September, 23 2010, 02:50pm EDT
US/ASEAN: Three Years After Crackdown, No Justice in Burma
US-ASEAN Summit is Moment to Align Divergent Policies Ahead of Elections
NEW YORK
US and Southeast Asian leaders meeting in New York this week should press the Burmese government to end an escalating campaign of repression, release political prisoners, and begin a dialogue with opposition groups ahead of Burma's coming flawed elections, Human Rights Watch said today. September marks the third anniversary of the brutal 2007 crackdown on peaceful protests led by monks and known as the "Saffron Revolution."
US President Barack Obama and leaders of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will hold a summit in New York on September 24, 2010, the eve of the annual United Nations General Assembly.
"Three years ago, world leaders meeting at the United Nations expressed outrage and repugnance over the brutal use of force to disperse Buddhist monks and other protestors in Burma," said Sophie Richardson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "This summit is an opportunity for the US and ASEAN leaders to send a clear message to Burma's rulers that their intransigence, denial of basic freedoms and cynical election manipulation harm the region's progress."
Burma's first elections in 20 years are scheduled to take place on November 7. However, repression continues ahead of the elections, with the state-run media warning people advocating for a boycott of the elections that they face prison for trying to disrupt the process. Groups of National League for Democracy (NLD) members have been touring Burma urging citizens to boycott the vote. Electoral laws released in March have effectively sidelined much of the opposition, including the recently outlawed NLD which overwhelmingly won the 1990 elections, and its incarcerated leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Political prisoners are deemed criminals and are unable to even cast a ballot.
The military will have reserved seats in all three levels of parliaments: national lower and upper houses, and in 14 regional assemblies. The ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) formed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by the current Prime Minister Thein Sein and dozens of recently retired senior officers will contest all of the 1,168 seats up for voting. Other parties will only have the resources and finances to field far few candidates. Sharp curbs on freedom of expression, assembly, and association will tightly control the campaigning. The elections fall far short of international standards.
Recent statements by ASEAN leaders regarding the elections have done little to press the Burmese leadership to conduct genuine polls. During the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Hanoi in July, ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan claimed that ASEAN ministers gave the Burmese foreign minister Nyan Win "an earful" of criticism about the elections. Yet the official statement by current ASEAN chair Vietnam, "reiterated the importance of holding the general election in a free, fair, and inclusive manner which would lay the foundation for the long term stability and prosperity of Myanmar...(the ASEAN ministers) welcomed ASEAN's readiness to extend their support to Myanmar and reaffirmed their commitment to remain constructively engaged with Myanmar." Singapore's foreign minister, George Yeo, said, "Once the generals take off their uniforms and they've got to win votes and kiss babies and attend to local needs, the behavior will change and the economy will gradually open up."
"ASEAN should be raising the bar on democracy in Southeast Asia, not lowering it," Richardson said. "And if the US really wants to claim a positive, constructive return to Southeast Asia, it needs to place justice and human rights at the core of its ASEAN agenda."
Human Rights Watch pointed out that ASEAN's summit coincides with the third anniversary of the crackdown that began on September 26, 2007. In the following weeks, Buddhist monks in Rangoon, Mandalay, and other towns across Burma staged peaceful marches to protest government policies and poor living standards. Lay supporters gradually joined the marches, swelling to tens of thousands of people calling for political, economic and social reforms. In the most extensive documentation of the crackdown to date, Human Rights Watch and the former United Nations special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Burma, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, documented at least 20 extrajudicial killings during the crackdown, but both believe the death toll is much higher. Despite widespread calls for an open and impartial investigation into the violence, the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) have never convened an investigation.
Human Rights Watch calls on the US and ASEAN leaders to press Burma's Prime Minister Thein Sein, who will be attending the summit, for the immediate and unconditional release of more than 2,100 political prisoners, half of whom were arrested following demonstrations in August and September 2007, and sentenced to outrageously long prison terms in a series of closed trials in late 2008.
"Release of political prisoners is one of the touchstones for a credible election, and on this measure the Burmese junta fails," Richardson said. "The only way to seize the minds of the generals, those still serving and the recently retired ones preparing for their new roles as parliamentarians, is to close ranks against the ongoing repression in Burma."
Human Rights Watch pressed the US government to call on ASEAN leaders to support growing calls for a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma. In March, the current UN special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, called for the establishment of a high level CoI to investigate serious crimes in Burma in his annual report to the Human Rights Council. To date, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary have publicly supported the forming of a CoI. Human Rights Watch has called on leaders attending the UN General Assembly to support the proposal in the upcoming session of the GA. During a general debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 17, the Burmese ambassador U Wunna Maung Lwin said, "There were no crimes against humanity in Myanmar...(w)ith regard to the issue of impunity, any member of the military who breached national law was subject to legal punishments...there was no need to conduct investigations in Myanmar since there were no human rights violations there."
"Ending impunity and building peace in Burma require justice, not a deliberately manipulated election," said Richardson. "It's time for those who express outrage to match the SPDC's intransigence with a unified call for a credible inquiry into widespread and systematic violations of international law in Burma."
