Expel Burma from UN
U.S. Congressman Bill Richardson is, perhaps, the latest but certainly not the last to have described the very bleak picture of the overall political and human rights situation in Burma.
There is serious repression, regression and retrenchment by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in the areas of human rights and democratization since the first half of this year, said the Democrat representative from New Mexico after a brief two-day visit to Burma, his third since last year.
His depiction resembles those of exiled Burmese opposition and ethnic movements, and most of all of the silent Burmese majority whose freedom of speech and expression have been severely suppressed since 1962.
In May 1990, over 80 percent of the Burmese populace rose up in defiance to vote wholeheartedly to replace the dictatorial rule of nearly three decades with the budding three-year-old National League for Democracy (NLD) of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Burmese people showed the military junta that Suu Kyi was still popular despite her unlawful house arrest a year earlier.
The NLD leader's only crime is her bold challenge and unbridled criticism of the heavy-handed policy of the armed forces, which her father built up in the late 1940s at the height of the independence struggle.
The 1991 Noble Peace Prize laureate, who refuses to negotiate her conditional release, declines to be submissive to those who have tried to silence her by imprisonment and separation from her loved ones.
She also urges the Burmese people never to give up their aspirations for freedom and democracy in the face of intimidation and physical and mental harassment.
Although Burma has not been a priority on the international agenda, the gross human rights violations and the continuing political repression there cannot be ignored by the world.
Also, SLORC's recent open hostility and aggressiveness against neighboring Thailand, which is one of its strong defenders, could jeopardize peace and stability in Southeast Asia.
United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who has been mandated by the General Assembly to look into ways to improve the situation in Burma, has to seriously consider measures that would help bring about positive and genuine changes in the country.
His good office has to send SLORC a clear message that the junta's aggressiveness and complete disrespect for human rights will no longer be tolerated.
As such, clear deadlines will have to be set.
The UN, where SLORC is still recognized, will have to adopt a cumulative policy with a time frame to pressure SLORC to give in to popular Burmese demands.
Perhaps July 19 should be the date for the beginning of a series of harsh sanctions on Burma.
If Suu Kyi is not released by that deadline, the UN should come up with a strong open condemnation of the Rangoon junta.
If SLORC is still intransigent in its behavior, there should be no qualms in initiating action to unseat the junta's representation at the world body.
SLORC is an illegitimate government, and the UN has every right to expel it.
-- The Nation, Bangkok