The Nation - Don't expect junta to

[tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: The Nation - Don't expect junta to respect human rights

The Nation - Aug 19, 1999.
Editorial & Opinion
Don't expect junta to respect human rights

Will Australia's approach to the human rights problems in Burma succeed
where others have failed? No, writes Josef Silverstein.

What is the importance of the growing stream of talk between officials from
Europe, the US and Australia and the military rulers of Burma about human
rights? About a year ago, European states, the US and the United Nations
quietly began formulating plans for offering large sums of money to the
military rulers in Burma if the latter would begin talks with the political
opposition and take steps toward political change and an improvement in
human rights. Although the initial effort went nowhere, other groups of
states, believing that the idea had merit, followed it up with plans of
their own. These, too, have not gone forward.

A new and different approach was launched at the beginning of August by the
Australians and it has drawn worldwide attention. Chris Sidoti, the
Australian human rights commissioner, went to Rangoon and met Burmese
government officials. Following his visit and return home, he made a public
report in which he said that the Burma minister for home affairs showed an
interest in and a desire to look further into the possible establishment of
an independent human rights commission. Other Burmese officials, Sidoti
said, talked about the possibilities of exchange and cooperation in giving
human rights training to civil servants and police. In addition, the Burmese
proposed the development of a joint project dealing with health.

According to Sidoti, there were three results from his talks:

-On the question of an independent national human rights institution,
Australia will provide more information and the Burmese government will
consider establishing such an institution.

-Australia will provide examples of possible curricula and processes for
human rights training and will also explore providing of such training to
the military.

-On the question of a joint health project, Australia will develop project
proposals.

During his visit, Sidoti met and briefed the National League for Democracy
vice chairman, Tin Oo, on his talks with government leaders. He reported
that Tin Oo said that the NLD ''had misgivings'' and, in its view, the
''visit, though well-intentioned, was misguided''. He also expressed doubt
that the Burmese military rulers would be prepared to establish an
independent institution.

On balance, Sidoti offered a cautious report and concluded it by saying that
his mission's objective was not exchange or discussion for its own sake, but
''better promotion and protection of human rights in Burma. Only time will
tell whether [that] objective can be met.''

Sidoti did not say how he or they interpreted the word, independent. Given
the fact that for the last 11 years, the peoples of Burma have faced the
worst and possibly the most abusive dictatorship in Asia, if not the entire
world, is there any basis for believing that the military rulers of Burma
are ready to create an agency with power and authority to carry out a
mandate to restore and protect human rights without interference from the
junta who will have to establish it?

Will the human rights commission have powers to act against the authorities
with the backing of law and courts? Will it have funds which it can use to
conduct its affairs and act free of interference from the military rulers.
That, after all, is the meaning of independence.

Sidoti must know that in Burma today. There is no authority other than the
dictatorship. There is no rule of law. There is no freedom of speech. There
is no freedom of assembly. There is no freedom of mobility. There is no
security of one's life, labour, home and family.

In this environment, which is well-known to the world through the reports of
the special rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Commission, the resolutions
of the UN General Assembly, the reports on human rights by the nations of
the world which have followed events inside of Burma, the report of the
International Labour Organisation on forced labour and the observations of
diplomats living inside of Burma, it is hard to understand what Sidoti
learned from his short visit to cause him to write in his report that.

''I can say at the end of this visit ... that an exchange of views on human
rights has begun where none existed before; that we have been able to
identify some areas in which cooperation may be possible and that there is
evidently a strong commitment to taking the process further,'' he said.

Does Sidoti really think that, like the phoenix, respect for and protection
of human rights can rise from the ashes of human rights the military rulers
systematically destroyed over the past 37 years. Does Sidoti believe that
there is a political foundation in Burma upon which an independent human
rights commission can be erected.

