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This month the UN Commission on Human Rights issued its latest,
now annual, condemnation of ongoing rights violations in Myanmar,
highlighting in particular the continued detention of Aung San Suu
Kyi, general secretary of the National League for Democracy, and
her deputy, Tin Oo, who have been held under house arrest since
they were attacked in May 2003.
I was able to meet with Suu Kyi at her home in Yangon, the capital,
just three months before that attack, while she was traveling in
the north of Myanmar to promote democracy.
During that visit, she said that although the authorities had tried
to destroy the NLD after prohibiting its candidates, and those of
other prodemocratic parties, from convening a Parliament after their
decisive electoral victory in 1990, a combination of internal and
external pressures had allowed the parties to survive.
She said that the NLD was continuing to ask for international sanctions
to isolate the military regime and help force peaceful change in
the country.
Now the people of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, are again asking
the international community to stand with them as they engage in
the largest civil disobedience action the country has ever seen.
The NLD, which has never legally been banned in Myanmar, initiated
a public petition late last year calling on the authorities to release
Suu Kyi.
A member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines visiting
Myanmar recently was told that by late February, almost a half a
million people had added their names to that call.
The simple act of signing a petition is illegal under the military
junta's draconian laws, and people who have previously circulated
petitions requesting political change or challenging decisions of
the junta now languish in jail. When the ICBL representative asked
if people were afraid to sign the petition, members of the NLD's
Central Committee responded, "Yes, they are afraid. But they
sign."
The petition campaign continues to grow, virtually ignored or unknown
outside Myanmar. Just as the 1990 election showed massive popular
support for democratic governance, this petition shows popular condemnation
of the seizure and detention of Myanmar's Nobel Peace laureate.
For every person who risks signing the petition, there are many
more who are sympathetic but afraid to take action. Yet many Burmese
people continue to be willing to take significant risks to try to
bring about peaceful change. It is now time for external pressure
to be stepped up and consistently applied.
Some argue that sanctions against the military junta should be dropped
and replaced by "constructive engagement" with the regime.
This is despite the call of the NLD itself for sanctions, and the
clear example of the international isolation and economic sanctions
against apartheid South Africa that helped internal forces bring
democracy to that nation.
For nonviolent sanctions to work, there must be a global consensus,
not just the current series of disconnected and uncoordinated national
policies. Myanmar has never lost the support of key states, which
help supply it with arms, for example, such as Singapore and Pakistan
- neither a beacon of democracy.
The military junta must not be allowed to continue to hold democracy
hostage in Myanmar. External pressure must be applied in support
of activists if we want nonviolent political change.
The international community must unite in applying effective pressure
on the Burmese dictatorship - politically and economically - until
it cedes power to those who earned it legitimately at the ballot
box.
Jody Williams is founding coordinator of the International Campaign
to Ban Landmines and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
First published on April 26, 2005 by the International
Herald Tribune
© 2005 IHT
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