Interviews with Cheery Zahau

The military regime in Burma imprisoned people who are speaking against them, who raise social, economic and political concerns or problems. By detaining these people in jail, Burma lost great people. Now Burma lost you know, creativity and, you know, the society just lost a great people with their presence. Our society, our communities could have been improved a lot. But SPDC [State Peace and Development Council, official title for the military regime in Burma at the time of this interview], the Burmese regime knows that’s the very reason why they put them behind.

In regard to whether they lose face at international forums or not, that’s what we’re trying to do. This is not acceptable for international community that the regime is putting more than 2,100 political prisoners in jail or, you know, oppressing so many other people, and how Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest.

We’re trying to tell the international community that this is not acceptable. At the same time, the international community, to some extent, has agreed and has put pressure on the Burmese regime that they should not do this; but a lot more, you know, pressure needs to be done.

The democracy movement is calling for sanctions. And I do agree for two reasons. One is if you looked at Burma, 70 percent of the population is living in rural area. So this 70 [percent] is not being helped with the investment. They rely on their farming.

But who really benefits from the investment is the military regime, because they are the ones who control every section in the government. So the 70 [percent] do not have the voice or do not have a chance to participate in the investment. That was one reason why I will agree.

The other reason why I support international sanctions is, again, if we looked at Burma: who is getting a proper education now? For the past ten years? Twenty years? The children of military personnel are getting a lot of educations on business, on technology and so many other things that are the main people who would be dealing with investment.

So larger populations in Burma, especially the young people, are left without proper educations, without proper training. So if you go in there in Burma, do investment, who are you going to employ? The children of the military soldiers. The children of this military personnel.

And who are going to get benefit? They are the one who will be getting benefit. And so there will be a lot more social class differences in Burma, whereas the large populations will be left out without proper educations. And the class gap will be a lot worse than today.

Cheery Zahau is a human rights activist from Chin State, Burma, and is now based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. As a high school student, she was advised by her teachers that her independence and intellectual curiosity would get her into serious trouble if she remained in Burma. She sought refuge in India, where she became an advocate for thousands of ethnic Chin faced with forcible return to Burma.

Zahau also became a leader of the Women’s League of Chinland, an organization that works to call international attention to the situation inside Chin State, including the use of rape as an instrument of conflict by the Burmese military regime. She has spoken at the United Nations and in other venues around the world.

When Zahau relocated to Thailand, she began working as an advocacy officer at the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, focusing on the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the ASEAN human rights process. She is also a management board member of the Network for Human Rights Documentation in Burma and is pursuing an advanced degree in international relations.

Burma, a Southeast Asian country with about 57 million people, is ruled by a military regime that seized power in 1962. Although the reformist National League for Democracy (NLD) won overwhelmingly in a 1990 election, the country’s military rulers ignored the results and arrested NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 “for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” The military government held a referendum on a new constitution in 2008 and a parliamentary election in 2010, neither of which was regarded by international observers as free or fair, and both of which resulted in overwhelming majorities for pro-government positions and candidates. The military regime has committed widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial killing, torture, rape, and denial of freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion.

Throughout its existence, the regime has been at war with a number of Burma’s ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minority voters overwhelmingly supported the NLD in the 1990 election, and after the suppression of the democracy movement several of these groups continued or resumed armed resistance to the de facto government. Although the government signed cease-fire agreements with several of these groups ostensibly granting them autonomy within their respective regions, the Burmese military has used a range of brutal techniques, including the killing of civilians, forced labor, rape, and the destruction of homes, crops, and villages, in cease-fire zones as well as in areas where there is still armed resistance.

In 2007, as on several previous occasions, there were mass demonstrations throughout the country demanding freedom and democracy. The 2007 demonstrations were led by Buddhist monks and eventually became known as the “Saffron Revolution” after the color of the monks’ robes. The armed forces brutally suppressed these demonstrations—estimates of the number of protestors killed range from 31 to several thousand—and intensified popular dissatisfaction with the government by the killing, beating, and public humiliation of monks.

The nominally civilian government resulting from the 2010 election has been widely regarded as a façade for continuing military rule. However, in October 2011, the government released 206 of Burma’s estimated 2,000 prisoners of conscience. The next month, the government announced that it would soon release all remaining political prisoners. The NLD, which had declined to participate in the 2010 election, registered to participate in the next election and announced that Aung San Suu Kyi would be among the NLD candidates.

Although the military regime announced in 1989 that it had changed the English name of the country from Burma to “Myanmar,” the United States government and other international supporters of democracy in Burma have generally continued to call the country Burma because this is the name preferred by Aung San Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates who won the 1990 election.