Statement by His Excellency Dr. Kyaw Win, Ambassador, Representative of the
Union of Myanmar in the Third Committee on the Report of Professor Paulo Sergio
Pinheiro, Special Rapporteur, on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
Agenda Item 117(c): Human Rights Questions

Mr. Chairman,As part of our longstanding policy of closely cooperating with the United Nations as a responsible member country, Myanmar has accepted over the years an independent expert and two special rapporteurs on human rights to visit the country.

Traditionally, in addition to their high academic qualifications, professionalism and expertise in the field, certain special attributes are also expected of such rapporteurs in carrying out their mandate in a fair, objective and impartial manner. In practice, however, their ability to withstand pressures, temptations and persuasions from powerful countries and self-interest groups with hidden political agenda should be a major determinant when the country under study considers their acceptability. Furthermore, there has been a tendency of Special Rapporteurs to overplay political considerations rather than concentrating on human rights promotion when they themselves come under pressure from powerful western countries in order to affect changes of political systems or to install individual politicians with special connections to them into positions of power. Because of such reasons some member states were unable to accept there on Special Rapporteurs to visit the respective countries.

Mr. Chairman, The present rapporteur Professor Pinheiro has just visited Myanmar last week for the sixth time and it had been our hope that he can withstand the abovementioned pressures, spins and propaganda of expatriate dissident groups whose testimonies and allegations have been repeatedly proven wrong by credible UN envoys and international humanitarian organizations such as the ICRC. In this context, it is my pleasure to recall that in the past two years at these sessions we commended Professor Pinheiro for his integrity, his impartiality and the high quality of work in the midst of negative propaganda campaigns waged by residual armed insurgents over the border and self-interest groups funded from Western Countries and organizations. And my intervention today is by no means against the person and stature of Professor Pinheiro - but mainly against certain elements contained in his report, which we feel, are based on information obtained from sources who cannot consider to be completely scrupulous or constructive. It is worth remembering, Mr. Chairman, that these armed insurgent organizations, initiated their military campaigns against the first democratically elected government of 1948 opposing the independence of the Union and have remained belligerent for their own separatist reasons. Only in recent years they have started to use the cloak of democracy as a pretext to justify their continued intransigence and their failure to join the other 17 armed groups that have returned to the legal fold in the past decade. It is also worth remembering that the Government extended the olive branch to all of them and many have returned to be peacefully resettled in their homeland.

At this juncture, I would like to draw to the attention of this esteemed committee to a particular unfortunate incident in Myanmar, which has underpinned Professor Pinheiro's interim report of July 2003 and influenced much of his conclusions, taking note that he is not the official investigator of the UN on this matter.

Mr. Chairman, Related to this incident and the sequence of events that followed it has become necessary to seriously assess which is rumor, which is reality and how pronouncements and actions taken so far have affected the credibility of individuals, organizations and even whole countries. Since May 2002, when the Myanmar Government lifted some restrictions on political parties, they were requested to initially confine their activities to reopening of party offices and to hold party meetings within their premises and compounds. This graduated process of political liberalization was considered to be a prudent first step in a country that has not seen western style political campaigning for decades and would limit any untoward ramifications, such as the one at Dabayin, and its possible undesirable consequences from adversely affecting the livelihood of the silent and peaceful majority of Myanmar citizens, who are beginning to enjoy the fruits of recent developmental projects instituted by the government to improve their lives.

Although the first six months after May 2002 saw a disciplined and cooperative effort of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues making visits around the country to view first hand abovementioned developmental projects as well as to attend to her party matters, the second six months became a different picture.

After unilaterally reneging on the agreed ground rules, she and her colleagues declined government offers of security arrangements and travelled with dozens of vigilantes on motorcycles as escorts, but who would now and then take the law into their own hands to arrest some peaceful protesters as well as some bystanders disenchanted by the kind of political rowdiness that they have not seen for a long time. Even several days before this unfortunate incident, the ire of the peace loving citizens had been aroused by several displays of arrogant behavior and offensive remarks made by them in the townships of Shwebo district which incidentally happens to be the historic heartland of highly nationalistic and anticolonialist sentiments.

