Human Rights in Burma - Old Dogs, Same Tricks?

 This is the second part in a three-part series on Burma leading up to the general election on November 8.

Since the last general election in Burma in November 2010, the first one since 1992, the world has not been shy in its praise of the reform process. Burma has been embraced by the world and is no longer considered a pariah state, but one that has embraced transition and is on the road to democracy.

As a Burma activist I have spent many exasperated moments wanting to bang my head against a wall from the naïveté of the international community, or even worse, from their blatant hypocrisy in the quest for influence and investment opportunities in the new open Burma.  

Let me start by saying that yes,  for many Burma is today a better place than it was during the time military junta, which came into power in a coup in 1962, and which ruled country with an iron fist. During the military dictatorship protests were violently suppressed (who can forget the images of the student protests in 1988 or the so-called Saffron Revolution in 2007?), all press and media was heavily controlled by the junta, images of National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi (and the country’s rightful leader after having won a landslide victory in the 1990 election) were banned and people would only whisper her name. Draconian laws made dissent or voicing of opposition punishable by long prison sentences. Laws also banned gatherings of more than five people in the same place, an effort by the government to prevent anti-government groups from meeting, and any over-night visitor had to be registered with the village/town authority.

The government was constantly watching, creating a climate of fear (for more on this I recommend reading Christina Fink’s ‘Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule’). My Burmese friends have told me frightening stories of oppression. My foreign friends visiting Burma at the time have told me how locals were too afraid to talk to them in public, since talking to a foreigner would immediately implicate and lead to questioning by the secret services, but how they could barely close the door of a taxi before the driver would release an avalanche of hatred towards the regime, beseeching his passenger to please let the world know what ‘it’s really like here’.

In comparison to the horrors of the military dictatorship under leaders like Brigadier General Ne Win (1962-1981) and Senior General Than Shwe (1992-2011), and others of the regime, yes Burma has moved forward. However, the enthusiasm with which the international community decided to welcome Burma, and the naïve lense through which they watched the democratization process, has been hampered by events in the past 2-3 years that should not come as a surprise. Serious cracks in the democratization façade are beginning to show.

There are numerous issues with the substance of Burma’s reforms, but I have chosen to only mention a few of them here. Some issues that have impact on the transition process I mentioned in my previous post, such as the ongoing armed conflict, and the important issue of the Rohingya minority will be given particularly attention in the third post in this series.

Reforms or More of the Same?

The Burmese regime has a history of violently cracking down on any form of protest or dissent. In 1988 police and military violently dispersed student protests, known as the 8888 Uprising, arresting thousands and forcing many into exile (some activists I met on the Thai-Burma border in 2010 had not been to Burma since 1988). In 2007, after weeks of protest, the security forces finally cracked down on monk-led protests, the so-called ‘Saffron Revolution’, and shocking images of Buddhist monks being forcibly de-robed in the streets and dragged off to prison were sent around the world.

In the first period after the 2010 election, the restrictions on freedom of expression and political opposition seemed to be at least somewhat eased. The government also made a big showing of, and received much praise for, releasing political prisoners. However, a recent report by Burma Partnership (BP) and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) describes the backsliding of democratic reforms and a deteriorating human rights situation in Burma.

The report by BP and AAPP presents several serious issues, including the lack of an independent judiciary, repressive legislation and the lack of the rule of law, allowing the authorities to freely harass, arrest and imprison anyone they wish with impunity.

One particular tool of repression used by the government is the Right to Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Act, which requires “consent” from authorities before any protest, and particularly its Section 18, which makes it a criminal offence to conduct a peaceful assembly without permission, providing for up to 6 months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to 30,000 Kyat. In fact, since January 2015, 13 activists have been imprisoned and 139 activists are facing trials under Section 18 of the Assembly Law, according to the AAPP. As of the first week of July, AAPP had identified 170 political prisoners inside Burma.

In March this year, students in in the town of Letpadan protested a new education law, which centralizes higher education and which students believe would curb academic freedom. After the students staged a sit-in on a road near a monastery in Letpadan authorities prevented them from marching to Rangoon, police launched a violent crackdown. Video footage shows police attacking and beating protesters, bringing back memories of the horrors of 1988 and 2007. A total of 127 student activists and supporters were arrested and more than 70 students went on trial in May on charges of unlawful assembly, rioting and causing injury to government workers. As of August, 58 students remain in prison awaiting trial.

The Dangers of Buddhist Nationalism

Another serious issue regarding the democratic transition and human rights in Burma is the rise of extreme Buddhist nationalism and religious intolerance, which has surfaced in the wake of the anti-Muslim violence that began in Burma in July 2012.

