27.05.2007

AIPMC Pledges to Advance the Cause of

Democratization of Burma

_ By Senator Aquilino Nene Pimentel Jr.  

We, the members of the ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, want to express our support for the aspirations of the Burmese people for democracy and respect for the Rule of Law.

As a delegation, we have no personal or professional agenda to advance in our espousal of the cause of the Burmese people.

Our one and only concern is to look for ways that will speedily and peacefully bring about a democratic government in Burma. And we tell ourselves that perhaps we can end the humanitarian crisis that faces the people of Burma at the hands of the ruling military junta.

Horrible acts

Hundreds of the pro-democracy leaders have been arrested and detained. Others have been killed or forced to go to exile. Villages have been hamletted or their occupants evicted. Rape has been used as an instrument of repression. Slave labor has been employed to compel service to the Junta.  These are but some of the undeniable examples of the atrocities that the hapless people of Burma are being subjected to today.

But to their eternal credit, the Burmese people have not given up hope. They have stayed the course in the search for freedom, justice and peace for their land.

Faces in the struggle

Historically, struggles for freedom the world-over give birth to outstanding personalities who offer their lives, their properties, indeed, their everything to enable their people to enjoy that singular virtue – freedom – that makes human beings precisely human. In Burma today, Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues in the National League for Democracy and hundreds of ethnic leaders who have been deprived of their fundamental rights and basic liberties since 1990 without due process of law symbolize the battle being waged by the Burmese people against oppression in their own land by those who rule over them through the barrel of the gun.

In the case of Suu Kyi, she has been placed in house arrest for more than 4 years in addition to being subjected to other acts of harassments since 1990. Many of her colleagues in the NLD, tribal activists of various political persuasions, students and professionals who do not toe the line of the military junta have been and are being held in custody without trial.

In addition, sad statistics attests to the fact that almost half of the children in Burma are under-nourished and more than half of the women who are pregnant are so poorly fed and over-worked that they become anemic, they miscarry or even die during labor. The situation of women and children is so precarious that their life spans do not measure up to those of their counterparts in many of the ASEAN countries.

We submit that the acts of the military junta in running Burma with an iron hand and in violating the human rights of their own people are simply abominable and should cease immediately.

We need your support

At the 116^th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Bali last month the AIPMC and actively lobbied Parliamentarians from all over the world, and pushed for a bigger effort for democratization in Burma. It is our hope that this convention will lead to a greater understanding of the cause of the people of Burma for democratization and pave the way for our regional and international partners to undertake more pragmatic steps to attain it.

Meaningful dialogue

We respectfully suggest that at this point it looks like there is no other way to achieve the peaceful resolution that we seek but to engage the military junta in a meaningful dialogue that should include all the key players needed to establish a democratic government for Burma. And if that effort should fail, we seek the support of our international friends to get the problem of Burma into the agenda of the forthcoming meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations in November of this year.

Dissuade the Russians

May we also make an appeal to our international friends to help dissuade the authorities of Russia from proceeding with their plans to help the military junta in Burma build a 10 mega watt nuclear reactor (Financial Times of London, May 16, 2007).

While the overt intention is to help the government produce electric power, it is not without reason that we in ASEAN are apprehensive that given the technology, it would be fairly easy for the Burmese military junta to develop the expertise to build nuclear weapons and in the process become an even more oppressive regime.

For the record, AIPMC has embarked on numerous endeavors to highlight and find a solution to Burma’s debacle. Following our establishment in November 2004, AIPMC joined the collective call for Myanmar to be barred from chairing ASEAN. We lobbied very strongly in the Philippines to attain that objective. The effort was a success when in 2006 Myanmar was withdrawn as ASEAN chair. AIPMC also resolutely supported a global campaign for the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) to pass a resolution on Burma. Despite the failure of the UNSC to issue even a mild warning against the military junta, AIPMC continues to hope that in the near future, such a resolution would be adopted.

Summing up

May I sum up the things for which we would like to ask the support of our international colleagues. Kindly extend your helping hand to the AIPMC and work for:

1.       The release soonest of Aung San Syu Kyi and her NLD colleagues who are still in prison and the activists for democracy for Burma who are being harassed by the military junta;

2.       The convening of a peaceful dialogue among the peoples of Burma with the ruling junta to the end that a democratic government can be created soonest, and

3.       The placing of the Burma problem in the agenda of the Security Council of the United Nations in its sessions scheduled in November of this year.

Democracy is a universal value that gives meaning to the lives of people anywhere in the world, including Burma. I submit that it is time for us, free citizens in our respective countries, to share the freedoms that we enjoy with the people of Burma so that they will once again live and enjoy the fullness of life as human beings.

_ Adapted from the statement of Philippine Senator Aquilino Pimentel at the Opening Ceremony of the International Conference of Japanese and ASEAN Members of Parliament at the House of Representatives, Tokyo, Japan, May 21, 2007

Comments:

Paul Kyaw said _

Thank you Nene. I'd been to Manila for the struggle of Human rights in Burma. But I'm just a little grain of sand in the construction of a nation. I entirely agree with your ideology. We need people to implement & materialize. We are lucky to have such a great friend like you.

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