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Laura Bush Highlights Burma Crisis in U.N. Roundtable Discussion

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

First lady Laura Bush prepares for a roundtable discussion on Burma. (© AP Images)

United Nations -- The United States will work diligently with other members of the U.N. Security Council to ensure that the crisis in Burma is not overlooked, U.S. first lady Laura Bush said September 19.

Taking advantage of media attention at the opening of the 61st General Assembly session, the first lady convened a roundtable discussion to highlight the repressive and destabilizing situation in Burma and the regime's treatment of democracy activist and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for most of the past 17 years.

Bush gathered experts to discuss what could be done to secure the release of political prisoners and promote national reconciliation. She also encouraged journalists attending the event to "get the story out" so that Burma's leaders would know that "they can't get away with terrible mistreatment of their citizens."

In addition to the first lady, roundtable participants included Paula Dobriansky, under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs; Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration; Elliott Abrams, deputy national security advisor for global democratization strategy; U.N. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari; Burmese activist Hseng Noung, founder of the Shan Women Action Network and a contributor to the 2002 documentary "License to Rape"; Zaid Ibrahim, head of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Burma Caucus; Jack Dunford, director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium; Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of the Johns Hopkins Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program and the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health & Human Rights; and Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International.

In an interview with the Washington File, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Kristin Silverberg called the roundtable discussion "incredibly productive and moving."

The meeting discussed ways to continue putting pressure on the Burmese regime to change its treatment toward its people, she said. According to Silverberg, the Security Council will be meeting with Gambari before his visit to Burma in October. After he returns, she said, the council will meet again to discuss possible actions.

After Gambari's last visit to Burma in May, during which he met with the head of Burma's military junta Senior General Than Shwe, the government renewed Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest for another year.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN

All the roundtable participants urged the United States to get Security Council action on Burma, "the sooner the better."

On September 15, after a yearlong effort, the United States succeeded in having the situation in Burma officially placed on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council.

Hseng spoke of the regime's use of sexual violence as tool of repression.

The practice of Burmese soldiers raping women and children continues unabated, Hseng said. Telling a moving story of the rape of an eight-year-old girl by soldiers, she said that afterwards members of the local political party visited the child's parents and gave them money and a toy for the victim.

Women are organized in villages and brought to military barracks ostensibly to "put on a fashion show." Instead, the women are raped, and some are turned into sex slaves, Hseng said.

Human trafficking is also a major problem in the country, according to the State Department.

In its Trafficking in Persons report for 2006, the department said Burma does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and "is not making significant efforts to do so."

Burmese men, women and children are trafficked to Thailand, China, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Korea and Macau for domestic service, forced and bonded labor in industrial zones and agricultural estates, and prostitution, according to the report. The Burmese military has been implicated in trafficking persons for forced labor, and there have been reports of forced enlistments of children in the Burmese army. The regime's economic mismanagement, human rights abuses and forced labor policy are driving factors behind the country's large human trafficking problem, the report says.

POOR HEALTH CONDITIONS

Burma also has serious problems in the area of health.

Beyrer reported that Burma chronically underfunds health issues, spending less than $1 a year per person on health and education. The regime's budget for HIV/AIDS now totals $75,000 annually, an amount that was increased three times during the year, he said.

Most Burmese are too poor to afford medicine, but even those who can are getting inadequate doses because the drugs available to them are either counterfeit or below par, Beyrer said.

At the end of 2005, Burma had one of the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemics in Asia, with about 360,000 infected, according to the United Nations. The regime's response to HIV/AIDS remains ambivalent, the State Department says, and it has impeded humanitarian operations. In August 2005, the AIDS Global Fund terminated its Burma operations when it could no longer ensure that its funds would go to those in need rather than to regime coffers. (See HIV/AIDS.)

Because the government is not spending sufficient money on health issues, the country also has drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and malaria that easily can be transmitted across borders. The government's handling of avian flu is also endangering the region's effort to control the threat, Beyrer said. (See Bird Flu.)

OTHER ISSUES

The flows of Burmese refugees throughout the region, illicit narcotics, HIV/AIDS and the human rights situation inside Burma are a threat to international peace and security, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said September 18.

About 200,000 refugees who have fled conflict and persecution in Burma now live in Thailand, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh. As many as 3,000 ethnic Karen refugees entered Thailand in 2006 after several military offensives against opposition forces in Burma. As conditions worsen, hope for the refugees' safe return diminishes, according to the U.S. State Department.

The United States recently approved the applications of 2,700 Karen to resettle in the United States. Resettlement operations began August 15, and more than half of those approved are expected to arrive in the United States by October 1. The remainder will arrive before the end of 2006. (See related article.)

Regarding illicit drug production and trafficking, the United States has determined that the regime in 2005 again failed demonstrably to meet international counter-narcotics obligations. Burma is the second largest producer of illicit opium and produces and traffics amphetamine-type substances as well. (See related article.)

"We want to call attention to the situation in Burma and the threat that its policies pose to the region and, more broadly, to the fact the government of Burma's policies are not changing," Bolton said.

"If we don't ratchet up the level of attention, there's no reason to think those policies will change," the ambassador said.

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