City of Glasgow Honors Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Burmese democratic leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was given the Freedom of the City of Glasgow. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also a Nobel Peace laureate, remains under house arrest.

Honorable members of the City Council of Glasgow, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me to join with you on this auspicious occasion; the awarding of the presitigious “Freedom of the City” award to our leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

On behalf of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma, let me express our heartfelt gratitude to the City Council and people of Glasgow for expressing your solidarity with us.

It’s indeed a warmly received moral boost for the people of Burma, especially at this crucial moment.

The special meaning of this award is not lost on me. The fact that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be given the freedom of a city far from her home, at a time that she is denied even basic freedoms in her own country is a sharp reminder of the mind-numbing reality of today's Burma.

This irony of this moment gives us cause to consider both the strength of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to face the dreadful reality of today's Burma.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's strength is perhaps best epitomised by one fact: she may leave Burma at any time.

Fourteen years of house arrest is the price she pays for choosing to remain in her country with her people, to share their suffering as all leaders should. She knows that once she leaves, she will never be allowed back. Her ties with her beloved country would be severed.

For Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, this is a price too high to pay. 

Like a perpetual light that shines into every act of the military junta, she will not yield, will not renege. She is surely tired, dispirited, frustrated. Yet, her vigil goes on, her force ever uncompromising, her influence ever widening, deepening.

Instead of reaping the rewards of being Nobel Peace Prize winner, and, for instance, enjoying the freedom of this wonderful city, she sits alone and cut-off, shining her light of faith and freedom into the hearts of all Burmese and into the blinking eyes of the recalcitrant military regime.

This is a strength not of action but of inaction – a decidedly Buddhist and somewhat more challenging course to take.

She is a witness to an age, a beacon that shines upon the hill, to whom so many Burmese look for comfort and for hope.

Her people are indeed suffering. The reality of Burma is indeed an awful thing to confront.

Burma has been for a decade a so-called ‘Silent Emergency’ as characterized by UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations.

More than 40% of the population is living below the poverty line and concerns over food security have become chronic, not without reason.

One out of three Burmese children under five is suffering severe malnutrition.

Burma has the second highest child mortality rate in Asia. Up to 150,000 children die every year, mainly from preventable diseases.

More and more Burmese are dying of HIV/AIDs, drug-resistant malaria and tuberculosis and life expectancy has been shortened in the last 2 decades.

Despite the desperate situation, there are no initiatives or programs put forward by the regime to help the people cope. There is only the systematic abuse of aid mechanisms for the regime's own benefit.

The global economic crisis, a palpable threat to the lives of so many Burmese, is hardly acknowledged in the planning of the generals.
Yet, already, Burmese migrant workers who were employed in labor intensive industries in neighboring countries are going back home, broken and penniless.

This ersatz government, sitting in its Potemkin capital, refuses to provide or plan for any alternative employment, nor to even consider basic social welfare.

Burma's rich agricultural sector, so long the backbone of its economy and the likely location of its immediate economic future, is in ruin due to the military's self-centred, often ad hoc policies to limit inputs, disrupt transport, control sales quotas and restrict staple crops.
Extrajudicial killings, lootings, and forced labor – especially of children - continue unabated.

The military continues using systematic rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minority women.
Burma has around 70,000 child soldiers, the highest number anywhere in the world.

Ethnic communities are regularly, brutally, uprooted in the interests of the military's meandering mindset.

The valuable socio-cultural fabric of these communities has been torn irrevocably. Their unique cultural inputs are now lost.

Nearly one million Burmese have been internally displaced.  

Ninety percent of Burmese live on less than $US1 /day. Average household incomes are roughly 5% less than the average cost of feeding a family.
By our count, 2,114 political prisoners including 11 elected members of parliament remain in prison in appalling conditions.
Since 1988 at least 137 political prisoners have died in jail.

Recently a paltry 24 political prisoners among 6,313 prisoners were released by the regime, seemingly to divert discussions of Burma's human rights at the ASEAN Summit held last weekend.
So, the day to day life of the average Burmese family is a long, stressful, enervating journey of fear, horror and disillusionment: a struggle to survive and a gut-wrenching chore to reach the end of the day, where brief rest may come. Then, come the dawn, the whole heart-breaking race to survive and to provide starts all over again. 
Death for some must come as pure relief.

The military's dead hand reaches outwards too and wraps itself around the region.

Burma's army continues its hostile military operations in areas where ethnic nationalities are based, in the interests of quashing dissent and of consolidating its control.

