a country based on genuine democratic
principles? Why is there now less international
criticism of the injustices that continue to be
committed under Thein Sein's supposed democratic
regime?
It is clearly too early to heap
praise on Myanmar's Thein Sein. Despite recent
easing of government restrictions, including a
loosening of press censorship and rights of
association, Myanmar's people are still deprived
of many basic rights. The people are increasingly
expressing their displeasure with the status quo
in mass demonstrations, many staged to fight for
their lands, livelihoods and voice in government.
As those popular calls mount, so too
should demands for accountability for past abuses,
many committed under Thein Sein's watch while
serving as prime minister under the previous
junta. The 2008 constitution, devised by military
leaders keen to protect their power and interests,
gives the military amnesty for any human-rights
violations.
In 2006, Paulo Sergio
Pinheirio reported to the United Nations' General
Assembly that sexual violence, forced labor, and
child soldiering were "widespread and systematic
over the last decade so as to suggest they are not
simply isolated acts of individual misconduct of
middle or low rank officers but rather the result
of the upholding of a system under which
individuals and groups have been allowed to breach
the law and human rights without being held to
account".
Some of these crimes,
international rights groups note, could fall under
the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction.
Many of those same abuses continue under
Thein Sein's current watch as the army intensifies
its assaults on rebels in Kachin State. While the
ICG rewards Thein Sein as a man of peace, the
country is still at war. International groups like
ICG are now focused on supporting the very men who
committed past human-rights abuses and crimes
against humanity, and continue to do so under
different guises and through different means.
Nancy Hudson-Rodd, PhD, human
geographer, former director of the Centre for
Development Studies, honorary research fellow,
Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, has
conducted research in Myanmar for the past decade
on the arbitrary confiscation of farmers' land by
the military regime. She may be reached at
n.hudson_rodd@ecu.edu.au.
Speaking
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