When
Pandora opened the forbidden box and let loose all the miseries of
greed, despair, lies and wrath, she slammed the lid shut while it
still held imprisoned hope. Today hope still remains
in limbo for the people of Burma who desperately desire a democratic
government and freedom from the reign of terror wielded by the
totalitarian regime in power.
A
military coup ousted the democratically elected National League for
Democracy led by 65 year old, Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, and
has held her under house arrest since July, 1989. The junta also
suspended the constitution, outlawed all other political parties in
Burma and imprisoned over 2,000 political opponents of the regime.
Private businesses were declared State property. The military took
charge of industry and agriculture without any experience in these
fields and the generals changed the name of the country to Myanmar
and the capital city, Rangoon, to Yangon. There has been no
ratification of these name changes by the Burmese people and not all
Western countries accept them.
The
majority of the Burmese population lives in the fertile, central
river valleys and 85% of them are Buddhist; of these, 300,000 are
Therevada Buddhist monks. Christians and Muslims and various animist
traditions comprise the remaining religious groups. On 22nd
September, 2007, barefooted, saffron-robed monks led a peaceful
protest in Yangon (Rangoon) against the regime, in a vain hope for
freedom and democracy. They were joined gradually by students and
political activists until some 100,000 were marching together in
Rangoon and in 25 other Burmese cities. But the demonstrations ended
in a blood bath, a little of which was shown on television around the
world, as the military government crushed the “Saffron
Revolution” with shootings, beatings, imprisonments, torture
and interrogations. The United Nations confirmed reports that
thousands of monks were disrobed and forced out of their monastic
life. Now there is even stricter surveillance in the monasteries and
temples by the government
Due
to its particularly severe violations of religious freedom, the
United States has designated Burma a Country of Particular Concern
(CPC) and a Tier 3 Country in the Trafficking in Persons Report for
its use of forced labour. Sanctions imposed on Burma by the United
States began in 2003 and include banning importation of oil products,
banning exports of financial services, freezing the assets of
designated Burmese military personnel and parastatal companies in the
United States, imposing visa restrictions, banning importation into
the United States of Burmese rubies and jade and prohibiting new
investments in Burma by U.S. individuals or entities. In 2009
President Obama sent senior U.S. government officials from Washington
to begin talks with high level Burmese representatives from the
world’s longest running military power and to meet briefly with
Aung San Suu Kyi, still under house arrest in Rangoon.
Foreign
writers and journalists are denied entry to Burma. When any of them
slip into the country posing as tourists and are discovered, their
notebooks and photographic film are confiscated and they are
immediately deported (as was Daniel Pepper of the New York Times in
2007 when he was caught researching the 4 million dollar’s
worth of sales per year to China, India, Thailand, Singapore and the
Arab Gulf States from the Burmese jade industry). Some news
reporters and cameramen caught filming secretly have been given
prison sentences. The repercussions are greater for the Burmese
people they interview. Under the country's 1950 Emergency Provisions
Act, providing foreigners with information that the regime considers
hostile is punishable with a minimum seven-year prison sentence and
sometimes torture. Nevertheless, local and international reporters
continue to conduct research and publish their findings, usually
under assumed names.
After
the government crackdown in 2007, a senior monk spoke to a Human
Rights Watch reporter from inside his monastery: We are
inspired by Mahatma Ghandi and are not afraid. We have contacts with
other sympathetic monasteries and communicate in code. We have cell
phones, but don’t know how to use the internet. We send verbal
and courier messages. We are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of
the 2007 protests. Not enough laymen marched with us. There was no
national plan; the protests broke out spontaneously across the
country. Our monks heard about the protests on the Voice of America,
the BBC and Burma’s local broadcasts. We believe that today
globalization allows the world to learn of Burma’s plight, so
our country cannot remain isolated forever. We know we are supported
by organizations around the world that sympathize with our cause. We
want the UN Security Council to take up the Burma issue.
More
misery for the people followed in early May of 2008 when Cyclone
Nargis devastated Burma. It was the worst storm in living memory with
winds up to 190 miles per hour that killed 100,000 of the 7.4 million
people living around Rangoon and in the surrounding rice growing
Irrawaddy Delta. Some 2.4 million villagers were severely affected,
either killed or their homes completely wiped out by the cyclone and
crops ruined
by sea water. The Buddhist monks immediately responded to help clear
roads, assist the wounded, collect and bury the dead and gave shelter
to orphaned children in the temples left standing while the
government was nowhere to be seen. The World Food Programme and the
United States were finally, albeit very reluctantly, allowed into the
country by the military regime (who feared an uprising with the
presence of foreign troops helping the people) to distribute food aid
on land and sea by helicopters to the remote areas, where roads
either did not exist or had been swept away by the storm.
