Organisations: Overseas National Student’s Union of Burma,

Burmese Refugee Helping Body, Burmese Rohingya Association

of Thailand and Thai Free Burma / Peace for Burma
We, representatives of our orgnisations, are here at the UN Building in Bangkok to
register our profound disappointment that the organization of the UN, headed by Ban
Ki-moon who is visiting Bangkok today, has made such pitifully fruitless efforts to
bring about a resolution to Burma’s problems throughout decades of military
dictatorship.
We also wish to register disapproval and protest that the single agency responsible for
the vast majority of Burma’s woes, the SPDC/junta, is being allowed to go ahead and
cement its control of power in Burma through an election on the 7th November which
is transparently NOT going to be free, nor fair.
We also take this opportunity to voice our support for all Burmese people who have
suffered so egregiously under decades of brutal misrule by the SPDC/junta. Their
suffering now is as bad as it has ever been and thanks to inaction by governments of
countries in the region and the UN there is little sign that things are going to get better
for them any time soon.
The SPDC/junta and its predecessors are infamous for episodes of brutal repression;
student protests in 1964, countrywide protests in 1988, the Depayin massacre of 2003
most recently the Saffron Revolution in 2007.
Signally the almost complete deficit of humanity in SPDC command was monstrously
demonstrated when offers of international assistance were implacably refused in the
immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
The SPDC/junta shaped to ignore the clamour of outrage at the regime for turning its
back on at least 2 million people that survived the worst natural disaster to strike
Burma in recorded history. No, of much more concern to the generals at that time was
their so-called “road map” to democracy; a process initiated following the 1990
election that up until 2008 had primarily consisted of an excruciatingly drawn-out
constitution drafting effort.
As aid agencies battled against the bureaucratic barriers imposed by the regime the
largely unethical constitution was ‘rubber stamped’ in a referendum which the
‘government’ laughably claimed was accepted by 92.7% of a 98% turnout. The 2008
constitution was thus signed into law; including legal mechanisms to ensure power
would effectively remain in the hands of the military and that no legal action could
ever be taken against any member of the SPDC for the manifest crimes it had
authored during its tyrannical rule. It beggars belief that even 0.1% of the voters
would say yes to this article.
Burma has become a severely impoverished country due to massive and systematic
larceny perpetrated by the junta; a perfect example is the way in which dollar earnings
from gas exports have a wholly unrealistic “official” exchange rate applied when
converted to Burmese Kyat. Consequently approximately 99% of the value is ‘lost’
before the money reaches government coffers.
Thanks to the SPDC/junta Burma's problems are truly horrendous - estimates vary but
anywhere between 30% and 70% of the fifty-plus million population are living in
rank poverty. Moreover problems are not contained within Burma's borders. At least

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two million Burmese have voted with their feet and now strive to keep body and soul
together for themselves and their families here in Thailand. We largely commend the
government and people of Thailand for accepting and hosting such a large number of
people but we respectfully urge the lawmakers dealing with these issues to listen to
the concerns of experts, such as the Human Rights Development Foundation, who are
working selflessly on behalf of migrants and exiles. There are matters of serious
concern that deserve the calm, considerate and humane approach that characterises the
best of Thai people and Thailand.
We cannot emphasize enough how desperate the situation in Burma is as a whole and
particularly in border/ethnic populated areas - a recently published report from Mae
Tao Clinic in Mae Sot, Tak Province describes a harrowingly grim set of
circumstances in eastern border areas where some 30% of the population have
suffered some form of human rights abuse and as many as one in six children never
reach the age of five! This is likely to be typical of most if not all Burma's border
areas which the regime has especially targeted in a campaign of ruthless and brutal
oppression. It is ethnic cleansing by any name you may choose.
Those who equate the SPDC/junta's electoral shenanigans with a bona fide democratic
process are willingly or otherwise completely delusional. Whilst others who see the
process as 'flawed' but offering a chink of light in a tunnel of stygian darkness must be
optimistic in the extreme. At no time in more than 48 years of military dictatorship
have the regime(s) shown any indication of voluntarily relinquishing any significant
measure of their brutal control. We do not expect that situation to change at all with
this election.
Only concerted pressure on the SPDC/junta's finances, their life-blood, will bring
them to their senses and the negotiating table with anything like a demeanour of
sincerity.
We lament the fact that the UN, under the stewardship of Ban Ki-moon, has made
pitiably little headway in fostering positive change in Burma and hope that a renewed,
sterner resolve on his part will soon be forthcoming. The arguments are clear and
almost entirely on the UN's side, if they chose to use them we are sure real progress
could be made.
As ever our basic demands are that the SPDC/junta should:– 1. release political
prisoners, 2. end attacks on ethnic communities and 3. open a time-constrained
dialogue with all interested parties to resolve Burma’s problems. This is what the
population of Burma want – and most of the world would want if it knew or cared
about Burma.
Signed,
Naing Tun Lin (BRHB)
Than Pe (ONSOB)
Abdul Kalam (BRAT)
Julian Pieniazek (TFB /PfB)
26th October 2010