Nilar Thein open letter on Burma

Nilar Thein is a political fugitive from Burma

June 19, The Nation (Thailand)
Who will save Burma's women and children? – Nilar Thein

I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night. I was with my daughter,
playing in a small garden. We were playing hide and seek. I was looking
at her from behind a tree. She was so beautiful, with the prettiest smile
on her face, looking for me happily. I couldn't hide anymore. I wanted her
to find me. I wanted to hold her in my arms and kiss her face gently. I
started to show myself to her, but, suddenly I saw three men -with black
coats and ugly faces - watching from the shadows near my daughter. I
stepped back. I wanted to be found by my daughter, not by them. I still
saw my daughter, still looking for me with her innocent smile. I didn't
want to hide anymore. I wanted her to find me, but these men would take me
away and put me in hell. Then I woke up, with tears on my cheeks.

I have been separated from my daughter for nearly ten months. A midnight
knock at our door in August last year changed our lives dramatically. The
military junta's security forces took my husband Kyaw Min Yu (also known
as Jimmy) on the night of August 21, 2007. He is a leader of the prominent
dissident group, the 88 Generation Students, comprising former student
leaders and former political prisoners. He and other leaders were taken
from their homes that night by the authorities. As a former student
activist and a former political prisoner myself, I knew very well how my
husband and friends would be treated in the junta's interrogation cells.
Therefore, when they came back to arrest me, I went into hiding.

But I must continue to lead the 88 Generation Students with my other
colleagues, so that Burma may realise its freedom, and find justice and
democracy someday. I must avoid being arrested. However, there are so many
difficulties and hardships in moving secretly from one hiding place to
another, and I didn't want my daughter to share these hardships.
Therefore, I decided to send my three-month-old baby to my parents. Now, I
miss her so much.

My mind wanders to University Avenue, where "the Lady", Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, has been detained under house arrest for so many years. Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, will
have to spend her 63rd birthday today alone in detention. She will be
missing her two sons, too. Her strength and determination helps me and
many women in Burma stand up for justice. I thank her for being with us
and leading our movement. She is a great reminder to the world that the
military junta that rules our country forcibly separates mothers and
children.

Coincidentally, the UN Security Council will hold a debate in New York
today on "Women, Peace and Security". This debate is a discussion of UNSC
Resolution 1325, which was passed unanimously in October, 2000. Resolution
1325 "Calls on all parties to armed conflict to take special measures to
protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and
other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations
of armed conflict." It also "Emphasises the responsibility of all States
to put an end to impunity and to prosecute those responsible for genocide,
crimes against humanity, war crimes including those relating to sexual
violence against women and girls, and in this regard, stresses the need to
exclude these crimes, where feasible from amnesty provisions."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to chair the debate,
with many world leaders discussing the development of women, peace and
security. Will they discuss Burma? Will they remember Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
and the women of Burma who are suffering all forms of abuse by the
military junta?

Burma is now in the midst of two conflicts. One is the 50-year-old civil
war, raging between the Burmese military and the minority resistance
forces, predominately in the eastern part of the country. Burmese troops
are raping with impunity tribal women and girls, some as young as eight
years old. Burmese soldiers use women in conflict areas as porters to
carry their military equipment and supplies during the day, and use them
as sex slaves at night. Many women have been brutally killed to erase the
evidence of these crimes.

The other conflict is a 20-year old war, waged by the Burmese junta
against its own unarmed citizens, who are calling for freedom, justice and
democracy. Women activists are beaten, arrested, tortured and then put in
prison for many years. Many female activists are mistreated and sexually
assaulted by their interrogators and jailers. Children are used as bait by
the authorities to get their mothers arrested. Of the 2.5 million people
severely affected by Cyclone Nargis - many of whom the military junta
simply left to die through starvation and disease - at least a million are
women and girls. Recently, a UN expert said that up to 35,000 pregnant
women, all cyclone survivors, are at extreme risk of death. However, they
will never receive any care from the military.

I hope that Secretary of State Rice and other leaders at the UN Security
Council will give consideration to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the women of
Burma during their debate. Resolution 1325 is a great development, but
implementation and enforcement is still in question. When the government
itself is the abuser of human rights and the perpetrator of rape and other
forms of gender-based violence, who will protect the victims? Who will end
their tragedy? Who will secure the joyful reunion of mothers with their
children?

The appeasement policy of some bureaucrats is shameful. Effective and
urgent action from the UN Security Council is necessary to help the women
in Burma. No more debate. Take action. Please let me be happily reunited
with my daughter.

Nilar Thein is a former student leader in the 1988 democracy uprising in
Burma and spent more than nine years in prison.