Current State of Affairs BURMA This insight was prepared by Myo Thien, director of the Burma Democratic Concerns.He compared the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles toBurma’s on going violations under the stewardship of General Than Shwe. This isthe current state of affairs within the borders of Burma.Burmese Military Regime’s Abuses of Human Rights1. All Burmese people are not born free and equal in dignity and rights. Theyare born under the prison like situation and even our leader, Aung San Suu Kyionce said that “We are prisoners in our own country”. Burmese people are starving,malnutrition and no place for reason and conscience for citizen of Burma. Motto ofmilitary government is that “I don’t want to know there is a hole in water bottlebut I just want to have water” which reflect the tyranny, ignorant and negligenceof junta’s motive toward public. Regime is ruling the country with divide and rulepolicy by favoring its cronies and extremely suppressing dissidents.2. Burmese citizens do not have all the rights and freedom set forth inUniversal Declaration of Human Rights. They are discriminated due to their race,colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or socialorigin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be madeon the basis of the political, jurisdictional. Ethnics people are denied theirrights of autonomy and their languages are not promoted equally, women rights aredenied systematically, democracy activists are tortured, passed down lengthyprison sentences and denied medical treatment for ailing political prisoners.Peasants and farmers are 70% of the population but military regime treated themlike nothing more than human robots and denied all the rights they deserve tohave. Above all, they are the most oppressed people in Burma and internationalcommunity always overlook their welfare as they are mostly populated insidecentral Burma where they don’t have any opportunity to be seen by outside worldand do not have opportunity to get in touch with neighboring countries. They arethe most forgotten people of Burma and social, educational and health carestandard they received are lower than world’s lowest standard.3. No one has the right to life, liberty, and security of person in Burma.Peaceful demonstrators who demand for human rights and freedom are shot dead bymilitary regime and prisoners are tortured; place them in solitary confinement,and forced to work in very harsh weather, location and not provided with enoughnutrition.4. Burmese military regime treated all the prisoners including politicalprisoners as if they are the slaves. They do not have proper rights in the prisonand systematically designed to treat them with degrading and humiliatingtreatments. Food they fed is worse than animal food and do not have mattress orbed in the prison. They are forced to sleep on the concrete floor and in someplaces where temperature is below zero and inmates are forced to live withouthaving enough covers. Military regime is even treating soldiers as thedomesticated slaves who they use to kill its own people and attack ethnicsnationalities. Apart from top brass generals and their cronies who can enjoylavish life style and exploit country’s resources, all the lower rank soldiers arebrain washed, controlled totally over their lives and put them in the position of“kill or be killed”. They do not have any rights for reason and conscience bymolding them into the system “Army is a father and army is a mother” which can belaterally translated into “We own you, you belong to us and you must loyal to us”.They also instigate ultimate fear to the soldiers by “One blood, one voice, onecommand” which can be laterally translated into “You must die for us whatever thesituation is, you must listen to us no matter what, and you must obey to us

without question”. Soldiers from Burmese army are too fearful to voice for theirright, life and to do the right things. They are exploited and manipulated by abunch of generals and they are no more than killing machines to protect theircling into power.5. Everyone shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degradingtreatment or punishment. Abuses of military regime committed on politicaldissidents, prisoners, forced labours, forced porter, forced sex slaves anddenying medical treatments to political prisoners who need urgent medicaltreatment are well documented.6. In Burma, not everyone is recognized as a person before the law asmilitary regime never treated dissidents as a person. They never hesitate to killanyone who opposes them.7. The military regime maintained complete control over the legal system andremained unbound by any legislation or constitutional provision for a fair trial,due process of law or any other rights. Military regime is always above the lawand laws are what they said and what they wanted to do.8. In Burma, military government denies basic rights to due process of law, afair and public trial in political cases. No trials of political prisoners wereopen to the public, and in many cases reported details of the case were not evenavailable to the defendant’s family; such as the reason for arrest, sentencing orlocation of the person detained. Frequently the detainee is not informed underwhich section or article he or she is being detained. In addition, detaineesrarely have access to legal counsel or the opportunity to obtain release on bail.The accused may be held for lengthy periods of time without any