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International Responsibility For Burma

Dr. Ravindra Kumar - 8/29/2007

All most every week there is news of violation of human rights in Burma. Military rulers are using tactics one after the other to maintain dictatorship there. This is why: it was totally rejection, last month by all 2000 families living in Delhi out of total 50,000 families of Burmese refugees in India, to the first stage of seven-phase roadmap, the one-sided proposal of the military regime of Burma said to be the final session to lay down the principles of a new Constitution for the country, considering this act to be another practice of the dictators to maintain military rule in the country.

In fact, for years people of Burma [renamed as Myanmar in 1989] have been under the curse of [the Junta] military dictatorship. From that very year, i.e. 1989, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Laureate and the most popular and pro-democracy leader of the country, has continuously been under house arrest and her activities have been restricted. She has only one woman attendant with her. There are only two human beings in the world who see her. One of them is Dr. Tin Myo Win, her physician, who can see her with the permission of the military authorities and the other is Gambari, the UN envoy who saw her twice last year. In all circumstances, whether in a sate of illness, she takes care herself.

The whole world knows that in 1990 the National League for Democracy won landslide victory in general elections in Burma, but the military dictators refused to recognize the people’s verdict. They snatched civil rights of the people in toto, continuously controlled media, which could be observed from the incident last month when on the occasion of the opening session of the national convention, all journalists from abroad were not allowed to cover the proceedings.

To deprive the people of a country from their democratic rights or to deny them the right of building their own future, is a sin. The situation becomes more serious when a group of compatriots is bent on snatching away the people of their democratic rights. What does one do in such circumstances? In my opinion, international community in general and neighbours like India and China, who after the end of Cold War and the incident of 9/11, have become globally more influential, owe greater responsibility in such a situation in particular.

Today, not a single country of the world is in a position to maintain its existence or to function in isolation, no matter how mighty it is. Countries are so much interdependent, that, to act united has become a compulsion. In such a state it is not possible even for a country, where a particular group of dictators snatches the freedom of the people, to ignore international call.

Through a collective decision in the UNO the dictators of a country like Burma may be pressurized, warned for a non-violent non-cooperation and boycott including restrictions according to conditions of time and space, keeping in mind the safety and difficulties of innocent people who, according to a report submitted this month by two representative of the UNDP countries, are under humanitarian catastrophe due to mismanagement of economy, many amongst the people do not have square meal.