People have been fleeing to Thailand to escape from the persecution of the military and as of January this year, numbers of refugees at the Thai-Burma border have gone over the 140,000 mark.

Rohingya boat refugees recently reached the shores of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Their plight has become an alarming regional issue and their awful stories are filling the world's newspapers.

Yet, horribly, they are just a few frames of the long, tragic reel of Burma's “freedom exodus”.
In the decade to 2005, the flow of refugees from Burma increased 800%.

Migration agents in Burma, most of them government-controlled are reporting unprecedented applications for visas. 

Burma is the world’s third biggest source of refugees.

Despite the daily hardships faced by the majority of Burmese people, and the life-and-death hardships, there are those who still have the motivation and the commitment to mobilise.

The “Saffron Revolution” of late 2007 is the proof that the democratic aspirations of the people are still full of life.

Here is confirmation there is still a democratic culture in Burma and that the numbers and the abilities of those involved are powerful.  

The Saffron Revolution and the on-going protests inside Burma that continue are a mark of the reach of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's influence and commitment. Formally disembodied she may be from the body politic of the Burmese democracy movement, she remains its figurehead and its central, driving force. 

She knows, as do we all, the road to freedom is arduous and strewn with obstacles.

For one, the regime took advantage of a chaotic situation created by the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 and has imposed a constitution by means of force, intimidation and manipulation. 
That new constitution is designed simply to ensure the domination of military in the future political life of Burma, concentrating power in the hands of a President likely to be a retired general and a Commander-In-Chief of the army.

The 2008 constitution is designed to exclude any substantial role for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. It institutionalises the rejection of her right to be elected for the ridiculous reason that she was married to a foreigner. 

Banning Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from elections in Burma is a little like banning the spirit of Robbie Burns from his own 250th birthday party.
For the 3rd time in history, Burma is once again facing a constitutional crisis.

As such, finding a solution to the political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Burma is clearly a matter of urgency.

In that repect, the international community can play a vital role.

The UK government is particularly important via its influence, for instance, in the EU and in the UN Security Council.

We believe a concerted effort to bring democracy to Burma in the coming 12 months will yield positive results.

The people of Burma have been inspired and mobilized by the “Saffron Revolution” of late 2007 and the majority of Burmese are willing to work for freedom.

The people of Burma still seek to embody the spirit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma and the National League for Democracy fully supports the United Nations Secretary-General's strong advocacy for Burma and we continue to seek reinforcement through strong and committed Security Council action.

We have championed the UN Secretary-General's five-step blueprint for the Burmese military: to release all political prisoners; to begin a substantive and time-bound dialogue; to move towards a transition regime; to improve socio-economic conditions inside Burma and; to formalize the UN's good offices role through, for instance, a permanent presence in Burma.

Mr. Ban Ki-moon should visit Burma as soon as possible to materialize these recommendations.
We have a long-standing backing for full, open and unconditional dialogue between the NLD and the military.

Similarly our views on economic sanctions remain: there should be no adjustment or review of punitive economic measures without a parallel process of unprecedented and intensive diplomatic action.

But, clearly we need more. This is a time to step forward.

To this end we have aligned Burma's various interests – ethnic groups, the Buddhist communities, civil society, and the democracy movement both in Burma and abroad – to strike a new course for democracy.

We are right now developing a program of action to address such pressing concerns as
constitutional reform, electoral laws and structures, economic planning, national security, reconciliation and, the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons.

With this program, we are ready to sit down and to dialogue with the military on a peaceful transition toward democracy and development in Burma.

We seek the support of the EU, the UN, and other international actors. 

The UK, and the EU, should put more efforts to bringing regional players into the picture, especially China, India and the ASEAN countries.
Networking effectively with these governments would, for one, encourage movement at the
Security Council and perhaps allow that august body to finally clear a blot on its long and generally successful history.

Further, we ask the UK and the EU to consider funding democracy and to directly support the people of Burma. 

With the strategically egregious countdown to the shamefully skewed 2010 elections, the military regime has put a weight around its own neck.

The international community is given cause to focus its collective mind on Burma and on the need to end the nightmare. 
So we are here today, doing just that.

I would like to convey the appreciation Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would no doubt convey to you, our friends in a time of need.

She would want to say we all have a role to play, whether its sending letters to your local member, becoming active in the struggle for Burmese democracy and to release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or just by sending a prayer.

As The Lady herself has said, please use your own liberty for the liberty of the people of Burma.

I believe, one day soon, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in her capacity as the head of State of Burma, will be able to visit Glasgow and to celebrate the triumph of democracy in Burma together with you all.
 

Thank you.