Freedom in the World 2001 - Burma

2001 Scores

Status: Not Free
Freedom Rating: 7.0
Civil Liberties: 7
Political Rights: 7

Overview

Ten years after it nullified a landslide opposition victory in free elections, Burma's ruling junta continued in 2000 to crack down on and marginalize the democratic opposition, flout international human rights norms, and sanction the large-scale production and trafficking of illicit narcotics.

Burma achieved independence from Great Britain in 1948, following the Japanese occupation in World War II. The army overthrew an elected government in 1962 amid an economic crisis and several ethnic-based insurgencies. During the next 26 years General Ne Win's military rule helped impoverish what had been one of Southeast Asia's richest countries.

The present junta has been in power since the summer of 1988, when the army opened fire on peaceful, student-led pro-democracy demonstrations, killing an estimated 3,000 people. After suppressing the protests, army commanders General Saw Maung and Brigadier General Khin Nyunt created the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) to rule the country. In 1990, the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats in Burma's first free elections in three decades. The SLORC refused to cede power and jailed hundreds of NLD members.

The SLORC reconstituted itself as the State Peace and Development Council in November 1997. The relatively young generals who took charge sidelined more senior officers and removed some of the more blatantly corrupt cabinet ministers. The junta appeared to be trying to improve its international image, attract foreign investment, and encourage an end to United States-led sanctions. Since then, the regime has sentenced hundreds of peaceful pro-democracy activists to lengthy jail terms, forced thousands of NLD members to resign from the party, and periodically detained dozens of NLD activists, particularly in advance of planned demonstrations.

In one of the largest single crackdowns in 2000, authorities arrested more than 100 NLD members and at least two dozen monks in the weeks leading to the tenth anniversary of the 1990 elections. The government also twice prevented NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other party members from traveling outside Rangoon, and in late September placed Suu Kyi and nine other senior NLD members under effective house arrest. The regime had held Suu Kyi under house arrest between 1989 and 1995, and it continues to reject the 1992 Nobel laureate's call for a dialogue on democratic reform.

The ethnic minorities that constitute more than one-third of Burma's population have been fighting for autonomy from the Burman-dominated central government since the late 1940s. Since 1989, the regime has co-opted some 17 ethnic rebel armies with ceasefire deals that allow them to maintain their weapons and territory. With the junta's support, many former rebel groups have become major heroin traffickers. The Far Eastern Economic Review reported in April that one of these ex-rebel groups, the United Wa State Army, has 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and controls most of the drug-producing areas in the Golden Triangle. Rangoon has also angered Bangkok by tolerating the widespread trafficking of illicit methamphetamines from Burma to Thailand.

Early in the year, the army and troops from the pro-regime Democratic Karen Buddhist Army carried out what has become an annual dry season offensive against the Karen National Union, the largest of three active insurgency groups. Several thousand Karen refugees fled to Thailand.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Burma continued to be ruled by one of the world's most repressive regimes. The junta controls the judiciary, and the rule of law is nonexistent. Authorities have imprisoned or driven into exile most vocal dissidents; severely restrict fundamental rights; and use a tightly controlled mass movement, the Union Solidarity Development Association, to monitor forced labor quotas, report on citizens, and intimidate opponents. General Than Shwe is nominally the junta leader and head of state. However, observers say that the real strongmen are Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, the intelligence chief, and his rival, the more hardline General Maung Aye, the army commander. Former dictator Ne Win, 89, also wields influence. A state-controlled constitutional convention began in 1993 drafting a new constitution that would grant the military 25 percent of seats in a future parliament and formalize the army's leading role in politics. However, the convention has not met since 1996.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission adopted in April a resolution condemning torture, disappearances, and other "systematic and increasingly severe" human rights abuses in Burma. The UN Special Rapporteur for Burma similarly noted in October the "continuing deterioration of the human rights situation" in the country. Some of the regime's worst human rights abuses occur in Burma's seven ethnic-minority-dominated states in the context of the army's counterinsurgency operations against ethnic-based guerrilla movements. The tatmadaw, or Burmese armed forces, are responsible for extrajudicial killings, beatings, and arbitrary detentions of civilians, sometimes for refusing to provide food, money, or labor to military units. Soldiers also force civilians to work without pay as porters or human minesweepers and frequently press-gang children and other recruits into the services. Soldiers also occasionally arrest civilians as alleged insurgents or insurgent sympathizers and reportedly commit widespread incidents of rape.

