Frontline Reports
Burma: 20 years after 1990 elections, democracy still denied
by Daniel Pedersen on May.27, 2010, under Frontline Reports
Repressive laws mark preparation for 2010 polls
Rangoon, BurmaMay 26, 2010
The 1990 elections sent a clear message to the Burmese military that the people wanted them out of power. The generals won’t make the same mistake twice. The past 20 years have been a stage-managed process to ensure the military controls the future parliament.
On the twentieth anniversary of Burma’s historic 1990 elections, the Burmese military government shows no signs of relaxing its stranglehold on power, Human Rights Watch said today.
Elections planned for 2010, the first in 20 years, appear designed to enshrine military rule with a civilian face, Human Rights Watch said.
“The 1990 elections sent a clear message to the Burmese military that the people wanted them out of power,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The generals won’t make the same mistake twice. The past 20 years have been a stage-managed process to ensure the military controls the future parliament.”
On May 27, 1990, surprisingly free and fair elections in Burma resulted in a resounding win for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which secured 60 percent of the popular vote and 80 percent of the parliamentary seats (392 out of 485). The NLD will not contest the 2010 elections because of new laws aimed to deter the opposition from running and the imprisonment of many party members, including NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Burma’s military government refused to recognize the result of the 1990 elections and claimed that the vote was only to form an assembly to draft a new constitution, not for a parliament. In the ensuing months, the military government arrested and imprisoned dozens of opposition parliamentarians, while scores fled Burma to seek refuge abroad.
The government’s tightly-controlled process of drafting a new constitution dragged on for 14 years. The ruling State Peace and Development Council announced its “Seven Step Road Map to Disciplined Democracy” in August 2003 as a renewed plan to complete the constitution and prepare for future elections. In many of his public speeches, the Burmese president, Senior-General Than Shwe, talked about moving the country to “discipline flourishing democracy” in which the military would have a central role.
Those who participated in the constitutional drafting process did so at great personal risk. Twelve members of parliament who won seats in 1990 remain in prison in Burma today, including 10 NLD members. Hkun Tun Oo, the leader of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, and Kyaw Min (aka Marmaud Shaoshu Arnolgula Haud), an ethnic Rohingya Muslim from Arakan state, were arrested in 2005 even though both had attended the national convention and tried to work within the military government’s reform process. Each was sentenced to long prison terms: Hkun Tun Oo received 93 years’ imprisonment for treason, and Kyaw Min received 47 years for immigration offenses.
The new constitution was approved by a nationwide referendum in May 2008, just weeks after the devastating Cyclone Nargis, in a process marked by intimidation and irregularities.
“The military junta has tried to erase the memory of the 1990 elections by imprisoning those who won and excluding political prisoners from the process,” Pearson said. “What the generals call ‘disciplined democracy’ is stage-managing a result and ordering the Burmese people to accept it.”
Human Rights Watch urged Burma’s close diplomatic and trade allies, particularly China, India, Russia, and Singapore, to exert pressure on the military government to pursue a genuinely open political reform process, and to not endorse the upcoming elections. Criticism of the electoral process has been recently voiced by the European Union Parliament in a resolution on May 19, by the United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Curt Campbell during his recent visit to Burma, and by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Human Rights Watch called upon the international community to impose more calibrated and targeted sanctions on the Burmese leadership, the military, and their close business associates as the most effective way to pressure the military government ahead of the elections.
“Only the most cynical of governments could endorse Burma’s deeply flawed process,” Pearson said. “On the twentieth anniversary of a crushed election, Burma’s friends should insist on the immediate release of political prisoners and an inclusive and credible political process.”
Background information
Five electoral laws released in March 2010 set the ground rules for the election expected in late 2010. The Political Party Registration Law (SPDC Law No.2/2010, Chapter 1. 2(I)) prohibits political parties from having members who are currently serving prison terms or detention orders. These compelled the NLD to refuse to register their party for the 2010 elections, even though the party had struggled to retain its legal status for 20 years after it won the 1990 elections.
