International community urged to bring change to Burma

The call has been made to coincide with the 21st anniversary today of the military regime’s suppression of pro-democracy protests.

The military killed several thousand pro-democracy demonstrators, many of them students, in the uprising on 8 August 1988.

CSW said the regime has continued to perpetrate “gross violations” of human rights, including the use of human minesweepers and rape as a weapon of war, forced labour, and the forced conscription of child soldiers.

Burma’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has spent nearly 14 years under house arrest since the military junta refused to recognise the landslide victory of her party, the National League for Democracy in elections in 1990. She faces many more years in prison as she awaits the verdict of her latest trial on Tuesday for violating the terms of her house arrest.

CSW is calling on the UN, the Association of South-East Asian Nations, the EU, and countries like the US and China to put pressure on Burma’s military regime.

“It is essential that we do not simply remember this anniversary as yet another in Burma’s tragic history of brutal oppression,” said CSW’s East Asia team leader Benedict Rogers.

“The most fitting tribute the world could pay to those who sacrificed their lives would be to unite and take concrete steps to support the brave Burmese people in their struggle for freedom.”

CSW urged the international community to do more to secure the release of the more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma.

It also wants to see the international community work with Burma’s neighbours in establishing a universal arms embargo and a commission of enquiry to investigate crimes against humanity in Burma.

Mr Rogers said: “These are the steps that are required if we are to prevent another 21 years of torture, rape and murder with impunity in Burma.”