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This week, we are joining in solidarity with human rights defenders across the globe in marking the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ( ဓါတ္ပံု- ျမန္မာ ့ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ား လူ ့အခြင့္အေရးေန ့ အခမ္းအနားကို ထိုင္းနိင္ငံတြင္ က်င္းပေနစဥ္ )
-ကုိရဲထြတ္- This week, we are joining in solidarity with human rights defenders across the globe in marking the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mizzima News by Dr. Sein Myint Wednesday, 10 December 2008 13:07
The 241 members of Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) called on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to visit Burma and press for the release of political prisoners and kick start political reforms, after his refusal to a similar petition made by 112 former Presidents and Prime Ministers to him.
Instead, the UN Chief said "his direct involvement was "not enough" to resolve the current political stalemate in Burma" and redirected the onus to the Group of Friends on Burma 'to use their influence, available leverage and tools" to mount pressure on the Burmese military leaders. Most particularly, of her immediate neighbours China, India and Thailand.
Has international diplomacy on Burma reached its zenith? Or to put it more bluntly, has the UN's shuttle diplomacy arrived at a dead-end? Depending on one's perspectives on UN effectiveness and role, some might say 'aye' and some might say 'nay'.
The 'nayers' would say that the ultimate authority of the UN lies with its Security Council that could still adopt a binding resolution on Burma if there are 'No' veto from five permanent member 'PM' states. However, the 'ayers' would argue that this is unlikely to happen, especially the two PMs, i.e. the Chinese and the Russians, allies of the Burmese junta, will not allow passage of any resolution on Burma initiated and proposed by the US and her Western allies under the current geo-political circumstances.
And many past and present world conflicts that UN has failed to prevent and act on, perhaps for many reasons, attest and add strong support to the pessimistic 'ayers' on UN ineffectiveness. However, the optimist 'nayers' would cast a long short based on the 'dynamic' nature of politics, that eventual possibility of international consensus is still likely to obtain if the global polarization can be reduced dramatically resultant of the incoming US new administration.
But, as one former diplomat pointed out that the 'good offices' of the UN Secretary General provided services as mandated by the General Assembly but is under no instruction from the Security Council. Without any resolution from the Security Council, the UN SG has no power to act and enforce upon any member state.
It is evident that the ruling military government in Burma was determined and carefully planning to control political power in the country for a long time. Starting from the secretive construction of the new capital in the jungle years before to the recent long prison sentencing of political opposition activists and potential dissidents, clearly demonstrated their preparedness to face any internal or external pressure exerted on them.
The recent discovery of natural energy resources help the Generals to cultivate closer economic relationships with willing and eager energy starved neighbours, effectively breaking those selective economic sanctions imposed by the US and the West. Furthermore, deepening polarization between the West and Russians helps provide the shrewd military generals opportunity to exploit the geopolitics to their advantage, able to block any proposed and intended resolution initiated by the US and her allies at the UNSC.
Such ineffectiveness and powerlessness of the UN has frustrated many Burmese exiled students and activists who are compelled to ask questions on the impotence of this international diplomacy. And thus start calling upon their fellow countrymen and women to rise up on the basis of self reliance and to shed the 'dependant mentality' dominating the exiled political leadership for the last two decades.
As Newton's second law of nature implied that on each and every action there are equal and opposite reaction, thus, it is naturally only a matter of time when equal reactionary forces would emerge to counter the injustice inside Burma. As shown in many political histories, once political problems could not be solved peacefully, desperation would force discontented individual(s) seeking alternative options to counter the injustice.
Therefore, it is imperative that key democratic countries should help unite the exiled Burmese democratic movement to form a broad grass-root based democratic umbrella global organization that has the mandate if exiled communities across the globe. Under the prevailing political circumstances, the united but not fragmented exiled community is the only viable force left to lead the restoration of democracy in Burma peacefully while countering current military rulers' seven step road map in the long run. [Dr. Sein Myint is the director of Policy Development of Justice for Human Rights in Burma, located in Maryland, USA . He is an Honorary Member of Amnesty International Chapter 22 in Washington D.C.]
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Campaigners have called on UN leader Ban Ki-Moon to reverse his decision not to visit Burma, saying that a top level visit is essential if the country's military regime is to consider the release of political prisoners and halt the crackdown on dissidents. Mr Ban, who visited Burma in the aftermath of the devastating cyclone earlier this year, had been expected to visit the country again to discuss various issues including the release of prisoners of conscience. Yet despite receiving a petition from more than 100 former presidents and prime minister urging him to make good his vow to return, Mr Ban announced at the weekend that he had decided not to go. He said he was frustrated by the lack of progress made in Burma and believed that in such circumstances a visit would not be appropriate. Yesterday campaigners called on the UN Secretary General to rethink his decision, saying that his personal involvement was essential to win any progress. "It's something of a Catch 22 situation," said Anna Roberts of the Burma Campaign UK. "Ban Ki-Moon says he will not go because of a lack of progress but there will not be any progress unless there is a high level visit." Campaigners have been critical of the efforts made by the UN's leader's special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, saying he has lost the respect of both the regime and the political opposition, whose imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi declined to meet him when he last visited the country. They say there have been 37 visits by special envoys in the two decades since the regime ignored the results of a election that the opposition won by a landslide. The criticism of the UN leader's decision comes just weeks after the military junta concluded a judicial crackdown on the country's leading dissidents. At a series of staged trials held in secret inside Rangoon's Insein Jail, dozens of activists and political prisoners were sentenced to jail for terms of up to 65 years. Among them were members of the 88 Students Generation - activists who had led failed democracy uprisings in 1988 and who again organised protests last year ahead of wider demonstrations involving tens of thousands of the country's Buddhist monks. In the aftermath, the regime seized hundreds of monks and ordinary citizens. It is now estimated there are more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma. At the time of last year's uprising, the UN Security Council called on Burma to release its political prisoners and when Mr Ban visited the country earlier this year after Cyclone Nargis left up more than 140,000 people dead it was understood he would return to press on the issue. In their letter to the UN head, the former leaders, who also included Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, said: "We urge you to make it clear that all political prisoners in Burma must be released by the end of this year, regardless of whether you travel to Burma. If the Burmese junta continues to defy the United Nations by refusing to make these releases by the end of the year, we urge you to encourage the Security Council to take further concrete action to implement its call for the release of all political prisoners." Interesting? Click here to explore further
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