Cyclone's winds may change Burma's political landscape as well ,Cyclone' sの風はBurma'を変えるかもしれない; sの政治景色また(ENGLIISH AND JAPANESE

Cyclone’s Winds May Change Burma’s Political Landscape as Well
Lord David Alton
May 12th 2008
Member, British House of Lords

Lord David Alton
Throughout the 18 years since Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest, the Burmese military regime have repeatedly promised and failed to deliver democratic change. These are the same secretive leaders who gave orders for Buddhist monks to be mown down in the streets and who are now impeding rescue efforts as hundreds of thousands of their countrymen die following the decimation of their homes and land by Cyclone Nargis. They are the same men who have ignored 28 United Nations General assembly and Human Rights Commission resolutions.
What is sometimes less well known and reported on is the way in which they have accelerated their cruel campaign of attrition against the country's ethnic minorities. In the case of the brave Karen people it is nothing short of genocide.
Take, for instance, the story of a nine-year-old Karen girl who was shot at point blank range, having watched her father and grandmother being killed. There are also shocking reports of beheadings and mutilations of Karen villagers - 18,000 of whom have been displaced in the past few weeks. Some will doubtless join the 120,000 who have lived for years in make shift camps along the Thai border - which, as I have seen for myself - barely allow people to do more than cling on to life.
So far, the approach to the Burmese regime by the international community and its failure to implement strong sanctions against Burma has been a complete and utter failure. The Burmese military's systematic atrocities against ethnic groups such as the Karen, Karenni and Shan are still very grave and as the recent Burmese military offensive in Karen state demonstrates, are even escalating (over 16,000 Karen were displaced by the last offensive and many were killed.) Despite posturing and maneuvering and attempting to use a smoke and mirrors referendum to pretend to the world that change is on the way, Burma is also now no closer to democracy than it was back in 1990 and Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest. The shooting of Buddhist monks last year and the disregard for the victims of the cyclone this year underline the nature of this perfidious and ruthless regime.
After more than 10 years, there has been no improvement in the situation of the Karen, Karenni and Shan or that of Burma's pro-democracy movement. More of the same weak and ineffectual policy towards the Burmese regime will simply maintain the current, horrendous status quo for decades to come. Dictators like these survive when they believe that the world is willing to overlook, or has forgotten, their cruelties and barbarism. They survive longest - think of Franco's fascist dictatorship in Spain - when the rest of the world becomes overly fearful of the alternatives: "hold on to nurse for fear of something worse," as the Victorians memorably put it.
What dictators fear most is the penetrating searchlight that forensically exposes their depredations. That's why they impose reporting restrictions, suppress free speech, impose rigid travel restrictions, and turn their countries into what they imagine to be impregnable fortresses. Unfortunately for them, truth usually finds a way through; and often the pen proves mightier than the sword.
I was recently deeply moved to read two books that expose the contemptible junta that tyrannizes Burma. "The Lizard Cage", a novel by Karen Connelly (Harvill Secker, 2007), is set inside a Burmese prison, while the autobiographical "From The Land of The Green Ghosts" by Pascal Khoo Thwe (Flamingo, 2003) brought tears to my eyes, and recalled memories of my own visits to the Karen State. It's the story of a young man who comes from the Padaung tribe, a sub group of the Karen tribe’s people. Their women are often called the "giraffe-necked" women because of the rings they wear around their necks.
After testing a priestly vocation at a Burmese seminary, Pascal went to study English literature at Mandalay University where he has a chance encounter - and conversation about James Joyce - with a visiting English academic. In 1988 he becomes caught up in the student uprising, fights his way through the jungle to a refugee camp in Thailand, and ends up reading English Literature at Cambridge. Pascal weaves together a rich tapestry that brings to life the traditions and culture of one of Burma's diverse ethnic minorities. His grandfather was one of the Padaung's leaders and was converted to Catholicism by Italian missionaries. The book draws deeply on Pascal's rich Faith that is deeply influenced by traditional spirituality. It is also a testament of personal courage ingrained with a sense of destiny and Divine Providence.
Despite losing his family, his university lover - who is arrested, raped and murdered by the armed forces - and being forced to abandon his studies to join the subterranean world of guerrilla freedom fighters, Pascal never despairs. Pascal never gives up hope.
His greatest fear is that he is "letting down" his compatriots by traveling to the West; but, by using his remarkable gifts in telling their story, he has delivered a body blow against the dictators. Karen Connelly's novel, "The Lizard Cage" also celebrates the ability of the human spirit to endure when assaulted by seemingly impossible trials of injustice and brutality.
