Exaggerations on Myanmar affairs as international affairs

Under the directives of Vaclav Havel and Desmond Tutu was a report on Myanmar affairs dated 20 September 2005, the statements of which are in contrary with prevailing situations of remarkable development in Myanmar enjoying peace and stability. In the report, the two men call on the United Nations Security Council to act against Myanmar as she is posing threat to regional peace and security. Destructive elements with negative views and anti-government groups are loudly voicing their support for the report. Myanmar, a member of ASEAN, plays an active role in the ASEAN affairs and cooperates with the member countries. It has been able to make sustainable progress in constructive relations with her neighbours and regional nations. Even if Myanmar affairs are posing dangers to peace and security, the nations that are to be worried over and fear the threats should be her neighbouring and regional nations. It is sure that there is something wrong with the demands of the nations that are quite far from Myanmar, and that is like a Myanmar saying “The unconcerned worries more than the concerned. The report was designed to launch political attacks on the nation and to harm the ASEAN principles.

The first ASEAN Summit held in 1976 reached an agreement on friendship and cooperation, and it prescribed the following principles as directives in relations among the member nations.

1. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all nations;

2. The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coersion;

3. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;

4. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful means;

5. Renunciation of the threat or use of force;

6. Effective cooperation among themselves.

Thanks to the adherence to the principles, the members have been able to hold discussions and build mutual trust and reliance among them. So, since the birth of the ASEAN, the disputes and tensions among the member have never grown to armed conflicts.

In respect of the conception on international relations and human rights of the People’s Republic of China, a close friend of ASEAN nations, the nation said that it calls for boosting international cooperation within the frame of human rights based on the principle to find out mutual understanding and similarities and to put aside differences. However, any nations should not disregard respective historic backgrounds and prevailing political, economic and cultural situations of other nations on the track of achieving and preserving human rights. Moreover, sovereign nations need to profoundly recognize and safeguard human rights through prescription of domestic laws. As pointed out in the resolutions of the 45th UN General Assembly, every nation has rights to adopt their political, social, economic and cultural policies and to promote these sectors on their own. The resolution of the 46th UN General Assembly also pointed out that there could not be the only development system that was appropriate for all cultures and peoples. It is improper and impossible to make comments and to put pressure on other nations to copy its policy, prescribing its policy as if it were the model standard.

So, the major aims and movements of international human rights preservation shall contribute towards regular cooperation, reconciliation of nations, mutual understanding and respects within the frame of international human rights. It should be taken into consideration various political, economic and social systems, different background histories, faiths, and views of the nations with own cultures, about human rights. In the process, steps should be taken based on the spirit of finding out similarities, ignoring differences, mutual respects, enhancing of understanding, and strengthening cooperation.

Modern political science says that human societies create own histories. They cannot do in conformity with the wishes and circumstances the people favour, but with the situations handed down in the past.

That was given witness by the speech of Thurgood Marshall who served for the US Supreme Court for 24 years and was influential at the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association's annual seminar, held in Maui, Hawaii in 1987.

He said, “I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today.

He added, “For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: "We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at three-fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years.

“These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States, he said.

“And so, nearly seven decades after the Constitutional Convention, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the prevailing opinion of the Framers regarding the rights of Negroes in America. It took a bloody civil war before the 13th Amendment could be adopted to abolish slavery, though not the consequences slavery would have for future Americans, he said.

“And so we must be careful, when focusing on the events which took place in Philadelphia two centuries ago, that we not overlook the momentous events which followed, and thereby lose our proper sense of perspective. Otherwise, the odds are that for many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives.

“If we seek, instead, a sensitive understanding of the Constitution's inherent defects, and its promising evolution through 200 years of history, the celebration of the "Miracle at Philadelphia" will, in my view, be a far more meaningful and humbling experience”.

The above-mentioned facts can be deemed to be a brief history of the democracy transition carried out by respective generations of the US. So, the US should be very careful in putting pressure on and imposing various sanctions against developing countries and should not forget its historic events. It should also review its acts to win the support of other nations to discuss Myanmar affairs in the UN Security Council to be able to notice that its drive is for democracy transition of Myanmar or for its domination over the nation. It is because democracy cannot flourish in no time in the nation by just holding discussions in the UN Security Council and just taking action against the nation by the SC. To flourish democracy rests absolutely on the prevailing situations of the nation concerned.

It has been a tangible proof that democracy cannot flourish at all in Afghanistan and Iraq that the US and its associates have invaded for the flourishing of democracy there.

Why Vaclav and Tutu submitted a report full of exaggerations on Myanmar affairs to the UN Security Council to take action against the nation was because the attacks launched on Myanmar under the pretext of narcotic drugs, forced conscription of child soldiers, forced labour and human rights did not work at all. Like Hsaddan Hsinmin Jataka, those who are anxious to grab the advantages of the report, who instigated the report, and who submitted it are separate persons or elements. Therefore, I would say it is just an exaggeration with a call on the UN Security Council to take action against Myanmar as though that were international affairs, which is translating into practice the State’s seven-point Road Map for peacefully transforming into a democratic nation and enjoying fruitful results of peace and stability due to the fact that 17 national race armed groups have returned to the legal fold and are putting energetic endeavours into the national development tasks.

Author : Aung Moe San