Why does Canada remain mute?

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Editorial from the Globe and Mail
Tuesday, July 28, 1998

DOG DAYS IN BURMA

WHILE the hot humid days of summer stretch into the monsoon season in
Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate and the democratically elected
leader of Burma, sits patiently in her car in a standoff with the ruling
military junta. On Friday morning, she was stopped for the third time this
month as she tried to travel outside the capital to visit her supporters.
The military police insisted she return home. She refused. She is unable to
move forward and unwilling to retreat and so she sits in the sweltering
heat, refusing food and water. We wouldn't allow a dog to be treated this
way in Canada. But this is not Canada.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy have been in a
battle of political wills with the military rulers of Burma (also known as
Myanmar) since the NLD won the elections in an overwhelming victory in May,
1990. The junta refused to recognize the results and kept Aung San Suu Kyi
under house arrest for six years. Although technically she is now free,
Rangoon is her prison, as this latest incident proves.

While she sits, the Association of South East Asian Nations is holding a
regional meeting in Manila with its Pacific Rim partners. ASEAN is the
organization that gave Burma observer status in 1996 and full membership a
year ago based on the notion that "constructive engagement" would help move
the country toward democracy. The limitations of the policy of promoting
reform through trade and foreign investment are plain to see.

Civil and human rights are virtually non-existent, torture and "ethnic
cleansing" are commonplace, the economy is a shambles, heroin and
amphetamines flow unabated and finance huge arms shipments, child labour
and prostitution are endemic and the country is fast becoming the epicentre
of the regional AIDS crisis. The United States, the European Union and
Canada have all imposed limited trade sanctions. And yet nothing changes.
If anything, the situation becomes worse.

That is why Aung San Suu Kyi's peaceful intransigence during the ASEAN
meetings may be a brilliant tactical move. August marks the 10th
anniversary of Burma's version of Tienanamen Square, an infamous and bloody
reprisal by the junta, in which hundreds or protesters were shot in the
streets. Aung San Suu Kyi is using the anniversary to rally the opposition
by demanding that the junta convene parliament by Aug. 21. Parliament or
prison seems to be the choice she is offering the junta.

As U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said at the meetings: "This
is a moment of truth and urgency for Burma and all of us concerned about
its fate." France has spoken out; so has Japan. Canada remains mute. Why?

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Note from the BC Burma Courier:

An answer to this editorial posted on the BurmaNet yesterday by the Myanmar
Embassy in Ottawa did not appear in the Wednesday, July 29th edition of the
Globe and Mail.  Since the embassy does not always send out the letters and
news releases which it claims to circulate to the Canadian media, we're
waiting to see what happens on this one.  E.S.

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