Like Pascal, this book's central figure, Teza, also takes part in mass protests - and has become a celebrated dissident through his music. He is seven years into a twenty-year prison sentence in solitary confinement.
The book traces the relationship that develops between Teza and Little Brother, an orphan boy growing up inside the prison. Like Pascal Khoo Thwe, Connelly cleverly intersperses the history of Burma, the captivity of Aung San Suu Kyi, with vivid accounts of life in jails such as Rangoon's Insein prison. We are reminded of the heroic role of the National League for Democracy and dissident groups, especially the All Burma Students Democratic Front, and the different facets of Burmese politics, Buddhism and the rich but oppressed ethnic groups.
Books like these remind us of the million people displaced in Burma's jungles, the 1,500 political prisoners languishing behind bars, the use of forced labor, the use of villagers as human mine sweepers, the rape of women, the burning down of villages, the killing of thousands, and of a regime which stands accused of genocide. A regime that has been cruelly indifferent to the plight of its devastated people.
As European countries stand accused of breaking arms embargos by selling weapons to the Burmese military via third countries such as India, it's as well to be reminded how easily we can become collaborators.
But, like the literature from the gulags, these books also stand as a rebuke to the dictators, from Ne Win onwards - who have exploited and terrorized their people. They also help break down the regime's walls of secrecy.
Winston Churchill once said, "Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry".
The Burmese military dictatorship have been riding on the backs of their suffering people - crushing and terrorizing them. They too dare not dismount; but they should beware, the world can see very clearly the nature of their regime. A day of reckoning will come. The cyclone may prove to be the catalyst for a popular uprising: the tigers are getting hungry.
Although the world should not hold back in providing much needed humanitarian assistance to the cyclone victims we also need long-term concerted international action to significantly weaken the economic and military strength of the Burmese regime. If we do not do this it will be practically impossible to get that regime to take any of our concerns about human rights in Burma seriously. Burma's military regime will only continue to string all of us along, making an occasional superficial concession, followed by even more harsh and repressive measures.
A much stronger policy on Burma that will involve tough sanctions and thereby put real pressure on the Burmese regime to change its ways will be needed.
Such a new policy should include the following characteristics:· Treating the Burmese regime's systematic atrocities against the Karen, Karenni and Shan people as being of at least equal importance as the situation of the pro-democracy movement and political prisoners in Burma and giving EQUAL coverage to both issues. · Keeping both these issues on the agenda of the U.N Security Council - and demanding a binding resolution of the Security Council. This should impose a global arms and investment embargo on Burma as well as strongly condemning the systematic atrocities by the Burmese military against the Karen, Karenni and Shan people. · Very seriously considering the case that has been made by Parliamentarians and human rights groups, such as the Jubilee Campaign, that the systematic atrocities by the Burmese military against the Karen, Karenni and Shan people amount to Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes. So far too many Governments have ignored these claims as a reflex action, without giving any deep consideration to them or attempting to seriously research the subject, and failing to give detailed reasons for their position. At the very least, the repeated and deliberate attacks against Karen, Karenni and Shan civilians by the Burmese military must surely be a flagrant violation of Common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions which prohibits the targeting of non-combatants during conflict. It should be clear to anybody with even a basic knowledge of the laws of war that War Crimes are being committed against the Karen, Karenni and Shan by the Burmese military. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office has previously denied that even War Crimes are being committed.
I have no doubt that such charges add up.Four years ago I traveled to the Burmese refugee camps and with Congressman Joseph Pitts took first hand evidence.
We collected truly shocking accounts of the latest violations of human rights. The story of one small child we met at a refugee camp near Mae Sot illustrates how the brutality and violence of this perfidious regime continues.
Saw Naing Gae is just eight years old. He saw the Burmese military shoot dead his mother and his father. He was then trafficked across the border and sold to a Thai family. Desperately unhappy he managed to escape and made his way to the camp, where he is staying with a group of thirty other orphans. Even as these children sang and welcomed their visitors Saw Naing Gae seemed unable to join in or even to smile. Every trace of joy and innocence had been stamped out of him; and all of this by the age of 8.
Saw Naing Gae squatted alongside four other children, brothers and sisters, whose parents had also been brutally murdered. The oldest girl, aged about 12, and now head of their family, dissolved into tears as she recounted their story.
Naw Pi Lay, whose photograph illustrates this article, did not survive. Aged 45, the mother old five children and pregnant with her sixth, Naw Pi Lay was murdered in June of last year by the Burmese militia. During a massacre in the Dooplaya district of the Karen State, twelve other people were killed, including children aged 12,7,5, and 2 years old. Elsewhere in the same district, at Htee Tha Blu village, further violations of human rights were carried out by Light Infantry Battalions 301 and 78. They beat and tortured villagers, stole their belongings and burnt down their church and their homes.
