DEMOCRACY’S WARRIORS IN BURMA

November 2008

Nancy Hudson-Rodd PhD

Honorary Research Fellow

Centre for Social Research, Edith Cowan University, WA

Recently the world watched as 150,000 people perished and more than 1.5 million were left homeless by Cyclone Nargis. Individuals in Burma formed support and rescue groups. Monks sheltered thousands of people displaced from their homes. There was world sympathy for the Burmese people’s loss as well as disbelief and disgust for the military regime’s callous response and denial of help.

Ein Khaing Oo, a 24 year old female journalist working for Ecovision Weekly News Journal in Burma, was arrested in Rangoon 10 July 2008 while filing reports about survivors of Cyclone Nargis who sought help from international non-governmental organisations in Rangoon. After more than five months in prison, Ein Khaing Oo was sentenced in a closed trial 14 November to two years in prison. She was denied any legal representation.

More than 100 people were killed, Buddhist monks were beaten, and thousands more detained for taking part in peaceful marches protesting high prices of food in September 2007. Photojournalist Kenji Nagai was shot dead by a Burmese soldier while covering demonstrations in Rangoon for Japanese video agency APF on 27 September. A photo of fatally wounded Kenji Nagai on the street faced by a gun holding soldier while men and women fled exposed the regime’s ruthless response to peaceful expressions of freedom. This photo by Andrees Latif won the 2008 Pultizer Prize for Breaking News Photography. Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan described these demonstrations as “trivial”. The unnecessary suffering and poverty of the majority of people in Burma is in stark contrast to the obscene wealth of the upper ranks of the regime and their business cronies.

The regime’s total disregard for the safety and well-being of citizens is not new. The regime is known for its gross, extensive, and widespread human rights abuses. Many people have suffered for standing up for their freedom and for their resistance to military rule. On 11 November 2008, the regime crackdown intensified on pro-democracy supporters sentencing 14 men and women in closed prison court to 65 years in prison, many detained without charges after participating in public demonstrations in September 2007.

Too little recognition goes to the active widespread and extensive non-violent ways in which people of Burma struggle against the regime. Non-violence is often called passive. Non-violent resistance is not passive but requires great human resolve, strength and brave actions. Many individual women and men have struggled and continue to struggle to keep alive the ideas of truth, justice, and freedom. I call these people democracy’s warriors.

The most significant finding of my research conducted with Ko Sein Htay on the SPDCs arbitrary taking of farmers’ land (Arbitrary Confiscation of Farmers’ Land by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Military Regime, March 2008, The Burma Fund: Washington) was the depth of commitment of so many individuals inside Burma who fight for democracy, rule of law and justice despite the harsh responses by the regime. Farmers, their children, lawyers, 88 student activists, journalists, union workers, lawyers, authors, and politicians form a network of democracy warriors inside and outside Burma.

Use of non-violent methods in Burma has a high price. Arrest, interrogation, torture and imprisonment, frequently for 10 years or more, follows acts perceived as critical of the regime. There is no rule of law, no right to legal representation and a penal system where, for example, 4 political prisoners released in August 2005 had served 15 years in prison without ever being charged.

There are few countries in the world where ordinary people consistently pursue political change through non-violent means for more than four decades in the face of extreme persecution and loss of freedom. I think that civil disobedience as currently practiced in Canada, USA, European countries would collapse as a form of political expression if its practitioners were routinely placed, as in Burma, under lengthy prison sentences in deprived and remote conditions which include hard labour and torture.

Immediately after the military junta refused to accept the popular mandate to pro-democracy parties in the 1990 elections, the National League for Democracy pledged to follow a path of seeking power by non-violent means. Their adversary in this struggle is a military regime which has formed one of the largest standing armies per capita in Southeast Asia and which has imported sophisticated police and crowd control equipment from neighbour China.

The SPDC military regime exists only to keep itself in power. Bob Davis, former Australian Ambassador to Burma in a recent speech on Burma: The Psyche of an Occupying Army (17 August 2008) stated that the regime leadership are alert and alarmed, not to any threat from neighbours, but to any perceived continuous threat of attack to their power by what the regime describes as “internal and external destructive elements”, that is anyone who argues for reform. The regime fears most the words and images of truth by authors, journalists, human rights defenders, and poets.

Leading poet, Saw Wei was arrested 22 January 2008 and sentenced 10 November, 2008 to two year’s imprisonment for his poem entitled, ‘February the Fourteenth’ published in the weekly magazine Love Journal. Saw Wei’s poem cryptically mocked General Than Shwee, supreme head of the SPDC military junta. The first words of each line of the Burmese language poem spelled out the following message, “Senior General Than Shwe is foolish with power”.

Non-violent methods are something the military regime does not understand how to overcome. Each violent and repressive measure taken by the military regime reveals them to be the oppressors. Burmese activists have earned great sympathy and support internationally due to the transparently unjust nature of military rule. Non-violence is a weapon which by its nature reveals the truth. The junta calls itself the State Peace and Development Council, but their need to continually repress, suppress, and stifle any dissenting views of people who reject these military activities reveal that there is no peace.

