Advocating for Burma at the Global Justice Center

On June 18th, we and our Global Justice Center (GJC) colleagues attended a protest in honor on of Aung San Suu Kyi (there is a slideshow of the event at http://burmapoint.com/index.php). The protest was organized by Amnesty International and Burma Point, and it denounced the military junta in Burma and advocated for Nobel Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom from house arrest. She is a political and human rights leader who has challenged the regime with peaceful means, and who has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years. As candidate for the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won the Burmese general election in 1990, she should technically have become Prime Minister, but was kept imprisoned by the junta instead.

After the protest, we attended a panel discussion on Aung San Suu Kyi and the situation in Burma. The President of the GJC, Janet Benshoof, spoke along with Jared Genser of Freedom Now (which "seeks to represent and secure the release of...'prisoners of conscience.'" See http://www.freedom-now.org/over.php), Moe Chan of Burma Point (which advocates for human rights and democracy in Burma. See http://burmapoint.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=12), and T. Kumar of Amnesty International. The moderator, Mr. Kumar, said that Amnesty International has been working on Aung San Suu Kyi's case for 20 years, and that there are also over 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma. This group was gathered, Mr. Kumar said, to send a message not only to the military junta but to its allies, particularly those in the region, without whom the junta could not survive.

Jared Genser agreed that there should be unanimous multi-lateral pressure placed on the junta and added that the UN Security Council should impose an arms embargo on the country and create a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes. The US, UK, Australia, Japan, China, India, among others, should also pressure the junta to hold new and fair elections. Though he is counsel for Aung San Suu Kyi, Mr. Genser emphasized that he was not authorized to speak on her behalf. He reminded the audience of her words, however, to "please use your freedom to promote ours." As to her situation, Mr. Genser notified us that the UN has just issued its sixth judgment that she is being held in contravention of international law. He spoke of the upcoming election in Burma - set to be held towards the end of 2010 - which Aung San Suu Kyi's party (the NLD) will be boycotting. Per Mr. Genser, this election will likely be a repeat of the systematic corruption of the constitution ratification vote that the junta held immediately after Cyclone Nargis in 2008, while the country was in a state of complete crisis. The constitution which was "ratified" in 2008 is severely flawed -- it reserves power almost absolutely to the military, it legalizes military coups, it leaves ethnic groups little to no autonomy over their areas, and it received no input from the NLD or ethnic minorities. Mr. Genser said that the results of the upcoming elections are pre-ordained.

Janet Benshoof said that the upcoming elections are an "important turning point for the global community to end the law-free zone in Burma." She shared her view that there is impunity in Burma unlike in any other country. The Burmese judges who have imprisoned prisoners of conscience have committed crimes against humanity. These judges may use the same excuse as Nazi judges and others used - that they are just following orders - but they are "wielding court orders like weapons of mass destruction," Ms. Benshoof said. There should be no immunity for such judges - they must be arrested if they step foot into the U.S, she also said. In line with this view, Ms. Benshoof said current and past prisoners of conscience are entitled to immediate reparations. The UN should set up a fund so that they can receive reparations without the need for a criminal trial.

The GJC thinks there is a basis to argue that certain parts of common Article 3 have crystallized into peremptory norms (norms from which no country may derogate), established through customary international law. In line with this, the GJC is looking at the gross and systematic violations of common Article 3 by the Burmese constitution. The GJC argues that the international community must treat the constitution, and the upcoming elections with which the regime seeks to validate that constitution, as null and void. Ms. Benshoof likened this move to the Security Council Resolution which declared the South African elections in 1984 null and void due to apartheid. The Security Council must take action on Burma in this respect, per Ms. Benshoof, and it also must be pushed to refer Burma to the International Criminal Court. Since Burma is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, Burma can likely only be subject to the ICC's jurisdiction as a result of a Security Council referral. To this end, members of the Security Council - especially China - must be convinced of the need for such a resolution. This is the objective of the Global Justice Center's main project.

Moe Chan spoke of the precarious nature of Aung San Suu Kyi's situation. The junta has killed many citizens and it might assassinate her at any time, he said. Even if she is freed, her life will be in danger. Mr. Chan told the audience about an attack on Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy, in which 100 NLD members and supporters were killed, as one piece of evidence of the junta's criminal behavior. He explained that Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested under the Burmese criminal code for "subversive acts," when all she did was "talk to people" and run for office. She was last sentenced to 18 months of house arrest, which would be over in November 2010. Mr. Chan urge the U.S., UN, China and other Asian nations to keep up the pressure on the junta to release her according to this time line that the junta itself expressly set.

- Maria-Elena and Jocy