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BURMA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT OCT 95 (2



Subject: BURMA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT OCT 95 (2.1-2.14)

/* posted Sat Jan 27 6:00am 1995 by DRUNOO@xxxxxxxxxxxx(DR U NE OO) in igc:reg.burma */
/* -----------" BURMA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT, OCT 95 (2.1-2.14) "---------- */
Following materials are reproduction from the findings of Human Rights
Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affair, Defence
and Trade of the Parliament of Australia, published in October 1995.
Anyone wishing to inquire about the book may contact Ms Margaret
Swieringa, Secretary, Human Rights Sub-Committee, Parliament House,
Canberra A.C.T. 2600, AUSTRALIA.
Best regards, U Ne Oo.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TWO: (2.1 - 2.14)
*************************
The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia
Joint Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade

A REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LACK OF PROGRESS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY
IN BURMA (MYANMAR)     October 1995

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN RIGHTS (2.1-2.14)
------------------------------------
A Definition

2.1 Human rights are the rights we have because we are human  beings;  they
do  not  belong  to  us  because  we  are Australian or Burmese, Chinese or
American  and  therefore  they  cannot  be  modified  or  coloured  by  our
nationality,  our  historical experience or our culture. this principle was
declared, but not invented, by the international community in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Since 1948 this Declaration  has  been
defined  and  elaborated upon by a series of covenants and conventions. The
Universal Declaration in conjunction with  the  International  Covenant  on
Civil  and  Political  Rights  (ICCPR)  and  the  International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)  make  up  the  International
Bill  of  Rights.  These documents represent the international consensus on
the rights  of  human  beings.  They  define  rights  that  are  universal,
inalienable  and  indivisable  -  shared  by  all  people  of  all cultures
regardless of race, creed  or  stage  of  development.  The  promotion  and
protection  of  human  rights  as  defined by these agreed standards is the
obligation of all governments who are members of  the  United  Nations  and
therefore  adhere  to  the  Charter  and  the  Universal Declaration. Being
universal rights, they are not  subject  to  the  limitations  of  national
sovereignty   nor   can   governments  claim  exemption  on  the  basis  of
international laws on non-intervention. This view has  been  reaffirmed  by
the  consensus  of the international community as recently as 1993 when the
World Conference of Human Rights adopted the Vienna Declaration.

2.2 The concept of human rights represents not simply a  moral  imperative,
although  it  rests upon the inherent dignity of human beings. It is driven
by the pragmatic  recogintion  that  the  abuse  of  human  rights  retards
development  by causing instability and insecurity - oppression, rebellion,
war and the  outflow  of  refugees.  Such  consequences  affect  the  vital
interests  of  neighbouring  countries  and  entitle them to scrutinise the
policies of other governments as far as those  policies  affect  the  human
rights of their citizens.

2.3  Burma  is  a  member  of the United Nations and voted in favour of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It has not ratified the  tow
major  covenants,  the  ICCPR or the ICESCR, and of the main conventions on
human rights, the Burmes Government[1] has ratified only  a  few.  However,
many  of the human rights complaints made against Burma concern breaches of
obligations agreed to in the conventions they have signed[2].  The  Burmese
Foreign  Minister,  U  Ohn  Gyaw, in October 1994 in addressing the General
Assembly in New York affirmed that his  Government  was  committed  to  the
principles contained in the Charter of the UNited Nations and the UNiversal
Declaration of HUman Rights.

2.4  The  Universal  Declaration  asserts  that it  is a common standard of
achievement for all peoples and all nations' and that:

        Article 1
        All human beings are born free and equal  in  dignity  and  rights.
        They  are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards
        one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

        Article 2
        Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms  set  forth  in
        this  Declaration,  without  distinction of any kind, such as race,
        colour,  sex,  language,  religion,  political  or  other  opinion,
        national or social origin, property or other status.

2.5  The Foreign Minister's initial emphatic affirmation of support for the
human rights principles of the international commuity  was  accompanied  by
equibocation  and  contradiction in the rest of his speech. For example, he
believed that there was still a need to develop  a  consensus  on  accepted
norms.  However this ignores the fact that international consensus has long
been achieved in the signing  of  the  Universal  Declaration  and  in  the
subsequent  covenants  and  conventions. The promised democracy, he argued,
would be  one  that  corresponded  with  the  'historical  experiences  and
prevailing  conditions  of  the  country  [3].  In  relation  to democratic
development he warned that 'no nation can claim monopoly  over  values  [4]
that'[Burma  was  in]  transition  period  and we cannot permit excesses of
freedom' and that 'too  hasty  a  process  will  only  lead  to  chaos  and
instability'[5].   He  also  complained  that  there  was  a  'clamour  for
individual rights' which ignored the right to  decent  food,  clothing  and
shelter  and  peace  and security. His misunderstanding of and hostility to
any notion of democracy was evident in the stridency of this statement:

        In placing  emphasis  on  individual  rights  above  everything  as
        expounded  by  some  people, are we to permit promiscuity, to break
        down family values,  to  ignore  respect  for  elders,  to  replace
        consensus building attitude with competition and confrontation.[6]

2.6  The  argument  that civil and political rights are a Western construct
inimical to the security and development of developing countries and  given
precedence  over  economic,  social  and  cultural rights was propounded in
Bangkok in the preliminary regional meeting  to  the  World  Conference  on
Human Rights in Vienna in 1993.

2.7  It  is  an  argument  frequently  heard  in  this region. But it is an
argument difficult to sustain in the face of the Vienna proclamation of the
indivisibility of the two covenants; neither covenant should  preclude  the
other nor precede the other.

