Sanjeewa Liyanage

The Asian Human Rights Commission has convened a People’s Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarisation in Burma to investigate a widely reported lack of food in the country (also known as Myanmar), its causes and effects. The objective of this tribunal was to hear the people affected by food scarcity and to hear their expereinces with hunger and military rule and to determine whether there is a nexus between thwo and whether the right to food has been denied to the people of Myanmar. In this regard the Tribunal has extensively studied the concepts such as right to food and militarisation.

The People’s Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarisation in Burma is composed of three eminent persons distinguished as innovators and leaders of Asia’s human rights movement: Justice H. Suresh, Bombay High Court (retired); Professor Mark Tamthai, Director of the Center for Philosophy and Public Policy, Faculty of Arts, at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University; Dr. Lao Mong Hay, Executive Director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Between 1996 and 1999, data were collected from many sources from parts of Myanmar which have come to a voluminous compilation of evidence (testimonies, reports, photographs, video tapes etc.) which were analyzed in coming up with final findings. In April 1999, a cross-section of Burmese society--farmers, refugees, landless workers, former civil servants--appeared before the Tribunal testifying to food scarcity as a nation-wide trend. Working with the human rights organisation Burma Issues, the Tribunal has so far recorded depositions from 26 witnesses both in Bangkok and along the Thailand-Burma border. Furthermore, it has studied extensive documentation illustrating the breadth of food scarcity and the impact it has on the lives of Burma’s people, especially the rural poor. The Tribunal's report would also explain impact of military activities in different areas or zones such as in civil war zones and non-civil war zones of the country in so as it related to food, as under: direct attacks on civilian communities and systematic destruction of paddy stocks, crops in the filed, livestock, and houses; extortion of food stock and valuables; internally displaced people; restrictions on trade and travel; ecological damage and crop shortfalls due to military incursions; inadequate community health services; crop procurement; forced labour; taxation and fees; rationing of paddy stocks; and abandoned farmland. The evidence of the Tribunal would set out steps by which the tribunal received evidence; and a discussion of armed-conflict zones and non-armed conflict zones.

Though not part of the judicial system, a People’s Tribunal adheres to legal principles, applying the rules of evidence and due process to the question it considers. This alternate approach to justice aims to highlight human rights in situations which the national and international legal systems fail to address. The Tribunal investigates food scarcity to help the international community focus on Burma’s grassroots issues, contributing an important perspective to the movement for democratisation and political rights.

The Tribunal’s preliminary findings indicate a strong link between food scarcity and the government’s role in militarisation. Respecting the Government of the Union of Myanmar’s right to respond, the Tribunal outlined its findings in a letter and invited the government to share its view, but has yet to receive any reply.

The Tribunal will publish its findings and recommendations on October 15^th, 1999. The Tribunal, through its report, will make specific recommendations to the Burmese Government (the Government of the Union of Myanmar), other armed parties, civilian individuals and political parties planning for political change, and to the international community involving state governments, international and local NGOs and United Nations. All governments, international agencies, NGOs and individuals concerned with economic, social and cultural rights are encouraged to contact the Tribunal Secretariat, c/o Asian Human Rights Commission, to order a copy of the report or request further information. Photographs, documentation and further background information will also be available at the Tribunal’s web-site at: www.hrschool.org/tribunal.