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.