'Do The Right Thing'

By Jared Genser
May 31, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
Original Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114902231549466673.html

How much worse does the situation in Burma need to get before the U.N. Security Council decides to act?
On Saturday, the military junta again extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for a year. The decree came only a day after U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan made a rare appeal for her release. He was, perhaps, hopeful that his deputy's recent trip to Burma -- where the generals expressed a desire to turn a new page in its relations with the international community -- was a sign of genuine goodwill. Apparently not.
The junta's unequivocal rejection of the U.N.'s outstretched hand should come as no surprise. The generals in Rangoon have a long history of hinting at democratic reforms at critical moments so as to avert further action against them. That's why it's now time for the Security Council to demand actions rather than words from the junta.
Last September, former Czech Republic President Václav Havel and Bishop Desmond M. Tutu commissioned my law firm to produce an action plan. Titled Threat to the Peace: A Call for the U.N. Security Council to Act in Burma, the report argued that the junta is not just a threat to its own people, but that it could also destabilize Southeast Asia.
Both predictions are based in gruesome historical precedents. Since 1996, the junta has destroyed more than 2,700 villages, forced massive relocations, condoned systematic rape of ethnic minorities, employed forced labor, and used more than 70,000 child soldiers. These terrible conditions have resulted in more than 700,000 refugees pouring into Thailand and other neighboring countries. There is also a massive outflow of drugs from the country, bringing with it new strains of the HIV virus strains, thanks to needle sharing.
Late last year, the Security Council finally took up the situation in Burma for the first time, with Sec. Annan's deputy, Mr. Ibrahim Gambari, offering an unvarnished view of these problems and the intransigence of the junta. But since that Dec. 16 briefing, the situation has deteriorated. In recent months, the Burmese military has mounted a major offensive in eastern Burma, perpetrating numerous human-rights atrocities against the ethnic minority Karen people and displacing more than 13,000 people.
Since its refusal to honor the results of the 1990 elections, the Burmese junta has ignored 15 resolutions of the U.N. General Assembly, 13 resolutions of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, and denied access to various U.N.-appointed envoys. This outright defiance of the U.N. cannot be tolerated if the organization wants to remain relevant, especially given the recent commitment by the Security Council to act if a state fails in its responsibility to protect its citizens from the most egregious human-rights violations.
The time has come for the U.N. Security Council to take decisive action on Burma. By adopting a binding resolution requiring the junta to engage with the international community, the Security Council can put pressure on the generals to return to the negotiating table, allow U.N. agencies access to provide humanitarian relief and press for the release of Ms. Suu Kyi and other prisoners of conscience.
It is simply not enough for the Security Council to hold another private briefing along the lines of last December's session. This time, the issue of Burma needs to be placed on the agenda of a formal meeting in the full glare of international publicity. Serious leadership by the Security Council is the only way to put an end to the tragedy that has befallen the Burmese people.
Mr. Genser is an attorney in Washington, D.C., with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP.