(New York) -- Human Rights Watch today condemned a decision by Burma's Supreme Court to dismiss a harassment complaint filed by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) against the government's leaders. The court decision, issued on October 29, 1999, rejected the NLD's claim that its activities had been "continuously disrupted, prevented and destroyed" and that hundreds of its members had been illegally detained. Supreme Court judge Tin Aung Aye declared the case invalid and dismissed it due to lack of evidence.
"There is no rule of law in Burma," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division."There is, in fact, a great deal of evidence that the government is harassing NLD party members."
The abuse of power lawsuit was filed on December 31, 1998. It named as defendants Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, the powerful director-general of the National Bureau of Intelligence and one of the top leaders of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC); Home Minister Colonel Tin Hlaing; Information Minister Major-General Kyi Aung; Election Commission Chairman Ba Htay and some twenty-five other officials.
The Burmese judiciary remains firmly under the control of the military government, which took power in a 1988 coup. This was the first time that the Burmese courts heard a case submitted by the NLD. The NLD said it plans to resubmit the complaint.
Following the NLD's announcement in August 1998 that it would convene a parallel parliamentary body, the ruling SPDC initiated a repressive campaign, detaining, intimidating, and publicly harassing NLD politicians and party loyalists in an effort to force their resignations. Currently some forty elected parliamentarians remain under detention, and the government press has reported that thousands of NLD members have resigned their membership in the party. The NLD won more than eighty percent of the vote in a popular election in May 1990, but the military government dismissed the election results, extending its hold on state power.
"The United Nations has repeatedly condemned Burma's campaign against the NLD," said Jendrzejczyk. "By dismissing this lawsuit, the SPDC is signaling its determination to ignore international public opinion."
In October 1998, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson expressed concern over "the intensification of repression against Myanmar's [Burma's] political opposition." She said that the government had arrested or detained more than two hundred NLD members. In a statement to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Special Rapporteur Rajsoomer Lallah also condemned the crackdown. The Commission adopted a unanimous resolution in April 1999 deploring "[t]he escalation in the persecution of the democratic opposition…and the continued harassment, arrest and detention of the National League for Democracy and other democratic group activists." On October 16, 1999 the Inter-Parliamentary Union adopted a similar resolution, and later this year, the U.N. General Assembly is expected to discuss the political impasse and human rights abuses in Burma.
