Human Rights Defender
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Human Rights Defender |
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The Honourable Justice Marcus Einfeld AO QC
It is absolutely necessary that we keep Australian and international minds and labours on bringing democracy and justice to the oppressed peoples within Burma and provide hope to those of their families that have relocated to this and other countries. In particular, on the occasion of her sixty-first birthday, the continuing restrictions on the truly inspired and saintly Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must again be elevated to our minds, concerns and actions. We are speaking of nothing less than the right of Burma’s rich ethnic and human tapestry to self-determination and to participation in a democratic government committed to human rights and justice for all the people.
The struggle for the enjoyment of human rights is not one that the people of Burma must be allowed to do alone. It is a struggle that all Australians, and all right thinking peoples of the world, must take as their own if we are to give true expression to our supposed commitment to democracy and justice for all.
Human rights are, as their most famous declaration says, universal. They are for all of humankind. No one person is more of a human being than another. We who cherish these fundamental beliefs are simply not permitted to rest while the Burmese people can only have them in their dreams.
It is now many years since democracy leader and Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, was supposedly released after six years of what was called house arrest but was actually the torture of isolation and forced separation from husband, the late Michael Aris, and children, friends and colleagues. The military junta held out Suu Kyi’s release in July 1995 as proof of its intention to comply with the law and restore democracy to Burma. Of course it has done no such thing. It has not only not restored any of Suu Kyi’s rights; it has reimposed her incarceration.
In fact, despite periodic promises and pretences, no steps have been taken by the junta to release the country from its repressive military regimentation. Despite its strategy of military cease-fire agreements with some of the ethnic opposition groups, the generals have shown no semblance of giving human rights and humanitarian treatment to the people. Even meetings and other legitimate peaceful activities to discuss the situation of the people, such as their social circumstances, continue to be stopped, thus denying their rights to freedom of association and movement.
It is not only the forces of social democracy that face persecution in Burma. More than five years ago, the International Labour Conference, the quasi-parliamentary body of the International Labour Organization (ILO), itself a peak international body of governments, employers and workers, voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution unprecedented in its 81 year history. This resolution – passed with an 80% majority – called upon the Burmese junta to take concrete action to implement the recommendations of a 1998 Commission of Inquiry which found that resort to forced labour by the authorities and the military in Burma was ‘widespread and systematic’.
In spite of a mountain of regime rhetoric criticising the ILO and suggesting a willingness to rectify the current situation, it should be to no one’s surprise but everyone’s dismay that the generals have not rectified a single thing. I hope that the constituents of the ILO maintain their resolve and do not shy away from the task at hand, namely the identification and implementation of such measures in trade and economic relations as are appropriate to bring about the essential social and political freedom of the people of Burma.
The passage of time and the burn-out factor in international lawlessness should not draw attention away from the many instances in recent years when the regime has denied the rights of the very people on whose behalf they purport to govern. In October 1995 the military government decreed that Suu Kyi’s reappointment as leader of the NLD was illegal. Only in Burma can a political party’s members not choose their own leader. Despite Suu Kyi’s continued policy of peaceful demonstration and engagement with the military regime, the generals have refused to enter into a dialogue with the National League for Democracy (NLD) on the future of the country. The Government has said that it will consider dialogue at an appropriate time in the future if Suu Kyi ‘pledges to make a ‘constructive contribution’ to the country’. Constructive? By whose standards?
The junta has purported to rename the country and its capital city without the slightest consultation with the people, let alone their consent, and has cajoled some countries’ leaders and a few self-seeking elder statesmen and women and journalists to follow them. This connivance in psychological oppression is at best laziness on the part of those people and the rest of us who allow them to do it. I do not know if the name is itself so important; I do know that it exemplifies the symbolic theft of a country from the people. It is the blessing given by others to the generals’ attempt to make the world forget the Burmese people and their plight.
It is especially tragic that so much of what the regime has done represents the brutal use of a national army against its own people. We are talking of the largest and best equipped military in Asia, which is allocated fully 50%, perhaps more, of its nation’s budget despite the chronic impoverishment of the people and the country having no external enemies. Who else but their own people are they being conscripted and equipped to fight?
