Chipping Away at Tyranny in Burma

With our attention still firmly fixated on evolving events in the Middle East, this month has so far seen a modest step forward for another nortorious dictatorship.

A campaign to establish a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights abuses in Burma succeeded last week in securing support for the proposed Commission from the countries of Latvia and Denmark.

The Burma Campaign UK describes the background to the campaign:

For many years the United Nations has ignored widespread and systematic crimes committed by Burma’s military junta, including the destruction of more than 3,500 villages in eastern Burma, widespread use of rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities, the forced displacement of over 1 million refugees and internally displaced people, tens of thousands of child soldiers, and the abundant use of forced labour in the country.

For decades the United Nations has been documenting these serious and systematic human rights abuses committed by Burma’s military dictatorship, abuses which break international law. Yet no action has been taken to end the impunity which Burma’s brutal military dictatorship enjoys.

The idea of a commission is already supported by Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, the United KIngdom, and the United States; as well as a long list of civil society organizations in Burma and abroad, Nobel Peace laureates, and leading jurists from around the world.

Burma Campaign UK is a small organization that has moved mountains on a shoestring budget in their staunch commitment to the cause of human rights and democracy in a country popularly ignored in the western world. A persistent republic of fear, the Burma's military junta spends nearly half the country's budget on the military, a force that has made its own population its foremost target of aggression. Torture, starvation, political imprisonment, rape as a weapon of war, forced labour, and other human rights abuses are widespread and occur with impunity. "Elections" held in 2010 were widely  condemned as mere window-dressing; illegitimate, and described by the Burma Campaign as "a sham" and "an attempt to entrench and legitimize military rule." 

It was an uphill struggle just to get the UN Security Council to acknowledge for the first time the crisis reality in which the people of Burma live. The creation of a Commission of Inquiry would be a pivotal step forward in putting an end to the terror that rights over the Burmese population.

The Campaign is now focused on getting Sweden and Luxembourg to support the Commission of Inquiry. You can help by clicking here to send an email urging these two governments to take a stand.

Also, consider sending a few bucks over to the Burma Campaign UK. They're awesome, they deserve it, and they could use your help to amplify their impact.

Lauryn Oates is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist.