Saturday 3 April 2010
"Our lives and rights are robbed by military regimes for half the century and this is the time that UNSC must take action practically. World leaders should be aware that they cannot ignore the injustices going on in Burma since they have the responsibly to protect the oppressed people as it is the duty of all the mankind", Myo Thein, Burma Democratic Concern (BDC)
'The Regime is a Political Rapist': Win Tin
Win Tin, a leading member of Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), likened the country's ruling regime to “a political rapist” intent on destroying the party that has led the pro-democracy movement for the past two decades.
“They want to strip us of our 1990 election victory so that we are like a 20-year-old girl, naked and exposed. We cannot allow ourselves to be raped,” he said in an interview with The Irrawaddy, explaining why the party chose not to contest this year's election.
The outspoken critic of the junta said that the NLD wanted the regime to re-open a dialogue with detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi and review the Constitution. But he added that the chances of this happening were very slim.
He also admitted that he and several other NLD leaders were naive to believe that the regime would introduce election laws that were flexible enough to allow the party to participate in the new polls.
“The election laws made it very clear that the regime doesn’t want Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or the NLD to have any part in the election,” he said.
The NLD decided last Monday that it would not participate in the election because it was required under a new party registration law to expel Suu Kyi and other members serving prison sentences. The party now faces dissolution for refusing to register for the election.
Win Tin said that the NLD leaders will ponder their next move at a meeting next Monday. He also stressed that the party is counting on the international community to send a strong message to the regime that its handling of the election is unacceptable.
“We know that they have limited power [to influence Burma’s political situation], but we want them to react and show that they know what’s really happening here,” he said.
The US and the UN expressed regret last week that the NLD was forced to make a decision that now jeopardizes the party's continued existence, but blamed the move on the Burmese regime's draconian election laws.
Meanwhile, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said earlier this week that “[the NLD] have every freedom to decide on their own affairs. So I honor and I respect [their] decision.”
On Wednesday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa visited Burma and told his Burmese counterpart in Naypyidaw that Jakarta expected the regime to “uphold its commitment to have an election that allows all parties to take part.”
Win Tin said that NLD leaders wanted to see more reaction from the region and beyond. “We want China, India and the European nations to speak up,” he said.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18195
“They want to strip us of our 1990 election victory so that we are like a 20-year-old girl, naked and exposed. We cannot allow ourselves to be raped,” he said in an interview with The Irrawaddy, explaining why the party chose not to contest this year's election.
The outspoken critic of the junta said that the NLD wanted the regime to re-open a dialogue with detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi and review the Constitution. But he added that the chances of this happening were very slim.
He also admitted that he and several other NLD leaders were naive to believe that the regime would introduce election laws that were flexible enough to allow the party to participate in the new polls.
“The election laws made it very clear that the regime doesn’t want Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or the NLD to have any part in the election,” he said.
The NLD decided last Monday that it would not participate in the election because it was required under a new party registration law to expel Suu Kyi and other members serving prison sentences. The party now faces dissolution for refusing to register for the election.
Win Tin said that the NLD leaders will ponder their next move at a meeting next Monday. He also stressed that the party is counting on the international community to send a strong message to the regime that its handling of the election is unacceptable.
“We know that they have limited power [to influence Burma’s political situation], but we want them to react and show that they know what’s really happening here,” he said.
The US and the UN expressed regret last week that the NLD was forced to make a decision that now jeopardizes the party's continued existence, but blamed the move on the Burmese regime's draconian election laws.
Meanwhile, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said earlier this week that “[the NLD] have every freedom to decide on their own affairs. So I honor and I respect [their] decision.”
On Wednesday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa visited Burma and told his Burmese counterpart in Naypyidaw that Jakarta expected the regime to “uphold its commitment to have an election that allows all parties to take part.”
Win Tin said that NLD leaders wanted to see more reaction from the region and beyond. “We want China, India and the European nations to speak up,” he said.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18195
Burma: All about junta made crisis
Burma gained independence from the Britain on 4 January 1948. It shares the border with China, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. The military has dominated government since General Ne Win led a coup in 1962 to 1988, first as military ruler, then as self-appointed president, and later as political kingpin. In 1988, student led the uprising and eventually managed to topple the one party rule led by General Ne Win. Another military came to power and gun down more than 3000 protesters. Due to the increase domestic and international pressure, junta promised to hold the election. In 1990, National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of the Burma’s independence architect Gen. Aung San - won a landslide victory. The ruling junta refused to hand over power and instead put NLD leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest.
