------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------ "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ---------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News: September 24, 1995 Issue#236 Noted in Passing: It is ironic that people are put into prison and persecuted simply because they are asking the government to keep their promise. - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (quoted in BKK POST: SUU KYI ASKS BURMESE JUNTA TO KEEP PLEDGE) Headlines: ======== PROGRESSIVE: BURMA IN CHAINS: U.S. COMPANIES PROFIT FROM SLAVERY S.H.A.N: HEAVY FIGHTING BETWEEN UWSA AND MTA BKK POST: SENATE OKS TOUGH SANCTIONS ON BURMA BKK POST: SUU KYI ASKS BURMESE JUNTA TO KEEP PLEDGE NATION: LETTERS - SPIES EVERYWHERE NATION: LETTERS - NO RELATION AT ALL BPF: THE BURMESE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT AT THE UN ---------------------------------------------------------- Produced with the support of the Burma Information Group (B.I.G). The BurmaNet News is an electronic newspaper covering Burma. 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Look under the International Political Economy section, then select Geographic_Archive, then Asia, then Burma. ---------------------------------------------------------- BURMANET SUBJECT-MATTER RESOURCE LIST BurmaNet regularly receives enquiries on a number of different topics related to Burma. The scope of the subjects involved is simplytoo broad for any one person to cover. BurmaNet is therefore organizing a number of volunteer coordinators to field questions on various subjects. If you have questions on any of the following subjects, please direct email to the following coordinators, who will either answer your question or try to put you in contact with someone who can: Arakan/Rohingya/Burma- [volunteer needed] Bangladesh border Art/archaeology/: [volunteer needed] Campus activism: [on summer vacation] Boycott campaigns: [Pepsi] wcsbeau@superior.ccs.carleton.ca Buddhism: Buddhist Relief Mission, c/o NBH03114@niftyserve.or.jp Chin history/culture: plilian@asc.corp.mot.com Fonts: tom@cs.colgate.edu History of Burma: zar@mcc.wisc.edu Kachin history/culture: 74750.1267@compuserve.com Karen history/culture: 102113.2571@Compuserve.com Karen Historical Society Mon history/culture: [volunteer needed] Naga history/culture: Wungram Shishak, z954001@oats.farm.niu.edu Burma-India border [volunteer needed] Pali literature: "Palmleaf" c/o burmanet@igc.apc.org Shan history/culture: [volunteer needed] Shareholder activism: frdc@igc.apc.org "Attn. S. Billeness" Tourism campaigns: bagp@gn.apc.org "Attn. S. Sutcliffe" World Wide Web: FreeBurma@POBox.com Volunteering: christin@ksc.net.th [Feel free to suggest more areas of coverage] ******************************** PROGRESSIVE: BURMA IN CHAINS: U.S. COMPANIES PROFIT FROM SLAVERY October 1995, pp.32-35 By Brad Miller The Border Area Development Program is close to reaching the goals set forth under the Master Plan," drones a wax-like figure on the television news. It is her mouth that moves, but it is the numbing propaganda of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), Burma's repressive military regime, that seeps from the T.V. The "news" is supplemented with footage of the army, training amid staged explosions and folk music. The SLORC-controlled television stations and newspapers--the only news sources the government allows--say the border regions are being developed to "strengthen unity and friendship among national brethren." But on the border, in the homeland of the Karen, Mon, and other ethnic minorities, there is no folk music song track as the army drives out the tribal people to clear a path for foreign investment. Padauk and pyinkado trees rise out of the jungle and disappear into the fog more than 100 feet above the ground. Below, in a clearing, two Mon refugees hold onto a pale pink pig, his head on a stump. The screaming starts when they smash his skull with a sledgehammer. The pig doesn't die, but runs into the jungle, followed by some growling dogs and laughing Mon. More screams float from the jungle, and then it is quiet, as four Mon emerge from the fog, carrying the pig, one man holding each pink leg. Later, twelve men and two women gather in a large hut. They are among the 700 refugees who have arrived at this border camp within the last two months, adding to the 2,000-plus people already here. The recent arrivals left their homes and walked for four days across the mountains. Some did not make it. They were shot by the Burmese army, called the Tatmadaw. The government troops had been forcing them to work on the Ye-tavoy railroad, an extension of the "Death Railway" constructed by the Japanese Army during World War II. To build the "New Death Railway," the Tatmadaw takes one person per Mon and Tavoyan household, often holding them in guarded labor camps. If a family can't provide someone to work, it must pay a fine. The workers are not paid, and are not given food. Sometimes they must rent their construction tools. They are given neither medicine nor rest if they are sick. If they stop working, the soldiers beat