Persons of Year 2008 in hopeless lawless land of Burma

From: "burmadigest"

Persons of the Year 2008
In the Hopeless Lawless Land of Burma
(http://burmadigest. info/2008/ 12/23/hopeless- in-the-lawless- land/)

… BURMA DIGEST magazine, with the support of our readers' online votes, has chosen 'Burma's human rights defence lawyers' as Burma's Persons of the Year 2008 … …

There has been little to nil progress in Burma's pro-democracy politics in the last twelve months. There have not been any significant political activities or movements in Burma's politics recently.

Last year, in 2007, we saw a very massive peaceful people power uprising led by Buddhist monks against oppressive military regime, followed by a bloody brutal crack down on the protestors by the military, and international outcry denouncing Burmese military's cruel and inhumane tactics, and the regime caving in to international pressure to start negotiations with pro-democracy people's leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

In contrast, in 2008, a scary unnerving uncomfortable silence has been an overwhelming feature. A number of very important anniversaries, such as the 20th Anniversary of 8888 people power uprising, the 20th Anniversary of the bloody military coup, the 20th Birthday of foundation of the National League for Democracy and the first year anniversary of the Saffron Revolution has all passed by rather too quietly.

Only two crucially important happenings, and a few other relatively significant events, occurred in Burma in 2008.

The first major crucial happening was the cyclone Nargis in May 2008 which, coupled with poor crisis response and management in its aftermath, killed more than 100,000 people, becoming one of the deadliest storms in the history of the entire South East Asia region.

Cyclone Nargis was deadly not only in physical sense but also in the political sense as well. Nargis caught everybody off guard, not only the victims in Irrawaddy Delta region, but also the military government, the opposition politicians inside and outside the country, and of course the international community. Nargis highlighted Burmese military government as not only brutally oppressive but also futilely inadequate in times of national emergencies and negligently indifferent to people's sufferings. But the opposition politicians also did not score very well in the Cyclone crisis; they did not know either how to best respond to a national natural disaster, some even showed a callous political instinct calling for an American-led invasion into Burma for a regime change grasping the chaotic cyclone aftermath as an opportunity. And the international community, usually focusing solely on democratization in Burma, found a harsh difficulty at the time of unexpected natural disaster to establish reliable channels for delivering humanitarian aid into Burma.

Eventually, despite military government stealing as much as possible from aid supplies, significant amounts of international humanitarian aids successfully went into the disaster region. But, it also paved the way for the military regime to establish rapport and a spirit of engagement with the United Nations. Since Nargis, the international community's hands become tied and bounded by the need to effectively provide humanitarian aid to poverty-stricken malnourished people in Burma. With the regime having total control on all aspects of life and all facets of government function in Burma, the international community now suddenly came to the realization that they could not accomplish their essential humanitarian missions in Burma without maintaining a working relationship with the abhorrent military regime.

Another crucial key political development in 2008 was the passing of a pro-military constitution in a much criticized overtly rigged referendum. It caused a sea-change and a seismic shift in Burma's politics. Not that it was a free and fair referendum, nor was the constitution a really democratic one. But having passed a very favourable constitution in a referendum, albeit by hooks and by crooks, was itself an achievement for the otherwise totally illegitimate military regime having occasional nightmares about having to stand trial in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The new constitution contains many clauses which allow the military to maintain their dominance in Burma's politic, and it also grants blanket immunity to the leaders of the military regime.

Now with a new very pro-military constitution in their hands, the Generals are just ignoring the results on the really free and fair 1990 elections in which the opposition party National League for Democracy won landslide.

Now the main pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy NLD, founded by people's leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is in dilemma. If NLD take part in the coming 2010 elections, it will amount to agreeing with the regime that the results of 1990 election are now invalid and expired. And there is little chance that the 2010 elections will be free or fair. Having learnt their lessons the hard way in 1990, the regime will not allow the opposition parties to win the elections again. And in May 2008 constitutional referendum, the regime has clearly shown that they care very little about freeness, fairness, transparency or credibility.

But, on the other hand, if the NLD refuse to take part in 2010 elections, the regime will force NLD to disband. And also, the regime is preparing to field pro-military parties in the coming elections; if pro-democracy parties boycott the election, it will make things easier for pro-regime parties to gain 100% control of all seats in the parliament.

