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| The
Herald Tribune - Thursday, October 07, 2004 |
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Desmond
Tutu: Peace laureate's detention tests the world
The Burmese dictatorship |
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NEW YORK
My fellow Nobel Peace laureate, the Burmese opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, is now spending her ninth year in detention. No one has
been allowed to see her in the last seven months. Fears grow for her
personal security. Myanmar's military dictators ignore the appeals
of the United Nations and the wider international community to let
this woman of peace go free.
If only as much noise, money and effort was spent supporting the peacemakers
of this world as is made in support of theuse of war. If only those
governments that claim to be against war showed their determination
to support those at thefront line of peace. If only those who say
that for them war is the last resort proved this by supporting those
struggling fornonviolent solutions to avert such last resorts. Where
are the statesmen, the visionaries of our time, with regard to SuuKyi's
nonviolent struggle for freedom? The words of protest at her detention
from world leaders ring hollow when they donot translate into action.
Whatever one's view of the war in Iraq, it continues to divide the
world. Questions over whether diplomacy had been fullyexhausted, whether
there was a legal basis for the decision, whether the true aims of
the war have been revealed, allpersist. I don't want to go into these
questions here. But the sincerity of governments on both sides of
that divide arebeing tested by Myanmar. Are both sides truly committed
to helping end the rule of oppressive dictators, and to using allnonmilitary
means at their disposal to do so? With Myanmar, the answer so far
has been a tragic no.
Suu Kyi and the people of Myanmar have not called for a military coalition
to invade their country. They have simplyasked for the maximum diplomatic
and economic pressure against Myanmar's brutal dictators. Suu Kyi
and her party, theNational League for Democracy, won 82 percent of
the seats in Myanmar's 1990 election. The generals in power refuseto
honor the express wishes of a nation.
Instead they perpetrate their own brutal rule with 1,300 political
prisoners, more child soldiers than any other country onearth, lower
health spending than any other country and rape used as a weapon of
war. The International LaborOrganization has called the regime's systematic
use of forced labor a "crime against humanity." The internationalresponse
to this barbarity has been so weak that the generals can smell the
inertia; they feel they can continue to getaway with these things
without sanction.
Indeed, starting Friday, the Asia-Europe Meeting will take place in
Vietnam. There in Hanoi, state terrorists fromMyanmar will sit and
dine with your leaders. The same leaders who proclaim a war against
terror every time they are ontelevision or in the newspaper.
The "coalition of the willing" and the "coalition of
the unwilling" ultimately have to show each other that somethingconcrete
can be done on Myanmar. For the "willing" it's to show that
they will use other nonmilitary instruments at theirdisposal to pursue
justice, and for the "unwilling" it's to prove that they
have the determination to deal with a dictatorshiplike Myanmar's,
to prove they are not appeasers of tyranny.
If you protested the war in Iraq, ask your government what it is doing
to support Myanmar's peaceful struggle against itsown oppressive dictatorship.
For those who praised their governments for being against the war
in Iraq, ask yourgovernments what they are doing to make Myanmar a
shining example of how alternatives to war can be effective.Because
at the moment, governments on both sides of the Iraq debate show no
gumption, no will to apply seriouspressure on the oppressive dictatorship
in Myanmar.
Myanmar, Asia, indeed the world, have a golden opportunity. We have
a charismatic leader determined to lead hermovement and her people
in the way she would choose to govern, peacefully, with respect and
with human dignity. Justas Nelson Mandela no longer belongs only to
South Africans, I believe that in the future Suu Kyi will be a shining
light forAsia and the world.
You see, ultimately the Burmese people will prevail. Neither systems,
nor governments nor dictators are eternal, but thespirit of freedom
is. We must continue to ask the question, whose side are we on? We
cannot be neutral in the face ofsuch barbarity. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. said that in the end we will remember not the words of our
enemies but the silence of our friends.
For those who know oppression, inaction is the most painful.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. |
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