Thursday, May 2, 2024
News and Views from the Global South
U.N. Doubts Credibility of Upcoming Burmese Polls
Thalif Deen
- The United Nations is fighting a losing battle trying to convince the repressive military junta in Burma (Myanmar) that nationwide elections scheduled for next week should be both “credible” and “inclusive”.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has already expressed doubts over whether the elections on Nov. 7, the first in 20 years, will be “free and fair”.
The response to the U.N. appeal for credible elections has been lukewarm and negative – both from an unrelenting Burmese government and from some of its staunchest political allies, including the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and also China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council.
At the last elections held in 1990, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory. But the NLD was never allowed to assume power, while its leader, who won the Nobel Peace prize in 1991, has been under house arrest for over 14 years.
A longstanding supporter of Burma, China has taken the position that the United Nations should not interfere in the domestic affairs of a member state.
Asked why China continues to be a strong supporter of the Burmese junta, Maureen Aung-Thwin, director of the Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative at the Open Society Institute, told IPS it was an unholy mix of politics, economics and the military.
“China has many reasons to defend the Burmese military,” she said. “It is obsessed with stability at their borders, particularly in the south (Yunnan), where last summer tens of thousands of refugees fled across the border during a Burmese army offensive against ethnic groups challenging its authority.”
China prefers a stable military dictatorship indebted to them than a genuine multi-party democracy led by civilians, and is eager to help legitimise a military regime in civilian garb, said Aung-Thwin, a Burma-born New Yorker.
“The ordinary Burmese’s growing resentment of China’s support for a hated regime and domination of their economy – a resentment that may not always apparent to Beijing – should be cause for concern,” she added.
A proposal for a Commission on Inquiry on war crimes charges leveled against the Burmese junta – which goes by the name ‘the State Peace and Development Council’ (SPDC) – is also stalled at the United Nations.
The proposal is very unlikely to come before the Security Council primarily because of China, which in January 2007 exercised its veto, along with Russia, to block a Western- inspired resolution to impose sanctions on Burma.
But the 192-member General Assembly or the 47-member Human Rights Council in Geneva could still decide to set up the proposed commission.
In the two veto-less U.N. bodies, however, the voting could go either way, with strong opposition from most or all of the ASEAN members, including Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Last week, Amnesty International called on the General Assembly to adopt a resolution “ensuring the urgent establishment of an international commission of inquiry into serious human rights violations committed by Burma, including crimes against humanity and possible war crimes.”
The proposal for a commission, recommended by Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Burma, has the backing of several countries, including Australia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Britain and the United States.
The London-based human rights organisation has documented “unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, forced labour, arbitrary arrests, and various forms of collective punishment, committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population in northern Kayin State and eastern Bago Division, starting in late 2005.”
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has called for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Burma.
She said there are more than 2,000 persons in Myanmar who, in most cases, “have been convicted by laws that limit freedom of expression and freedom of association and assembly and contravene international laws”.
“The people of Myanmar are clearly seeking a better future. Genuine elections that meet international standards should be part of the transition process towards that future,” she said.
Aung-Thwin told IPS that Ban has already challenged the legitimacy of the upcoming elections. But it is particularly important, she argued, to challenge the legitimacy after the elections – which she said may take weeks to tabulate and then months more for the government to be formed.
“The United Nations should not wait another six months before speaking out,” she added.
On the commission of inquiry, she said the secretary-general “should more than vigorously pursue the proposal”.
He actually has the authority to set up the commission himself, she added.
Addressing a meeting of ASEAN heads of government last week, Ban said that in one week’s time, “the eyes of the world will be on this ASEAN member state as it holds its first elections in 20 years”.
The international community, and other ASEAN members in particular, have a significant stake in seeing Myanmar turn this test into an opportunity for peace, democracy and prosperity, he added.
Ban said ASEAN and the United Nations agree on the need for a credible democratic transition and national reconciliation, including the holding of free, fair and inclusive elections.
“The period immediately after 7 November, and the direction Myanmar takes in the post-election era, will be just as important as the election itself,” he said.
This will be the time for the authorities to signal that they are ready to depart from the status quo, he added. “Failure to meet these expectations could undermine Myanmar’s own efforts,” Ban warned.
“It could also reflect on ASEAN’s collective values and principles, at a time when you are striving for greater regional integration,” he added.
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