An MP in Burma 01/11/2007
John Bercow MP
As part of our lobbying of UK Parliament, CSW often takes MPs to see persecution firsthand. In September, John Bercow MP (Cons) accompanied us to the India-Burma border. Here, we catch a snapshot of his unforgettable adventure.
Saturday 15 September
Just after 1am we arrive, weary but excited, at our hotel in New Delhi. After a good kip, we meet Dr Tint Swe, one of four Burmese MPs living in exile in India. He offers us both positive and negative news. The monks’ demonstrations against the regime offer some hope of change and they challenge the world to confront the tyrants. Yet the Indian government is hell bent on increased trade with Burma and cares not a fig for human rights. How can the country of Gandhi and Nehru collaborate with the thugs of the SPDC?
Sunday 16 September
Leaving at 5am, we fly to Calcutta and then to Aizawal in Mizoram. The Women’s League of Chin Land is seeking to build capacity amongst Chin women, but it is an uphill struggle as Chin State is in the vice-like grip of the SPDC.
There is no education in Chin State beyond sixteen. Far fewer girls go to school than boys. Domestic violence is rife. The regime is circulating highly potent alcohol.
The Women’s League of Chinland tells us that the sexual abuse of women in Chin State by SPDC soldiers is a brutal daily occurrence. No less grim is the fact of forced marriage. Soldiers are encouraged to marry Christian women and convert them.
Monday 17 September
Cheery, our superb Chin organiser, has arranged for us to meet a seven-year-old boy who, at the age of three, was abducted by SPDC soldiers. The boy and his mum come to our hotel to tell us of their harrowing ordeal. His father was arrested in February 2002 on a trumped up charge and subsequently locked up. Enraged by his escape in June 2003, the soldiers came for his son, whisked him off in a car and detained him in a tiny room for eight hours, offering him neither food nor water. World leaders hardly need clearer evidence of the depths to which this poisonous junta will sink than its callous treatment of a defenceless infant. This encounter will remain indelibly imprinted on my mind.
We then set off on the arduous journey to Champhai. With two breaks, it takes us ten hours. It’s only about 130 miles, but the road is as dreadful as the drivers are brilliant. Dinner is promptly followed by bed.
Tuesday 18 September
We hear fur ther testimony. A Christian farmer who was tor tured by SPDC troops for allegedly housing opposition groups told how his 23-year-old son has been partially paralysed after being repeatedly kicked in the back, beaten and pistol whipped without respite for two hours. A young woman reveals how a soldier demanded that she marry him, threatening to rape her whenever he felt like it if she didn’t. Thankfully, she escaped from Chin State to Mizoram and is now married to a Chin man, but she has lost her education, is without a permanent job and suffer s separ ation from the rest of her family.
Wednesday 19 September
At 7.30am, we meet the Chief Minister of Mizoram state. We remind him that it takes fifteen months for refugees from Chin State to receive any recognition in India, stress that they need help with housing, health and education and suggest that the Indian government should be rather tougher with the government of Burma. When pushed, he accepts that India should not be selling weapons to Burma, but I can’t see his voice being raised very loudly and he still favours strong trade links with the butchers of Rangoon.
Later we meet an SPDC defector. He was accused of conspiring with rebels and given a choice between seven year s in jail and army ser vice. He signed up to the army, only to be denounced as a ‘smelly Chin’, punched, beaten and subjected to forced labour. He told us that morale amongst senior officer s was high, but ordinary soldier s were depressed and child recruits utterly terrified. Luckily, he escaped and he wants the world to know just how appalling the situation in Burma is.
Thursday 20 September
Back in Calcutta, we brief the Deputy Head of Mission at the British Consulate .
Friday 21 September
We fly back to the UK, Ben Rogers, CSW’s Advocacy Officer, drafting our report on the plane . We need action from the Br itish government, the European Union, the government of India and, above all, the United Nations. With a fanfare of trumpets, the latter proclaimed a responsibility to protect people suffering savage human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing or genocide. It’s about time the world met its responsibility to millions in Burma who have suffered too much for too long with too little done to help them.
What next?
John Bercow and others are continuing to speak out for the people of Burma, by speaking and writing in the national media and by raising the issue in Parliament. John Bercow has taken a leading role in lobbying the UK’s Depar tment for Inter national Development (DFID) to change its stance on cross-border aid into Burma (see pp16-17 for more information).
Following combined lobbying effor ts prior to the visit, a repor t from the House of Commons Inter national Development Committee included all of CSW’s recommendations, paving the way for more aid to reach those suffering inside Burma.
However, the struggle is not yet over and it’s here that we need your help.
What you can do
Pray
Please pray for the people of Burma using the enclosed copy of CSW’s Prayer Diary.
Protest
Please write to the Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander MP, asking him to accept and implement the recommendations in the House of Commons International Development Committee’s report on Burma. A draft letter is set out below, which can be personalised as appropriate.
The Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP
Secretar y of State for International Development
Department for International Development
1 Palace Street
London
SW1E 5HE
Dear Secretary of State,
May I begin by congratulating you on your recent appointment as Secretary of State.
I am writing to bring to your attention the House of Commons International Development Committee’s recent report on Burma, and to urge you to accept and implement the recommendations in full.
As I am sure you are aware, the repor t on DFID Assistance to Burmese Internally Displaced People and Refugees on the Thai-Burma Border, published on 25 July, calls on DFID to quadruple its aid budget for Burma by 2013. It details the dire humanitarian crisis in Burma, and notes that DFID’s current budget of £8.8 million “represents significant under-spending compared to countries with similar poverty levels and human rights records”. DFID’s budget for Burma, for example, is just a quarter of the budget for Zimbabwe, and significantly less than neighbouring countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
The Committee recommends that DFID provide funding for cross-border humanitarian aid to the internally displaced people. I warmly welcome DFID’s decision earlier in the year to lift the restriction on the use of funds for the Thai-Burma border, so that funds can now be used both to assist the refugees in Thailand and support cross-border aid. However, this new policy was not accompanied by new funding for cross-border work, and so I hope DFID will now accept the Committee’s recommendation to provide funding for this purpose.
I hope that you will also agree with the Committee’s recommendation to provide funding for Burmese human rights organisations working along the borders, par ticularly women’s groups involved in documenting the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war and providing women’s health and education services.
Finally, may I urge you to take up the Committee’s recommendation to investigate opportunities for assisting the Chin people along the India-Burma border and inside Chin State ,who are among the most deprived, persecuted, vulnerable and forgotten people in Burma.
I hope you will respond positively to the House of Commons International Development Committee, and I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,