Fearless, and not forgotten
It was around this time last year when scenes from Burma flooded our television screens, our airwaves and our newspapers as Britain – and the world – became glued to the unfolding "Saffron Revolution".
Thousands upon thousands of monks took to the streets to lead a popular uprising – appalled in part by the dire human rights situation in their homeland. And exactly a year ago today those protests in Burma were met by brutal force from the ruling military junta.
Hundreds were injured in the crackdown as the security forces unleashed a wave of batons and bullets. Official sources put the death toll at 13 – the real figure is believed to be far higher.
Thousands were rounded up, monks were swept off the streets and a strict curfew imposed. Here in the UK, Amnesty International organised rallies and marches to show our solidarity.
A Facebook group attracted over 700,000 members. Similar protests happened across the globe, but the Burmese authorities stayed defiant.
A year on it is time to once more remember the plight of those that remain and renew the call for urgent action from the United Nations security council.
Nearly 1,000 people remain in detention for their part in those protests – each one is at risk of torture – and over 800 political prisoners have been sentenced to prison terms.
The arrests themselves show what scant regard the Burmese authorities have for international opinion. In November 2007, the Burmese prime minister Thein Sein promised the global community that there would be no more political arrests. Yet just last month, Nilar Thein, the wife of an 88 Generation Student Group leader, was arrested while on a visit to her mother. Her baby daughter has been left in the care of relatives.
On the eve of the crackdown, there were approximately 1,150 political prisoners in Burma. One year on, there are more than 2,100. And there are now more long-standing political prisoners in Burma than at any other time since the infamous August 8 1988 uprising there 20 years ago, when 3,000 people were killed by the same military junta.
Over the past few days, there has been some good news as prominent political dissident and journalist U Win Tin was released from jail – along with six other prisoners of conscience. Win Tin spent 19 years in horrendous prison conditions and was one of Burma's longest-serving prisoners of conscience.
The other six prisoners of conscience released are also National League for Democracy members and four are MPs-elect from the 1990 elections in which the NLD was victorious.
The release of these seven prisoners of conscience is certainly welcome, but what about the other 2,100 political prisoners?
The situation cannot be allowed to continue and the one organisation that can truly make a difference is the UN security council. It has the power to impose some real high-level pressure on Burma.
To date the UN's efforts at diplomacy can hardly be characterised as a success. Yes, the UN special rapporteur for human rights has visited the country twice (in November 2007 and August 2008) and the secretary general's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, four times (most recently in August 2008).
But little has come from those visits. Indeed, it could be argued that the last trip by Ibrahim Gambari has made it worse. On his last trip, he implicitly promised support for the country's elections in 2010 and endorsed the country's extremely flawed constitution, which was passed earlier this year.
The constitution will institutionalise the army's grip on the state apparatus – the ministries of home affairs and foreign affairs, for example, will have to be run by a member of the army. It also fails to promote and protect human rights and even codifies impunity for past and future human rights violations.
The only body that can effectively question Gambari's implicit support for the constitution and hold Burma to account is the security council.
It is up to the UN to act now or else the efforts of the brave monks of the Saffron Revolution, and the millions across the world that showed their solidarity with them, will have been in vain.
Kate Allen [guardian.co.uk]
You received this email because you are subscribed to the real_time feed for http://baganland.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default. To change your subscription settings, please log into RSSFWD.