The previous time I visited this region I illegally crossed the border and entered the Karen State. I heard and saw evidence of the internally displaced people - estimated now at 600,000; of the scorched earth policy that has depopulated and destroyed countless villages; and of brutality unequalled anywhere I have traveled. One of the people I met is part of the Free Burma Rangers. He had just come out of the Karen State. He had been with a little girl of eight who still had a bullet lodged in her stomach. To help people like hr he had taken in some nurses and medics. Why was he, an American, so committed to the Karen? "I love these people, and I simply don't want to see them suffering like this. We've got to do something, even if we're just like a small barking dog," he told me.
At Mae Sot we took evidence from the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People. They provided me with over 100 pages of carefully documented examples of human rights violations committed by Burmese military over the past twelve months alone. One day I hope that this evidence will be placed before an international court and as at Nuremberg the perpetrators will be brought to justice. The report lists three mass killings by the SPDC (Burma's singularly ill-named State Peace and Development Council). It is a carefully chronicled account of looting, burning, torture, rape and murder. The SPDC routinely plant landmines indiscriminately and in areas where landmines have been laid by their opponents the SPDC use people as human landmine sweepers.
I saw some of the victims - people whose limbs have been severed from their bodies, whose skin has been peppered with shrapnel, and others who have been left blind. I also talked to the families of people whose loved ones - men and women - had been seized and used as porters and construction workers, and who have never returned. The SPDC kill many of the porters in frontline areas, especially when they are unable to any longer work because of exhaustion or sickness. The international focus on Burma has long been on the heroic struggle of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD). A settlement with the NLD will, however, represent a solution to only half of the conflict. The seven ethnic groups who have been fighting for self determination or autonomy since the end of World War Two - the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Arakam, Kachin, Chin and Shan - will still need to have their grievances addressed. In Chiang Mai I met with the authors of a carefully meticulous 120 page report on the Burmese military regime's use of sexual violence in the Shan State over the past six years. The report of the Shan Human Rights Foundation and Shan Women's Action Network, "License To Rape", details how rape has been used as a weapon of war. Sexual violence - especially widespread gang rape - has terrorized and humiliated communities, flaunts the power of the regime, "rewards" troops, and demoralizes resistance forces.
Women who have been raped have frequently been abandoned or rejected by their husbands. One woman described how she was gang-raped when she was 7-months pregnant and then gave birth prematurely to her child. Another was told by her husband to leave: "You didn't control yourself. You are no longer my wife. Leave our home."
The Burmese Junta have turned their country into one vast concentration camp. They are Nazi thugs who deploy Nazi methods. Like their Nazi predecessors they fail to appreciate the strength of the human spirit and the capacity to endure and survive.
Typical are the joint secretaries of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Bo Kyi, a student leader who spent seven years in Burmese jails, told me that "torture is designed to break down your identity, to turn you into a non-entity with no connection to the world outside of the torture chamber."
Naing Kyaw served 8 years in Insein and Thayet prisons and still manages to joke that "insane" would be a better spelling. Regularly beaten with a chain and ball on his back, and often kept in solitary confinement, he was offered the chance to become an informer.
Instead, he learnt English from the professor who was housed in the adjacent cell - so that he would be able to tell the world about Burma's suffering. He has put the language to good use in his essay in "Spirit For Survival" which he dedicates to a despairing young woman who took her own life: "All the suffering you felt we will change into strength. This grief, this feeling of deep hurt and bitterness will become a volcano, which is going to explode."
I was struck that even as the suffering deepens no-one is giving in. Democracy activists continue their struggle and the beleaguered ethnic minorities refuse to capitulate.
There is an old saying that the darkest moment is always just before the dawn. As the people of Burma deal with the terrible consequences of Cyclone Nargis, let's pray that this is the darkest moment and that the dawn will not be too far behind. Lord David Alton of Liverpool is a member of the British House of Lords.

