21.01.2007
Editorial: Won all
_ By Taisamyone
The wishes of the people of Burma for a binding UNSC resolution have been ignored by the cynical power-game played by Russia and China. The junta can chortle away in the New Light of Myanmar at their ability to influence their commercial partners in crime – Russia and China. South Africa as a new face in the UN Security Council with a history of colonial and racist authoritarian rule might have been considered a friend of the people of Burma, but felt unsure about voting for such an apparently contentious resolution. The argument that Burma threatens regional peace and security cannot be considered as serious as some if it is measured in comparison with the antics of North Korea – South Africa took the view that the matter should be addressed as a Human Rights Council issue. But other areas of conflict and ‘regional’ security have given rise to resolutions within the UNSC; the situation in Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone or Côte d’Ivoire. There is a strong argument for taking the case of Burma to the newly formed Human Rights Council in Geneva, but this body can only be considered subsidiary to the Security Council. The US, UK and many others believe that the Security Council is the right place from which to send a clear message to the regime of the need for change.
The result of the voting reflects what we would expect given the stance taken by China when Burma was placed on the agenda of the UNSC. It seems that the US had spent some weeks trying to word a resolution that was acceptable to China – i.e. one that didn’t say anything at all. China played this game when the whole world wanted to condemn the insane regime in North Korea over its nuclear bomb test – China wanted to protect its ‘sphere of influence’ regional pals. Burma isn’t on the front page of world newspapers and TV screens every day with the world shouting for immediate action, so China can sit back and do nothing, while the US, the UK and other countries who wish to help Burma, work hard to get a good vote.
What many people find incredible is that the UNSC can condemn aggressive action by Israel, civil wars in Congo or Côte d’Ivoire, but cannot agree to condemn the Burmese junta? Do China and Russia want to encourage the junta to continue their imprisonment of DASSK, Khun Htun Oo and over 1100 other political prisoners? Do China and Russia want the regime to be allowed to continue its ethnic genocide and abysmal human rights record? Do China and Russia want to encourage the junta to continue with their nonsensical ‘National Convention’ and not to undertake the tripartite dialogue that the UNSC resolution calls for? In short, China and Russia are not concerned for the suffering and repression of the people of Burma, nor for freedom and democracy. What they are concerned about is manipulating the junta to their own commercial and political advantage. When it comes to the issues at hand, both China and Russia could find themselves on the Security Council agenda for their own appalling abuses of human rights, freedom and democracy – if the UNSC could agree to place them there!
The junta responded with the usual drivel in New Light of Myanmar, drumming up support from their puppet cease-fire groups - the Kachin Development and Security Army (KDSA) and the Myanmar Writers and Journalists Association (MWJA), among numerous other pro-junta groups that seem to appear out of the swamp like slippery eels. The KDSA is one of the cease-fire groups who are under the control of the junta and do not reflect the views of anyone other than the junta, unless they want to find themselves being persecuted by the junta. The MWJA discuss such topics at their conferences as “Correct thinking and heightened morale, and Safeguarding national character and the role of Myanmar literature”. We can gather from this that they are puppet writers who have been brainwashed by the junta at their regular ‘training’ sessions reported regularly in NLM, to say what they are told to say – or risk 15 years imprisonment.
The NLM have gone all out to attack the US and those who voted for the resolution, and those opponents inside Burma who welcomed the US-led resolution. They even take offence at being called a ‘fascist army’, claiming their origins from the army that turned against their erstwhile friends and attacked the almost defeated Japanese Imperial army. While the army of Burma that Aung San built may lay claim to that past, the army of today has been manipulated by a group of fascist generals starting with Ne Win who took over control in 1947 – a lot can happen in 60 years!
The attack on DASSK and the NLD invokes the memory of Aung San as their justification for their new constitution and for denying DASSK the right to be elected in the Pyithu Hluttaw. My guess is, is that if Aung San were alive today he would not keep his daughter under house arrest on the basis of being a ‘danger from destructionists’. I suspect that Than Shwe and his cronies would be the ones under arrest for failing the people of Burma, for genocide, unlawful killing, corruption, extortion, war crimes, money-laundering, drug-trafficking and numerous other crimes.