them. Sme work in chains for twenty four hours straight. Young and old, women and men are treated alike. One man in his mid-thirties was arrested for being a suspected rebel and put in wooden stocks for four days, beaten, and then forced to work for six months. Another man fled after his twenty-one-year-old cousin, a mother of two, was tied to a pole and raped by three Tatmadaw soldiers. They poked her with a bayonet and then raped her again. Then they took all her belongings, including her earrings. A sixty-year-old woman had to pay the SLORC because her family could not provide a worker. When she ran out of money, she had to leave. Only forty-five of ninety families were left in her village. The rest had fled their homes and farms. The Karen and other rebel groups living in Burma's border regions have been battling the government since 1948. After a generation of murders, disappearances, and starvation, National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi led students and monks in massive, nonviolent demonstrations in 1988. The protests ended as 10,000 people were shot down in the streets and thousands more were detained and tortured. The State Law and Order Restoration Council seized control of the government and changed the country's name to Myanmar, imposed martial law, and placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. The Burmese people continue to be bludgeoned by the military junta. And although the U.S. government has declared its support for the democratic movement, it has done little to put that support into practice. Meanwhile, the U.S. corporations have eagerly embraced Asian and European companies' policy of "constructive engagement" in Burma. Using the invested dollars of companies like Unocal, Texaco, ARCO, Total, CALTEX (a joint venture of Chevron and Texaco), and Pepsi, the Burmese government carries out environmental destruction and genocide. The SLORC has an embassy in Washington and retains its seat at the United Nations. The U.S. embassy is open for business in Rangoon, with a DEA presence and a commercial attache available to provide companies with advice on how to invest in Burma. Since the SLORC's creation in 1988, oil companies have provided between $400 and $500 million to the military regime. Between 60 to 80 percent of this money is used to arm the Tatmadaw. Recently, Secretary of State Warren Christopher has hinted that the United States may take an even more conciliatory stand with the SLORC. The release of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest on July 10, 1995, may give the State Department a reason to relax its posture on Burma, and fuel corporate propaganda that says "constructive engagement" is working. In early February of 1995, the government's Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise signed a $1 billion contract with the consortium of oil companies, including the United States' Unocal, France's Total, and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand, to supply natural gas through Thailand via a pipeline through Mon and Karen land. As politicians celebrated the deal in Bangkok, the Tatmadaw drove 10,000 more people acorss the Thai border. Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest came shortly after the Burmese ambassador returned to Rangoon from Washington, D.C. to brief the SLORC leaders on the mood of the Congress and on possible sanctions against the junta. It came shortly before a conference of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the announcement by Senator MitchMcConnell, Republican of Kentucky, that he would introduce a trade-sanctions bill in Congress that would ban U.S. companies from trading with or investing in Burma. While the SLORC has attempted to create a positive image of itself by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi, it has launched new military offensives against the Karens and the Karen National Union (KNU). Aung San Suu Kyi herself has criticized foreign corporations for "coming to do business when it is a matter of life and death for all of us." If Unocal and Total proceeded with their pipeline construction, a 200-foot-wide scar will be cut from the Andaman Sea through the rain forest, twenty-seven miles to Nai et Taung, wetlands, riverbeds, and farmland will be destroyed, and the offshore section will damage fragile coral reefs and fishing grounds. The Tatmadaw has started to relocate the inhabitants along the pipeline route, forcing them to set up refugee camps along the Thai border. In a Karen camp south of Nai et Taung, Than Min, the village doctor, draws a map in the dirt to show the flight of the people. "First the SLORC army forced us into Thailand," he says. "Then the Thai military burned our village. They did it twice. Now we must move again." Thailand does not recognize Than Min's people as refugees, and the Thai army has been cutting off medicine and rice supplies provided by non-governmental organizations. The shortages are designed to force the fleeing villagers back into Burma and pressure the rebels to sign ceasefire agreements with the SLORC. Than Min believes his people