The most serious casualty of the long military dictatorship in Burma has been Human Rights. From the time of Ne Win’s military coup in 1962, heavy restrictions have been enforced on the civilian population, while more than half of the nation’s wealth has been allocated to the Army, leading to the disastrous decline in Burma’s economy since that time. Ne Win’s ‘Burmese Way of Socialism’ gave his party total control of the country’s infrastructure and production, while the Army was increased massively in strength to attack ethnic minority groups which were unwilling to submit to Burman domination. The present SPDC military government follows the same pattern and it too has an appalling record of human rights abuses.

1. Censorship in Burma
It is often said that the most basic of Human Rights is the right to freedom of expression, because without this, other rights cannot be asserted. In Burma there is no freedom of expression (free speech) at all as the SPDC controls all the media, including the only internet server and telecommunications network, as well as the press. Live performers are heavily monitored and all independent utterance is penalized. For example, a popular team of comedians, the Moustache Brothers, have served prison terms for making jokes which the SPDC did not like. Even the publication of a slim volume of lyrical poems which had not been approved by the junta’s censors led to the imprisonment of the poet.

The system of surveillance developed by Khin Nyunt’s Military Intelligence in the early 1990s has been compared to the Stasi in the former East Germany. At the very same time as SPDC was soliciting tourism, the oppressive surveillance of their own citizens increased. It is dangerous for Burmese citizens to discuss any political matter with outsiders, as witness the fact that they cannot safely refer to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by name – even reference to ‘the lady’ (as they sometimes call her) is hazardous.

Along with this extreme censorship, goes the denial of the right of free assembly. In the uprising of 1988 and again in 2007, the junta ordered its troops to fire upon unarmed demonstrators in the towns and cities of Burma.

The impact of censorship on education in Burma is extremely damaging, while in many schools and colleges, the junta have further increased the effect by disallowing students who are not members of the government party from taking their exams. This is an example of the junta’s denial of the right to be without the compulsion to join any association. (Article 20, UN Charter) In the months leading up to the Referendum on the new Constitution, other examples have been flagrant, such as the compelling of citizens to attend rallies in support of the junta, under threat of fines, etc. The drafting of the new Constitution could be seen as an act of censorship in itself, since it excluded any dissenting parties. Members of the National League for Democracy (Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party) were excluded, as were representatives of most of the ethnic minority groups. The result is a document which is intended to entrench the current regime in office for the foreseeable future.

The overall impact of the extreme censorship exercised by the SPDC in Burma is to instil fear into the population.

2. ‘Freedom, Justice and Peace’
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN) states that Freedom, Justice and Peace are fundamental rights. On each of these counts, the Burmese military junta completely fails to deliver.
The people of Burma are essentially held hostage by their own government. They are not free to leave the state, and their civil rights within the state are severely curtailed. The recent uprising of September 2007 was triggered by the arbitrary imposition of new taxes on essential cooking and other fuels. Before that, a tax on tea shops was introduced (tea shops are popular meeting places where people can sit and talk), which impacted on the ordinary people. The public do not benefit from these taxes. As with the wealth which the junta gains from foreign trade and investment, the main beneficiary is the Army. The cost of building the new ‘capital’ for Than Shwe at Naypidaw is also often put forward as a reason for new taxation.

There is no rule of law in Burma as we would understand it in Ireland. People may be arrested at any time, held and possibly tortured in detention, and then released without charge. This was the case for many people who were detained after September 27th 2007, when the military cracked down on the huge popular demonstrations against the dictatorship. Political prisoners are particularly likely to be tortured while in detention, as part of the ‘reign of terror’ tactics of the junta.
People who are brought before the courts are likely to receive severe sentences if their ‘crime’ is thought to be political in nature. The detention of the democratic leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest is the most outstanding example of imprisonment without charge. She has never been brought before any court. People in Burma cannot expect to find Justice within the present system.

The Burmese military junta continues to inflict violence amounting to civil war on many of its ethnic minority groups, as well as upon any civilians who protest against its power. It has become plain over time that this state of civil war has provided an excuse for the Burmese military to engross over half of the national income. At nearly half a million men-at-arms, the Burmese Army is the largest (per capita) in Asia – and Burma has no external enemies to justify such enormous armed forces. It is clear that the junta finds it advantageous to continue its violence against its own ethnic minority groups.

3. Abuses against Minority Ethnic People
The Burmese Army commits atrocities against ethnic minority people inside Burma, for example:
Rape
Forced Labour
Summary Execution
Boys taken as Child Soldiers
Captives used as Human Mine Sweepers
Confiscation of Property and Lands
Destruction of Property, including food, crops, etc.
Denial of Traditional Rights, including the right to be educated in their own languages
Persecution on Grounds of Religion

Each of these is so serious and well-documented by the ethnic minority groups themselves that it is best to look up their accounts of how they are abused by the Burmese Army.

There is also information about this on the Ethnic Groups page.