The regime writes its version of history to legitimise their claims as rulers and it censors all other versions before they are published. Ko Aung Htun was an active participant in the 8.8.88 protests. With the help of U Thar Ban, U Hla Shwe, Ko Khun Sai, Dr Maung Maung Kyaw, and Ma Su Win, he published a six volume series entitled “The Book I Want to Write the Most” in 1997. This book documented 90 years of the student movement history from colonial times to 1988 and provided information about student political prisoners. All members of the group had been leading student or political activists at different points in Burma’s recent history. Many activists contributed their hidden collections of photos, papers, notes from different periods of student activism. Friends and supporters circulated these documents under great risk. Ko Aung Htun was arrested and sentenced to 17 years accused of spreading lies. I met in Rangoon with 3 men now in their 70s who were imprisoned and held in isolation for 7 years, 1997-2004, simply because their photos as student leaders in 1950s University of Rangoon appeared in the book. Ohn Myint, an NLD adviser who helped to write and distribute this book and a teashop owner who distributed the uncensored student history were jailed in 1998. Aung Tun, an honorary member of PEN Centres in Norway, Australia, and Canada, remains in isolation in prison in poor health in November 2008.

Symbols have been one way to show solidarity among democracy supporters. Portraits of General Aung San, his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, red and yellow colours, and the fighting peacock show defiance of the military regime symbolising the pro-democracy movement. Nuns, Than Htay and Thin Thun Oo held up red flags with a fighting peacock and a photograph of ASSK in front of Rangoon City Hall in 2003 shouting slogans calling for authorities to lower the price of cooking oil and rice. They handed out pamphlets asking the regime to hold talks with the NLD. These women were imprisoned for 13 years. In 1999, sisters, Tin Win Kyi and Tin Tin Aye were arrested, imprisoned for five years for wearing yellow t-shirts with ASSKs photo.

In October 2006, the 88 Generation Students Group launched the “White Expression Campaign” and a “Multi-Faith Prayer Campaign”. People were asked to demonstrate support for political prisoners by wearing white clothes and praying for real national reconciliation. 535,580 signatures demanding release of political prisoners, collected in October inside Burma, were sent to the SPDC military regime and various United Nations organisations. A “Sunday White Campaign” held in April 2007 encouraged Burmese people to show their support for the release of all political prisoners by wearing white clothes on Sunday. The group, most members who are former political prisoners, have served long prison sentences and been subjected to severe human rights abuses, urged the UN Security Council to pass an effective resolution of Burma’s political crisis. The group was given the 2008 President’s International Democracy Award by the American Federation of Teachers in October 2008 for continued peaceful struggle for human rights.

The Burmese regime sentenced 14 members of this 88 Generation Students Group each to 65 years in prison, in closed Insein Prison court on 11 November, 2008 for their participation in the Buddhist monk led 2007 pro-democracy protests. Nine monks and at least 28 members of the National League for Democracy Party, journalists, and human rights defenders were among another 60 people charged and sent to prison for their pro-democracy support.

Civil disobedience is a deliberate, open and peaceful violation of laws, regulations, and decrees believed to be illegitimate. There are many examples of this heroic non-violent action in Burma. U Win Tin, a renowned journalist and editor has consistently refused to sign a letter of resignation from the NLD in exchange for his freedom. In prison denied writing implements, he used the inside of a visitor’s t-shirt to scrawl an appeal to the United Nations seeking rights for prisoners. He is accused by the regime of urging the NLD to adopt a civil disobedience campaign quoting the example of Mahatma Ghandi and the words of Henry David Thoreau. In prison since 1989 he keeps up peaceful resistance to the orders of prison authorities. Now 78, U Win Tin suffers from many health problems.

Lawyer, U Aye Myint who set up a legal aid group to handle cases of forced labour, illegal land confiscation and workers’ rights was awarded the European Bar’s Ludovic-Trarieux 13^th International Human Rights Prize 2008 for his work under such repressive conditions. Twice imprisoned over cases he brought to courts and to the International Labour Organisation he has suffered cruel and inhumane treatment by being hooded, handcuffed and unfed for days. In March 2007, Aye Myint represented 362 farmers in Pegu who had their farms, animals, crops and houses taken by the regime, writing directly on behalf of the farmers to General Than Shwe and to the regional SPDC Commander. His work contributed to our research on regime arbitrary confiscation of farmers’ land.

My last visit to Rangoon was cut short. My meeting with Aye Myint not held. After a brief 22 hours in Rangoon, I was detained by Yangon security and immigration security, questioned for 8 hours and deported on the last flight to Bangkok (28 February, 2008). I was not charged with any crime. It was an arbitrary action with no rights to question. The men refused to give their names or why they were holding me and why they refused to let me go to the Australian embassy. They accused me of “doing something wrong”, not acting like a tourist, of meeting with Burmese people, of being a national security threat. Probably the hotel phone was tapped and my meetings with a journalist and lawyer in Rangoon were monitored.

The arbitrariness of the military regime is chilling. My life was disrupted briefly as I was deported. Women and men in Burma viewed as threats to military rule are severely punished, picked up, detained, and charged usually behind closed walls of Insein prison with no legal representation. The regime fears the words of truth from those who refuse to be silenced. There is no law, no justice, and no freedom in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi, Noble Peace Laureate, denied the right to form government in 1990, has spent over 13 years in isolated house detention.

Democracy warriors are keeping alive the movement for freedom and human rights in Burma. Lawyer Aye Myint vows to “fight any government or individual acting against the law”. The international community has a responsibility to support this active non-violent struggle against repression. All who value freedom and justice and non-violent change have an obligation to use these freedoms available to them to support those who have few freedoms and seek justice through non-violent means. In December, the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What is there to celebrate in Burma? We must demand the immediate and unconditional release of all people currently detained in violation of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.