are being moved around to make way for the pipeline. "It will come out of Burma at Nai et Taung and pass right near here," he says, pointing to the forest-covered mountains. "Tomorrow more families will leave here for Burma. They will walk twenty kilometers. This is not good. Fisrt we need the fighting to stop, then we can go back to Burma. In that order." But it is unlikely that fighting will stop any time soon. "As the pipeline is built, the fighting will follow it," says Ye Kyaw, who runs a Karen refugee camp inside Burma. Many of his camp's residents arrived from the pipeline area. They left because they were tired of being forced to construct roads and military installations for the Tatmadaw. The SLORC has recently moved seventeen battlions into the area to clear out rebel resistance, using the unwilling aid of villagers. Amnesty International has issued a report that the Tatmadaw has been using civilians to carry weapons and ammunition into combat zones. They also use them as human mine sweepers. The pipeline's path through the rainforest will bisect the Karen's territory, allowing the Tatmadaw to carry out its "Four Cuts Strategy": depriving the rebels of information, food, finances, and recruits. Insurgent groups like the Karen National Union amd the New Mon State Party have vowed to sabotage construction of the pipeline, and, if it is completed, to turn it into a "snake of fire." The New Mon State Party signed a cease-fire with the SLORC in late June. But there have been a number of violent deaths related to the pipeline. On March 8, 1995, five Total employees were killed in a KNU attack near the village of Kanbauk, Burma. The KNU's Fourth Brigade attacked a surveying crew after issuing a statement condemning the pipeline project and related human-rights abuses. The rebels were also upset over recent comments by Unocal president John Imle insinuating that the Karen and Mon were to blame for increased SLORC repression. The All Burma Students' Democratic Front, a rebel group associated with the Karen and Mon, also maintains a presence in the area. Meanwhile, the clearing of the forest is clearing up new fields of fire. Many refugees believe that the forced construction of the "New Death Railway" is related to the gas pipeline, since it crosses the pipeline's route, and could be conveniently used to transport materials and soldiers. The SLORC claims that its forced labor policy is actually a form of voluntary labor--that it is an old tradition for people to work for "the good of their villages." But the villages are being abandoned, the farms seized without compensation, and the people are in refugee camps far from their homeland. Unocal and Total have conceded that the SLORC is using slave labor, and claim they will not use the railroad because of it. The companies would not risk the damaging public relations connected with paying their workers nothing. Minimal wages are a different matter. Total claims to have 20o employees involved in the surveying process, all of whom are being paid. But the Tatmadaw takes more than half of their wages. Total executives are aware of the wage skimming, but say they can't be held accountable. "But they are accountable," says Faith Doherty of the Southeast Asian Information Network, "because they are dealing with the SLORC." Unocal and Total knew in advance whom they would be dealing with in Burma. Reprecht von Arnim of the United Nations High Commision for the Refugees in Thailand made a public statement in Spetember 1994 that the SLORC would most likely to use slave labor on any infrastructure projects. Besides the Ye-Tavoy railway, the military junta has used slave labor on a number of tourism-related projects in connection with its "Visit Myanmar '96" promotional effort. Doherty has been meeting with villagers and rebels in the pipeline area, exchanging information on Unocal/Total construction plans. "You can't just look at the issue of corporations using forced labor or not," she says. "This is an investment issue. They should not be there." Many environmentalists and human rights advocates in the United States agree. The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, and the Bay Area Roundtable have been organizing boycotts against the oil companies and Pepsico, including its subsidiaries Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Frito-Lay, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The Center for Constitutional Rights has warned Unocal that under U.S. tort law, the company could be legally liable for any death or destruction associated with its operation. This kind of pressure has produced some results. Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne, Eddie Bauer, and Amoco have pulled out of Burma, although Amoco claims its withdrawal was for financial reasons only. In February 1995 the city council of Berkeley passed a resolution barring the city from buying goods or services from companies operating in Burma, and in August, Madison, Wisconsin, followed suit. A statewide ban has passed the lower house and is currently before the Senate in Massachusetts. Simon Billenness of Franklin Research Development in Boston says he expects similar "selective purchasing" laws to be introduced in ten new cities by the end of the year. Unocal says it has been monitoring the situation and will not tolerate human-rights violations in any of its project areas. But Unocal's fact-finding mission consisted of a one-day helicopter tour. So far, the company has ignored the requests of the KNU to conduct interviews with refugees who have fled the pipeline area, and Unocal representatives have not met with Karen or Mon leaders. Unocal claims to be a "good corporate citizen" and, in a stockholders' report, CEO Roger Beach says the company conducts all its "business activities--in any country--ethically and responsibly, or we don't do business there at all." Small fires burn around the monastery, increasing the heat of the sun. San Moe cuts bamboo poles to use as supports for the makeshift building. He used to be a monk, until he joined the All Burma Students' Democratic Front and was shot in the femur at the Battle of Sleeping Dog Hill. A scar marks his thigh at the bullet's point of entry. A tattoo of a demonic ogre called a Bilu decorates his back. The thirty families in the camp where San Moe lives have been forced to move three times since the beginning of 1995, after the All Burma Students' Democratic Front abandoned the base called Dawn Gwin, north of Manerplaw. Each time the families have attempted to establish a community, with a school, a hospital, and a monastery, they have been told to relocate and have had to survive with nothing more than plastic sheets for shelter. The SLORC has recently intensified its military operations against the rebels here in order to secure the area for timber and hydroelectric projects. In 1993, the junta discontinued its contracts with Thai loggers, saying they would be renewed only after the border areas were secured. Eager to begin logging again, the Thai government has helped the Tatmadaw to secure the border, initiating a program to keep hill tribes out of Thailand, removing those who arrived after 1991. The Thais have also proposed a plan to combine all sixteen Karen refugee camps into two locations and police them with soldiers. The Thais have allowed the Tatmadaw to cross the border. In May 1995, the Thai army began raiding Karen border camps to seize weapons and appease the SLORC. The Thai troops operate with the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group, which gives foreign armies counterinsurgency advice. The Rainforest Action Network estimates that Burma's teak forests will be eliminated in two or three years. The SLORC, the Thai government, and U.S. teak importers like Dean Hardwoods and Teak Imports International stand to profit, and the jungle and its inhabitants face probable extinction. One of the jungle's inhabitants walks along a stream toward a hut where a wedding is being held. The girl wears a T-shirt that says, "Save the Salween--Damn the Dams," a reference to the SLORC's plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the Upper Salween River, reportedly financed by Chase Manhattan Bank. It is another way to increase the flow of money into Burma--and the flow of refugees into Thailand, adding to the 80,000 already there. After a Buddhist monk performs the wedding, the girl and some of her teen-aged friends gather around a battery-operated boom box and dance in their dislocated home in the jungle. Back in the city, a Burmese student, Ea Nang, looks up from her glass of Pepsi. "After the attack on the Total workers in Kanbauk, my friend had to carry one of the bodies off the plane in Rangoon. The man killed was married. He had a six-week-old baby." As long as the corporate war goes on, the bodies will continue to stack up at the airport in Rangoon. At the same airport, soldiers climb into a Huey gunship, which shudders and heads off to put in its eight-hour shift, cutting a swath through the jungle, tearing through forests, villages, animals, and people, leaving behind profits and skeletons. ******************* S.H.A.N: HEAVY FIGHTING BETWEEN UWSA AND MTA September 20, 1995 Muangmai The long awaited ` D-Day ' attack by the Wa troops against the Shans in the Yawn valley, north of Mai-ai District,Chiangmai Province of Thailand, began yesterday morning, according to Shan high command. The Was opened up their biggest-ever attempt to chase the Shan rebels from the area by generous shelling of their fire bases which lasted for four and a half hours. The attackers, which included, apart from the Wa, contingents from the Palaung,Kachin and Lahu member-groups of the so-called Peace and Democratic Front, followed the heavy shelling by charging the heavily defended Shan stronghold.They however gave up their fruitless human-wave charges which produced no more than several casualties - and quarrels as well - among themselves. Exact figures of losses on both sides are , at the time of this reporting, still not available. Meanwhile, the Shan monks of Thailand, meeting in Chiangrai on 14 September, again callled on both the Mong Tai Army and the renegade ` Shan State National Army ' of Major Karnyord to refrain from using violent means to settle their differences. *********************** BKK POST: SENATE OKS TOUGH SANCTIONS ON BURMA September 23, 1995 Washington, AFP IN a challenge to the Clinton administration, the US Senate has approved tough sanctions against Burma that would ban all US trade with, investment in, and travel to the Southeast Asian country. Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky and chairman of a key funding panel, sponsored the sanctions amendment to the 1996 foreign aid bill, which was approved by the Senate by an overwhelming 91 to nine late Thursday. The Senate bill must now be reconciled with comparable legislation in the House of Representatives. A final compromise version would then be sent to President Bill Clinton for signing before it can becoming law. McConnell also secured authorization of two million dollars in funding for democracy building activities in Burma, according to a spokesman for the senator, Kyle Simmons. The sanctions would ban all US trade with, investment in, and travel to Burma _ in which the United States is among the top investors _ and suspend aid to countries selling arms to the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). The Clinton administration has said little on Burma in recent months but has made clear that it opposes the sanctions legislation, on grounds that they would limit the ability of the administration to set foreign policy. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kent Wiedemann said September 7 sanctions would be "counterproductive" following the junta's release in July of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent six years under house arrest. Testifying before a congressional committee, Wiedemann cited a lack of international support for sanctions against Burma and called for continued US support of UN aid. ************************************************************** BKK POST: SUU KYI ASKS BURMESE JUNTA TO KEEP THEIR DEMOCRACY PLEDGE September 23, 1995 Rangoon, Reuters OPPOSITION leader Aung San Suu Kyi said yesterday that Burma's military rulers, who grabbed power in 1988 promising the nation a return to democracy, should now keep to their word. "The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) promised democracy. We would like them to keep their promise. It's as simple as that," Suu Kyi, who was released in early July after nearly six years under house arrest, told Reuters in an interview. "It is ironic that people are put into prison and persecuted simply because they are asking the government to keep their promise," the 1991 Nobel Peace prize laureate said. Thousands of people were killed or imprisoned before seven months of student-led pro-democracy demonstrations across Burma were finally crushed on September 18 1988, when the military set up a new ruling body _ the SLORC. The leader of the SLORC at the time promised the nation the military would hold multiparty elections and return the country to democracy. In a general election in May 1990, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) e swept more than 80 percent of the seats. But the SLORC ignored the result and instead launched a massive crackdown on all opposition in the country. Since her unexpected and unconditional release on July 10, Suu Kyi has repeatedly called on the SLORC for dialogue and national reconciliation but has been ignored. Earlier this month, senior SLORC generals told the US ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, during a visit here that they were considering talks with Suu Kyi. But nothing formal has yet happened. Suu Kyi, who has been meeting frequently with her NLD colleagues since gaining her freedom, said she believed her release may encourage others in Burma to be more open in their struggle for democracy. "Perhaps they can afford to be a bit more frank... partly because my colleagues in the NLD are working together very openly and very unitedly," she said in the interview at her lakeside Rangoon home. A pressing issue ahead for the NLD and Suu Kyi is the next session of a SLORC-organised national convention which has been been meeting since January 1993 to draw up guidelines for a new Burmese constitution. The military-dominated gathering, which has already agreed on a clause to give the army a leading role in future politics, has been roundly criticised by dissidents in exile and by Suu Kyi herself in the past. Suu Kyi declined comment on what position she and the NLD would take on the convention and also on her efforts to engage the SLORC in dialogue. Reflecting on the events after the SLORC took power, Suu Kyi said: "It's amazing what people have gone through. It's not surprising that they are afraid... (but) they should be able to do what they think in spite of their fears.' Amnesty International alleged in a report yesterday that thousands of political prisoners in Burmese jails endured appalling conditions, including torture, prolonged shackling and a lack of medical care and food, The London-based human rights group said its findings followed new information which was consistent with a previously documented pattern of human-rights violations, including torture and illtreatment. The regime has faced regular criticism for alleged rights abuses since it was formed in 1988 after the military crushed a democracy uprising. SLORC rejects the charges saying Western concepts of human rights do not apply i Burma. "Torture has been routine Myanmar's prisons for man years, and has increased dramatically since the imprisonment of thousands of political prisoners beginning in 1988,' Amnesty charged. "Political prisoners are evidently subjected to torture during both the initial interrogation period and after they have been sentenced," Amnesty said; "Torture techniques include beatings, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness; being forced to crawl over sharp stones- and being held in the hot sun," the report said. "Such practices are used by Myanmar's security forces to punish and intimidate prisoners," it said. The rights group said it had recorded the deaths of 15 political prisoners since 1988, many of whom had died from disease after inadequate medical attention. "Amnesty International is concerned about recurrent reports of death in custody," the group said. Conditions for common criminals in labour camps were even worse than those endured by political prisoners and many had died because of ill-treatment, the group said. *************************************************************** NATION: LETTERS - SPIES EVERYWHERE September 23, 1995 As one who fled Burma in 1992 because of Slorc's suppression, I went to Thailand with the hope of organizing a democratic movement against the military junta. I've been to several Dlaces and provinces bere an'd one- thing I've discovered is the overwhelmingly large number of Slorc spies who monitor the movements of their countrymen. These spies reported to Slorc our plan to stage protests in front of the Burmese embassy, the meeting of Burmese students in Ramkhamhaeng, the outcome of the KNU congress and other activities. These people were seen taking notes and pictures and asking strange questions during gatherings. It also seems that they have certain privileges. For example, they are always released immediately after they are arrested. Those aiming to establish a democratic government in Burma should watch out for these people. An Exiled Burmese Student Bangkok *********************************************************** NATION: LETTERS - NO RELATION AT ALL September 23, 1995 This is to clarify a report (Bangkok Post, Sept 19) about the Myanmar (Burma) government and the Red Cross mission. The office of the International Committee of the Red Cross was opened in Myanmar to implement the terms and with the hope of organizing a democratic conditions stipulated in the memorandum of understanding signed by Ministry of Defence and the ICRC on the Orthopaedic artificial limbs project. The terms of the project as provided in the MOU came to an end in the middle of 1995 and this resulted in the subsequent closure of the ICRC office in Rangoon. The proposal put forward by the ICRC for the signing of another MOU, commonly known as "MOU on Prison Visit" is but a separate issue. At the moment Myanmar is not in a position to sign the MOU as proposed by the ICRC. But the government did not say that it will not sign the MOU. The dialogue with ICRC on this issue can continue and that in the future when the conditions in the country are different, it may be able to agree to the provisions of the MOU. This was clearly explained to the concerned officials of the ICRC. There was no linkage whatsoever between the two issues. Embassy of the Union Of Myanmar Bangkok [This letter also appeared in the BKK POST in the letters to the Editor section under the title of "Embassy clarifies".] ************************************************************* Typed by the Research Department of the ABSDF(MTZ) 23/9/95 ************************************************************* BPF: THE BURMESE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT AT THE UNITED NATIONS, 1991-1995 (abridged: for the full text please contact David Arnott ) by David Arnott Secretary, Burma Peace Foundation, Coordinator, FREE SUU KYI, FREE BURMA 18 August 95 (Reposted 21 Sept 95) SUMMARY Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's resistance to SLORC[1] has been complemented by the international work of the NCGUB[2] and representatives of non-Burman nationalities. Since 1991 this work has taken them to international conferences, national capitals, and the United Nations. Their presence at the UN has made a significant contribution towards strengthening the resolutions on Burma. The growing condemnation of SLORC contained in these resolutions has been a major factor in maintaining the de facto sanctions imposed in 1988 by the international community. In this and in other ways the Burmese Democracy Movement has been able to act internationally to increase the pressure on SLORC. INTRODUCTION Since 1989 I have attended most sessions of the principal UN human rights meetings, namely the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly (GA) in