And in the light of Tin Oo's remarks, does he really believe that the
destroyers of human rights can now be the builders; and can this process go
forward without calling upon the elected and natural leaders of the people
to share in the task. Finally, and most important of all, can a human rights
commission function freely and independently without first rebuilding the
foundations of the nation's political society on principles which will
support and sustain human rights in Burma?

Human rights, as expressed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and
understood around the world, are not foreign to the peoples of Burma. The
leaders of the nation who won independence and wrote the original
constitution knew exactly what human rights were. They made certain that
they were inscribed at the beginning of the constitution so that there could
be no mistake about their importance.

Called fundamental rights, there were 20 articles in the constitution
devoted to describing and defining them. And until the military seized power
in 1962 and swept the constitution aside, there was a strong national
judiciary -- courts, judges and lawyers -- which, when the occasion arose,
was not afraid to find and rule against the state and defend the rights of
the people.

The restoration of human rights has been a major objective of the peoples of
Burma since they were taken from them in 1962. In 1974, the military oversaw
the writing of a new constitution which took no note of the UN Declaration
of Human Rights or any other landmark declaration in the history of man's
struggle for freedom, autonomy and personal integrity.

In the 1974 constitution, there were no absolute rights. All rights were
conditioned by the goals of the state; no citizen could claim a right that
was contrary to sovereignty and the security of the state; no one could
claim a right against the basic essence of the socialist system, against
unity and solidarity of the people or against public peace, tranquility and
morality. The state was the author of rights and duties and no one could
invoke them against it. This is the military rulers' legacy on human rights
and a careful reading of the reports on the subject issued by the
Constitutional Commission indicate that it has not changed.

Today, the peoples of Burma, whether Burman or non-Burman, urban or rural,
know that to recover their rights, there must be a change in the present
political system from a dictatorship to a constitutional democracy which
would apply to all -- military and civilian. The leaders of the NLD have
called for dialogue between themselves, as victors in the only free election
since 1960, the ethnic minorities, who have been at war with the state in
order to get what the founding fathers promised them on the eve of
independence, and the military rulers as the first step toward change.

The NLD and the ethnic minorities are asking for dialogue without
preconditions, for the right to form a government based on the outcome of
the 1990 election and an end to the war by the military against the people.
For years, Burmese living both abroad and in hiding inside of Burma have
studied their own constitutional history, the constitutions of the world and
human rights movements on all continents. They know why the original
constitution failed and they know what needs to be done in a new one so that
it will not fail again. They are intelligent and can speak for themselves if
they are given a chance.

The problem today is that the military cannot and will not participate in a
dialogue with its unarmed, but well informed citizens. What Sidoti will
quickly learn, if he does not know it already, is that educated men and
women are seen as a threat to the poorly educated officers and men who rule
the country by force alone.

What country in this modern world deprives its best and brightest young
people a higher education so that they can eventually take their places in
government, business, the professions and the military, and lead the next
generation forward in the new century? What government in Asia fears its
people so, that it has transformed a free nation into a prison and lives
under the threat Gen Ne Win made in July 1988 that the military will shoot
to kill if any resist its orders?

If Sidoti really intends to go forward and engage the military in a dialogue
about the creation of an independent human rights commission, it will be
interesting to see how the talks will go given the actual situation on the
ground in Burma and the theoretical ideas he would like to see planted in
its bloody earth.

The spokesmen for the Burma rulers continue to engage in empty rhetoric
about how well the country is doing; how happy most of the people are under
its rule; how a future democracy will come only after there is stability --
whatever that term means. It may be that the military rulers will never be
able to recognise the realities of Burma and the hell they have made of it;
but surely someone who is educated, knows what democracy is and realises
that a human rights commission, to function at all, cannot be erected and
work until there is an environment in which it can take root and function.
Such an environment does not exist in Burma today; and so long as the
military continues to run the country, it never will be exist.

The people of Burma deserve more than they have gotten for the past three
and a half decades. Help them, Sidoti, to recover power. They have a right
to govern themselves and lead their nation into the new century.

-------

Josef Silverstein is a professor emeritus of Rutgers University.