In
the midst of this humanitarian disaster, the military government
carried out a referendum on a new constitution for Burma in an
atmosphere of fear and intimidation. The new constitution will
guarantee that 25% of the legislative seats in Parliament will be
members of the military selected by the Chief of Defense Services,
and be granted the power to suspend civil liberties and legislative
authority whenever it deems necessary in the interest of national
security. Currently the regime often rules by decree, the judiciary
is not independent and fair public trials cannot be guaranteed. This
August an election has been called to take place on 7th
November, 2010, (a date deemed auspicious by the superstitious junta)
but the opposition National League for Democracy has announced it
will not participate. They point out that the basic methods of
political campaigning are giving public speeches, distributing
leaflets and showing campaign videos, none of which are presently
allowed.
Support
from the United Nations so far has been to declare Burma, since 1987,
an LDC (Least Developed Country); to provide food aid through the
World Food Programme and on-going health, water supply and
sanitation, immunization and education programmes for vulnerable
women and children at risk by UNICEF professional staff and local
workers in towns and villages. The United Nations Development
Programme’s 2008 report lists Burma’s public health
expenditure as only 0.3% of GDP. High infant mortality rates and
short life expectancy highlight poor health and living conditions and
tuberculosis, diarrheal disease, malaria and HIV/AIDS seriously
threaten the population.
The
UN Commission on Human Rights in 2003 called upon the Burmese
Government “to fulfill its obligations to restore the
independence of the judiciary and due process of law, and to take
further steps to reform the administration of justice; to take
immediate action to implement fully measures to eradicate the
practice of forced labour by all organs of government, including the
armed forces, and strongly urged the Government to end the systematic
violation of human rights in Burma to ensure full respect for all
human rights and fundamental freedoms, to end impunity, and to put an
immediate end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers.”
The
Burmese Government has not responded positively to any of these
requests.
The
International Labour Organization (ILO) in November, 2006, declared
that it would prosecute the Burmese government, now the world’s
longest running military power, for crimes against humanity in its
forced labour of some 800,000 Burmese people.
In
November, 2009, construction began on an oil and gas pipeline on
Burma’s Maday Island in the Indian Ocean by the National
Petroleum Corporation of China. The pipeline will run through
central Burma to reach Yunnan Province in south western China. While
China seeks to gain greater access to foreign energy to fuel its fast
growing economy, critics declare the controversial project could
carry 84 million barrels of oil per year and provide Burma’s
military junta with at least $29 billion over the next 30 years.
Protesters argue that the project poses serious risks to the
environment and security of local Burmese farmers along its route,
many of whom will be displaced and their land and livelihood lost to
them.
The
International Energy Agency has recently predicted that China will
require 15 million barrels of oil per day by the year 2030 –
that is 400% more than was used in 2008. Western companies like BHP,
Shell, Amoco and Unocal have all been eager to buy up Burma’s
ample natural resources at bargain prices from the government; the
sales helping to keep the generals in power by force and intimidation
of the Burmese people.
The
human rights group, Earth Watch International, accuses energy giants
Total and Chevron (who are not restricted by strict financial and
economic sanctions imposed on Burma’s military government by
the United States and the European Union) of propping up Burma’s
government through the billions of dollars they receive from their
oil and gas projects already operating in the country. The Burmese
army provides security for the companies’ pipelines and is
accused of forced labour, killings and high-level corruption. The
generals do not appear to include the massive gas revenues in Burma’s
national budget, (half of GNP goes toward military spending) while
the population of 54 million people live in extreme poverty.
The
words of the 6th century Greek poet,
Theognis of Megara , would not seem out of place in Burma today: Hope
is the only good god remaining among mankind; the others have left
and gone to Olympus. Trust and Restraint have gone from men, the
Graces have departed and some men no longer recognize the rules of
conduct or acts of piety.
© Kaye Thomson was a resident field director for World University Service of Canada in China, Malawi and Lesotho; for CUSO in Bangladesh and the Tongan Islands; and in the Ottawa office of the Canadian Public Health Association administered an HIV/AIDS programme to assist local NGOs in ten southern African countries. She is retired, lives on Vancouver Island and is now writing her memoirs.
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