communication.Trials for political detainees are normally held in courtrooms on prisoncompounds, in a “special court”, and defendants are given little chance to speak,are ignored when they do make statements and certainly are not permitted toproperly defend themselves. Even after being charged, political prisoners arestill denied the right to proper legal counsel.9. The military maintains an extensive network of Military Intelligence (MI),informers, police, militias such as Swan-Arr-Shin and Union Solidarity andDevelopment Association (USDA) members, ready to arrest anyone suspected ofholding or expressing anti-government opinions in Burma. Laws have beenestablished that criminalize freedom of thought, expression, association, assemblyand movement, thus legitimizing these arbitrary arrests and continued toarbitrarily detain people across Burma for associating with opposition groups.These types of detentions occurred commonly and in most cases individuals allegedof such illegal association were detained, interrogated and many were tortured,without warrant, charge or trial. In addition, thousands of democracy activistsgot to flee from Burma as more and more worsen situation of their lives asmilitary put pressure on them persistently making them unable to stay inside thecountry.10. In Burma, the military maintained complete control over the legal system andremained unbound by any legislation or constitutional provision for a fair trial,due process of law or any other rights. Military government denies basic rights todue process of law, a fair and public trial in political cases. No trials ofpolitical prisoners were open to the public, and even defend counsels aresentenced to prison because simply they defending for dissidents but accused themof perverting the court. There are hundreds of well documented cases such asmilitary regime handed down very harsh and lengthy prison sentences to dissidentsbecause they are simply calling for national reconciliation in Burma peacefullyand respect for human rights and betterment of Burma.

11. Political dissidents are charged with the offences actually they do not commitand presumed guilty before they are arrested. All the witnesses are created bymilitary intelligence and police. Especially they use the junta back militias suchas Swan-Arr-Shin and USDA members. Dissidents are handed down very heavy prisonsentences up to more than 100 years in prison each.12. In Burma, no one shall not be private life, family, and home or correspondenceespecially we can be seen in the cases of political dissidents. Military regimeultimately and purposely attacks the honour and reputation of the dissidents.There is no law in Burma to protect such abuses and military regime is the one whocommit such the culprit crime.13. People of Burma do not have the freedom of movement. They need to show travelpass or identity card even to travel within the country whenever they travel.There are hundreds of check points and gates where everyone are searched, arrestedwithout warrant if someone is suspected of opposing the regime and interrogated.Dissidents in Burma face very difficult situation if they want to leave Burma incase of fleeing from persecuting. They are very unlikely to have passport legallyand any political dissidents in exile will be arrested in return and can besentenced to prison for life accusing them with various accounts such astravelling without proper documents, passport, or entering or leaving illegally.14. Burma is not a place for asylum as the human rights situation inside Burma isescalating downhill very rapidly. People of Burma are facing persecution day inand day out from checking visitors list at night if someone got caught withoutreporting to authorities that they have the guest who will stay overnight can besentenced to prison to peaceful protester can be killed anytime anywhere becauseof exercising their rights-freedom of expression. Dissidents are accused ofcriminal offences which they do not commit. In Burma, possessing telephone orfacsimile or any electronics materials without registered with authorities can besentenced to prison for at least 10 years.15. Burmese nationalities born in exile are denied to become a Burmesenationality. Military regime arbitrarily denied rights of citizenship for someethnics people.16. In Burma, not everyone can enjoy the right to marry and to found a family dueto race, nationality or religion. In some cases, military junta forced young womento marry with soldiers. Families lives are wrecked by military offensive onethnics nationalities and families members are separated due to militarygovernment locked dissidents in prisons. Thousands of people are forced to fleeand there are thousands of refugees in neighboring countries and in exile.17. In Burma, military government confiscated lands, properties withoutcompensation and thousands of people are forced to relocate in satellite towns.18. In Burma, freedom of thought, conscience and religion are systematicallysuppressed and destroyed. Religious persecution is widespread. Military governmentsees religion as the threat to its cling on power. Buddhist monks are killed,arrested and imprisoned. Monasteries are raided, ransacked and closed. Practicingthe religions; Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, in Burma are highlyrestricted.19. Freedom of opinion and expression are non-existent in Burma and democraticleaders calling for to have human rights are arrested, tortured and sentenced toprisons.