10.09.2006
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Editorial: Is Burma a Threat to Peace?
_ By Dr. Tayza
Whether Burma is a threat to peace and stability is the question which member nations of United Nations Security Council will have to decide on very soon. They have to decide on it in a very urgent and serious manner, and also with a humanitarian spirit. And they must avoid putting their self-interests above a humanitarian cause.
On the world stage Burma is just a poor country, of little strategic importance, sandwiched between two rising powers in East Asia, China and India, both regarding Burma as their little brother to exploit as much as they like.
But big neighbours’ business interests in Burma should not bungle US led efforts in United Nations to get a Security Council resolution for humanitarian intervention in Burma.
Burma’s SPDC military regime has been committing gross human rights violations and atrocities against its own people. Recently in ethnic minority areas, scores of villages have been abandoned and their inhabitants forced to flee into jungles. SPDC troops ban civilian populations from traveling, trips for buying food and going to work in their agricultural fields. Villagers are forced to build motor roads, construct barracks and haul food supplies for the SPDC troops. They are forced to relocate away from their villages, while their rice barns, agricultural fields and homes are burned down. SPDC troops are shelling the villages with heavy weapons, force the villages to relocate, burn down the villages, orchards, forests, farms and rice barns, loot properties of the villagers, plant landmines, subject the people, including women, children and old people, to forced labor, arrest, torture and kill suspects, commit rape of women etc. openly without restraint.
Moreover, Burma's healthcare and education system are in total chaos and decline. Uneducated and malnourished children are forced in become slave-like labourers and child-soldiers. Deadly infectious diseases, like HIV/Tuberculosis/Malaria are on the rise.
Worst of all, Burma has become a threat to regional peace and stability because of its overflowing HIV cases, its exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees, its export of opium and stimulant drugs, and its nuclear research program which is running with cooperation from countries like North Korea and Iran.
We know that Burma does not top the UN agenda, nor either it tops the foreign policy agendas of big powers of the world. We know that China and India are enjoying lucrative business and energy deals with Burmese generals_ they do not love the prospect of their very special business partners, Burmese generals, losing power in Burma, regardless of how much Burmese people suffer under these generals. We know that Russia is selling military equipments and nuclear technology to Burma. And we know that even Japan and south-Korea are very eager to get a share of Burma’s off-shore gas reserves. In these circumstances, we know, it is difficult to get a binding Security Council resolution for UN intervention in Burma.
Nevertheless, we welcome the US’s efforts to get another, and yet another, briefings in UN Security Council on Burma. We hope that these briefings will lead to fruitful results eventually.
And we here like to have a word, in good faith, to the energy-hungry big nations in East Asia region that their efforts to deliberately hamper democratization process in Burma, with an intention to prolong their business deals with Burmese generals, will lead to severe backlashes when eventually Burma become democratic. Even now demonstrations and protests by Burmese exile activists are occurring frequently worldwide in front of Chinese and Indian embassies.
So here we urge member states of the United Nations Security Council to seriously consider for an urgent UN intervention to restore democracy and human rights in Burma before Burmese military generals have become as large a threat as that of North-Korea’s Kim Jong Il or Iran’s Ahmadinejad.
*** If you haven’t, please sign petition for UN Security Council intervention to stop atrocities in Burma.
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Last week’s English articles
My Opinion: Democracy doesn’t come packed in a neat little parcel
Cultural Politics, Asian Values & Burma
Larry Jagan's Article on Economic Reform in Burma
A Disease in Burmese Social Culture