The people of Burma have been suffering under one of the world's most brutal and repressive regime. The military regime uses murder, torture, rape, political imprisonment and forced labour as practices for ruling the citizens of Burma. Freedom of expression and freedom of association are non-existent and Burmese citizens are denied any state in the shaping of their future.
Burma's economic crisis continues to deepen under military rule. People earn on a wage of around $1 a day. Unemployment is rising dramatically every month while prices of consumer goods are escalating out of control. And the value of the local kyat on the informal market continues to stumble. Living standards of many Burmese are declining rapidly. One child in three under the age of five is already suffering from malnutrition, less than 50 per cent of children will complete five years of education according to UN reports.
In Burma, people face complete lack of access to basic social services such as health services, and water sanitation. Under the military generals, poverty has soared and corruption is growing. Burma spends less than $3 per person per year on health and education – well below the World Health Organization recommended level of $40 per person. The economic crisis and instability in Burma is driving waves of Burmese children into hard labour, begging and the sex trade. Burma is in the midst of a health and educational crisis.
The military maintains an extensive network of Military Intelligence (MI), informers, police, militias such as Swan-Arr-Shin and Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) members, ready to arrest anyone suspected of holding or expressing anti-government opinions in Burma. Laws have been established that criminalize freedom of thought, expression, association, assembly and movement, thus legitimizing these arbitrary arrests and continued to arbitrarily detain people across Burma for associating with opposition groups. These types of detentions occurred commonly and in most cases individuals alleged of such illegal association were detained, interrogated and many were tortured, without warrant, charge or trial.
The military maintained complete control over the legal system and remained unbound by any legislation or constitutional provision for a fair trial, due process of law or any other rights. Military government denies basic rights to due process of law, a fair and public trial in political cases. No trials of political prisoners were open to the public, and in many cases reported details of the case were not even available to the defendant's family; such as the reason for arrest, sentencing or location of the person detained.
Frequently the detainee is not informed under which section or article he or she is being detained. In addition, detainees rarely have access to legal counsel or the opportunity to obtain release on bail. The accused may be held for lengthy periods of time without any communication. Trials for political detainees are normally held in courtrooms on prison compounds, in a "special court", and defendants are given little chance to speak, are ignored when they do make statements and certainly are not permitted to properly defend themselves. Even after being charged, political prisoners are still denied the right to proper legal counsel.
Prisons in Burma are places where human rights violations and brutality are everyday realities. Abuses include prolonged shackling, torture, lack of proper medical care and insufficient food. Political prisoners face cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in the prisons, or in detention centres. They also face torture after arrest and during interrogation so as to punish them and to force them to cooperate with interrogators. Political prisoners face both physical and emotional torture, often during long-lasting periods of detention after the initial arrest while they are isolated.
Children under the age of 18 are about 40% of Burma population. The military junta does not consider children’s development and welfare as a priority and used almost half of the state budget is spent to the arm, leaving very little for the vital education and health care systems. Decades of military mismanagement of the economy has resulted in an appalling economic situation and is forcing the vast majority of parents to rely on the contribution of their children working in order to feed their families.
The worst forms of child labour can be seen in Burma –in the army, the construction industry, domestic work, and the mines or in different places. Children are by no means exempt from the forced labour imposed on hundreds of thousands of the Burmese population by military. Moreover, the military continues to forcibly recruit children into the army, some as young as eleven years old. There are 70, 000 children in the army and largest child soldiers in the world. Military forced young girls to serve as porters and sometimes rape and used them as sexual slaves.
The Burmese government spends seven times less on education than on the armed forces. Since 1990, government expenditure on civilian education has dropped by 70 percent, and the most recent statistics indicate that spending on education is currently equivalent to less than 1% of the GDP. According to World Bank figures, Burma’s military government spends only $0.28 per year for every child in a public school.
