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Shadow UN not thumbing nose at Beijing
The holding of the 3-day "General Assembly" (27-29 October) in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, which continues as a sore point with China, was not a gesture of collective defiance to Beijing, according to the Chin delegate to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) who recently returned from Taiwan:
No.03 - 11/2006
4 November 2006
Politics
Shadow UN not thumbing nose at Beijing
The holding of the 3-day "General Assembly" (27-29 October) in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, which continues as a sore point with China, was not a gesture of collective defiance to Beijing, according to the Chin delegate to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) who recently returned from Taiwan:
"I didn't hear anybody mentioning China," said Dr Suikhar, who together with Siri Mon Chan from Mon State, were the only Burma delegates who were able to make it to the 8th General Assembly held in Taiwan.
The other Burma members of the UNPO that was founded in 1991 and became known as "the Shadow UN" are Shan State and Karenni.
The Burma delegates had called upon the UN Security Council to have a resolution on Burma which includes, among others, a call for Tripartite Dialogue and reduction of military presence in ethnic nationalities areas.
Other calls on the UN were:
- For Ibrahim Gambari, UN envoy, to meet with leaders of ethnic nationalities
- A nationwide ceasefire
- Release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi and Khun Tun Oo
- For the future constitution of Burma to be "fully compliant" to the 1947 Panglong Agreement which embraces Full Autonomy, Democracy and Human Rights for the member states
Suikhar also disagrees with remarks by some Burma watchers that the UNPO has become irrelevant following the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the War against Terrorism which tends to look activists from marginalized peoples with suspicion and sometimes with outright hospitality. "The UNPO is still relevant particularly for those unrepresented peoples and nations who don’t have any other forum to speak about their issues as well as their grievances," he says. "And we don’t need to be members of the UNPO to be looked upon as terrorists. It has become a phenomenon in some countries, where you are automatically labeled a terrorist, if you are against the existing government, no matter how evil it is".
Burma's military government is notorious as a consistent violator of human rights.
According to Kaowao News, the UNPO currently has 63 member organizations representing over 150 million worldwide. Its former members that have gained independence and are continuing as supporting members are Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, Georgia, Palau, and East Timor.
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