The veracity of the matter, Mr. Chairman, is that people, who clashed with Daw Suu Kyi's motorcade in the night, in a remote area where there is no police or military presence, were neither limited to government supporters nor those with affiliations to any political party. In short, if Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her group were traveling under proper security arrangements, as all prominent political figures should, this unfortunate incident would have been completely avoided. The security personnel who had to be summoned from nearby townships brought the situation under control but four persons had died and several dozens had been injured and were hospitalized. This has all been confirmed by an official police inquest and this is where the matter should be laid to rest.

It must now be pointed out that compared to what has been going on around the world these days, the Dabayin incident cannot be classified as a major one. It began to appear like one only after the politically motivated rumors became magnified by western supporters of the dissidents who were responsible for spreading them. This was definitely not an event that threatened international peace and security but a situation that the Government of Myanmar could handle without any difficulty. But in order to prevent further skirmishes and protect their own selves among political groups the government placed the political leaders under protective custody and took legal action against those involved in the violent clash regardless of their affiliations. However, the accounts provided by so-called "eye witnesses" who fled across the border following this incident need to be objectively seen as follows;

1. The "Eye Witness" accounts - claimed initially that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi  sustained a broken arm and facial injuries which were highlighted by the international media. The reality - was UN Secretary General's Special Envoy Ambassador Razali after seeing her, confirmed the government report that she was unhurt "without a scratch" and to be in "high spirits".

2. The "Eye Witness" account - the Vice-Chairman of the NLD former General U Tin Oo was either fatally or severely injured. The reality- Representatives of the ICRC after visiting U Tin Oo and his colleagues reported that he too was unscathed.

3. The same discredited "Eye Witness" accounts- have been claiming that over one hundred people were killed. These claims being made without a shred of credible evidence that must include particulars for identification that all Myanmar citizens posses such as father's name, addresses, and national registration numbers of the imaginary fatalities and the whole incident described in seemingly realistic details by individuals who may not even have been present at the scene.

The fact of the matter is that the police inquest revealed that only four persons died -- a fact the learned Special Rapporteur a few hours ago informed us as being accepted by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi herself. We are therefore perplexed, Mr. Chairman, when the distinguished Special Rapporteur who last visited Myanmar in March 2003, in his report covering up to July this year quoting "information from various sources" seemed to join the chorus of our detractors who were promoting the impression that this incident was stage-managed by the Government and that is "indicated and element of premeditation" and part of a general pattern of growing harassment of NLD supporters."

The fact of the matter is that the Government was completely taken by surprise and itself baffled by the wisdom of politicians who behaved as if they were invincible and were without any opposition to their policies which included calling for economic sanctions and bans on tourism with such negative socio-economic consequences for people at the grassroots.

We are also somewhat perturbed when the Special Rapporteur remained oblivious of such considerations and lent credence to the accounts of individuals with low or no credibility when preparing his report. We felt that the UN should certainly remain objective and refrain from taking sides based simply on of the so-called evidence provided by the "opposition" inside and outside of the country.

We were also once again disappointed when someone of his stature and professionalism again allowed himself to be swayed by the false and malicious rumor that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was on a hunger strike the rumor that the Myanmar Government and even the Thai Government strongly denied and later the ICRC found Daw Suu Kyi not to be on hunger strike as alleged. The Government has been looking after her every need and at a later date the Government facilitate her hospitalization and successful gynecological treatment from which she is now recovering.

I would therefore sincerely request the distinguished Special Rapporteur to be aware that sources that misled him in the recent past are also unlikely to provide him with correct and objective data at present and in the future as well.