Human Rights Watch's campaign, "2100 in 2010: Free Burma's Political Prisoners," aims to increase international awareness and pressure for the release of all political prisoners in Burma before the elections.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
'Unprecedented': Belgian Police Blast Climate Defenders With Water Cannon
"The fact that national governments are subsidizing fossil fuels is akin to a crime against humanity," said one Extinction Rebellion organizer.
May 05, 2024
The climate action group Extinction Rebellion Belgium on Saturday decried what it called "disproportionate police violence" against nonviolent demonstrators who were blasted with a water cannon during a protest in Brussels demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies.
Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion-led climate defenders blocked Rue Belliard in the European Quarter, the de facto European Union capital, during EU Open Day, when agencies of the 27-nation bloc open their doors to the public. In what Extinction Rebellion called an "unprecedented police response," officers used a truck-mounted water cannon on the protesters, some of whom were also allegedly struck with batons.
Brussels police said 132 activists—some of whom glued themselves to the ground—were arrested.
"This police behavior toward nonviolent protesters exercising their freedom of assembly is illegal and authoritarian," Extinction Rebellion Belgium said in a statement Saturday.
"The use of water cannons against peaceful demonstrators is of great concern," the group added. "We call on the police to exercise restraint and respect the right to demonstrate peacefully and without violence."
The activists are calling on European governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels amid a worsening planetary crisis. They're also demanding the declaration of a climate emergency.
"National and European governments are spending at least €405 billion each year subsidizing major fossil fuel corporations," protest spokesperson Bertina Maes toldThe Brussels Times. "That's ten times more than what's spent on climate policy."
Maes said the Belgian government alone spent as much as €20 billion ($21.5 billion) on fossil fuel subsidies in 2020, more than 2% of the country's gross domestic product.
"The fact that national governments are subsidizing fossil fuels is akin to a crime against humanity," she asserted.
This weekend's demonstration and arrests come a month before E.U. parliamentary elections. According to an April Eurobarometer survey conducted by the European Parliament, climate action is the fifth-most important issue to voters, after poverty and social exclusion, health, jobs, and defense and security.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israel Bans Al Jazeera in 'Assault on Freedom of the Press'
"Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them," said one observer.
May 05, 2024
The Jerusalem offices of Al Jazeera were raided Sunday after Israel's far-right Cabinet banned the Qatar-based satellite news network—the sole international media outlet providing 24/7 live coverage from Gaza—from operating in the country.
"If you're watching this… then Al Jazeera has been banned in Israel," correspondent Imran Khan said in a pre-recorded report from occupied East Jerusalem preempting the Israeli Cabinet's unanimous vote to shutter the network.
The order—which does not affect Al Jazeera's ability to operate in Gaza or the illegally occupied Palestinian territories—is believed to be the first of its kind targeting a foreign media outlet operating in Israel. It comes after the Knesset, Israel's parliament, recently voted 71-10 in favor of a law empowering the Israeli communications minister to ban foreign news organizations from working in Israel and to confiscate their equipment.
"The time has come to eject Hamas' mouthpiece from our country," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.
Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu's Arab media spokesperson, said Sunday that the closure would be "implemented immediately."
Gendelman said that the network's "broadcast equipment will be confiscated, the channel's correspondents will be prevented from working, the channel will be removed from cable and satellite television companies, and Al Jazeera's websites will be blocked on the internet."
In a statement, Al Jazeera vowed to "pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public's right to information."
"Israel's ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law," the network added. "Israel's direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation, and threats will not deter Al Jazeera."
The New York-based Foreign Press Association issued a statement slamming the move and saying it "should be a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press."
"With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station," the group said. "This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy."
Human Rights Watch Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir called the order "an assault on freedom of the press."
"Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them," he added.
Al Jazeera is the only international news network providing nonstop on-the-ground coverage of Israel's war on Gaza, often being the first to report Israeli atrocities in what many experts worldwide say is a genocidal campaign in the besieged, starving strip.
Its correspondents and other media professionals work under constant risk to life and limb. More than 100 journalists, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7 in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and others say are often intentional targetings of not only media workers but also their families.
In December, Israeli forces killedAl Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa as he reported on the war in southern Gaza, an attack that also wounded Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh—whose wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in a separate Israeli strike.
Previous probes—like the investigation into Israeli troops' 2022 killing of renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists.
Last May, CPJ published Deadly Pattern, a report that found Israeli troops had killed at least 20 journalists over the past 22 years with utter impunity. While some of the slain journalists have been foreigners—including Italian Associated Press reporter Simone Camilli and British cameraman and filmmaker James Miller—the vast majority of victims have been Palestinian.
Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms in every major assault on Gaza, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower, which housed offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other media outlets, was completely destroyed in an airstrike.
On Friday—World Press Freedom Day—Palestinian journalists covering the war on Gaza were awarded this year's UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize after being recommended by an international jury of media professionals.
Keep ReadingShow Less
On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular