Open Letter To Gordon Brown: The World Is Watching You
Dear Prime Minister
You have used strong language to express your outrage about what is happening in Burma and you have urged the world to take action in demonstrating their solidarity with both the Buddhist monks and their supporters in the general population.
You said:
The whole world is now watching Burma and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account. The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over.
I think the international pressure that can be made to be felt in the next few days is incredibly important. I want to see the whole of the world getting together on this.
The world is getting together in any way it can, whether it is blogging or signing online petitions or donating money or just offering words of support and encouragement to those who are managing to get information out of Burma to the rest of the world, usually at great risk to themselves.
So, the world is also now watching you and other world leaders to see what you are actually doing, rather than merely saying.
The United Nations seems to have spectacularly failed to do anything. It seems its hands are tied when Burma is not threatening the security of any other country, especially when China and Russia might threaten to use their vetoes. To send a man to talk to the military junta somehow seems a rather lame response.
Of course, you could simply say that there are diplomatic efforts happening in the background which cannot be made public. This will do nothing to make people believe that anything contructive is happening.
You could just sit on your hands and wait for the situation to be resolved, probably with a massacre of the monks and civilian population and afterwards say you did your best, but nothing could really be done to help them. Perhaps events unfolded too fast. Perhaps we have to keep to the rule of established committees and bureaucracies. Perhaps it did not really matter all that much and when you said the world was watching, what you meant was that the world was waiting for a soundbite from you.
The question, however, will forever remain: what did you actually do? We know what you have said. What are you doing?
People have been pleased with the idea that you are guided by a “moral compass”. If at any time you could demonstrate what that means, that time is now.
Your Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said that we need institutions which “redefine the global rules for our shared planet”, so that countries such as Burma are made to feel it is better to play by those rules rather than ignore them. Mr Miliband also said: “I for one thought it was brilliant to see Aung San Suu Kyi alive and well outside her house last week … I think it will be a hundred times better when she takes her rightful place as the elected leader of a free and democratic Burma.”
Fine words indeed, but none the less mere words.
The world is changing. The world is watching and the world is waiting.
It is waiting to see what you and other world leaders actually do when the world is in agreement about the need for action. This time, words alone will not be enough.
The way you are seen to help protect the human rights of those abroad will forever reflect on the way you are perceived to be the custodian of human rights at home, whether in a crisis or just in the day-to-day events which comprise the lives of ordinary people.
So, yes, the eyes of the world are watching Burma. They are also watching you and every other political and business leader who can bring moral outcomes to the situation.
Yours sincerely
John Stevens
PS The blogging world has kept up a momentum of pressure concerning Burma, along with the conventional news media. In the spirit of maintaining that essential pressure, anyone is welcome to copy, post, distribute, translate or otherwise publish this letter in any way they see fit for the purpose of helping to change the world for the better and to assist any and all oppressed people anywhere.
United Nations Fails Burma Democracy Protesters
Gordon Brown said the world is watching Burma and the outcome of how it deals with the democracy protesters. He said there will be no impunity for the military junta if it uses violence to quell the peaceful protests.
Grand words indeed. Unfortunately, also totally useless and hollow unless they are acted upon.
It is time to watch what your own government is doing in response to the Burma crisis and judge whether it stands by ineffectively or takes decisive action. Words, unfortunately, do not prevent the killing of Buddhist monks and their supporters in Burma.
George Bush, arguably the most powerful man on earth, was able to invade Iraq for some bizarre reasons which only his mind could justify, apart, of course, from the oil. Now we have the whole world in support of Burma and the peaceful pro-democracy protesters, what is he doing, other than talking?
The United Nations has shown that committees and talking shops and those who work in bureaucracies are incapable of actually getting anything done hen it really matters. All the UN has managed to do is to say they will send a man to talk to the military junta. The world could be forgiven for thinking that this hardly the reponse it was expecting.
The National Post of Canada has this:
UNITED NATIONS — Canada and other western powers condemned the use of force by Myanmar’s military junta in suppressing this week’s peaceful protests by Buddhist monks, students and other pro-democracy dissidents, but China and Russia used the shadow of the veto they hold in the United Nations Security Council to blunt the world body’s response.
After meeting behind closed doors Wednesday, the 15-member council issued a statement that made no mention of the violence, but said member states support the decision of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to dispatch his special envoy for Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, to the region. Gambari left New York Wednesday night with no guarantee the junta would grant him an entry visa once he arrives in the region.
China’s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, emerged to say his country hopes Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, would “restore stability,” while Russia’s Vitaly Churkin referred back to the collective council decision.
Amid fears the junta’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters will increase in intensity, the United States and the 27-member European Union asked the Security Council to consider imposing sanctions on the regime.
The U.S.-EU communique also called for the council to demand the government open a dialogue with jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minorities in the country. Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, had not been seen in public for four years until she emerged last Saturday to greet 500 monks and show solidarity with their protests.
But China and Russia, which have friendly relations with Myanmar’s military rulers, said the council is mandated to deal only with matters threatening international peace and security.
The debate at the UN came as military leaders in Myanmar cracked down on mass demonstrations that began as a protest against rising fuel prices but have expanded to express the long-felt dissatisfaction with the rulers of one of Asia’s poorest nations.
On Wednesday, riot police and troops in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, tear-gassed and charged hundreds of monks and students who were defying the junta’s orders to end their peaceful demonstrations.
Witnesses said at least four people, including three Buddhist monks, were killed. Two were beaten to death while another was shot when he tried to wrestle a gun away from a soldier and the weapon discharged, two senior Myanmar officials told AFP.
Meanwhile, in the absence of assertive action at the UN, western powers were left announcing unilateral responses.
President George W. Bush said the United States would tighten economic sanctions on junta leaders and their financial backers, and expand a visa ban “on those most responsible for the egregious violations of human rights.”
In Brussels, the EU said it would “reinforce and strengthen” sanctions that currently include an arms embargo, an assets freeze and a visa ban on junta officials.
You need to check whether your own government is just sitting on its hands and doing nothing when human rights are being violated, as it will give you a measure of how they view such matters.
If they cannot be bothered when the entire world is in agreement, be very worried about how they will treat your own human rights when the world is not watching.
Gordon Brown On Burma: The World Is Watching
Gordon Brown has spoken about the need for the world to stand firm on Burma and the continuing repression of the Buddhist monks and ordinary people, who are seeking democracy, by the military junta regime.
What has changed since the brutal quashing of protests in Burma in 1988 is that, although the regime prohibits foreign news journalists from reporting from inside Burma, news and videos still get out within hours and the world is watching.
The regime has fired bullets and teargas and still the demonstrators continue and are uncowed. The world is watching a failing, illegal and illegitimate regime in the throes of collapse.
Gordon Brown:
The whole world is now watching Burma and this illegitimate and oppressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account and that the age of impunity for neglecting and over-riding human rights is over.
I want to pay tribute to the courage and the resilience and the bravery of the Burmese people and of Aung San Sun Kyi who everybody around the world admires.
And as a result of the deterioration of the situation I think there’s three things that have got be done immediately. The European Council will be meeting at official level immediately and I believe that they will decide that if there is action taken against human rights that there will be an extension of sanctions. And I hope the whole of the European Union will support that.
At the same time I hope the Security Council will meet immediately - meet today - discuss this issue and look at what can be done. And the first thing that can be done is that the UN Envoy should be sent to Burma - and I hope he’s in a position to go - to make sure that the Burmese regime directly is aware that any trampling of human rights that takes place will have the whole eyes of the world upon them and will not be acceptable in future.
[...]
Gordon Brown warned Burma’s leaders today that “the whole world is now watching” as Burmese authorities launched a crackdown on the protestors who have taken to the streets over the last few days.
Speaking to media earlier today, the Prime Minister said that the human rights of the Burmese people “must be respected,” adding that the Rangoon regime will be held to account “in the eyes of the world.”
The PM paid tribute to the “courage, bravery and resilience of the Burmese people” and said there would be “no impunity” for those responsible for the violence.
There are reports of a monk being killed by the military in Rangoon as pro-democracy protestors continued to march in defiance of the country’s leaders.
The Prime Minister repeated his calls for a threefold approach to the crisis including a United Nations Security Council meeting this afternoon; the sending of the UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Burma, and for the EU to discuss the issue at the highest level later today.
Mr Brown said that international pressure over next few days is “incredibly important”.
“The whole world is now watching Burma and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account.
“The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over.”
Yesterday Mr Brown wrote to the current holder of the European Union presidency, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and called for tougher sanctions.
He told Mr Socrates:
“I would strongly support a presidency initiative to warn the Burmese government that we are watching their behaviour and that the EU will impose tougher EU sanctions if they make the wrong choices.”
And in his letter to Mr Ban, Mr Brown said:
“We need concerted international action, including the UN, to discourage violence. We need to stand together.”
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