メンバー、イギリスの上院 デイヴィッドAlton主 18年中Aung San Suu Kyiが自宅軟禁の下にあったので、ビルマの軍の政体は繰り返し約束し、民主的な変更を提供しなかった。 これらは数十万人の彼らの舎田者がCyclone Nargisによって彼らの家および土地の殺害に続くことを死ぬと同時に通りで刈られるべき僧侶のための順序を与えた今救助努力を妨害している同じ秘密主義のリーダーであり。 彼らは28国際連合の総会および人権の任務の決断を無視した同じ人である。 時々より少なく有名、報告される何がcountry'に対して摩擦の残酷なキャンペーンを加速した方法である; sの少数民族。 カレンの勇敢な人々の場合にはそれは集団虐殺の急に何もではない。 例えば取得殺されている彼女の父および祖母を見る直接弾道距離で撃たれたカレンの9歳の女の子の物語。 そこにまたbeheadingsのレポートおよびカレンの村民-ここ数週間に転置されてしまった誰が18,000の切断にの衝撃を与えている。 一部は多分私が自分自身については見たと同時にだれが幾年もの間する生命に-やっと人々がよりしがみつく多くをすることを可能にするタイのボーダーに沿う転位のキャンプ住んでいたか120,000を結合する。 これまでは、国際地域社会によるビルマの政体へのアプローチおよび失敗はビルマに対して強い認可を実行するずっと完全で、完全な失敗である。 ビルマmilitary' カレン、Karenniおよびシャン族のような民族グループに対するsの組織的残虐行為は今でも非常に墓、カレンの国家の最近のビルマの軍の抗勢が示すので、増えている(16,000にカレンは最後の攻撃的のによって転置され、多数は殺された。) ポーズをとらせ、操縦し、そして巧妙なトリックの国民投票を使用するように試みにもかかわらず、ビルマはまた変更が方法にである世界にふりをするのに1990年にもどって来、Aung San Suu Kyiが自宅軟禁の下に残るより今民主主義に近い方のNOではない。 去年僧侶の射撃および今年サイクロンの下線の犠牲者のための無視このperfidiousおよび無慈悲な政体の性質。 10年以上後で、Burma'のカレンの状態に改善が、Karenniおよびシャン族またはそれずっとない; sの民主化運動。 ビルマの政体の方の同じ弱く、効果がない方針の多くは現在、物凄い現状を単にこの先数十年間維持する。 これらのような独裁者は世界は見落として喜んでである信じたりまたは、彼らの残酷および未開状態忘れていたことをと存続する。 彼らは最も長く存続する- Franco'について考えなさい; -その他の国々が代わりの過度に恐ろしくなる場合のスペインのsのファシスト党の独裁制: " より悪い何か"の恐れのための看護婦にしがみつきなさい; ビクトリア時代の人が顕著にそれを置いたように。 どんな独裁者が恐れているかほとんどは法廷で彼らの略奪行為を露出する鋭いサーチライトである。 That' 強固な要塞であるために想像するものに彼らがなぜ報告の制限を課し、言論の自由を抑制し、堅い旅行制限を課し、そして彼らの国を回すかs。 残念ながらそれらのために、真実は通常方法を見つける; そして頻繁にペンは剣より強大証明する。 私は最近深くビルマを圧制する卑しい会議を露出する2冊の本を読むために動いた。 " トカゲCage" 、カレンConnelly (Harvill Secker 2007年)による小説はビルマの刑務所の中で、が自叙伝的な"置かれる; 緑のGhosts"の土地から; 私の目へのパスカルKhoo Thwe (フラミンゴ2003年)の持って来られた破損、およびカレンの州への私の自身の訪問のリコールされた記憶によって。 It' s Padaungの種族から来る若者、カレンの種族の人々の補助的なグループの物語。 彼女達の女性は頻繁に"と電話される; キリンnecked" 彼らが首に身に着けているリングのために女性。 ビルマの神学校の聖職者にふさわしい職業をテストした後、パスカルは彼が-訪問の英国の学者との…チャンスの遭遇-およびジェームスジョイスについての会話を有するマンダレイ大学で英文学を調査することを行った。 1988年に彼によっては学生の反乱で追いつかれるようになり、ジャングルを通してタイの難民キャンプに彼の方法が戦い、そしてケンブリッジで英文学を読むことを終える。 パスカルは生命にBurma'の1の伝統そして文化を持って来る豊富なタペストリーを一緒に編む; sの多様な少数民族。 彼の祖父はPadaung'の1才だった; sのリーダーはイタリアの宣教師によってカトリック教義に変えられ。 本はPascal'で深く引く; 従来の精神性によって深く影響を及ぼされるsの豊富な信頼。 それはまた運命および神プロヴィデンスの感覚と深くしみ込む個人的な勇気の遺言である。 