On Nov. 7, Burma will hold its first election in 22 years. Burma is a Southeast Asian country the size of Texas, neighboring Thailand, Laos, China, India and Bangladesh. Most people in the Western world don’t know it has the longest running civil war in the world or that its ruling military regime has locked up the democratically elected, Nobel Prize-winning president Aung San Suu Kyi for 15 of the past 21 years.

While traveling in Burma last fall, I experienced things most Americans never have to think about. I went through military checkpoints and drove through the country’s largest city in pitch black because of electrical blackouts. I saw menacing government propaganda billboards and a young boy holding a rifle, a testament to the high number of child soldiers in the country. As someone who has traveled to Burma and directly lobbied Congress to support an international investigation against Burma’s military regime, I am writing today to spread the word about Burma’s upcoming elections, why they are undemocratic and what we can do about it.

Ruled by a military junta that seized power in a coup in 1962, Burma is riddled with heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Burmese government has been attacking its own civilian population for decades. Destroying over 3,500 ethnic villages, using rape as a weapon of war, forcing citizens to work as porters and slave laborers, imprisoning over 2,200 political prisoners, murdering innocent citizens and forcibly displacing over 2 million people who are forced to leave their homes as refugees or internally displaced persons.

In 1988, students in Burma led peaceful pro-democracy protests, which ended in bloodshed when the military cracked down violently, killing over 3,000 protestors. Following this crackdown, the 1990 elections ended in a landslide victory for the National League for Democracy, led by Suu Kyi. Instead of recognizing the results of this election, the military locked up Suu Kyi and the other leaders of the pro-democracy party. There is little indication that the military has changed its ways.

Burma’s 2010 elections will undoubtedly be just as undemocratic as the 1990 elections. The constitution upon which the election was built is a sham — government cronies wrote it — and was only passed by voter intimidation. The constitution legalizes military rule and guarantees a number of seats in parliament for military members, meaning that the results of the election are decided before people even reach the voting booths.

The international community must make it clear that we will not recognize Burma’s elections as legitimate. In August, President Barack Obama signed on to support a United Nations-led Commission of Inquiry to hold Burma’s junta accountable for its war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On Nov. 4, Syracuse University’s chapter of STAND, A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, will be holding mock elections in Schine Student Center. We hope to illustrate how unfair the elections in Burma will be and to remind students how lucky we Americans are to be able to vote in free and fair elections without fearing for our lives.

I know most of you have never heard about Burma and the atrocities being committed there. On Nov. 7, I hope some of you think of the sham elections going on and try to hold your elected officials responsible for following through on their promises to investigate the terrible crimes in Burma.

Nicole Loring

Senior political science and economics major

 

Published on November 2, 2010 at 12:00 pm