The newly formed Electoral Commission overseeing political party registration lacks independence since it is comprised of officials close to the State Peace and Development Council. More than 37 political parties have registered to contest the elections. These include the National Unity Party, which won 21 percent of the vote in 1990, several ethnic parties such as the Pa-O National Organization and Kokang Democracy and Unity Party, and a pro-government Wunthanu (Patriotic) National League for Democracy, comprised of some former NLD members.
In late April, the Burmese prime minister, Gen. Thein Sein, and more than 20 serving senior generals with ministerial portfolios, resigned from their military posts and registered the Union Solidarity and Development Party to contest the elections. The new pro-government party mirrors the mass-based social welfare organization Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), formed by the military in 1993 and now comprising more than 24 million nominal members nationwide. Paramilitary forces part of or associated with the USDA have been used to intimidate and harass the opposition, most notably in the violent attack against Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade in Depayin in upper Burma on May 30, 2003, and during the crackdown against monks and protesters in September 2007.
There are currently more than 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, including 428 members of the NLD arrested and sentenced since 1990, 253 monks, 282 student leaders, and prominent dissidents such as Min Ko Naing, Burma’s famous comedian and social activist Zargana, poets, bloggers, labor activists, and doctors. Human Rights Watch’s campaign 2,100 in 2010 aims to highlight the plight of these 2,100 prisoners and press for their unconditional release ahead of the elections.
Conditions in Burmese prisons are desperate, with torture and mistreatment, poor sanitation, inadequate health care, and irregular visits and food supplies from family members. More than 120 political prisoners are in poor health. Political prisoner Ko Kyaw Soe, age 39, died on May 19, 2010, in Myingyan prison near Mandalay due to prolonged ill-treatment in custody.
Burma: 20 years after 1990 elections, democracy still denied
ENDS
The New Silk Road
by Daniel Pedersen on May.03, 2010, under Frontline Reports
Beijing is reviving the idea of ‘empire’ with the launch of the world’s most ambitious high-speed rail line.
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‘I want to help my own people’
by Daniel Pedersen on May.01, 2010, under Frontline Reports
State control and civil society in Burma after Cyclone Nargis
This report is based on extensive interviews with cyclone survivors, local and international aid workers, and other knowledgeable sources. It assesses the human rights impact of Cyclone Nargis and provides an often neglected human rights perspective on what is happening in cyclone-affected areas today. The last chapter of the report looks at the humanitarian situation in other parts of the country and the failure of the humanitarian opening in the Irrawaddy Delta to be replicated elsewhere.
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Statement of National Democratic Front Central Presidium meeting
by Daniel Pedersen on Apr.28, 2010, under Frontline Reports
Leave a Comment :Burma, Election, Ethnic Groups more...Burma’s electoral dilemmas
by Daniel Pedersen on Apr.26, 2010, under Frontline Reports
Successıon strategy
www.ashleysouth.co.uk
Rangoon, BurmaApril 26, 2010
The Burmese people are probably about to get their first chance to vote in twenty years. Things did not go well last time; the military prevented the winners taking power. Now, new groups are emerging to try to take advantage of the limited opportunities on offer. The Burmese military government issued five laws on March 8, providing a framework for elections which are likely to be held later this year. While a number of opposition activists and politicians will boycott the polls, others are preparing to participate in the first opportunity to vote since 1990. The elections are the brainchild of junta supremo, Senior General Than Shwe, and represent his ‘succession strategy’ – a way of easing himself out of the day-to-day running of the country, while ensuring that no single person can consolidate power, and represent a threat to his continued pre-eminence behind-the-scenes.