Furthermore, may I point out that from the scientific point of view, "research" to yield credible data must be carried out on populations without bias or political affiliation. So long as such research studied are carried out exclusively on one side of the border the conclusions will remain biased and questionable. We are amazed that, despite the government's full cooperation with him he has chosen to conduct his research on the supporters of armed insurgents, who for decades terrorized the people of Myanmar and later fled across the border when the military campaign that they started faltered. Regrettably we will have no choice but to completely reject such findings and conclusions. Most importantly the Special Rapporteur in our opinion, should cautiously deal with so called Human Rights organizations such Shan Women Action Network and Shan Human Rights Foundation which have been choosing to act as if they are judge, jury and executioner.

Mr. Chairman.

The Government of Myanmar did concede that the incident at Dabayin was an unfortunate event on the long road to reconciliation but would certainly differ from the Special Rapporteur's contention that the reconciliation process "has been undone in one stroke". We would like to remind him that this is the government that has been able to bring peace with 95 percent of 40-year-old armed insurgencies and is not going to be deterred by this single incident from carrying on its political transition process with all political parties and ethnic nationalities willing to join the process sincerely and responsibly. Mr. Chairman, Turning to other parts of the Special Rapporteur's interim report, my comments will be brief and made with a view to clarify some specific statements which could have conveyed unnecessarily negative picture of the true state of affairs.

The first concerns the so-called "relocations" in the Shan State. The populations from poppy growing areas of Wa State were moved by their own ethnic leaders into the fertile valleys where they could grow alternative crops, raise livestock and sever themselves from addiction to opiates. All who are opposed to poppy cultivation should find such efforts laudable rather than criticizing them.

Despite such criticisms even the United States Government satellite imagery-based estimates in 2002-2003 growing season have revealed a 39 per cent decline in output of the opium crop from the previous year, maintaining a trend that has been taking place for the past three years.

From the human rights angle, thousands of human beings are being rescued from poverty as well as from their addiction and livelihoods as suppliers of narcotic drugs, while anti-drug campaigns in developed western countries with billion dollar drug markets, will also be significantly helped.

The second concerns the phrases used in his concluding observations as if Myanmar people are lagging behind "the peoples of the rest of Southeast Asia".

It should have been noted that Myanmar is definitely not occupying the lowest position on the UNDP's Human Development Index in Southeast Asia, although it is striving hard, against Western sanctions, to improve itself. Also when using a phrase such as "national reconciliation" he seems to be concentrating on a certain individual and certain political party only but ignoring the fact that it was this government only that brought to an end the loss of thousands of lives from armed insurgencies, through a national reconciliation process with profound political implications as well as improvement of the human rights situation.

Thirdly, in spite of Myanmar's utmost cooperation with him and despite the fact that the Prime Minister of the country himself had received the Special Rapporteur and personally explained his plans for the democratic transition, it is most regrettable that the Special Rapporteur dubbed this plan as the "so-called road map of the SPDC", a terminology used by the anti-government elements.

For it is a genuine road map that will be implemented systematically under conditions of peace and stability which no one should dismiss summarily out of hand or even criticize prematurely it should be noted that the Association of Southeast Asian nations, at its Summit in Bali in October 2003, has thrown its full support behind this road map.

Mr. Chairman,

Myanmar has cooperated and hopes to continue to cooperate with the United Nations, so long as its vital interest, namely, the sovereignty and the integrity of the Union, is not infringed upon. Any move, which will undermine Myanmar's interest and national sovereignty by manipulating the UN mechanisms will be strongly resisted.

In conclusion, may I emphatically state that it is Myanmar's fervent wish and resolve to continue the political transition with the involvement of all strata of the society within the Union. The steps taken so far have been done because we consider them the right things to do for our citizens and not because of pressure from any quarter. Myanmar's cooperation therefore should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness and its good will construed as acting out of fear.

As such, all intrusive and prescriptive attempts that will compromise Myanmar's national interest and sovereignty will be totally rejected.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.