The U.N. Has Failed Burma

by Aung Din

Posted September 26, 2008
Far Eastern Economic Review
http://www.feer.com/international-relations/2008/september/The-U.N.-Has-Failed-Burma

The 20-year nonviolent struggle for human rights and democracy in Burma has learned much since 1988. The military regime that rules our country is destroying virtually the entire country, with the exception of the expansive military itself. Over the years, the people of Burma have faced a brutal dictatorship that commits large-scale atrocities and steadily strangulates the population, especially the ethnic minorities. Through the decades of military rule, my country’s democracy movement has turned to the United Nations for support and intervention.

Many countries at the U.N. have turned out to be sympathetic and willing to help. Standing against tyrannical rule in Burma, the successive General Assembly resolutions instructed the secretary-general to help facilitate national reconciliation and democratization in Burma, beginning with the release of all political prisoners and establishment of a meaningful political dialogue among the key stake-holders. Over the past 13 years, the U.N. special envoys, appointed by the secretary-general, have traveled to Burma 24 times, trying to persuade the regime to implement the UNGA resolutions, yet have been unable to produce one iota of change.

There are many reasons for the failure of the envoys. First, the secretary-general’s envoys do not have enforcement power. Second, the envoys do not enjoy unanimous support from the one and only body that could offer concrete accountability—the Security Council, because of China’s (the Burmese regime’s closest ally and major arms supplier) continuous threat to use its veto power to block any resolution that demands positive change in Burma. Third, the Burmese military regime is stubborn, self-isolated, and proficient at playing cat and mouse game with the visiting envoys. Clearly, being a U.N. special envoy to Burma is not an easy task – and those who take up the position cannot be blamed for institutional and political weaknesses inherent to their mission.

However, we should blame the envoy when he doesn’t follow his mission exactly, when he shows no respect to the leaders of Burma’s democracy movement and when he misleads the world with inaccurate reporting. Recently, the U.N. Special Envoy has gone beyond ineffectiveness, and instead, actively denigrates Burma’s democracy movement while supporting the regime’s agenda to legalize the military dictatorship in Burma with a sham constitution and a sham election in 2010.

Mr. Ibrahim Gambari, U.N. special envoy for Burma, recently visited Burma on Aug. 18-23, 2008. He spent most of his time at meetings and diners with the regime’s low-level officials, and several pro-regime groups, listening to how the country is “prospering and developing” under the regime. On Aug. 20, He spent only twenty minutes with the leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide victory in the 1990 elections. Detained Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi refused to meet him in protest.

This led to a global outcry. The U.N. office in New York was filled with questions from reporters and complaints from Burmese activists in exile, who considered it an insult to the Burmese democracy movement. How could the U.N. envoy with a mandate to facilitate political dialogue between the regime, the NLD and ethnic representatives not pay sufficient time to major opposition forces for proper discussion and consultation? The global outcries did work. Two days later, on Aug. 22, instead of going back to New York, he was allowed to stay one more day and met with the NLD leaders a second time for an hour and a half.

However, the NLD leaders found Mr. Gambari to be a supporter of the Burmese regime. Mr. Gambari said that he encouraged the military regime to invite U.N. observers to the 2010 election, which will be the final step to legalizing military rule in our country. The NLD leaders were shocked and dismayed and responded with a question of how the U.N. envoy would consider the 1990 election results, which gave them mandate to hold office but have been completely ignored by the regime. He didn’t answer. Later, they learned from the New Light of Myanmar, the regime’s mouthpiece, that Mr. Gambari “praised the regime for it’s reaching the fifth step of the Road Map during the two-year period” and recognized the regime “for its effort for being able to approve the constitution and address the problem of cyclone Nargis”. He also offered U.N. expertise to the regime to help with the 2010 election. He didn’t make a complaint about the sham constitution, written by the regime’s cronies and designed to legalize the military rule. He also didn’t argue about the severely flawed and vote-rigged referendum, which was held directly after the devastation of cyclone Nargis and against the request of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to postpone it, so that all efforts may be concentrated to save lives. We believe that something is seriously wrong in New York.

When he was asked by reporters at the press briefing in the United Nations on Sept. 11 why he offered help to the regime for the election in 2010, which the opposition has strongly rejected, Mr. Gambari said that, “Before I left, I have five issues, on which the group of friends of secretary-general, Security Council and secretary-general himself said that these are issues to discuss with the authorities in Myanmar. [The] issue of [the] election is one of them.” If this is true, we would have to believe that the United Nations is moving towards supporting the regime’s one-sided act and ignoring the demands of our democracy movement.

