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An Overview of the Situation in Burma
International attention has once again turned back to Burma. In September 2007, the military junta brutally put down monk-led protests that swept across the country. What originally started as demonstrations against a sudden increase in fuel prices transformed into an uprising against 45 years of military rule that has left the country a political, social, and economic disaster. Under the military dictatorship, the Burmese have suffered decades of civil rights repression, systematic human rights abuses, and civil war.

Resource-rich Burma has the potential to be one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia, but decades of inept leadership have left the country impoverished and underdeveloped. In 1960, Burma was the largest rice exporter in the world. Now, 40% of children in Burma are malnourished. Poverty reigns, with 90% of the population earning less than $1 a day.

Social services are either rare or nonexistent, and the education system is in shambles. While the government spends an overwhelming 50% of the national GDP on military expenditures, it spends only 2% of its budget on healthcare. With more than 400,000 troops, Burma has the largest standing army in southeast Asia, with almost 70,000 child soldiers, some as young as 11.

Despite organizing a National Convention to draft a new constitution – which took 14 years to conclude – Burma is nowhere near attaining democracy or national reconciliation. In fact, according to the most recent Worldwide Governance Indicators report, the junta, officially titled the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has been ranked the worst government in the world according to the amount of freedom citizens have to voice opinions and select a government, receiving a score of “zero.” Basic rights like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of travel are banned. The junta’s “Seven-step Roadmap to Democracy” is a roadmap in name only.

The military never had the popular mandate to rule and refused to recognize the results of the 1990 general election — Burma’s first and only free election since 1962 — when the National League for Democracy won 82% of the parliamentary seats. There are more than 1,600 political prisoners, including 38 elected members of parliament and the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

The junta has destroyed over 3,000 villages (twice the number of villages destroyed in Darfur as of early 2007) in insurgent-controlled areas in Eastern Burma and has carried out a campaign of rape, wrongful imprisonment, extrajudicial killings, forced labor, forced relocation, and torture. As a result, there are anywhere from 500,000 to 4 million internally displaced peoples within Burma, and more than 1.5 million refugees in neighboring Thailand and Bangladesh. Many describe living in Burma as living under a shroud of constant fear.

While the official state death count from September’s crackdown is 10, according to dissidents, the military regime’s violent response to the demonstrations has led to over 200 deaths and more than 6,000 arrests. Some estimates are much higher, with reliable sources reporting of massacring of students and monks. Hla Win, a mid-ranking major and former intelligence officer, is the most senior official to defect so far, exclaiming, “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.” He fled to Thailand after refusing orders to raid two monasteries, kill the monks, and dump their corpses deep in the jungle.

To this day, the junta continues to defy international opinion, and carries out brutal nighttime raids and arrests. Furthermore, amid the recent massacres of students and monks, raiding of monasteries, beatings, and arrests, there are now confirmed reports of the junta burning protestors – dead and alive. UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, has called the deteriorating situation “an emergency” and urged for diplomacy to bring calm to the country of 47 million.

Nations are increasingly rallying behind Burma’s democracy movement. But a schism between freedom supporting nations and countries with vested commercial interests in Burma will be the most difficult hurdle for the people of Burma to conquer. While the US, EU, Canada, Australia, and Japan have all imposed sanctions, cut diplomatic ties, and or drastically reduced aid to Myanmar, China, India, Russia, and Thailand continue to diplomatically and financially support the SPDC.

Burma is a country rich in natural resources, and its abundant oil and gas deposits, mineral resources, and hydropower potential prove too tempting to resist for many multinational companies, mostly notably American oil giant Chevron and France’s Total SA. Some of the more infamous projects include the Shwe Gas Project, the Yadana Pipeline, and the Salween dams, but few multinationals consider the effects that the development projects will have on the local people. Theses resources are called “conflict resources,” as their harvesting has been linked with forced labor, relocations, and numerous other human rights abuses. Investment and profits line the pockets of the military, allowing them to continue purchasing arms and military hardware from China, Russia, India, and South Korea.

In January 2007, China and Russia used their UN Security Council veto powers to defeat what would have been the first UN Resolution on Burma, claiming that the situation in Burma is an internal matter and does not threaten international peace and security. However, they discounted the effects of Burmese-based insurgents on India, refugees surging into Thailand and Bangladesh, and the universally acknowledged fact of the complicity of Burma’s junta in the international heroin trade.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry has called on the military junta for restraint in dealing with the protests, China has come under fire by refusing to condemn Myanmar and for ruling out sanctions. As Myanmar’s largest diplomatic, financial, and military supporter, the Asian superpower can to use its clout to bring about change.

The UN Human Rights Council has condemned the SPDC, but the international community must do more to bring about social change in Burma, where citizens have been suffering under the yoke of tyranny for close to five decades. UN ineffectiveness, China’s unflinching support of the junta, and irresponsible investing practices are to blame. The warning signs of additional casualties are there. The question is, will the UN act or will this be a repeat of August 8, 1988, or worse? The global community must stand in solidarity with the monks and civilians who are so painfully suffering. The free and democratic Burma that Aung San envisioned in the 1940’s can be achieved, but only if people within and outside Burma rally together.

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