HRW FOR MYANMAR

HRW for Myanmar

HRW for Myanmar

Executive Summary

In recent months, there have been major developments in Myanmar (Burma). After a protracted period of international isolation - including sanctions -over its record of human rights abuses and suppression of democracy, the military- backed government has begun releasing political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. Elections are to be held soon. In response, the United States and European Union are moving swiftly to ease sanctions and restore diplomatic ties. They are also considering providing foreign aid 'to support political reforms' (Andrew, 2002, p253). Whilst international isolation and sanctions are considered to have compelled the government's movement toward democratic reform, this leverage is likely to be undermined by these moves.

Moreover, at the same time as these reform steps, the government is escalating its military operations - marked by severe human rights abuses and attacks on civilians - against rebels from different ethnic communities that have long been seeking autonomy from the government dominated by the majority Burmese. This paper is not a comprehensive examination of that poor human rights record, but is rather a review of some issues that arise when the international community is considering how to judge Burma's record, and perhaps more importantly, how to “move forward” if that is possible.

Key Objectives

Brief background and overview of the policy issues of concern with respect to Myanmar.

Opportunities and obstacles.

Set of recommendations

Legal Context

Generally, the perpetrators human rights abuses in Burma are the army, as well as the police and prison officials, and in this respect Burma's situation is not particularly different from others in the world over the last half century. In Burma, quite often the specific army units carrying out the abuses, and even their commanding officers, are known and recorded. There is little basis for thinking that human rights abuses occur simply because of poor behaviour by soldiers or police, or that it is anything but government “policy” (Sean, 2011, p146). There is no serious suggestion that they are committed by “rogue elements” in the Army or the police, for example. In Burma, as in other controversial settings for human rights abuses, they occur alongside various tensions or differences either ethnic, or religious, or power politics often with a virtual state of civil war, in which all parties are heavily armed and where violence is more or less routine. Yet other than in situations in the field of low-level conflict, or medium-level conflict, or the treatment of political prisoners in gaol, the scale and extent of abuses in Burma is arguably not very great. This does not excuse the abuses, of course, but underlines some differences with other countries where very large numbers have died. Abuses carried out by the Burmese army arouse concern because they demonstrate a pattern of behaviour, but they also often occur in random, isolated incidents rather than on a mass level (Ardeth, 2008, p13).

Social context

The single, most important claim to legitimacy for Myanmar's ruling military has been that the regime is ...