彼の家族の損失にもかかわらず-だれが武力によって阻止され、強姦され、そして殺害されるか、彼の大学恋人は-ゲリラの自由の戦闘機の地下の世界、パスカルを結合するために彼の調査を断念させる決して絶望しないし。 パスカルは決して希望をあきらめない。 彼の最も大きい恐れは彼が"であることである; down"の許可; 西への走行による彼の同国人; しかし、物語を言うことで彼の驚くべきギフトを使用することによって、彼は独裁者に対して大打撃を渡した。 カレンConnelly' s小説、" トカゲCage" 不公平不公平および残忍の表面上は不可能な試験によって攻撃されたときまた耐える人間の精神の機能を祝う。 パスカルのように、このbook' sの中心人物、Tezaはまた多くの抗議に、-加わり、彼の音楽によって祝われた反対者に似合った。 彼は独房監禁の20年の懲役に7年である。 本はTezaと弟の間で成長する関係、刑務所の中で育っている孤児の男の子をたどる。 パスカルKhoo Thwe、Connellyのように賢くビルマの歴史、Rangoon'のような刑務所の生命の鮮やかな記述のAung San Suu Kyiの捕われの身を、散在させる; s Inseinの刑務所。 私達は民主主義のための国民リーグの英雄的な役割をおよび反主流派、ビルマの政治の特にすべてのビルマ学生の民主党の前部および異なった面、仏教および金持ち圧迫された民族グループ思い出す。 これらのような本はBurma'で転置される百万人を私達に思い出させる; sのジャングル、人間の地雷清掃ローラとして棒の後ろで、強制労働の使用、村民の使用、女性の強姦、村、たくさんと立つ政体の殺害の焼却は憂鬱な生活を送っている1,500人の政治犯集団虐殺の訴えた。 ずっと打撃を受けた人々の状態に残酷に無関心である政体。 欧州諸国がインド、it'のような後進国によってビルマの軍隊に武器の販売によって破損の訴えられて武装させるembargosを立つように; 容易に私達が共作者にいかになってもいいか思い出すべきsまた。 しかし、矯正労働収容所からの文献のように、これらの本はまたNeの勝利からの独裁者に譴責としてだれが人々を開発し、恐怖に陥れたか、前にか立つ-。 それらはまたregime'の破壊を助ける; 秘密のsの壁。 Winston Churchillは一度、"言った; 独裁者は降ろさないことを敢えてしないトラにあちらこちらに乗る。 そしてトラはhungry"を得ている;。 ビルマの軍の独裁制は苦しむ人々の背部で乗り-それらを押しつぶし、恐怖に陥れる。 彼らは降りないには余りに敢えてする; しかし彼らは世界彼らの政体の性質を非常にはっきり見ることができる用心するべきである。 審判の時は来る。 サイクロンは普及した反乱のための触媒であると証明するかもしれない: トラは空腹になっている。 世界がサイクロンの犠牲者へ大いに必要な人道的支援を提供することで躊躇するべきではないが私達はまた長期協調された国際的な行為がかなりビルマの政体の経済的で、軍事力を弱めることを必要とする。 私達がこれをしなければのビルマの人権についての私達の心配真剣に取るためにその政体を得ることはほとんど不可能である。 Burma' sの軍の政体はただ私達皆を続け、さらにもっと粗く、鎮圧対策に先行している臨時の表面的な譲歩をひもでつなぎする。 方法を変える堅い認可を含み、それによりビルマの政体に実質圧力を置くビルマの大いにより強い方針は必要である。 非常に新しい方針は次の特徴を含むべきである: · ビルマregime'の処理; ビルマの民主化運動そして政治犯の状態として少なくとも等しい重要性をもちそして等しい適用範囲を両方の問題に与えるカレン、Karenniおよびシャン族の人々に対するsの組織的残虐行為。 · U.Nの安全保障理事会の議題の両方のこれらの問題を保つ-および安全保障理事会の結合の決断を要求すること。 これはビルマにカレン、Karenniおよびシャン族の人々に対してビルマの軍隊によって強く組織的残虐行為を非難することと同様、全体的な腕および投資輸出禁止を課すべきである。 · 非常に真剣にParliamentariansによってなされ、人権擁護団体、人間性に対して集団虐殺、罪および戦争犯罪にカレン、Karenniおよびシャン族の人々に対するビルマの軍隊による組織的残虐行為によってがなる、記念祭のキャンペーンのような場合を考えると。 これまでは余りにも多くの政府は反射運動として深い考察をそれらに与えか、または真剣に主題を研究するように試みそして無視してしまったこれらの要求を、彼らの位置の詳しい理由を与えないことを。 少なくとも、繰り返されてカレン、Karenniに対して攻撃を熟慮し、ビルマの軍隊によるシャン族の一般市民は確かに対立の間に非戦闘員の目標とすることを禁止するジュネーブ協定の共通の記事3の甚だしい違反でなければならない。 それは戦争犯罪がビルマの軍隊によってカレン、Karenniおよびシャン族に対して託されている戦争の法律の基本的な知識との誰でもに明確なはずである。 Unf