The decision by the National League for Democracy (NLD) not to stand in this year’s elections in Burma is not unexpected.
Ever since the ruling military junta passed the constitution two years ago, the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi has been trapped between a rock and a hard place. The new election laws passed just a few weeks ago appear to have been the final straw.
The NLD won just under 60 per cent of the vote the last time elections were held in Burma back in 1990 – only for the junta to ignore the result and cling to power. The NLD would have been expected to do well in this year’s poll and by not taking part they are spurning a chance to have a degree of influence over the day-to-day running of the South-East Asian state.
On the other hand, had they participated the NLD would risk adding legitimacy to a constitution and a process Amnesty International firmly believes to be flawed. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his dismay at how the process is panning out last week, even before the decision today by the NLD.
The new laws bar all prisoners from belonging to a political party. In Burma there are 2,200 political prisoners, which effectively means that the main opposition parties would have to expel their leaders to take part in the elections.
Of the NLD Central Committee, Amnesty currently lists 10 as prisoners of conscience. Khun Htun Oo, the chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy – the party that came second in the 1990 poll – is currently serving 93 years in prison for opposing the junta’s plan for a new constitution back in 2005.
Aung San Suu Kyi is a notable exception – she was barred two years ago as a possible candidate for the presidency. The 2008 constitution forbids citizens married to foreign nationals from taking part in that process.
At a time when the international community is calling on a relaxing of the restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly, the new laws were yet another step backwards and hint at further repression to come.
And the situation in Burma is already bleak.
In a report released last month, Amnesty documented a significant number of human rights abuses since the monks and nuns uprising in September 2007. The authorities have arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed activists from ethnic minority groups in the country. All political groups face extensive surveillance, harassment and discrimination when trying to carry out their legitimate activities. The influential 88 Generation Students, who helped lead the 2007 protests, are facing continuing persecution. At least 23 of their top leaders are now serving 65 years in prison.
Arbitrary arrests and detention; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; unfair trials; extra-judicial killings; forced labour; violations of freedom of expression, assembly, association, and religion; intimidation and harassment; and discrimination are all common place.
The constitution will ensure that 25 per cent of the seats in both of the new houses of parliament will be reserved for soldiers hand-picked by the junta. The ministeries for defence, security and border affairs will also have to be headed up by a member of the army.
However, the reality is that Burma is to hold elections and a possible reason to do so has to be to win favour with the international community – and that’s where the hope remains.
It is now up to Burma’s neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a regional grouping – and in particular Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines – as well as China, Burma’s biggest international supporter, to put pressure on the junta.
They must insist that the Burmese government put in place the right human rights conditions in the run up to the elections to ensure the Burmese people’s right to political participation.
The junta needs to lift restrictions on freedom of expression, association, assembly in the run-up to the elections; to release immediately and unconditionally all political prisoners; and to remove restrictions on independent media to cover the campaigning and election process.
Failure by the ASEAN nations to do so will make a far bigger statement than that issued by the NLD today.
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