In the U.N. Security Council Presidential Statement, issued on May 2, 2008, the friendly governments of the regime successfully inserted a paragraph that read, “The Security Council affirms its commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Myanmar and, in that context, reiterates that the future of Myanmar lies in the hands of all of its people.” If this language and Mr. Gambari’s offer to help the regime’s final step to consolidate the power are the indication of the U.N.’s desire to abandon the poor people of Burma, we would like to ask the U.N. to leave us alone. We are determined to face our own destiny in our own way. Please just don’t force us into an untenable situation by supporting the regime’s agenda.

Aung Din served more than four years in prison in Burma as a political prisoner. He is currently executive director of the Washington D.C.-based U.S. Campaign for Burma.

Beyond the Child Soldiers and Armed Conflict

Beyond the Child Soldiers and Armed Conflict

Aung Din
U.S. Campaign for Burma
September 18, 2008

I have attended the “Policy Forum on Children and Armed Conflict” at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC on September 17, 2008. This forum was organized by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Institute of Peace. I found many policy makers, legal experts, senior diplomats from the United Nations and foreign Embassies, senior officials from U.S. Departments of State, Defense and Labor, leaders of the NGO community, and academics actively participated in the discussion on policy and action to stop the practice of child soldier recruitment in many countries in the world. Personal testimony of a former child soldier from Uganda was very powerful and touching. This is very encouraging to learn that the international community is working hard to save children from being recruited into armed forces belonging to governments and non-state actors and also helping former child soldiers to reintegrate back to normal life.

As the title of the issue suggested, all participants focused on armed conflict as the one and only reason for the recruitment of child soldiers. I think we all are missing another factor, which is equally important and should be addressed at the same time.

My country of Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been under military rule for many decades. The Burmese military regime is ruling the country against the will of the people and uses force and violence against anyone who peacefully demands for democracy and fundamental rights. In order to keep their grip on power, they must have and maintain strong, powerful and obedient armed forces so they can control the populations and prolong their power. Therefore, since 1989, the military regime has tried to increase the members of its armed forces from 185,000 to 500,000 and install billion dollar worth of sophisticated weapons, mostly provided by the Chinese Government. The dream number of the generals was very difficult to fulfill, because many young men refuse to serve in the military voluntarily, and many soldiers desert their army posts everyday. Therefore, the regime’s recruiters aim their targets at children under 18, who are vulnerable and easy to frighten.

Children as young as 12 years old are abducted by army’s recruiters on their ways to schools or monasteries or churches or playgrounds and then ended up in army’s training camps, far away from their home towns. Soldiers catch some children when they try to run away from their parents. The children are asked to choose one of the two options; to go to jail or to join in the army. Most of them chose the latter. Those who refuse to join in the army are severely beaten, before the very eyes of other children, and then disappeared. Some young novices from Buddhist Monasteries are persuaded by soldiers and brought to training centers without the consent of Senior Abbots, who administer the Monasteries. After intensive trainings at the centers, they all are sent to ethnic minority areas and asked to participate in the killing and torturing of local residents. Some are assigned in army units based in major cities, and used to attack democracy activists. Some successfully flee the army, but they are caught and put in prison together with their parents. Family members and relatives, who have tried to bring their children back, are threatened by the military officials. Recently, U Thet Wai, who tried to submit a letter of complaint about the recruitment of child soldiers to the resident officer of the International Labor Organization, was arrested and sentenced to two-year imprisonment by a summary court.

Apparently, child soldier recruitment in Burma is not only for armed conflict, but also to strengthen the armed forces, which is the military’s regime major instrument to hold onto power. Civil war in Burma might end one day, by having cease-fire agreements between the regime and insurgent groups, or through the surrender or collapse of insurgent groups. However, child soldier recruitment will never end as long as our country is ruled by the military regime, which applies its loyal army to crack down on any challenge to its power. Currently, the Burmese regime’s armed forces have the largest numbers of child soldiers in the world, about 70,000 to 90,000 child soldiers, as reported by the Human Rights Watch.

If we are continuing to focus on armed conflict as the one and only reason for child soldier recruitment, many dictatorial governments, including Burma’s military regime, will still be hiding behind armed conflict, making some hollow promises to the international community, and then putting all the blame on insurgent groups, known as non-state actors. I strongly believe that armed conflict and a dictatorial regime are the two major reasons for child soldier recruitment and should be addressed at the same time. We need to move the current debate of “child soldiers and armed conflict” to “child soldier recruitment in armed conflict and by a dictatorship”. I also believe that collective action by the international community to help the emergence of a democratically elected government in Burma, which will be responsible for the people and accountable for its conduct, will be the only way to end the recruitment of child soldiers and armed conflict in my country. Let’s save the children effectively.