Celebrate Suu Kyi's Visit, Then Get Back to Work

"ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္ အႏွစ္သက္ဆုံး မိတ္ကပ္ "Brand-အမွတ္တံဆိပ္" ကဘာလဲ"
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By Zoya Phan
Burma Campain UK

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi leaves Europe today after a five nation tour lasting more than three weeks. Everywhere she has gone she has been met by cheering crowds, and politicians and celebrities have queued up to have their picture taken with her, praising her for her courage.

Her visit has been treated by most European media and politicians as a kind of celebration, and of course in some ways it was. To be able to leave Burma for the first time in 24 years, confident that she would be allowed back into the country, is a sign of what has changed in Burma in the past year.

But Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's cautious words and political message appears to have got lost among the excitement, awards, and meetings with DJs who were famous 20 years ago.

As a woman from Burma, forced to flee my village aged 14 when the Burmese Army attacked, and now living thousands of miles from home in the UK, it has been very encouraging and inspiring for me to see Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visiting Europe, and an honour to meet her.

After all the years of struggle and hardship, she is still as determined and committed as ever to achieving freedom in Burma. In her speeches she repeatedly talked about the challenges that remain and the work still to be done, but most of the media focus was on her personal story. One journalist even called my organisation, Burma Campaign UK, asking what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's favourite brand of make-up is.

International support has played a vital role in promoting the changes happening in Burma today, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi stated how important it is that international support continues, even if it is in different forms. Yet many people I talk to in the west have the impression that problems in Burma are pretty much solved, and that not much needs to be done now.
In media coverage and statements from European politicians there has been virtually no mention of the hundreds of political prisoners left behind in Burma's jails. Many are held in bare concrete cells with just a bucket for a toilet, and given food so bad they often get sick. When they are ill they don't get proper medical care. There is a proposal now for a joint international and domestic committee which can assess which political prisoners remain and ensure they are released, yet not one European country Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited has expressed support for this proposal.
Aung San Suu Kyi's impassioned appeal against compassion fatigue, asking for funding for refugees from Burma who are facing malnutrition in camps on the Thailand Burma border also went unreported, and not one of the European countries she visited pledged a single extra penny to help the refugees.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's words of caution on investment in Burma are met by pledges to encourage ethical investment, but no government is proposing legislation to ensure this, and in practise they are rushing to beat competitors and gain first access to Burma's abundant natural resources and cheap labour.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi repeatedly called for assistance on the rule of law, but for the government of Burma and many other countries, laws relating to investment, not human rights, seem to be at the top of their agenda.

It is certainly not new for politicians to heap praise on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi while ignoring what she is asking them to do. For 15 years she asked for targeted sanctions and it was a long slow process even to get just a few sanctions imposed by the EU. Yet once she agreed that sanctions might be suspended it took just 15 days for the EU to drop all sanctions except the arms embargo.

Aung San Suu Kyi is now flying back to a country which is not democratic. It is a country which still has one of the worst records on human rights in the world. It still spends far more on the military than on health and education. It still has hundreds of political prisoners, and many of those released have only been released conditionally. The laws under which they were jailed are still on the books.

So let's enjoy the memories of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's historic visit to Europe, but don't think that the problems are solved and the job is done. There is still a long way to go and a lot more work to be done. In fact, as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told us at Burma Campaign UK, "you'll need to work even harder."
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