Guest Comments by the Burma Partnership

NEAR BURMA -- Twenty-three years after a nation-wide people's uprising on August 8, 1988, groups in Burma and elsewhere hosted events to show that the desire for freedom remains strong.

In 1988, hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, men and women, from all walks of life and many ethnic groups, took to the streets in a student-led movement for democracy. Burma's military regime, led by General Ne Win, sensed a profound threat to its grip on power and cracked down hard, killing 3,000-plus people and imprisoning and torturing many thousands more.

After the protests, Ne Win stepped down, handing power to his juniors through a “coup” on September 18, extending the campaign against pro-democrats with more shooting, killing and imprisonment of anyone daring to oppose the military regime. More than 10,000 people fled to Burma's border regions to join ethnic resistance groups and continue the struggle from there.

Ever since, freedoms of expression, assembly and the press have remained non-existent in Burma, a situation unchanged by the 2010 elections and the convening of a military-dominated parliament. The regime still violates human rights with extra-judicial killings, rapes and violence, forced labor, arbitrary arrests, torture and forced displacements.

To remember those who sacrificed their lives and to maintain the dreams of freedom, a coalition of Burma groups recently held a panel discussion, titled “Twenty-Three Years of Resistance: Ongoing Human Rights Abuses and the Urgent Need for a Commission of Inquiry", in Bangkok, Thailand.

In Rangoon, about 1,000 people attended an event at which democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi asked everyone to “think about the reason (we) cannot forget 8.8.88”. Proving that the uprising isn't forgotten, demonstrations also happened in Mandalay and elsewhere in Burma, plus in the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Israel, Britain and the United States.

To honor the spirit of 1988, activists from Burma and their supporters called on the international community to support establishing a United Nations-led commission of inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity in Burma. Such a commission is necessary because Burma's 2008 “constitution” grants immunity to the regime’s members, enshrining impunity into law and ensuring that victims won't find justice.

A UN commission into crimes against humanity is the most practical step to prevent more crimes, obtain justice for victims and provide a basis for national reconciliation and sustainable peace.

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