Following a sharp increase of fuel prices on August 15, 2007, prodemocracy groups led by students began a series of peaceful marches and demonstrations to protest the failing economic situation in Burma. The regime immediately responded by arbitrarily detaining prodemocracy activists. As popular dissatisfaction spread, Buddhist monks began leading peaceful marches together with public and the regime violently crackdown by shooting, beating and arresting thousands of monks, prodemocracy activists, onlookers and killing dozens. Currently, there are more than 2000 political prisoners in Burma and regime continues to arrest democratic dissident, torture and sentence to prison.
In Burma, power is centred on the ruling junta--the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC--which maintains strict authoritarian rule over the people of Burma. Control is maintained through intimidation, the strict censuring of information, repression of individual rights, and suppression of ethnic minority groups. To avoid doing genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the regime is using one of the delaying tactics- buying times. They are waiting for another crisis happen in another part of the world and if the crisis happens, the attention on Burma from international community will divert to that crisis and Burma will go back to status quo.
http://www.bdcburma.org
The people of Burma have been suffering under one of the world's most brutal and repressive regime. The military regime uses murder, torture, rape, political imprisonment and forced labour as practices for ruling the citizens of Burma. Freedom of expression and freedom of association are non-existent and Burmese citizens are denied any state in the shaping of their future.
Burma's economic crisis continues to deepen under military rule. People earn on a wage of around $1 a day. Unemployment is rising dramatically every month while prices of consumer goods are escalating out of control. And the value of the local kyat on the informal market continues to stumble. Living standards of many Burmese are declining rapidly. One child in three under the age of five is already suffering from malnutrition, less than 50 per cent of children will complete five years of education according to UN reports.
In Burma, people face complete lack of access to basic social services such as health services, and water sanitation. Under the military generals, poverty has soared and corruption is growing. Burma spends less than $3 per person per year on health and education – well below the World Health Organization recommended level of $40 per person. The economic crisis and instability in Burma is driving waves of Burmese children into hard labour, begging and the sex trade. Burma is in the midst of a health and educational crisis.
The military maintains an extensive network of Military Intelligence (MI), informers, police, militias such as Swan-Arr-Shin and Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) members, ready to arrest anyone suspected of holding or expressing anti-government opinions in Burma. Laws have been established that criminalize freedom of thought, expression, association, assembly and movement, thus legitimizing these arbitrary arrests and continued to arbitrarily detain people across Burma for associating with opposition groups. These types of detentions occurred commonly and in most cases individuals alleged of such illegal association were detained, interrogated and many were tortured, without warrant, charge or trial.
The military maintained complete control over the legal system and remained unbound by any legislation or constitutional provision for a fair trial, due process of law or any other rights. Military government denies basic rights to due process of law, a fair and public trial in political cases. No trials of political prisoners were open to the public, and in many cases reported details of the case were not even available to the defendant's family; such as the reason for arrest, sentencing or location of the person detained.
Frequently the detainee is not informed under which section or article he or she is being detained. In addition, detainees rarely have access to legal counsel or the opportunity to obtain release on bail. The accused may be held for lengthy periods of time without any communication. Trials for political detainees are normally held in courtrooms on prison compounds, in a "special court", and defendants are given little chance to speak, are ignored when they do make statements and certainly are not permitted to properly defend themselves. Even after being charged, political prisoners are still denied the right to proper legal counsel.
Prisons in Burma are places where human rights violations and brutality are everyday realities. Abuses include prolonged shackling, torture, lack of proper medical care and insufficient food. Political prisoners face cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in the prisons, or in detention centres. They also face torture after arrest and during interrogation so as to punish them and to force them to cooperate with interrogators. Political prisoners face both physical and emotional torture, often during long-lasting periods of detention after the initial arrest while they are isolated.
Children under the age of 18 are about 40% of Burma population. The military junta does not consider children’s development and welfare as a priority and used almost half of the state budget is spent to the arm, leaving very little for the vital education and health care systems. Decades of military mismanagement of the economy has resulted in an appalling economic situation and is forcing the vast majority of parents to rely on the contribution of their children working in order to feed their families.
The worst forms of child labour can be seen in Burma –in the army, the construction industry, domestic work, and the mines or in different places. Children are by no means exempt from the forced labour imposed on hundreds of thousands of the Burmese population by military. Moreover, the military continues to forcibly recruit children into the army, some as young as eleven years old. There are 70, 000 children in the army and largest child soldiers in the world. Military forced young girls to serve as porters and sometimes rape and used them as sexual slaves.
The Burmese government spends seven times less on education than on the armed forces. Since 1990, government expenditure on civilian education has dropped by 70 percent, and the most recent statistics indicate that spending on education is currently equivalent to less than 1% of the GDP. According to World Bank figures, Burma’s military government spends only $0.28 per year for every child in a public school.
Following a sharp increase of fuel prices on August 15, 2007, prodemocracy groups led by students began a series of peaceful marches and demonstrations to protest the failing economic situation in Burma. The regime immediately responded by arbitrarily detaining prodemocracy activists. As popular dissatisfaction spread, Buddhist monks began leading peaceful marches together with public and the regime violently crackdown by shooting, beating and arresting thousands of monks, prodemocracy activists, onlookers and killing dozens. Currently, there are more than 2000 political prisoners in Burma and regime continues to arrest democratic dissident, torture and sentence to prison.
In Burma, power is centred on the ruling junta--the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC--which maintains strict authoritarian rule over the people of Burma. Control is maintained through intimidation, the strict censuring of information, repression of individual rights, and suppression of ethnic minority groups. To avoid doing genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the regime is using one of the delaying tactics- buying times. They are waiting for another crisis happen in another part of the world and if the crisis happens, the attention on Burma from international community will divert to that crisis and Burma will go back to status quo.
http://www.bdcburma.org
Burma: Our Main Causes
1) Sham 2010 Election (Boycott) (Boycott)
2) Sham 2008 Constitution (Void) (Void)
3) Unjust Electoral Laws (Void) (Void)
4) Military Regime (Out) (Out)
5) 1990 Election Result (Implement) (Implement)
6) Shwe-Gone-Daing Declaration (Implement) (Implement)
7) Aung San Suu Kyi (Our Leader) (Our Leader)
8) Aung San Suu Kyi led Interim Government (Right Now) (Right Now)
9) United Nations Security Council (Take Action On Burma Now)
http://bdcburma.org/
Aung San Suu Kyi on "Importance of UNITY among the people of Burma"
A nation can progress and prosper only when there is unity, and only when there is a general acceptance among the people that there is justice. So our first care is our people. We want to make sure that our people enjoy security, enjoy freedom and they enjoy the right to advance themselves. (Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Elected Legitimate Leader)
For more information please visit Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at http://www.bdcburma.org
For more information please visit Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at http://www.bdcburma.org
Burma: Shwe-Gone-Daing Declaration- Our Road Map for Democracy in Burma
Aung San Suu Kyi led National League for Democracy (NLD), unanimous victor of 1990 election, stands firmly on “Shew-Gone-Daing” declaration of which all four main principals are equally important that needs to place in order to have true national reconciliation in Burma, i.e.
To release all political prisoners
To take place genuine dialogue
To revise 2008 constitution
To recognize 1990 election results
For more information please visit Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at http://www.bdcburma.org/Index.asp
To release all political prisoners
To take place genuine dialogue
To revise 2008 constitution
To recognize 1990 election results
For more information please visit Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at http://www.bdcburma.org/Index.asp
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC): UNSC must implement “Shwe-Gone-Daing” Declaration
02 April 2010
Aung San Suu Kyi led National League for Democracy (NLD) decided unanimously on 29 March 2010, not to re-register the party to participate in the junta’s planned sham 2010 election due to its unfair electoral laws.
National League for Democracy (NLD), unanimous victor of 1990 election, stands firmly on “Shew-Gone-Daing” declaration of which all four main principals are equally important that needs to place in order to have true national reconciliation in Burma, i.e.
