The Nation-Women's NGOs, Burma's la

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Subject: The Nation-Women's NGOs, Burma's latest propaganda tool

The Nation June 20, 1999.
Editorial & Opinion
Women's NGOs, Burma's latest propaganda tool

With Aung San Suu Kyi celebrating her birthday yesterday, a day designated
Burma Women's Day, Moe Aye looks at the endeavours of the generals' wives,
who are working to divert attention from the Nobel Peace Laureate.

While intentional freedom fighters, activists and Burmese in exile around
the world celebrated the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday, a day
designated ''Burma Women's Day'', the majority of Burmese women are still in
the kitchen and busy with their daily toil. Meanwhile the junta's women's
organisations are also busy in their own way, running their businesses and
companies.

Although Burmese in exile have the right to celebrate and show their
feelings freely and openly, women inside Burma have to keep their feelings
to themselves and have no right even to send a greeting card to ''The
Lady''. They do not even have the right to say publicly that today is the
birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi. Except for the few NLD members who will have
the right to join celebrations at Daw Suu's house, any attempt to mark the
event in public will certainly result in a long prison term.

Before this day began to be celebrated as Burma Women's day, the junta
oppressed and arrested anyone who marked it publicly, but since The Lady's
birthday became Burma Women's day outside Burma, the junta's attitude has
become even harsher.

As women's issues are being raised around the world, the junta has been
trying to found many women's organisations in order to divert the attention
of women inside Burma. Now, there are many women's organisations inside
Burma such as the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association (MMCWA) and
the Myanma Women Entrepreneurs' Association (MWEA), but all are led by the
generals' wives. Lat December the junta held the first Myanmar Women's
Conference. Surprisingly the main recommendation adopted at the conference
was to open a Women's Bank and to promote the economic advancement of women
in Myanmar. Nothing was said about ethnic women being raped and killed by
the junta's troops.

Dr Khin Win Shwe, wife of Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt (Secretary-1 in the military
regime), recently said at a seminar on women's affairs in Rangoon that

participants must learn how to protect Burmese women from terrorists and how
to rehabilitate them.

Ma Aye Aye Mar, Central Executive Committee member of the Burma Women's
Union (BWU), an organisation founded by a group of female students on the
Thai-Burma border on Jan 7, 1995, responded: ''She should know first who is
committing these terrors, and as a woman she must learn the causes of the
abuse of women's rights. She does not need to go away to learn about this.
She could just ask her husband, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, why the army continues to
commit crimes against ethnic women like a bloodthirsty beast. Why does the
MWEA and the Myanmar National Committee for Women's Affairs exclude women
who are involved in politics and who seek safety on the Thai-Burma border?
Is raping and killing their own ethnic women their 'protection programme'
for women? Is keeping away from politics the Burmese way to women's
rights?''

Her questions highlight the situation of Burmese women and the so-called
women's NGOs founded by the military regime. In 1994 Ma Tin Tin Nyo, a
prominent young female student leader, committed suicide after being
releaased from the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) interrogation centre.
Nobody yet knows why she did so. According to former women political
prisoners, however, all were sexually abused by the MIS. A female Western
diplomat in Rangoon also said: ''Although women around the rest of the world
are speaking out loudly for women's rights, the junta's Myanmar Women
Entrepreneurs Association talks only about 'protection programmes for
women'. You can clearly see that in their organisations' aims and objectives
the terms 'women's rights' and 'politics' are absent. I think political
reform will come very slowly''.

The junta always claims that it recognises the crucial role of women in
society and thus a national machinery, namely the Myanmar National Committee
for Women's Affairs, was established on July 3, 1996. Activities related to
the development of women are now said to be carried out in Burma with added
momentum under the umbrella of a national-level committee for women.
Moreover, the junta boasts that there are many women's social organisations
and that the MWEA is one of the leading organisations.

Its claims, however, cause many Burmese women some amusement. All women's
organisations, including the MWEA, are headed by the wives of top junta
members, and their leadership is largely a spousal mirror of the junta's
military and political chain of command. All members of the MWEA have to
donate 10,000 kyat for life-membership fees and 1,200 kyat for monthly fees,
in a country where the monthly salary for high-school teachers is only 1,200
kyat. What's more, certain people, especially those who support Aung San Suu
Kyi and her NLD, cannot join those so-called women's organisations. Worse,
the MWEA and its branches ignore the lives of ethnic women on the Thai-Burma
border. Many women whose husbands and loved ones are jailed for their
involvement in politics are struggling very hard to take care of their
families, but they are also excluded from the junta's women's organisations.


If the MWEA and the Myanmar National Committee for Women's Affairs are
concerned about their own women and want to protect them from terrorists,
the question of why they are silent about the ethnic women who are being
raped and killed by the military needs to be answered.

If those organisations are independent NGOs, the question why they dare not
grant membership to women who support the democracy movement and the NLD
needs to be answered. While women around the world demand to have reasonable
equal rights, the MWEA and the Myanmar National Committee for Women's
Affairs counsel Burmese women to follow and respect their husbands and to
concentrate on increasing their income instead of thinking about politics.
Whenever they hold small seminars in rural areas, they proclaim that
politics is not the business of Burmese women. The seminars, supposedly for
the education of women who live in rural areas, end by criticising and
denouncing Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD.

In reality all women's organisations are set up by the military, not to
concentrate on women's issues but to push women out of politics. While
women's issues are being discussed around the world, the big problem for the
military regime is that the strongest and most daring opponent of the regime
in Burma is a woman, who is also a Nobel Peace laureate. Another problem is
that the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi has become Burma Women's Day. On the
one hand they claim that women cannot govern the country, while on the other
they try to show the international community that they are committed to
dealing with women's issues, by organising so-called women's NGOs led by
their wives.

Recently Dr Cynthia Maung, who ministers to 20,000 refugees fleeing Burma's
version of ethnic cleansing, became the first recipient of the Jonathan Mann
Award. International medical associations, international bodies and
activists refer to her as the ''Mother Theresa of Burma''.

The junta, however, snubbed the commendation, claiming it was orchestrated
by the West. Instead of acknowledging the honour of having two Burmese women
as winners of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Jonathan Mann Award, the junta
denigrates those who have recognised these two great ladies for dedicating
their lives to helping their people. The junta's women's organisations have
also been silent.

Women inside Burma face great hardship. Ethnic women in particular are no
strangers to terror and extreme abuse. The junta's supposed women's NGOs
have revealed that they are simply a propaganda tool of the junta, incapable
of addressing the very serious issues faced by millions of women inside
Burma. The international community must not allow itself to be taken in by
this facade. A basic requirement of any NGO inside Burma is that it be
independent of the junta.

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Moe Aye is a correspondent fpr the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Radio
station based in Oslo.