Burmese left with no choice but to protest in wake of fuel-price hike

The people of Burma have been publicly protesting since August 21 against the arbitrary and dramatic increase of fuel prices announced six days earlier.

The Nation: Published on September 1, 2007

The protests that started in Rangoon have been spreading to other parts of Burma despite a brutal crackdown by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The junta has arrested hundreds of peaceful protesters including "1988 generation" student leaders and active members from the National League for Democracy (NLD). The military authorities and their militias have been violently cracking down on unarmed civilian protesters, who have been peacefully protesting against their desperate economic situation.

The people of Burma are hoping that the international community, especially regional players Japan and Asean members, will push for changes in Burma. Two other important players are China and Russia. They should think over their vetoes on the Burma issue in sympathy with the poor Burmese people, who have been facing heavy taxes, starvation, disease, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings.

Zin Linn

Bangkok

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/09/01/opinion/opinion_30047329.php

Burma long stuck in a constitutional morass

The Nation: Saturday, August 11,2007: 8A

Burma is sinking in a constitutional quagmire rooted in the question of equality for all nationalities or democratic rights for all citizen of the nation. The ethnic nationalities in Burma have long had strong political aspiration to establish a genuine federal union as highlighted in the 1947 Panglong Agreement. But, that agreement was disregarded by the successive Burmese military regimes. As a result, the civil war has been going on because of the failed promise guaranteed in the Panglong Agreement. Burma’s 1947 Constitution failed to provide equal rights for ethnic nationalities and lasted for only 14 years. Similarly, the 1974 Constitution, which also failed to meet establishing a Federal Union based on the principle of self-determination, also lasted for merely fourteen years.

Now, as a consequence of the failed 1947 and 1974 constitutions, Burma remains in this constitutional quagmire. Burma's military junta held the last session of its controversial national convention on 18 July this year. The convention is just for a show to International Community in the absence of the representatives-elect in the 1990 elections. The convention on the draft constitution has taken an appearance of being a democratic option, but it is being carried out under an indisputably undemocratic and unfair political environment.

Meanwhile, the 92 Members of Parliament in 1990 elections submitted a proposal to the United Nations that it play an important role to avoid the upcoming national crisis in Burma.

If the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) continues to put into practice its seven-step road map without cooperating with the representatives-elect and without listening to the real aspiration of the people of Burma and repeated requests from the international community, including the UN, the SPDC's orchestrated constitution would be definitely challenged by the people (including ethnic nationalities) of Burma.

The main factor for the key players to consider is the question of equality for all nationalities and fundamental rights for all citizen of the nation. For the 60-year-long civil war that stem from a constitutional crisis of the country may not cease, if this current national convention fails to provide self-determination for every nationality.


Zin Linn
Bangkok

Remembering Burma's jailed political activists

After 18 years in prison, Burmese journalist U Win Tin is still in solitary confinement. U Win Tin is the most outstanding journalist in Burma. He recently told a friend who visited him at the notorious Insein Prison: "Two prison officers asked me last week whether I would take up a political career if I were released. I told them that I will unquestionably do so since it is my obligation as a citizen of this country to strive for basic freedom."

U Win Tin, a 78-year-old journalist and Central Executive Committee member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), was arrested on July 4, 1989, during a crackdown by the military authorities on the opposition. Originally, he was sentenced to three years with hard labour for being a dissident who used his influence to mount a civil disobedience campaign against martial law. Later, his sentence was extended to 21 years and public promises of his release in 2004 and 2005 have never been carried out. Since 2006, he is no longer able to receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

When Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN special envoy for human rights in Burma, visited him on his 75th birthday in 2005, it wasn't the deplorable conditions he was kept in or even his failing health, made worse by poor medical care and the effects of improper surgery he wanted to highlight. Instead, it was Burma's human rights situation.

Summing up the situation, there can be no progress in the democratisation process and national reconciliation in Burma while the military junta is crookedly using political prisoners, including our Nobel Laureate, as scapegoats thrown into confinement to prolong the military dictatorship. If the SPDC truly want to show its seriousness, it should release all political prisoners, including U Win Tin and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, prior to resuming the so-called national convention on July 18 at Nyaung-hnapin camp in Hmawbi Township.