To release all political prisoners
To take place genuine dialogue
To revise 2008 constitution
To recognize 1990 election results
By seeing this decision, legitimate leaders of Burma send the very clear message to the world that they honour the plight of the people who lost their lives in 1988 uprising, 1996 student demonstrations, 1998 student demonstrations, 2003 Depeyin massacre, 2007 Saffron revolution, the victims of 2008 Cyclone Nargis, the plight of ethnics people, the plight of the political prisoners and the plight of all people of Burma who have been suffering at the hands of brutal military regime.It also sends the very strong message that they respect the will of people who voted for them in 1990 election.
This is the time that UN should proven itself that it really can make difference.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi once said that;
• The results of these elections will remain valid until such time as the Members of Parliament elected in 1990 by the people have had a chance to get together and decide what the next step is going to be. The world has to make certain that the outcome of these elections is honoured.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also reaffirm her position on UN that;
• We would like to see the UN standing very firmly by the General Assembly resolution* on Burma and to try to implement the terms of the resolution as quickly as possible. And we would like the whole international community to support the UN and this. (*On November 19, 2002, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution strongly urging the Government of Myanmar “to restore democracy and implement the results of the 1990 election and to ensure [...] without delay into substantive and structured dialogue towards democratisation and national reconciliation [...] to release unconditionally and immediately all political prisoners.”)
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) calls for world leaders to call for junta to allow convening people’s parliament according to 1990 election result which is tantamount to implementing “Shwe-Gone-Daing” declaration. Human rights abuses and humanitarian crises have been happening in Burma and long overdue to solve. Unite Nation Security Council must take effective practical action on military regime to stop killing its own people, to stop arresting and torturing political dissidents and to press to honour the 1990 election result in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s party win the landslide victory.
We would like to call for the United Nations Security Council to:
declare it won’t recognize junta’s planned 2010 election and its results
declare junta’s sham 2008 constitution as NULL and VOID
declare it will implement “Shwe-Gone-Daing” declaration as the UN road map for democracy in Burma
Aung San Suu Kyi led National League for Democracy (NLD) decided unanimously on 29 March 2010, not to re-register the party to participate in the junta’s planned sham 2010 election due to its unfair electoral laws.
National League for Democracy (NLD), unanimous victor of 1990 election, stands firmly on “Shew-Gone-Daing” declaration of which all four main principals are equally important that needs to place in order to have true national reconciliation in Burma, i.e.
To release all political prisoners
To take place genuine dialogue
To revise 2008 constitution
To recognize 1990 election results
By seeing this decision, legitimate leaders of Burma send the very clear message to the world that they honour the plight of the people who lost their lives in 1988 uprising, 1996 student demonstrations, 1998 student demonstrations, 2003 Depeyin massacre, 2007 Saffron revolution, the victims of 2008 Cyclone Nargis, the plight of ethnics people, the plight of the political prisoners and the plight of all people of Burma who have been suffering at the hands of brutal military regime.It also sends the very strong message that they respect the will of people who voted for them in 1990 election.
This is the time that UN should proven itself that it really can make difference.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi once said that;
• The results of these elections will remain valid until such time as the Members of Parliament elected in 1990 by the people have had a chance to get together and decide what the next step is going to be. The world has to make certain that the outcome of these elections is honoured.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also reaffirm her position on UN that;
• We would like to see the UN standing very firmly by the General Assembly resolution* on Burma and to try to implement the terms of the resolution as quickly as possible. And we would like the whole international community to support the UN and this. (*On November 19, 2002, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution strongly urging the Government of Myanmar “to restore democracy and implement the results of the 1990 election and to ensure [...] without delay into substantive and structured dialogue towards democratisation and national reconciliation [...] to release unconditionally and immediately all political prisoners.”)
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) calls for world leaders to call for junta to allow convening people’s parliament according to 1990 election result which is tantamount to implementing “Shwe-Gone-Daing” declaration. Human rights abuses and humanitarian crises have been happening in Burma and long overdue to solve. Unite Nation Security Council must take effective practical action on military regime to stop killing its own people, to stop arresting and torturing political dissidents and to press to honour the 1990 election result in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s party win the landslide victory.
We would like to call for the United Nations Security Council to:
declare it won’t recognize junta’s planned 2010 election and its results
declare junta’s sham 2008 constitution as NULL and VOID
declare it will implement “Shwe-Gone-Daing” declaration as the UN road map for democracy in Burma
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