A bridge too far

For more than a week, much of the world’s attention has turned once again on the human rights conditions in the small Asian country of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

A military junta in power bars the leading opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from traveling outside the capital, Yangon. When she tried to drive to the countryside on Aug. 24 with her colleagues in two cars to conduct political activities, policemen stopped the cars near a bridge in the Rangoon suburb of Dala, the fifth time authorities actually curtailed her freedom to move about in her country in more than two years.

Suu Kyi and company refused to turn back and stayed in the cars, surviving on food and provisions they brought along during the nine-day roadside standoff that drew international condemnation over the continuing iron-fisted rule in Myanmar. Suu Kyi and colleagues were reportedly forced to return to the capital close to midnight on Friday.

She was last stopped from traveling out of the capital in August 1998, when she stayed in her vehicle for 13 days before returning home for health reasons.

Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel peace prize for her nonviolent political activities, has called for foreign sanctions against Myanmar’s government, including a tourist boycott, to pressure the military regime to improve human rights conditions and restore democracy.

I don’t know how much Suu Kyi needs to stress the tourist boycott but I for one would not travel to a country where the police would stop me from going to a nice barbecue picnic in the scenic countryside, much more for an important appointment. There is no debate that muzzling people’s right to travel for political reasons is an obsolete, medieval tactic that I thought had been buried under the collapsed stone walls which used to divide Germany.

There is no debate that this practice is downright wrong, and downright inhuman not only because of the inconvenience of forcing people to stay in cars for more than a week, far from the comforts of home.

Asian countries have tried to coddle Myanmar and give it time to grow, to mature politically and overcome its colored past but it has not shown signs that it is ready to improve political and human rights conditions at home. Suu Kyi and her colleagues continue to be detained in their houses and the ruling junta tries all possible ways all the time to curb their political activities.

She has been held under house arrest from 1989 to 1995 and is only able to express herself covertly, including smuggling video taped messages to foreign audiences, or by standing on a bench to address followers on the other side of the fence in her frontyard. Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar’s late independence leader, Gen. Aung San. She has led Myanmar’s opposition movement since 1988, when the military smashed huge pro-democracy demonstrations and asserted its authoritarian rule.

The military held a general election in 1990, but refused to allow parliament to convene after the National League for Democracy, which Suu Kyi leads, won a landslide victory. Since then, her party members have suffered arrest and harassment from the government.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has admitted Myanmar as a member despite protests from European countries because of Rangoon’s poor human rights record. Since becoming a member, fellow ASEAN governments have refrained from commenting against Myanmar’s military regime, except in whispers to the press. But how long will they wait and how long can they ignore the sufferings of a people?

By protecting and not openly criticizing Myanmar, ASEAN is seen by many in the world as condoning limits to democracy not only in Myanmar, but also in Indonesia and Malaysia––ASEAN founding members which have been accused either of handing down policy that curtails democracy or shielding unpopular dictators. By protecting Myanmar’s ruling junta, ASEAN is further weakening itself.

ASEAN officials say that engaging Myanmar politically and economically is the best way of encouraging changes in the country.

They should have gone to the Rangoon suburb of Dala and told that to Suu Kyi while she was sitting like a duck in her car near the bridge while the world grumbled last week.