2.8 The Bangkok NGO Declaration made prior to the World Conference on Human
Rights  made  none  of  the  qualifications  evident  in  the statements of
governments from this region. It concluded that 'Universal human rights are
rooted in many cultures. We affirm  the  basis  of  universality  of  human
rights  ...  and  ....  We  affirm  our  commitment  to  the  principle  of
indivisibility  and  interdependence  of  human  rights,  be  they   civil,
political,  economic,  social  or  cultural.' The NGOs claimed to speak for
ordinary Asian people and they claimed that  many  Asian  governments  were
elitist and unrepresentative and did not speak for the aspirations of their
people  in  the pronouncements they made on human rights. They believed the
governments feared the accountability inherent in human rights.

2.9 The experience in Burma clearly supports this claim. In the election of
1990 the party suppoted by the SLORC gained only 10 per cent of  the  vote.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) gained over 80 percent of the vote.
It is the NLD not the SLORC that has the only legitimate claim to speak for
the  people  of  Burma.  The  NLD  does not support the cultural relativist
argument on human rights. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the  General  Secretary  of
the party, stated:

        It is precisely because of the cultural diversity of the world that
        it is necessary for different nations and peoples to agree on those
        basic  human  values  which  will  act  as  a unifying factor. When
        democracy and human rights are said to run counter  to  non-western
        culture,  such culture is usually defined narrowly and presented as
        monolithic. In fact the values that democracy and human rights seek
        to promote can be found in many cultures. Human  beings  the  world
        over  need  freedom  and  security that they may be able to realise
        their full potential. The longing for a  form  of  governance  that
        provides  security  without  destroying  freedom  goes  back a long
        way.[7]

2.10 The Committee rejects U Ohn Gyaw's argument about cultural relativity.
Nor is it accurate to claim htat countries  like  Australia,  committed  to
human  rights, 'clamour' for individual rights at the expense of the rights
of communities. In the Western tradition, there is always a tension between
the rights of the individual and the rights of the  community.  It  is  the
role of independent courts in a country governed by the rule of law to make
judgements on the balance of these rights.

2.11  Australians,  particularly, have a long tradition of adherence to the
rights and duties due to communities. Australia was a social laboratory  at
the  beginning  of  this  centure which saw the new Commonwealth government
provide protection for the poor, the aged and the invalided. The  Harvester
Judgement  of  1907  heralded  a radical approach to the social contract by
seeking to determine a basic living wage for a family. In  the  discussions
leading  to  the  establishment  of  the  UN  the  then  Australian Foreign
Minister, Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, fought to have included in the UN Charter,
Article 56, which states that full employment and a high standard of living
are goals for the international community.

2.12 In Australia the ideal of the family has  legislative  recognition  as
the  fundamental  group unit of a society and it retains a strong emotional
force. Loving and honouring one's  parents  is  a  central  requirement  of
Christanity.  The  strains  on  the  family  are  as  much a product of the
atomising effects of  industralisation  as  of  the  philosophical  stance.
Industralisation  in  Asia will, and is, producing similar effects, despite
Confucianism, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism.

2.13 Aung San Suu Kyi propounds a similar view:

        Many of the worst ills of  American  society,  increasingly  to  be
        found  in  varying  degrees  in  other  developed countries, can be
        traced not to the democratic legacy but to the  demands  of  modern
        materialism.  ...  [C]ould  such a powerfully diverse nation as the
        United States have been prevented from disintegrating if it had not
        been  sustained  by  democratic  institutions   guaranteed   by   a
        constitution based on the assumption that man's capacity for reason
        and  justice  makes  free government possible and that his capacity
        for passion and injustice makes it necessary[8].

2.14 It must be stressed that the  democratic  tradition  is  born  of  the
belief  in the corruptibility of power; it is governments which, more often
than any other group, tyrannise their citizens. Through the  separation  of
legislative,  executive  and judicial powers, democracy seeks to defend and
protect the individual from the excesses of goernments  and  the  powerful.
This  is  neither  an  expensive  nor  chaotic  system,  nor  is it rampant
individualism.

Footnotes:
----------
[1] The SLORC took power in 1988  and  despite  the  outcome  of  the  1990
election  it has continued to act as the Government of Burma. The nature of
the takeover is described in Chapter 5. For the purposes of this report and
largely for convenience the SLORC will be referred to as the Government  of
Burma  but  this  should  in  no  way  be  taken  as  a  recognition of its
legitimacy.

[2] The Government of Burma has ratified the Geneva  Convention  of  August
1949  relating  to the conduct of war, the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime  of  Genocide,  the  Slavery  Convention  of  1926,
Convention  for  the  Suppression  of  the  Traffic  in  Persons and of the
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, ILO Conventions  -  the  Forced
Labour  Convention,  1930  (NO  29)  and the Freedom of Association and the
Protection  of  the  Right  to  Organise  Convention,  1948  (No  87),  the
Convention  on  the  Political  Rights  of Women, and the Convention on the
Rights of the Child.

[3] Mr MIchael Nyunt submission, p. S29.

[4] ibid., p. S29

[5] ibid., pp. S41-42

[6] ibid., p. S42

[7]  Aung  San Suu Kyi, Empowerment for a Culture of Peace and Development,
address to a meeting of the World Commission on  Culture  and  Development,
Manila,  21  November 1994, presented in her absence by Mrs Corazon Aquino,
p.6.

[8] ibid., p.6. Here Aung San Suu Kyi has recast a quotation from  Reinhold
Niebuhr. See footnotes to the address.

ENDS(2.1-2.14)\