Tens of thousands of civilians in Shan, Karenni, Karen and Mon states and in Tenasserim division remained in designated relocation sites. The army forcibly relocated them in the 1990s as part of its counterinsurgency strategy. The relocation centers generally lacked adequate food, water, health care, and sanitation facilities, and soldiers subjected the villagers to looting and other abuses. Thailand also continued to host some 120,000 mainly Karen, Karenni, Shan, and Mon refugees. Amnesty International released in 1999 reports documenting widespread abuses against civilians in the context of forced relocation programs, but also noted that armed opposition groups from the Shan, Karen, and other communities committed some killings and other abuses against ethnic Burman civilians in these states. Some ethnic-minority insurgencies reportedly also recruit child soldiers.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) called in November for its members to impose sanctions on Burma after an ILO monitoring team that visited in October found that while the regime had made progress in changing its laws to end forced labor, it had done little to put the changes into practice. The ILO had in 1999 adopted a resolution calling the regime's use of forced labor "a contemporary form of slavery" and suspended Burma from most of the organization's activities. In addition, an ILO Commission of Enquiry reported in 1998 that the regime used forced labor in a "widespread and systematic manner." Forced labor appeared to be most prevalent in ethnic-minority-dominated states, where soldiers force civilians to work without pay under harsh conditions, generally on infrastructure projects or military-backed commercial ventures. While the use of forced labor appears to be down somewhat from the peak years between 1993 and 1996, the ILO estimates that there may be as many as 800,000 forced laborers in Burma.

Some 250,000 Muslim Rohingya refugees fled to camps in Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 to escape extrajudicial executions, rape, forced labor, and other abuses in northern Arakan state. By mid-l997, all but 22,000 had returned to Burma. However, Rohingya continued to flee forced labor, arbitrary confiscation of property, and other abuses, and by mid-2000 an additional 100,000 Rohingya lived in Bangladesh outside the existing refugee camps. The refugee situation occurs in the context of the 1982 Burma Citizenship Law, which effectively denied most Rohingya citizenship. Consequently, Burmese authorities subjected Rohingya to restrictions on their freedom of movement and barred them from secondary education and civil service jobs.

While releasing several high-profile political prisoners during the year, the junta continued to arrest opponents for participating in peaceful political activities. Amnesty International said in November that authorities were currently holding 1,700 political prisoners. Agence France-Presse reported in April that officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that 1,450 of some 30,000 prisoners it had visited over the past year in Burmese jails are held for "security" reasons. Burmese authorities acknowledged in 1999 that 107 NLD members of parliament elected in 1990 were imprisoned or detained, although the actual number is believed to be far higher. The regime imprisons opposition activists and supporters under numerous broadly drawn laws that criminalize peaceful activities including distributing pamphlets, and distributing, viewing, or smuggling out of Burma videotapes of Suu Kyi's public addresses. The frequently used Decree 5/96 of 1996 authorizes jail terms of 5 to 25 years for aiding activities "which adversely affect the national interest." The decree also authorizes the home ministry to ban any organization violating a separate law against public gatherings of five or more people.

Prison conditions are abysmal. Amnesty International said in December that "torture has become an institution" in the country and that victims include political activists, criminals. and members of ethnic minorities. Dissidents say that more than 40 political prisoners have died in Rangoon's Insein prison since 1988.

The junta continued to control tightly all publications and broadcast services. The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) reported in January that authorities had released a journalist who had been held since 1996 after participating in an opposition rally, but that the regime continued to jail 12 other journalists. The 1996 Computer Law requires Internet users to obtain official authorization and provides for lengthy jail terms for unauthorized use. According to RSF, the regime amended in January the 1996 law to also prohibit citizens from using electronic mail to spread political information, and closed in December 1999 two private Internet service providers. The state owned the sole remaining Internet service provider.

The Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence continued to arbitrarily search homes,M intercept mail, and monitor telephone conversations. The regime's high-tech information warfare center in Rangoon reportedly can intercept telephone, fax, e-mail, and radio communications.

The government reopened in July many of Burma's universities, which it had closed in the wake of student-led demonstrations in 1996. However, authorities made students pledge loyalty to the government, barred political activity on campuses, and shortened the academic term at many universities. Authorities also continued to closely monitor monasteries, interfere in Buddhist religious affairs, and hold many of the 300 monks arrested during a violent 1990 crackdown on monasteries.

Criminal gangs have trafficked thousands of Burmese women and girls, many from ethnic minority groups, to Thailand for prostitution. Independent trade unions, collective bargaining, and strikes are illegal. Several labor activists continued to serve long terms for their political and labor activities.

The junta's economic mismanagement continued to contribute to persistently high inflation rates, stagnant economic growth, and a hugely overvalued currency. Official corruption is reportedly rampant. The European Union and the United States maintained sanctions on Burma because of its human rights record and prevented it from receiving some multilateral aid.