May 06, 2009 11:05 AM EDT (Updated: May 06, 2009 11:16 AM EDT)
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The United Nation's has just ruled that the continued detention of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi legally violates the country's own laws as well as those of the international community.
Of course, the legal opinion of the United Nations means very little to the military government of Myanmar. The sad reality is that Suu Kyi, has now spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest, with the ruling junta annually extending her detention despite years of intervention of the U.N.
The failure of the United Nations in Myanmar ( Burma) is just one more example of how ineffective the international organization is in solving global political issues. The repression of Burma and the injustice of Aung San Suu Kyi by the military government of Myanmar should be seen in an historical context.
In 1991, Burma held a democratic election and the opposition party to the military won eighty two percent of the vote. An articulate women with Burmese heritage by the name of Aung San Suu Kyi led the victorious opposition party. Stunned by their defeat, the military arrested everyone in the opposition party including Suu Kyi, voided the election and changed the name of the country to Myanmar.
Every year since the overthrow of that democratically elected government the response of the United Nations has been to issue Resolutions. Resolutions that have been ignored by the country's ruling military junta. The truth is that the United Nations can surely produce an impressive pile of words on paper but it is historically lacking in the will and skill to produce a tangible political outcome that promotes basic human rights and justice.
As the years have gone by, the sad situation in Myanmar has continued to deteriorate, with the country becoming a helpless victim to the military junta. In 2005, former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel and South Africa's retired Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, wrote a report on the dubious situation in the country for United Nations Security Council.
The report outlined in detail the myriad of problems in the country. It was a report that 14 years after the overthrow of legitimate democratic rule, indirectly highlighted the United Nations total failure in changing the political and human rights conditions in Myanmar.
The 2005 Havel/Tutu report was a complete indictment of the most brutal military dictatorship in the world today. The report described a country that was the world's leading producer of heroin and was heavily involved in drug trafficking.
In addition, over 200,000 refugees had fled the country to escape the brutality of the military regime. There were no basic human rights, children's rights, healthcare, education, political rights or free speech. Atrocities such as murder, rape, and forced labor were common. In addition, HIV aids was a major national problem and the country was the poorest in the world. That United Nations Report from 2005 could be written about the conditions in Myanmar today.
As the United Nations produces Resolutions, Reports, Diplomatic Missions and empty Sanctions, the years have certainly not been kind to the people of Myanmar. The injustice to the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi has now reached nearly two decades.
Just last week, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the United States as a "deadbeat" donor to the world body because it is perennially late paying its dues. However, since the United States pays 22 percent of the organization's nearly $20 billion operating budget, it is a major sponsor of this institution of political incompetence.
Indeed, spending nearly 5 billion dollars a year on an organization as historically corrupt and politically dysfunctional as the United Nations is not deadbeat but delusional. The stark reality is that the United Nations does not improve the human condition except as a agency of charity and disaster relief.
The United States should insist on real reform from the U.N. but to begin to reform anything the United Nations needs first to look back to the principles of its original Charter. A Charter that; "reaffirms faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small".
The historic failure of the U.N. in Myanmar shows how far it has lost its way. The United States should withhold its annual dues until the U.N. Charter becomes its guiding force not the deadbeat document of empty words that it has become today.
Read The United Nation's Historic Failure In Myanmar and other articles on on eWorldvu. eWorldVu is an online magazine focused on politics, science, and other selected topics of interest in the world today. eWorldvu encourages intellectual discussion and all informed opinions are always welcome.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The United Nation's Historic Failure In Myanmar
State Media: American Caught Making Secret Visit to Aung San Suu Kyi
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-07-voa8.cfm
By VOA News
07 May 2009
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (File)
Burmese state media are reporting a U.S. citizen has been arrested after he allegedly swam across a lake and snuck inside the residence of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Reports say the man recently checked into a Rangoon hotel across the lake from Aung San Suu Kyi's residence.
They say the man allegedly confessed to swimming across the Inya Lake on Sunday. He was caught trying to swim back to his hotel late Tuesday.
The U.S. Embassy in Rangoon says it has seen the reports and was trying to learn more.
Official Burmese media say the man was carrying a U.S. passport and his name is John William Yeattaw.
Witnesses near the home say police were seen at Aung San Suu Kyi's lakeside compound on Thursday.
The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years.
The French Press Agency says the American arrived in Burma last week on a tourist visa.
The current term of Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest is due to expire at the end of this month. Earlier this week, Burma's military junta rejected an appeal to free her despite persistent calls for her release from opposition party leaders in Burma and the international community.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
OVER 60 BRITISH MPS CALL FOR UN INQUIRY INTO CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN BURMA
CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE
For Immediate Release
07 May 2009
OVER 60 BRITISH MPS CALL FOR UN INQUIRY INTO CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN BURMA
Over 60 British MPs are calling for a United Nations (UN) commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity in Burma, just two weeks before Nobel Laureate and democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is due for release from house arrest.
Former Foreign Office Ministers, Ian McCartney, MP and Keith Vaz, MP join over fifty other MPs in signing an Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by John Bercow MP, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma, to express their profound concern at the deteriorating human rights situation in Burma.
EDM 1336 urges the UN to invoke the principle of Responsibility to Protect in relation to a campaign of ethnic cleansing Burma’s military regime is carrying out against its ethnic nationalities.
The Burmese junta’s policies include the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war, forced labour, the use of human minesweepers, child soldiers, and the destruction of over 3,300 villages in eastern Burma since 1996, in addition to the imprisonment of over 2,100 political prisoners. Attacks on civilians have also resulted in the internal displacement of one million people.
John Bercow MP said: “I have visited the ethnic peoples on both the Thailand-Burma border and the India-Burma border with CSW, and have been shocked by the horrific stories I have heard from victims of this barbaric regime. I have sat face to face with victims of unspeakable torture, including women and children who have seen their loved ones murdered. They have looked me in the eye and pleaded for the world to hear their cry. It is time their cries were answered and the junta's crimes investigated. The people of Burma urgently need the freedom and justice they have been denied for so long."
Alexa Papadouris, CSW's Advocacy Director said: “CSW strongly urges the British Government and other Governments to take this call seriously and to initiate a commission of inquiry into the junta's crimes against humanity. We will not stop campaigning and we will not stop speaking out until the suffering in Burma is over and all Burma’s people are free.”
For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Theresa Malinowska, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on email theresamalinowska@ csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org. uk.
CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.
Note to Editors:
1. The full EDM text reads: That this House expresses profound concern at the desperate and deteriorating human rights situation in Burma; condemns the continuing widespread and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, torture, forced labour, forced relocation, religious persecution, forcible recruitment of child soldiers and use of human minesweepers by the military regime; further condemns the military offensives in eastern Burma, including attacks on civilians, resulting in the internal displacement of one million people and the destruction of more than 3,300 villages in eastern Burma alone, and the imprisonment of over 2,100 political prisoners and continued detention of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi; calls on Her Majesty's Government to draw these gross violations of human rights to the urgent attention of the UN Security Council and the Secretary-General; urges Her Majesty's Government, along with other governments, to propose the establishment of a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma; and urges the UN to invoke the principle of Responsibility to Protect in relation to the crisis in Burma.
2. To find out more about CSW’s Change for Burma! Campaign and to watch an interview with John Bercow MP, please click here.
3. To sign a CSW supported online petition led by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners and the Forum for Democracy in Burma, calling on the UN Secretary-General to make the release of Burma’s 2,100 political prisoners a personal priority, please click here or visit www.changeforburma. org
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