Sajjad Karim N.W. MEP
Burma Resolution
By Sajjad Karim MEP
Jun 19, 2007, 18:06

Today marks the 62nd birthday of the pro-democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, a woman who has spent much of the last two decades either imprisoned or under house arrest in Burma, under the control of one of the most brutal regimes in the world.

In 1988, a month after up to 3,000 democracy activists were massacred by the government, Suu Kyi established the National League for Democracy (NLD). In 1990 the regime called a general election. Suu Kyi's party won convincingly, but the authorities ignored the result and refused to hand over power. That year she was awarded the Sakharov Prize, and in 1991, the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a speech smuggled out of Burma in 1997, she wrote: "The cause of liberty and justice finds sympathetic responses in far reaches of the globe. Thinking and feeling people everywhere, regardless of colour or creed, understand the deeply-rooted human need for a meaningful existence ... Those fortunate enough to live in societies where they are entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the less fortunate in other parts of our troubled planet. Young women and young men setting forth to leave their mark on the world might wish to cast their eyes beyond their own frontiers to the shadowlands of lost rights ... Please use your liberty to promote ours."

Today she will have spent a total of 11 years and 238 days (4,253 days) in detention. Her phone line has been cut and her post is routinely intercepted.

Last month, the Burmese regime, led by General Than Shwe, announced that Suu Kyi's period of detention, due to expire at the end of May, had been extended. At that time the UN Working Group said it believed her detention was in breach of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Burma is an issue that I have been working on for some time in the Sub-Committee on Human Rights and through a stream of questions to the Commission and Council. This week, the European Parliament will pass an urgency resolution condemning the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and calling for her immediate release.

Tragically, the Burma question fails to lodge in the wider consciousness and rarely comes up in international discussions. I often find myself wondering how such a clear repression of democracy can be permitted in the globalised world in which we live. The answer: Brutality, secrecy - and the failure of most countries to cease investing in and trading with Burma .

Despite calls for countries to impose comprehensive sanctions, only the US has imposed a blanket ban on investment. Despite efforts of campaigners, including myself, for the EU to change its Common Position on Burma, we have imposed much more limited, targeted sanctions, which are ineffective.

The key to changing Burma lies with regional powers India, China and Russia - all of which have considerable financial and trade links with this brutal regime, offer political support, and supply it with weapons. I have called on these countries to freeze their association with this brutal regime and I have urged the European Commission and Council to put pressure on all our partner countries in this regard.

There is strong worldwide pressure for change, with the UN, the US and Europe all pressing for action. As we have seen so many times before - Darfur being a prime example - without real pressure and without real support from the key players in the region, nothing will change.

I will try to ensure that the Resolution, which comes out of the European Parliament this week, has real teeth and can promote real change in Burma. Courageous women like Aung San Suu Kyi are an example to us all. We must ensure that she does not spend another birthday in detention.