As the 1998 ILO Commission of Inquiry determined, the outrageous inhuman practice of ‘portering’ by which men, women and children are conscripted by the regime for mountainous labouring work while living in tortuous conditions on near starvation rations continues. Perhaps worst of all, the whole country is overrun by drugs, corruption and a widespread absence of basic services for ordinary people such as health, education, housing and work, not to mention human freedom. For those who have work, an average government employee’s daily wage is said to provide the capacity to purchase a mere two eggs.
A report to the UN General Assembly by a special human rights investigator quite recently told of summary executions, torture and rape by the military with impunity. The military has asserted that such accusations are unfounded and that nothing can be done unless the victims bring their cases to the authorities concerned. But they will not allow me or other leaders or international organisations or media to investigate the reports or advocate the cases brought to our attention.
The fact is that in less than a generation this cruel regime and its internal and external allies have reduced one of the richest countries in the world to one of the poorest. No wonder the regime is now actively seeking investment from western commercial enterprises and their professional representatives. Regrettably, quite a number of these entrepreneurs have been seduced, as have some national leaders.
Burma is today the largest refugee-producing country in South East Asia. More than 100,000 Burmese are already living over the Thai border, most belonging to ethnic minority groups who have fled the fighting between the military junta and the armed rebel groups seeking autonomy, with the safety of the Karen refugees particularly pressing.
As a member of the United Nations, Burma is bound not to create refugees. Yet the junta chooses even to flout this simple principle to the detriment not only of the people concerned but its neighbours as well, one of whom, Thailand, is its ally in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) while another, China, continues to act as protector and military supplier of the Burmese rulers.
Indeed, by admitting Burma to membership in 1997, ASEAN has actually connived in this inhumane conduct. At the very least, the governments of the ASEAN countries might call on the receiving countries, especially India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand, to offer asylum to the refugees, provide them with economic assistance, and allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to operate in their countries to care for the refugees until they receive full residency rights.
Although the possibility of Burmese chairmanship was too much even for the leaders of ASEAN last year, the pusillanimous approach by the leaders and constituent governments of that organisation is one of the most shameful abdications of human responsibility by nations in modern times. As I wrote at the time, and have repeated publicly many times since, Burma should never have been admitted to ASEAN, and should now be expelled.
To deal with the problems posed by Burma, the ASEAN diplomats established a policy of what they called ‘constructive engagement’. The purpose of this policy was to encourage political and social change in Burma by improving its economy through private sector trade. None of this positive trade nonsense has or has ever had a hope of changing the generals.
Attempts by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans to get the ASEAN nations to put further Burmese participation in the international community of nations on strict conditions deserve special acknowledgment and strong approval. But Mr Evans’ views did not win favour with the ASEAN leaders, and there has been no effort to take up this idea again.
Accordingly little of substance has been achieved and ‘constructive engagement’ has been an abject failure. Its only noticeable effect has been to concentrate the new wealth in Burma in the hands of the generals, allowing them to further tighten their stranglehold over the country and its people. Human rights are or ought to be no less an integral part of foreign policy than trade.
I recognise the continuing efforts of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to engage the generals in reform. But as his successive ambassadors have learned, no amount of talking with Burmese leaders goes anywhere. As conduct towards Germany and Japan in the 1930s should have taught us, the appeasement of fascists never has the slightest effect on their authoritarian brutality. ‘Constructive engagement’ is a euphemistic fraud on the Burmese people. What it means is their ‘destructive oppression’. Let us not forget the old saying – he who ignores history is destined to repeat it.
The fate of 40 million Burmese is not less urgent than that of 4 million Sudanese, a million or so Haitians, or the population of Somalia. There should be widespread outrage at what was once a free and rich country being turned into a mass poverty-stricken concentration camp. Virtually nothing is published or earned in Burma today. What newspapers exist are crude government mouthpieces. What writers exist are in prison. What local economy there is largely consists of barter and sale of natural resources. Like Cambodia’s Pol Pot, the regime and its cohorts have turned Burma into a backwater hell and disguised it all as a pantomime of charming touristic folklore.
Yet business people of democratic countries still operate their peculiar brand of exploitative profiteering. If the world had done to Burma even a fraction of what we did to South Africa and Vietnam, or even the late, quite unlamented, Slobodan Milosevic, the junta’s army, like the other evil autocracies which have passed or are passing into history, would not have been able to hold on. Instead, the world has taken refuge in the withholding of official aid while allowing the private sector to home in on the opportunities thrown up by the desperate plight of a regime whose priority is the repression and vandalising of its own people.
