"Democracy” stirs up war in the areas of the nationalities

The "elections” planned by Burma’s military junta for 2010 are stirring up violence and war in the country of many peoples. The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) reported on Wednesday in Göttingen that the non-Burmese nationalities are already getting ready for a new war, since they are not prepared to submit to the diktat of the junta and to give up their weapons. This is part and parcel of the so-called "road-map to democratisation”, which the military government has drawn up. Most of the liberation movements have refused to be turned into government militia and to build up political parties under the control of the junta in order to take part in the so-called elections. In the ceasefire agreement, which 17 liberation movements had signed after 1989, there was no talk of giving up weapons.

"The purported ‘democratisation’ brings the nationalities, which have been fighting since 1948 for more rights and a federal state, even more suffering”, fears the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius. Burma’s rulers arranged in May 2008 a referendum to pass a new constitution, which largely ignored the rights of the non-Burmese nationalities. A few days beforehand the tornado Nargis had devastated the south-west of Burma and killed more than 120,000 people. With show elections the military want to ensure lasting security for their power.

"In view of the foreseeable disastrous consequences of these "elections” it is irresponsible for European politicians and development agencies to encourage the nationalities to take part in the "elections”, criticised Delius. Europe is clearly not speaking with one voice in Burma politics.

The human rights situation has indeed deteriorated in the last few months. The number of political detainees has doubled in the past 18 months to more than 2,000. In an amnesty in February 2009 6,313 persons in custody were released, but only 23 of these were political prisoners. More than 700,000 people of the nationalities are now IDPs, while several thousand villages have been destroyed by soldiers. In the war against the nationalities child-soldiers and rape were brought in as weapons of war. In spite of an official order forbidding the use of forced labour there has indeed been an increase of this in the year 2008, especially in the service of the army.

In the light of this picture of horror the call for the removal of sanctions against the junta is incomprehensible, said Delius. It is not the sanctions which are responsible for the deterioration in the plight of the people, but Burma’s rulers. They are ruthlessly plundering the country and its minerals for their own personal profit. Ministers in office are favouring members of their families and building companies for themselves. They demand facilitation payments (i.e. bribes!) from foreign investors. For the financial year 2007/2008 Burma had a trade surplus of 3.2 thousand million US dollars, but neither the country nor the people had any profit from it. While the citizens were becoming impoverished the ruler, Than Shwe, built a new capital city for four thousand million US dollars and spent 50 million US dollars for the wedding of his daughter. He also bought arms in China for two thousand million US dollars.