Evidence of meeting #37 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was groups.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
Not that I know of thus far.
Conservative
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
You mentioned that you had contact with Karen, Shan, Mon, Kachin, Chin, Arakan, and others. It strikes me as odd that while some ethnic groups are able to negotiate ceasefire agreements under these current circumstances, others are breaking into conflict after years and years of ceasefire arrangements. Why is that happening? Why is there that inconsistency?
Then I have some follow-up questions related to that.
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
I guess the Kachin are the outliers, because they're in heavy conflict right now. It may be taken by Burmese troops any day now, and everyone else is signing.
Starting a couple of years ago, all of the ethnic groups were trying to form this united ethnicities council so that they could negotiate en masse with the Burmese government. But there were differences among them and they weren't able really to jell in time to form a solid united body. The Burmese government started giving good deals and encouraging them to break apart.
I think there were a couple of reasons why Kachin happened. One is that they were never that happy with their ceasefire. The 2008 constitution, which we keep getting back to, didn't give them what they felt was proper representation in Parliament. In the 2010 election most of their political parties were banned from running, and even in the election in April, two Kachin political parties were not allowed to contest. They're pushing for fundamental changes to the 2008 constitution so that they can have more representation, and the Burmese are not agreeing to this at all right now.
The Burmese government is negotiating the ceasefires, not the army, and they have different individuals who are ceasefire negotiators. The man who has been working with the Karen and Shan and several other groups is the railroad minister, and he's seen more as one of the reformists. The guy who's negotiating with the Kachin is one of the hardliners, so there is less give and take there.
The flashpoint for Kachin was a series of hydroelectric dam projects in Kachin state. There are seven or eight of them, and the Kachin Independence Organization approved several. They're mostly run by the Chinese. But there was one that was going to flood a valley that would cut off the Kachin Independence Army 3rd Brigade from the rest, and the Burmese were building a big road for transport there that could also be used to deliver military troops and split the Kachin and take them over, so for security reasons they didn't want that dam.
As the dam was being built, the Burma army moved a lot of troops in there, and there are a lot of Kachin troops. When you have a lot of armed people in a small area, fighting is started and then it's continued.
I believe in the KIO's demands. They don't want representation just for themselves, they are arguing for all ethnic minorities. It's a big ask. There have been three rounds of ceasefire talks, and they're now debating on where they're going to have the next round. So things are still going on.
I guess there have been more progressive negotiators with other ethnic minorities, so that's part of the answer.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Is there willingness to work together in these ethnic minorities? Is that simply a non-starter, or are they considering uniting once again? Obviously, they would be in a much stronger negotiating position if they were united.
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
I think that's ongoing—talks between ethnic nationalities on how they can come as one negotiating force.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
How different are these ethnic nationalities from each other?
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
I guess they're as different as they are from themselves versus the Burmese, except a lot of them tend to be Christian. But there are a lot of Buddhists. The Shan are Buddhists, and the Mon.
Depending on what's in their area and how they are making money.... In Shan state there was a lot of opium and now there's a lot of methamphetamine. Some military commanders don't want that to be shut down because that's how they're making money. Others want to protect their own natural resources from the Burmese so that they can sell them.
I don't know of other issues that they're disagreeing on, but it's probably political. There are even maybe border disputes between ethnic states because the people are interspersed along the edges.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
This is the last question I will ask. Between now and 2015, the next general election, what do you think needs to happen to increase the likelihood that those elections will be free and fair?
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
That's a good question.
In the election in April, the Burmese government allowed some international monitors in, but they only did it a very short amount of time before the election. I think international monitoring, as it should be properly done, is important. I would need to look to see how many seats are up for grabs. In the election in April there were some complaints, but not too many. But only about 6% of the seats in Parliament were up, so even though the NLD swept the election, the outcome is not going to be that great. It will be interesting in 2015 if many more seats are up. The NLD is widely popular and the regime is.... We'll see how they deal with that.
As I said before, I think I would continue to support civil society groups, and ensure that ethnic nationalities are included. It was great the NLD could register as a party, but like I said, some Kachin parties weren't allowed to register. So I think that would be important too—to just make sure that things are fair, spread across the entire country, and not just concentrated in the central parts.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
I have a couple things I'd like to ask if I could before you leave.
Obviously there are a number of problems with minorities in general in Burma. It's an understatement, but the Rohingya seem to have a special status. You mentioned, for example, that they don't have citizenship, which makes me assume that, whatever other problems exist, Kachin, Karen, and so on are regarded as Burmese citizens. What is the rationale for the distinction?
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
I'll tell you what the anti-Rohingya propagandists say. They say the Rohingya are Bangladeshi. They came over 20 years ago and they're new and transient. The Rohingyas say they've been a part of Arakan state for hundreds and hundreds of years. They've had ministers in the Arakan kingdom back before Burma was even a country, and they are part of the society.
The area where they live does border Bangladesh so there are similarities there. But they have a distinct dialect from Bangladeshis, so when they go to Bangladesh they're obviously different.
Conservative
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
Yes, and there's a lot of racism, a lot of knee-jerk reactions you get when you bring up Rohingyas. They're invaders, that's the first thing a lot of people will say.
So there has been a lot of anti-Rohingya propaganda. I know the state newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar used to run op-eds that the Rohingyas are invaders and they're not citizens. When you're in Rangoon reading that and you've never seen these people, or interacted with them, or know any factual history.... It's convinced a lot of citizens.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Then would it be accurate to say—though it's hard to define where an ethnic or a linguistic group starts or ends—effectively they are a separate ethno-linguistic group from the Bengali majority in Bangladesh? Is it an ethnic group that actually does spread across the border so that there are some Rohingya ethnic people in Bangladesh as well? Is that part of the source of the—
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
I'm not sure, because hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh and are living there in camps. They are stateless. There's a lot of cross-border trade. A lot of Rohingya are doing that and are paying a lot of bribes to the border guards to get through.
I'm not really clear about it. I think most of them originally were in the northern Arakan state in Burma.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Okay.
I also wanted to ask you about the forced conversions to Buddhism. I must say that this is a concept that just strikes me as odd.
Most socialist regimes are socialist in name only, in my experience. The socialist regime is not really a Marxist regime. Nonetheless, there tends to be a link between that and official atheism. Is that not the case historically here? Or is this the military doing something on its own, once again? What's up with that whole thing? Is it a form of ritual humiliation? Is that the real purpose of it?
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
That could be part of it. It's also part of this older Burmanization concept, where we want everybody to be the same, including the same religion. It is probably also showing that we have control and you don't, so that you have to do this.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
All right. I found that very helpful.
I wanted to ask one last thing about child soldiers. Can you give us an update on the situation with the use of child soldiers in any of these areas?
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
I haven't been investigating this. But from what I know, several child soldiers have defected from the Burmese army to the Kachin Independence Army. There was a report out about that recently. It's still happening. Ethnic armies are still using them, but I think that's on the decline. This was in the report of the special rapporteur that came out in March, so probably it is still a problem.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
All right, thank you very much.
On behalf of all of us, we'd like to thank you for coming here and for providing really excellent testimony. We're very grateful to you.
Director, Burma Project, Physicians for Human Rights
Thank you so much for having me.
