Pacific Daily NewsFebruary 18, 2009
The price for human rights and freedom can be very high, but many have been willing to pay the price.
Achieving a balance between those who see activism on behalf of increased civil liberties and a condition of political stability as mutually exclusive has been an historical struggle that continues today.
Western philosophy has focused on human rights and individual freedom. Non-Western philosophies have argued there can't be human rights and freedom in an unstable, disorderly, chaotic society, and that Westerners have been preoccupied with "procedural" democracy more than "substantive" democracy.
Recently, increasing numbers of Western governments have leaned toward supporting stability, security and economic development -- at the expense of rights and freedom -- in the world's societies.
The United States has always been a country that tended to ground American ideals in a pragmatic realism that acknowledges contemporary circumstances without capitulating on principle. This flexibility has been its genius.
On Nov. 4, 2007, the Sunday Washington Post published "What Burma's Junta Must Fear," by a 28-year-old Buddhist monk using the pseudonym U Gambira. In hiding, he was one of the leaders of the All-Burma Monks Alliance that led the September 2007 Saffron Revolution against Gen. Than Shwe's military junta's dictatorial rule.
"We adhere to nonviolence, but our spine is made of steel," U Gambira said. He said he was "awed by the bravery of so many" of his compatriots and "a new generation of activists (who) join to issue an unequivocal call for freedom. ... It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey. Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow," he wrote.
On the day his words appeared in the Post, the junta arrested Gambira in Burma. He was disrobed, thrown in the infamous Insein Jail, tortured and sentenced to 68 years.
Then-President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, sided with Burma's pro-democracy groups while more liberal donor groups called for engagement with Shwe.
On Nov. 24, 2008, the Post's "The Freedom Challenge, In Burma, a test of Barack Obama's attitude toward promoting democracy," editorialized, "the global struggle for liberty will rage on long after George W. Bush takes his 'freedom agenda' home to Texas"; and "abandoning the promotion and support of democracy as core American goals would be a terrible mistake."
Cambodia, under Premier Hun Sen, is Burma's mirror.
Business as usual
Domestic and international human rights groups call for actions against Sen's abuses of rights and freedom, but many of the world's governments do business as usual with the government.
Sen lost the 1993 United Nations-organized elections, when nine out of 10 voters chose Prince Ranariddh to lead them. But Sen refused defeat, threatened war, and the world community gave in, creating a "second prime minister" position for the vanquished politician.
Then, as the world watched, in July 1997 Sen ousted Ranariddh in a military coup and seized full power.
On Feb. 3, ADHOC, a leading Cambodian civil rights group, charged in its 8th annual report that the Sen government: restricts public demonstrations -- "Of the 155 peaceful strikes and demonstrations that took place, 108 (70 percent) were suppressed forcibly by the armed forces"; intimidates journalists -- "Journalists were subject to various forms of threats throughout the year, and in one case a journalist was shot dead"; the Sen military is increasingly involved in land grabs -- 125 cases in 2008, compared to 40 in 2007 -- with 164 rights activists threatened and 62,500 families lost land to military seizures of 200-500 hectares of land in each case.
In its January 2008 "Dey Krahorm Community Land Case Explained," LICADHO Canada, a nonprofit, grass-roots organization that seeks to promote justice and human rights in Cambodia, presented a comprehensive description of the Phnom Penh's Dey Krohorm community's forced evictions of residents by authorities.
A 2007 report, "Cambodia's Family Trees," by London-based Global Witness, an anti-graft non-governmental organization, charged Sen and his "kleptocratic" officials with alleged exploitation of forests for personal profit.
On February 5, 2009, in its 70-page "Country for Sale," Global Witness wrote that the same "corrupt elite has captured the country's emerging oil and mineral sectors while Cambodia's international donors turn a blind eye," and listed 13 countries, including the United States, and five international institutions, including the United Nations, as Cambodia's donors.
A must-read document that lists names and shows photos, the report by Global Witness is based on investigations in 2008. The report says, "Cambodia today is a country for sale. ... Over the past 15 years, 45 percent of the country's land has been purchased by private interests." It charges that "millions of dollars" that were "paid to secure concessions ... do not show up ... in the 2006 or 2007 revenue reports from the Ministry of Economy and Finance."
Calling for "a fundamental shift in mindset to go beyond the sanitized rhetoric of good governance," the report urges "a recognition that stripping a country of its assets for personal gain represents a mass violation of the social and economic rights of the country's people."
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
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