The First Step’s Taken - Time to Go The Whole Way

Hizami Iskandar, September 29, 2007

English, Hizami, Columns |

By Hizami Iskandar

(picture taken from www.bbc.co.uk)

Like many other Malaysians, I’ve been following the latest developments in Burma with growing worry for their plight, and equal rage for the ruthless actions of the junta. You can thus imagine my delight when ASEAN issued such a strongly-worded statement on Thursday, expressing their ‘revulsion’ at the violent repressive actions taken by the junta to quell these demonstrations. I was even more delighted when En Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was quoted as saying that the ASEAN policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with the military regime has failed.

The Burmese people have lived lifetimes of disappointment. From the brutal assassination of General Aung San in their early days of independence, and the military coup in 1962, to the spirit of democratic revolution fanned by the protests of 8.8.88, only to be dealt a tragic blow by the killing of thousands of protesters, to the promise of democracy after, which was then exposed for the lie it was, after the victorious NLD was denied their right to rule, their parliamentarians detained or exiled, whilst their leader has been languishing under house arrest for the great bulk of the last 19 years. Each and every time, the promise of change was perverted into the eulogy of disappointment.

I can understand why ASEAN felt constructive engagement was the best way forward, especially in the early days. But after the years of futile engagement; after Razali Ismail himself gave up and resigned out of frustration; after Aung San Suu Kyi remained under arrest after countless appeals to the junta, we should have realised that the fruits of constructive engagement were never more than a faint mirage.

Whilst we stood by and ‘engaged’, the Burmese people have suffered so greatly. Just recently, they were relegated to the very bottom of the Corruption Perception Index, sharing the bottom spot with Somalia. Inflation is believed to be around 500% - a poignant piece in Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s book, Letters from Burma, shows exactly what this means - once upon a time, a Burmese breakfast was a delicious noodles dish, filled with soy and fish and duck eggs, sounding very much like a delicious mee kari.

When she was freed out of house arrest in 1996, soy and fish were almost impossible to afford, and even eggs had become a luxury. The dangers of MSG had replaced the nutrition of old - and worst of all, even this much-reduced dish, devoid of most of what made it special in the good days, had become the province of the fortunate - the majority could no longer even afford this meagre provision. That was ten years ago. Imagine how bad it must be now.

The military junta is not only inept when it comes to economic management, it also uses what little money there is to prop up its own military power. And that leads to the other, equally painful part of the Burmese experience - the oppression that they face. Detention, curfews, rape, assaults - every single human rights violation in the book can be identified as being part of life in Burma. Accounts of the junta’s genocidal campaign against the ethnic minorities make for harrowing reading - is it any wonder that so many of them end up as refugees in Malaysia?

The Burmese people are brave and strong. These latest protests more than prove that. But as long as we keep propping up the junta, their efforts will only come to nought. That is why this shift in ASEAN’s attitude should be welcomed. Our voices, together with those of India and China, should join the chorus of international condemnation. We, as Burma’s neighbours, have a greater ability to put pressure on junta - an ability which we must put to good use.

We should not reject sanctions out of hand - with investment in the oil industry, for example, I am certain that all of the benefits currently go the junta, and funds their oppression - stopping this rich source of income for the junta will not hurt the Burmese people, because it’s not helping them now anyway. Many other enterprises can be approached the same way - as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi says, any international investment which generates funds for the junta buys them their bullets, which makes them collaborators in the murder of Burmese civilian protesters. That is not something we should contemplate being party to.

At the same time, Malaysia must change the way it treats Burmese refugees. NGO’s such as Migrant Care and Tenaganita have long documented the pain suffered by the Burmese refugees in Malaysia. Our refusal to ratify the International Convention on Refugees has allowed us to treat them as illegal immigrants, thus forcing them into vile detention camps and exposing them to RELA brutality as well as completely undeserved corporal punishment.

This policy cannot continue. At least 50 000 Burmese refugees currently suffer in this manner. This is unacceptable. We have a duty as a relatively fortunate nation, to show these fellow human beings the compassion they deserve. Don’t tell me we don’t have the resources - thanks to the governments’ New CronyPutra Policy, we are nowhere near full capacity. This is not the right time to go into a full discussion of migration policy - the important thing to note is that, at the moment, we are severely mistreating these poor people. That’s the long and short of it.

And it may be difficult to recognise them as refugees, and find the resources to help them, but it can be done, and it must be done. Because the status quo is not an alternative, not unless we abandon all pretence at upholding any semblance of mercy and compassion. And for an administration priding itself on the pursuit of Islamic principles, such a move would be a true betrayal of everything that Islam stands for.

In a world where the only superpower behaves with no regard whatsoever for human decency, and where many of our friends in the Third World are scarcely any better, we must be different. Making a stand for human decency, and the right to one’s basic dignity as a human being, means confronting the Burmese military regime, doing all we can to make them realise that we are not going to tolerate their insanity any longer, and treating those who come to us for shelter with that same decency.

It also means stopping our own gross human rights violations - the ISA and Batu Buruk are but two examples which spring to mind. Clean up our own house, and be as forceful as we can on the world stage, and you have the basis for a truly ethical foreign policy - one that eschews double standards and willful blindness for principled stands and the courage to condemn.

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