The junta seem totally paranoid about the demands of the people of Burma for self-determination and autonomy – they are frightened of federalism, which is why they took control in 1962 – the 1988 uprising was cynically manipulated by Ne Win to allow the people to let off steam and allow the junta to identify the opposition more clearly – they never intended it to be anything else and were just playing ‘cat and mouse’. The junta continue to churn out their views on federalism as if it would be the end of the world – well, it will be for them – but it will be the beginning of the new world for the rest of the people of Burma and it is what everyone who can do so is working towards. (Country size isn’t so important these days – Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast has a population of about 150,000, Nauru less than 14,000.) The junta seem lost in a time warp, mouthing the old slogans of their 1960s centralist government dogma. Any thought of offering a differing view, suggesting a dialogue, allowing individual groups to participate in politics in a free and open manner seems anathema to them. What they can’t control, they don’t like – and if they don’t like it, they shoot it, or imprison it, or just persecute it and write nasty articles about it. The world is changing from the old authoritarian centralised control to local smaller countries – over the last 20 years, we have seen numerous new countries being created from old monolithic blocks like the USSR, or from quite small countries which are created from similar ethnic and cultural groups – this is still happening in Russia, whilst China manages to keep the lid on its enormously diverse peoples, albeit with brutal military repression. For instance, the separatist movements in Chechnya and East Turkistan are referred to as ‘terrorists’, in similar diatribes to those used by the Burmese junta.
The NLM gave us an insightful look into their fantasy world – fairy tales that we come to expect from the junta’s toadies in the MWJC! They ran one article about Khun Sa and the Mong Tai Army. In this fanciful version, Khun Sa meets with US diplomats and CIA agents who persuade him to declare independence for Shan State. The US apparently wanted to install missile bases and troops in Shan State as a buffer against communist China. I think the NLM writers have been reading too much ‘cold war’ era Soviet and Chinese propaganda and that they actually still believe it. Khun Sa made it very clear that he wanted to deal with the US government – to sell the entire Opium and Heroin production from Burma to the US government and keep it off the streets, rather than sell it through the usual drug trafficking routes. The US reasoned that this would be an unacceptable route to take – paying the world’s most notorious drug warlord several million dollars to deliver the illicit drugs, as well as direct unauthorised intervention in another country’s sovereign territory. When Khun Sa ‘surrendered’ (because he realised the dangers of the US plot according to the NLM!), he was held in Rangoon where he siphoned his drug money into legitimate businesses, and the junta’s very deep pockets. He is currently thought to be kept under sedation in house arrest. He is obviously worth more to the regime alive than just the US$2million ransom on his head. He is now just a pawn in the regime’s sick game, a hostage to political badinage.
The UNSC resolution posed three crucial areas of concern for the UN – freedom, democracy and a humanitarian crisis. Why does not every country in the world want this for Burma? We may wonder why the world’s leading government organisation, the UN, can disagree about something so fundamental to human rights. But then to do so would assume that government ambassadors and diplomats are appointed as responsible adult leaders who act in an altruistic and distinguished manner – whereas in fact many of them act out of self-interest, for themselves or their national interest – the representatives from China and Russia were acting out of their own national interests in gaining access to Burma’s raw materials and energy, and of making foreign exchange cash out of massive arms and construction projects. While the UNSC permanent members have a veto, and UNSC ambassadors are appointed to consider only their own national self-interest (and not that of the country and the people under discussion), we cannot expect the UNSC to act in a more enlightened manner. Reformation of the UN and the way that it operates may be called for. But while the old ‘superpowers’ with their old mindset of self-interest have a permanent veto on the UNSC, it seems unlikely that the UN’s worthy declarations (Geneva Convention, Human Rights, Rights of the Child, etc.) will be used as the cornerstone for judgement and decision making.
While the generals have won this round, there may be many more ‘bouts’ in the fight for freedom - it is important to remember that the struggle for freedom goes on until the people of Burma have thrown out the junta and have free and fair elections. This day will come – not today, thanks to China, Russia and South Africa - we can continue to fight for freedom, democracy and human rights - the day of victory will be ours one day soon.
What Others Say
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"We are deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Myanmar and will continue to seek the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. We will continue to fight for democracy, human rights and freedom in Myanmar"............South African deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad
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"The resolution would have been a strong and urgently needed statement by the Security Council about the need for change in Burma, whose military regime arbitrarily arrests, tortures, rapes and executes its own people, wages war on minorities within its own border, and builds itself new cities while looking the other way as refugee flows increase, narcotics and human trafficking grow, and communicable diseases remain untreated".........U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Alejandro Wolff
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China, Russia Failed Burma, says Opposition, The Irrawaddy,
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Myanmar’s generals win one, Asia Times Online
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