Junta Has Crushed Peaceful Dissent: Laura Bush

By LALIT K JHA

NEW YORK – Praising the courage of the people of Burma for standing up to the barbaric rule of the country’s junta, US first lady Laura Bush said on Wednesday that the Burmese military regime has crushed peaceful dissent for decades.

“Children are conscripted as soldiers, and families are forced to perform life-threatening labor,” Bush told a select audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, speaking on the occasion of Human Rights Day.

Bush, who has taken a personal interest in the plight of Burma, has been instrumental in shaping US policy on the country during her eight years in the White House. She has spent a significant amount of time talking about the country, its people and the brutality of its military rulers.

“The women of Burma have responded to this brutality with inspiring courage,” she said, adding that she herself has been inspired by the leadership and courage of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Referring to her frequent interaction with Burmese, Bush recalled her visit to the Thai-Burmese border in August, where she met Dr Cynthia Maung, who operates the Mae Tao clinic.

Hundreds of patients pass through the clinic’s doors every day. Most are migrant workers or refugees from Burma, while many others make the dangerous cross-border journey to Thailand because they have no access to health care in Burma.

“At Dr Cynthia’s clinic, I saw an American doctor performing eye surgery removing cataracts, which let people who had had these very severe cataracts see again for the first time, and it was a really—it was a thrill to get to see that. And also I saw victims of land mines waiting for treatment in the clinic,” she said.

Dr Cynthia left Burma in 1988, joining thousands of others who fled to Thailand following the military’s crackdown on a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. She crossed the border and opened the clinic expecting to be there for a few months, but 20 years later, she’s still there.

“The ruling junta has labeled Dr Cynthia an insurgent and an opium-smuggling terrorist. But she continues her work to give the people of Burma the care their government denies them,” Bush said.

Observing that a single voice can be a great weapon against a regime that denies basic human rights, Bush said in April she presented the Vital Voices Human Rights Global Leadership Award to Charm Tong.

At the age of 17, Charm Tong stood before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to describe the military campaign being carried out against women in Burma’s Shan State.

“She spoke unflinchingly of rape and abuse, though her audience included representatives of the regime she condemned. Charm Tong continues to speak out about the regime’s abuses, and she ministers to the needs of those who have fled Burma,” the first lady said.

Bush also recounted the heroism of another Burmese woman, Su Su Nway, who defied junta representatives who tried to force her and her fellow villagers to repair a road.

“She brought the local officials to court under a law prohibiting forced labor—and she won. But the government filed a complaint against Su Su Nway for ‘insulting and disrupting a government official on duty.’ This labor activist was sentenced to 18 months in jail. She was released in June 2006 and then returned immediately to advocate for human rights. Then she was arrested in … November 2007 after posting fliers near a UN official’s hotel. She has since been sentenced to 12 years.”

Bush said all these female dissidents were following in the footsteps of Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s only detained Nobel Peace Prize winner.

As leader of the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest. The NLD won the last countrywide election in 1990, but has never been permitted to take power.

“Her example of strength has earned support from around the world, including from here in the United States,” Bush said, recalling bipartisan expressions of solidarity for the detained democracy icon in the US Senate.

Bush also took aim at Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who heads the Burmese junta, for his ongoing campaign to silence opponents of the regime ahead of planned elections in 2010, despite promises of working toward a democratic transition for his country.

“Since the Saffron Revolution of 2007, the number of political prisoners in Burma has increased from around 1,100 to more than 2,100 now. Female activist Nilar Thein was forced to leave her newborn child and flee into hiding. After a year on the run, she was captured and jailed this September. Her husband is also imprisoned,” Bush said.

The first lady said the Burmese military junta has repeatedly ignored calls from the international community to end its repression, and is instead going ahead with its own agenda.

Bush also announced another $5 million in disaster assistance funds to communities devastated by Cyclone Nargis.

“This assistance will support the efforts of non-governmental organizations like the World Food Program and Save the Children to ensure access to clean water, adequate shelter, basic health services, and other essential needs in the most affected areas,” she said.