The Australian Government’s attitude in this regard is saddening to say the least. In its regularly updated country brief on Burma, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has taken the attitude that because:
…unlike the United States, which has imposed sanctions on new investment in Burma (but not on trade), Australia has a very low level of trade and investment in Burma, [so] any unilateral action by us would not have a practical effect on improving the situation in Burma.
The morality of this position completely escapes me. I try to teach my children that the contribution of one person can make a difference. What message are our leaders trying to send by propagating such an attitude? That we are not confident enough as a nation to stand by our convictions? Whatever it is, this policy should be changed.
Regardless of the situation with other countries, Australia cannot continue in its reluctance to take Burma to task for flagrant human rights violations. It is the responsibility and duty of all Australians to pressure the military junta to release Suu Kyi, honour the result of the 1990 elections and cease to deny and trample on the most basic of peoples’ rights.
The United States has only this week expressed its dismay with the situation in Burma and has foreshadowed positive action to change the status quo, including by attempting to activate China into some sort of action. But US eyes are on another arena of activity right now and positive intervention by the Americans to get rid of the generals must be considered a remote priority.
“The fate of 40 million Burmese is not less urgent than that of 4 million Sudanese, a million or so Haitians, or the population of Somalia. There should be widespread outrage at what was once a free and rich country being turned into a mass poverty-stricken concentration camp.”
The Burmese leaders know the free world well. They know that without the easy flow of information, our politicians, journalists and people will continue to pretend that everything is good and safe. The hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge from this regime, as well as the millions who are its internal prisoners, are the hapless victims of this pretence.
Let there be no mistake. Such regimes only leave office through war or under intense pressure, both national and international, both external and internal. Like all bullies, they are ultimately cowardly when bullied themselves. Although the prestigious London-based Institute of Strategic Studies has called for international troops to be sent to Burma, the only realistic tactics presently available to us non-Burmese are exposure, embarrassment and isolation of the regime and the strengthening of the democratic resistance.
It is true that the first victims of economic and other sanctions are almost always the innocent and the poor. But their physical and emotional plight is usually already so bad that it can hardly get worse. This is certainly so in Burma today. The continuing anguish of the Burmese people at the hands of their rulers is merely creating ever greater misery and devastation. On the other hand, externally caused suffering for the purpose of securing their freedom and independence has a manifestly noble goal which will assuredly end their agonies in time.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written:
International pressure can change the situation in Burma. Tough sanctions, not constructive engagement, finally brought the release of Nelson Mandela and the dawn of a new era in my country. This is the language that must be spoken with tyrants – for, sadly, it is the only language they understand.
Whatever its good intentions, a policy of sitting on the fence by neither approving nor disapproving trade amounts to a policy of neutrality towards the systematic violation of human rights and the institutionalisation of military rule oppressing democracy.
We cannot permit this level of brutality to be carried out on our doorstep without responding positively and generously. We must resolve to continue our efforts to protect and ensure Suu Kyi’s safety and that of her democratic colleagues. We must bolster and support the forces of social democracy. We must tirelessly strive for the establishment of a constitutional order based on human decency and justice. And we must call on all the genius and ingenuity we regularly use in other fields to ensure that our voices are heard. Whatever some might tell you, our influence and power is not insignificant.
Above all we must not forget the people in their suffering. We call out to the people of Burma: we are with you in your struggle to be free. This battle will be won. The Burmese people will be free. All of us, indeed every decent human being, must do whatever is necessary to help them bring it about. And we have not a moment to lose.
Marcus Einfeld AO is a retired Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, and of the New South Wales, Western Australia and Australian Capital Territory Supreme Courts. He is AUSTCARE’s Ambassador for Refugees, UNICEF’s Ambassador for Children and was the foundation President of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. In 2002 he was the UN Peace Laureate.
This is an edited version of a speech delivered for the Australian Coalition for Democracy In Burma at NSW Parliament House on 19 June 2006 on the occasion of Daw Aung Suu Kyi’s sixty-first birthday.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/HRightsDef/2006/11.html