Racism and Burman (the majority ethnic group in Burma) nationalism isn’t exactly new in Burma. I have several times been confronted with blatant racism, particularly against the persecuted Rohingya, by otherwise rational and compassionate Burmese human rights advocates and supporters. At an event organized by my organization, the Oxford Burma Alliance, about the horrible situation in Kachin State, one acquaintance (from the Burman ethnicity) stood up thanking us for working for the minorities of Burma and declared that it was important that the human rights of all peoples of Burma were respected. The same person was later quoted during an anti-Rohingya protest in Rangoon, denying these rights be given to the Rohingya. I should not have been so shocked – this person had previously spoken to me about the Rohingya in very derogatory terms, but seeing the words in a newspaper made it worse.

I don’t need to elaborate on how shocking it is that many Buddhist monks have joined the ranks of these movements and now preach anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya sentiments, particularly given the fundamental virtues of Buddhism  – especially metta (loving kindness and compassion). What is more worrying is that the government and the pro-democracy camp seem unwilling to confront the nationalists – the government has even passed a number of laws, pandering to the views of these extremists.

The 969 movement is led by Ashin Wirathu, a monk who himself was a political prisoner between 2003 and 2010. Wirathu has insisted that the movement isn’t anti-Muslim, saying "We just targeted Bengalis [this is the pejorative term used for the Rohingya in Burma, used to convey that they are not Burmese, but foreigners] who are terrorising ethnic Rakhine (Buddhists)”. Nevertheless the 969 movement has led a campaign of boycotting Muslim shops across Burma and has been involved in attacks on Rohingya in Arakan/Rakhine state.

More recently the Ma Ba Tha, also known as the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion (the name alone should raise some red flags), has become the new face of anti-Muslim rhetoric and religious intolerance. The group, formed in mid-2013 and also led by Buddhist monks, has become a powerful lobby group and has managed to get the government to pass several controversial and discriminatory laws – in the name of protecting Buddhism.

In October 2014, 4 laws collectively known as the ‘Protection of Race and Religion Laws’, proposed by the Ma Ba Tha, were introduced to Parliament. Wirathu, a member of the Ma Ba Tha, has defended the laws saying ‘We need race and religion laws to protect our Buddhist women from the Islamization of jihad.’

The first bill, the ‘Population Control Bill’, was passed into law in May and allows authorities to order ‘birth spacing’ so that married couples need to wait 36 months between each child they have. This clearly violates the right to privacy and a women’s right to choose when to have children. The drafting process did not involve the participation by women, especially those from ethnic and religious minorities, who will be most affected by the law. The government has argued that the law aims to bring down maternal and infant mortality rate. However, the law feeds into the narrative pushed by groups such as the Ma Ba Tha, warning that the Muslims, because of their high birthrates, could take over the country (of some 50 million) even though they currently represent less than 10% of the population. It is easy to understand activists’ concerns that this law is a way to further target the Muslim population of Burma. Human Rights watched criticized the law, saying it would make ‘a mockery of the claim that Burma is still on the path to reform.”

The second bill, the ‘Buddhist Women’s Special Marriage Law,’ otherwise known as the ‘interfaith marriage bill’, was passed by Parliament in July. This law requires permission for Buddhist women to marry outside their faith. It again feeds into the perception that Muslim men are marrying Buddhist women in an attempt to spread Islam throughout the country.

The third and fourth bills, passed by Parliament in August, the ‘Religious Conversion Bill’ and the ‘Monogamy Bill’ are also discriminatory. The ‘Religious Conversion bill’ stipulates that that any person wishing to change religion must receive permission from the authorities. A Muslim man recently became the first target of the new monogamy law, facing seven years in prison for living with a Buddhist woman after separating from his wife.

The UN Special Rapporteur Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, has highlighted significant concerns with this legislation, saying that these laws will ‘legalize discrimination, in particular against religious and ethnic minorities and against women’.

Conclusion

The situation above paints a rather bleak picture of the state of human rights in Burma. Particularly worrying is the rise of the Ma Ba Tha and religious intolerance.

The Burmese Government seemed at first to be paralyzed and uninterested in doing much about the situation. However it the latest developments seem to suggest that the Government approves of the Ma Ba Tha's message. The Ma Ba Tha has since the passing of the 4 bills mentioned above encouraged its supporters to vote for the government’s UNDP party. It has urged voters not to vote for the NLD, trying to discredit the party by calling it a party of ‘Islamists’. Wirathu has also said that the Ma Ba Tha will push for laws banning Muslim dress and certain Muslim customs.

The current situation in Burma is extremely serious. I firmly believe that the international community, blinded by the promise of influence and profits, lifted sanctions on Burma too early and has since chosen to turn a blind eye to many of the huge flaws in the reform agenda – choosing instead to hail Burma’s ‘progress’. Now the same states are remaining largely silent in the face of a reform process that creates serious violations of human rights.

The people of Burma fought long and hard to live in a democratic country that respects the human rights of all its peoples. They deserve better than this.