While the NLD inside Burma is caught in a dilemma, an interesting development happened in the exile community. An umbrella organization based in Thai-Burma border area and consisting of some armed groups and some un-armed groups, known as the National Council of Union of Burma (NCUB), attempted this year to challenge Burmese military regime's credentials at the UN General Assembly. NCUB made a request to the United Nations, in essence, that as Burmese military regime is illegitimate Burma's seat in the UN General Assembly should be handed over to the opposition politicians who were duly elected in 1990 elections. But the problem is, there is already an exile/rival democratic government formed with some leading elected people's representatives of 1990 elections, known as the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma (NCGUB), based in Washington DC. So, if the UN were to hand over Burma's seat in the General assembly to Burmese pro-democracy politicians, it's the Washington based exile government, the NCGUB, who is entitled to take up the seat. But somehow the NCUB and the NCGUB could not reach an agreement and the 'credibility challenge' failed in its inception. The UN just turned down NCUB's 'credibility challenge' request on technical grounds without even considering its merits. Since then there is a big split among exile leaders; politicians from one group seriously criticizing those from the other, with the grass-root junior activists caught in the middle in the crossfire.

With the pro-democracy parties inside Burma trapped in the 2010 election dilemma, and with the growing disunity among exile leaders, the political spirits in exile community is ebbing now, sadly.

Another sad, but rather unavoidable, development in 2008 was the discord between new generation activists, inside as well as outside Burma, and the elderly care-taker leadership of the NLD party. Some younger generation exile NLD activists even made statements in the media that they no longer have, or owe, any allegiance to the elderly caretaker leaders of the party inside the country. Younger generations want more active actions and more intense activities, becoming discontent with the slow reactive 'wait & see' approach of their elderly leaders.

But we saw a glimmer of good news in 2008 with the release of U Win Tin, the right-hand man of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi before his imprisonment and her detention. He is renowned to have an inextinguishable spirit of democracy despite his very long and very harsh imprisonment. And he is now apparently taking over NLD's leadership, in the absence of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and with the increasing incapacitation of other elderly caretaker leaders. And he seems to be trying at his best to restore solidarity between newer and older generations inside NLD party. It's all very good news for the otherwise bleak and gloomy year.

So, apart from U Win Tin's release from jail, the dominant feature of the depressing year 2008 is the terrible silence of the lambs inside the country and the ebb of political spirits in the exile.

While the good people are in despair, the detestable military regime is gaining momentum on its sham roadmap towards so called disciplined democracy. Recently, as an attempt to clear the field for 2010 elections, the regime and its kangaroo courts have given longer-than- life jail sentences to hundreds of leading pro-democracy activists in Burma. Some activists recently got upto 70-80 years of prison sentences. Here one must not forget that average life expectancy in Burma, with a worse than chaotic health care system under a mendacious megalomaniac military regime, is just about 60 years.

And the regime has severely limited her lawyer's access to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Despite the regime extending her house-arrest again and again beyond legal limits, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could not even see her lawyer as required to consult with him about the on-going appeal against her unlawful detention.

Moreover, many a lawyer who dared to defend pro-democracy activists in regime's kangaroo courts has got prison sentences themselves for their crimes of being courageous enough to argue against the kangaroo courts' trumped up charges on the pro-democracy activists.

In Burma, currently, the executive branch of the government is swamped with inept and insincere military officers. The legislative Parliament is non-existent, with the Senior General Than Shwe making and unmaking all the laws in any way he likes. And there are only kangaroo courts for judicial matters.

With the vicious military regime TOTALLY oppressing on its people and ABSOLUTELY persecuting the political opposition, and with only crooked kangaroo courts available for any hope of judicial redress, people of Burma are becoming a hopeless people in a lawless land.

But, even if Burma's internationally inspirational peaceful pro-democracy revolution has now failed under a ruthless military regime's brutal persecution, long-suffering people of Burma must one day be able to enjoy their due civil rights and human rights, by one way or the other, by revolution or by evolution.

Whichever way Burma goes henceforth, the "Rule of Law" is an indispensable first step towards establishing a credible and long-lasting democratic system.

So, the United Nations, even though no longer very dare nowadays to harshly criticize the regime, has recently reminded the Generals that if they want international community to take their so called 'disciplined democracy roadmap' with much regard, they must at least, as a basic essential measure, establish a fair just and independent judiciary in Burma.

So, to highlight the need to establish credible free and autonomous judicial and legal systems in Burma, and to show our appreciation of their courageous efforts to legally defend pro-democracy activists facing severe persecution in regime's kangaroo courts, BURMA DIGEST magazine, with the support of our readers' online votes, has chosen 'Burma's human rights defence lawyers' as Burma's Persons of the Year 2008.

- reported by executive editor on behalf of BURMA DIGEST team