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Burma: Nuclear wannabe
by Daniel Pedersen on Jan.31, 2010, under Frontline Reports, Twitter
Suspicious links to North Korea and high-tech procurements to enigmatic facilities
Institute for Science and International Security
Rangoon, BurmaJanuary 31, 2010
For several years, suspicions have swirled about the nuclear intentions of Burma’s secretive military dictatorship. Burma is cooperating with North Korea on possible nuclear procurements and appears to be misleading overseas suppliers in obtaining top-of-the-line equipment. Certain equipment, which could be used in a nuclear or missile program, went to isolated Burmese manufacturing compounds of unknown purpose. Although evidence does not exist to make a compelling case that Burma is building secret nuclear reactors or fuel cycle facilities, as has been reported, the information does warrant governments and companies taking extreme caution in any dealings with Burma. The military regime’s suspicious links to North Korea, and apparent willingness to illegally procure high technology goods, make a priority convincing the military government to accept greater transparency >>> Nuclear wannabe, suspicious links to North Korea and high-tech procurements to enigmatic facilities
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Poisoned flowers
by Daniel Pedersen on Jan.31, 2010, under Frontline Reports
The impacts of spiralling drug addiction on Palaung women in Burma
The Palaung Women’s Organisation
Northern Shan State, BurmaJanuary 31, 2010
Once renowed throughout Burma as prosperous tea farmers, the Palaung in northern Shan State are increasingly succumbing to high rates of drug addiction. The addiction is devasting Palaung communities, with particularly harsh consequences for women, for whom the addiction of husbands and sons compounds the existing burdens of severe gender discrimition >>> Poisoned flowers
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The gathering storm
by Daniel Pedersen on Jan.31, 2010, under Frontline Reports
Infectious diseases and human rights in Burma
Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley
Rangoon, BurmaDecember 12, 2009
Decades of repressive military rule, civil war, corruption, bad governance, isolation, and widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have rendered Burma’s1 health care system incapable of responding effectively to endemic and emerging infectious diseases.2 Burma’s major infectious diseases—malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis (TB)—are severe health problems in many areas of the country >>> The gathering storm
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New Year greetings & KNU call for National Unity
by Daniel Pedersen on Jan.03, 2010, under Frontline Reports
Leave a Comment more...Report: Military engagements in KNLA areas
by Daniel Pedersen on Dec.16, 2009, under Frontline Reports, Twitter
Summary report on military engagements in KNLA areas
September 1 to 30, 2009
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Housing, land and property rights in Burma
by Daniel Pedersen on Dec.11, 2009, under Frontline Reports, Twitter
Understanding the present, preparing for the future
Displacement Solutions & The HLP Institute
Geneva, SwitzerlandDecember 12, 2009
The deplorable human rights record of Burma’s military junta has been a key focus of
international attention for many years. The military has ruled the country for half a century, and has presided over a collapse of the economy and of social services.
A combination of deliberate abuse, a general climate of impunity, and out-dated and ineffective social policies all contribute to a fundamental absence of basic human rights in this country of 55 million people.
To date, the bulk of attention has focused on important questions of political prisoners, denial of basic freedoms, forced labour, forced displacement, as well as the other abuses related to the army’s brutal counter-insurgency policies.
However, there are additional types of rights abuses that are not as frequently mentioned, but that have a critical impact on the daily lives of millions of people across Burma. And it is these – housing, land and property (HLP) rights – that form the contents of this important new book.
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SPDC documents reveal fascist regime [English]
by Daniel Pedersen on Nov.30, 2009, under Frontline Reports, Twitter
Leave a Comment more...SPDC documents reveal fascist regime [Burmese]
by Daniel Pedersen on Nov.30, 2009, under Frontline Reports, Twitter
Leave a Comment more...Getting it wrong
by Daniel Pedersen on Oct.28, 2009, under Frontline Reports
Leave a Comment more...
"Secret Genocide is a scholarly book on the plight of the Karen of Burma. Author Daniel Pedersen writes about the secret genocide of the Karen people at the hands of the Burmese junta, who use murder, rape, forced labour and torture to quell their enemies. Decades after the Karen took up arms against Rangoon; there is no telling when - or if - their struggle for a secure homeland will finally be accomplished"
Read and add comments at the book's blog
Secret Genocide by publisher Maverick House. >>> Read prologue.
