Jim Roberts, AIUSA Myanmar Country Specialist
In November of 2010 Myanmar held its first national
elections since 1989 and a few days later released National League for
Democracy General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. The State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC) made up of eighteen generals and admirals that had ruled the country
since 1988 was dissolved and its Chairman Senior General Than Shwe officially
retired. The new parliament was
inaugurated in March of this year and it elected a former army general Thein
Sein president. The country’s name was changed from the Union of Myanmar to the
Republic of the Union of Myanmar and the national flag was replaced with a new
one. More interesting developments
followed.
The UN Rapporteur for
Human Rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, was allowed to visit and
interview some political prisoners and meet with opposition figures in
August. President Thein Sein met
with Aung San Suu Kyi, something that would have been unimaginable under the
SPDC. Daily propaganda slogans
against “internal and external destructive elements’ including the BBC and
Voice of America began to disappear from the government-controlled news media.
The new U.S. Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma (the U.S.
still officially calls the country by its old name) Derrick Mitchell has travelled
to Naypyitaw to meet with officials and opposition leaders three times in the
last few months. Assistant Secretary
of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner jointed Mitchell
on the last trip in early November.
The government has announced an “end to censorship” including the
unblocking of sensitive websites that were previously prohibited. A process
leading to the legalization of Aung San Suu Kyi’s banned political party, the
National League for Democracy, seems to be underway. A National Human Rights
Commission has been set up.
Understandably these developments have provoked new feelings
of optimism in many quarters. But, as one commentator recently wrote most of that
optimism seems to be coming from outside Myanmar.
Some of those optimists expected that in line with its
“reform” program Myanmar would free all its political prisoners when it
announced an amnesty in October. But only a little over 200 of the approximate
2,100 political prisoners were released.
Political prisoners continue to suffer under appalling
prison conditions including beatings, overcrowding and extremely substandard
medical care.
At the same time there has been no let up in the military’s
operations against the Kachin, Karen and other ethnic armed groups which have
always been accompanied by gross human rights violations against civilians in
the contested areas.
When 15 political prisoners in Insein Prison near Yangon commenced
a hunger strike on October 26 to protest denial of the same reductions in
sentences that were granted to criminal prisoners, the reaction of the
government was to torture them by denying them drinking water and placing eight
of them in small filthy cells designed to hold dogs.
One might argue that the government of Myanmar cannot
completely reform itself overnight if indeed that is its plan. But how long
does it take to stop arresting political prisoners? How long does it take to stop torturing people? How long does it take to transfer the
monk U Gambira to a hospital where he can be treated for complications of
torture injuries sustained in April 2009? How long does it take to turn a key
in a cell door? And how long does
it take the army to stop the killings and rape of civilians in its
counterinsurgency operations?
Maybe when a few of those things start happening the real
optimism can begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment