To:
Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United
Nations
United Nations Headquarters
New York, NY 10017
Office of the Secretary-General Fax: (212) 963-1921
CC:
Sir Emyr Jones Parry, KCMG, Permanent Representative
of the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations,
Fax: (212) 745-9316;
Ambassador Andrey Denisov, Permanent Representative
of the Federation of Russia Mission to the United
Nations,
Fax: (212) 628-0252;
Ambassador Wang Guang Ya, Permanent Representative
of the People’s Republic of China Mission
to the United Nations, Fax: (212) 481-2998;
Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, Permanent
Representative of the France Mission to the
United Nations,
Fax: (212) 355-2763; and
Ambassador John Bolton, Permanent Representative
of the United States Mission to the United Nations,
Fax: (212) 415-4053
Dear Secretary-General,
In your September 2003 report to the 58th Session
of the United Nations General Assembly on the
political situation in Burma (also known as
Myanmar, as it was renamed by the ruling military
junta in 1989), you encouraged the international
community to facilitate a democratic transition
in Burma by the year 2006. Today, that deadline
fast approaches and there are no signs of political
dialogue or cooperation in Burma, despite your
promises to do your "utmost, together with
all interested member states, to reinvigorate
the process of national reconciliation."
On October 24, 2005, your fellow Nobel Peace
Prize recipient and leader of the National League
for Democracy (NLD) and Burma's democracy movement,
Aung San Suu Kyi, will have spent a cumulative
10 years in solitary detention in Burma. The
political stalemate in Burma has not eased or
ended, and the Burmese generals repeatedly ignore
and reject UN attempts to facilitate and encourage
political dialogue. In fact, both the UN Special
Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights
in Burma, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, and the Special
Envoy from the Office of the Secretary General,
Razali Ismail, have been barred from even entering
Burma since 2003 and 2004, respectively.
It is ironic that October 24, 2005 is also the
60th anniversary of the United Nations, or "UN
Day." In 1948, the year the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights was proclaimed and adopted by
the UN General Assembly, Burma was the first
country to proclaim complete independence from
British colonialism. Burma's independence opened
the global floodgates of decolonization and
heralded the creation of a world of independent
nation-states - a world of united nations. It
is wholly appropriate that Burma now stands
poised to usher in a new era of the United Nations,
one that you called for yourself when you said,
"We must move from an era of legislation
to an era of implementation."
The issue of Burma is waiting to be addressed
by the UN's most powerful body, the Security
Council. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Archbishop
Desmond Tutu and former President of the Czech
Republic Vaclav Havel have called on the Security
Council to address Burma and pass a peaceful
resolution that would allow for the vigorous
engagement of the UN Secretary General in establishing
and implementing a plan for national reconciliation
in Burma. The resolution being recommended by
Archbishop Tutu and President Havel would grant
you the mandate of the Security Council, multiplying
and magnifying the ways in which you may facilitate
peaceful change in Burma. Their recommendations,
which do not include calls for sanctions or
the use of force, have the heartfelt endorsements
of many Burmese who struggle for democracy and
human rights in their country, such as the NLD,
ethnic nationality parties elected in 1990,
student leaders, and ethnic movements who have
signed ceasefires with the Burmese army.
Such a resolution on Burma as that proposed
by Archbishop Tutu and President Havel must
be passed at the UN Security Council today because
the situation in Burma has deteriorated to the
point where its political instability, widespread
human rights violations, creation of over 700,000
refugees, displacement of millions internally
in Burma, tolerance of the production and trafficking
of illegal narcotics, and indifference to the
transmission of HIV/AIDS from Burma to other
parts of Asia, all pose a legitimate threat
to international peace and security.
We urge you to make good on your promise to
the Burmese people and to the world to meet
the deadline you set in 2003 to see progress
in Burma by 2006, by responding positively and
immediately to the call for the UN Security
Council to address Burma. We demand that you
bring Burma to the attention of the UN Security
Council without further delay.
Respectfully,
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