| IN BURMA, LONG YEARS OF SUBJUGATION
HAVE BEEN PUNCTUATED BY periods of brutal repression;
the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in 19881 ;
the arrest, detention and torture of pro-democracy activists
in the wake of their overwhelming victory in the elections of
19902, the current systematic campaign of human rights
abuses including sexual violence, intended to humiliate and
break the resolve of the people and now ‘Black Friday’.
A number of damning reports have kept Burma in the spotlight.
Authoritative research by Amnesty International, Refugees
International, Human Rights Watch, Christian Solidarity Worldwide,
Reporters Sans Frontieres, representative bodies such as ICFTU
and the UN High Commission on Human Rights, the US State Dept
and the European Union all condemn Burma’s military
as among the world’s worst repressive societies.
Internal Repression as policy - Amnesty
International have called Burma ‘a prison without bars’.
The regime maintains a 400,000-strong army in a nation without
external enemies. Its sole purpose is internal repression
to maintain their grasp on power - extra-judicial summary
executions, disappearances, torture, rape, forced labour and
relocation of entire villages.
Political Prisoners - Many of the 1300 political
prisoners have been ‘convicted’ of such ‘anti-Burmese’
crimes as distributing pro-democracy leaflets or attending
illegal meetings. Sentences are severe and subject to revision
at any time with prisoners, some in their 70s, often left
in jail long after serving their original sentence.
Forced Labour - the International Labour
Organisation (ILO) confirms that forced labour is very much
alive in Burma. A legion of forced child and adult labourers
build roads and dams, hotels & golf course for western
tourists. Another form of servitude serves to enforce this
brutality - Burma has the highest number of child soldiers
in the world.3
Refugees - Over 300,0004 Burmese
nationals have fled to the Burma/Thai border in recent years,
constituting the largest population of refugees in S.E. Asia.
Having escaped the regime’s repression, those who flee
are harassed by Thai authorities, threatened with deportation,
denied refugee status and stripped of rights under Thai law’s
narrow definition of refugees which includes only those fleeing
‘armed conflicts between states’. Internally Displaced
Persons, those who remain in the Burma but who have fled their
villages due to widespread violent intimidation, number more
than 1 million.
Economic & Social Collapse - Having
acquired the title ‘most undeveloped nation status’
in 1987, a country once known as ‘the rice bowl of Asia’
is now a land of hungry people who queue for rice, while vast
quantities are exported for foreign currency. Burma ranks
190th of 191 nations in the World Health Organisation’s
index of ‘World Health Service Performance’ for
2000. It is estimated 1 child in 3 is malnourished, while
1 doctor serves every 12,000 people in a country ravaged by
HIV/AIDS.
Schools and universities - considered a
focus of dissent - are subject to arbitrary closure and literacy
rates have plunged as an entire generation pays the price
of guns over education. |
