EBO
News Summary:
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1. U.N. dithers as Nobel laureate
struggles to live
2.
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U.N. dithers as Nobel laureate
struggles to live
The
By RENA PEDERSON
It is no wonder the Bush administration
looks on the United Nations with some
weariness.
It too often is a Dithering Club.
Current case in point:
recent times, the military dictators there
violently dragged Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi into custody nearly a
month ago.
It took nearly four days for the United
Nations to issue a statement protesting
the freedom leader's incarceration. U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last
week that he was "gravely concerned"
by reports that the Nobel laureate was
being held in Insein Prison, one of the most
notorious prisons in the world.
'Grave concern'
Words are nice. "Grave concern"
is good. But how about some principled action?
What will it take for the U.N. Security
Council to demonstrate its disapproval?
The Council on Foreign Relations last week
called for the Security Council to
convene an emergency session to condemn the
Burmese actions. But the
secretary-general is on a 30-day trip out of the country,
jetting from
to
Kofi Annan may not realize it yet, but his
credibility and his character will be
stained forever if one of the most admired voices
of freedom is lost on his watch.
The exquisitely polite career diplomat
could be seen in a familiar pose when
Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed
his concern about
Nations. Mr. Annan stood by, hands gracefully held
in front of his chest with the
fingertips touching, as if he were holding an
invisible ball in a triangle of fingers.
He looked like an elegantly tailored
priest deep in thought.
Indeed, he is a former theology student
and, by most accounts, a lovely fellow.
Yet as a consummate bureaucratic insider,
he glides rather than leads. As
a 17,000-word article in The New Yorker
reminded this spring, it was this same
opaque diplomat who was head of the U.N.
peacekeeping operations that left
800,000 to be
slaughtered in
diplomat who oversaw the catastrophic U.N. mission
in
were massacred in U.N. "safe" areas
like Srebenica.
Traveling world
Nevertheless, Mr. Annan glided to the top
of the United Nations and received
a Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 and now spends
more than a third of the year
traveling around the world to meet with member
states.
Yes, the world has many problems that cry
for attention, but there is only one
Nobel laureate who has
been kidnapped and locked in a prison. Mr. Annan
received his prize for persuading the
restructuring the U.N. bureaucracy and
"revitalizing" the organization. But Aung
San Suu Kyi received hers for risking her
life every day for years in the face of
armed soldiers with cocked guns. Kofi Annan's work was done in air-conditioned
buildings and jet planes. Aung San Suu Kyi has
spent most of the last 13 years
in prison and under house arrest.
Now, Aung San Suu Kyi is back in prison,
wearing the same clothes since she was
arrested May 31. It is appropriate that Insein
Prison, where she is believed to
be held, is pronounced in-sane. It is a
nightmarish chamber of horrors. Dog kennels
there have been converted into "dog
cells" for punishing prisoners. Most of those
admitted to the hospital die there, without
sheets, blankets or medicine. Food
consists of a serving of rice twice a day with a
little pea water and a teaspoon of
fish paste. Once a week, a cube of meat about
an inch in size may be included.
Tortured
Human rights groups have documented that
prisoners are forced to beat other
prisoners to survive. Many have been shackled,
beaten and tortured. In one awful
case in 1993, a prisoner named Bo Ou was beheaded and his head put in the
vegetable soup. Heroin abuse is rampant, and so is
AIDS. Dozens of democracy
advocates who have been imprisoned have died of
dysentery because of the
unhygienic conditions. Sixteen members of Parliament
are in prison.
But the star prisoner is Aung San Suu Kyi,
who is being held under a security law
whereby she may be held up to five years without
a charge. The International
Red Cross was given permission last week
by the Burmese junta to see those
who were imprisoned after the bloody
"Black Friday" attack on the Nobel laureate's
motorcade. But the generals won't allow the Red
Cross to see "the Lady."
To its credit, the U.S. Senate recently
moved quickly to call for tougher sanctions
on
That's more movement than we've seen from
the United Nations.
Rena Pederson is editor at large of The
Dallas Morning News. Her e-mail address is [email protected].
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from its Southeast Asian neighbours for the
release of pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, the United Nations
special envoy on
"I don't see how
countries," Razali Ismail told AFP after
meeting Indonesian Foreign Minister
Hassan Wirayuda, who
chairs the 10-member regional grouping which includes
Razali, from
about the steps being considered by the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) to deal with the issues of
national reconciliation and democracy in
"It was a very helpful discussion
over breakfast," he said. "As I
understand it, all things are being considered.
"My purpose here... is to underline
how seriously the UN looks at the
continued detention of Aung San Suu Kyi," said
Razali.
ASEAN foreign ministers meeting this month
called for Aung San Suu Kyi's
release, breaking a decades-old convention of
non-interference in members'
internal affairs.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman
Marty Natalegawa said Wirayuda
briefed Razali on discussions held at this
month's ASEAN annual ministerial
meetings in
At that meeting the foreign ministers
discussed sending an ASEAN team to
But Natalegawa
said
to his government.
"To date we have not heard from
them," he said.
On Wednesday Razali told Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi that
Aung San Suu Kyi was being detained in poor surroundings at a
when
he was allowed to meet her on June 10.
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