New York, and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Geneva. My task has been to monitor the meetings and provide diplomats and UN officers with documentation and analyses on the human rights situation in Burma. In the early years, especially in Geneva, I also helped the delegations from the Burmese Democracy Movement and the non-Burman nationalities meet diplomats and UN officials, and provided technical assistance in preparing interventions and drafting language for the resolutions. As the delegations became more experienced in these areas, I was able to concentrate more on documentation and analyses. With this introduction to my credentials as an informed commentator, I would like to describe the UN-related activities of the NCGUB and representatives of the non-Burman peoples. While Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been on enforced retreat, the delegations led by the NCGUB have been working away at the international level, and with considerable effect. Their activities have of course not been limited to UN work, but since this is what I have seen at first hand, it is all I will describe. THE UN AND BURMA How can the UN protect human rights in a country like Burma, where the traditional Buddhist values of love, compassion and non-violence have little impact on the day-to-day conduct of the military, which apparently lacks any understanding or respect for the very idea of human rights? One way is to expose governments, SLORC in this case, to international scrutiny and criticism by means of public reports, speeches and resolutions. The annual sessions of the GA and CHR are a period of intense humiliation for SLORC, which finds itself publicly dissected and universally condemned. This damages SLORC both politically and economically: Politically, the condemnations undermine the image of legitimacy SLORC seeks to project within the country. One has only to read a few issues of "The New Light of Myanmar" to see how hard the generals work at presenting themselves as legitimate rulers: they speak of themselves as "the legal fold" to which the "rebel" groups return; they engage in highly-publicised devotions to senior Buddhist monks; they stride around opening roads and bridges; they even claim legitimacy from Burma's membership in the United Nations, though UN membership belongs to States, not governments. "A Fascist Disneyland" is how one Western diplomat in Rangoon described SLORC rule. The ever-stronger condemnation of SLORC's human rights record in UN reports and resolutions, and the UN demand that power be transferred to the elected representatives, are well-known to the Burmese people, who listen to the Burmese service of the BBC, VOA and the Democratic Voice of Burma. The discepency between the international assessment and the image the generals seek to project undermines SLORC's status and thus its internal political authority. Economically, UN condemnation of SLORC is one of the main reasons why the de facto sanctions imposed after the bloodbath of 1988 have not been lifted. There have been no World Bank or IMF loans; UNDP assistance has been reduced to small humanitarian programmes; and bilateral assistance from donor countries has not been renewed, apart from minor (but symbolically important) aid from Japan. Since economic mismanagement by the military has driven the country from the position of "ricebowl of Asia" to being one of the poorest countries in the world, with a growing polarisation between rich and poor, SLORC is in desperate need of international assistance, in spite of Chinese and Singaporean investment. SLORC has sought to soften UN criticism by making "gestures" or "concessions" on the eve of the human rights meetings. For instance the "unilateral cease-fire" against the Karen was announced during the 1993 GA session. The timing of Aung San Suu Kyi's release may have involved additional factors, but certain mischievous folks are already betting on the date that talks begin between the NLD and SLORC. FACTORS WHICH HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO STRONG UN RESOLUTIONS ON BURMA 1) Lacking popular support or economic competence, the generals have ruled by military coercion and terror, involving severe and widespread human rights violations. These violations have been widely and accurately documented and fed into the UN human rights machinery. 2) The diplomats leading on the Burma resolutions (Sweden at the GA and France at the CHR) have been very skillful. 3) The NCGUB, led by Aung San Suu Kyi's cousin, Dr Sein Win, has been particularly effective in Geneva and New York. Under its leadership, delegations of elected parliamentarians and representatives of non-Burman nationalities have lobbied the GA and the CHR since 1991. At last year's session of the GA, for example, the Delegation visited more than 70 country missions to argue for specific wording to be included in the resolutions. Their legitimacy as representatives of the Burmese people is tacitly recognised by diplomats, who are very open to the NCGUB proposals concerning the resolutions. 4) Unlike China, Burma can't hit back.