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RIGHTS-JAPAN: Cut Aid to Burma Say Demonstrators

Catherine Makino

TOKYO, Nov 11 2007 (IPS) - About 1,300 Burmese expatriates rallied in the capital’s Yoyogi Park on Sunday afternoon, appealing to the international community to put pressure on the Japanese government to cut aid to their military-ruled country.

It was the biggest pro-Burma rally held here since the bloody crackdown by that country’s junta on thousands of activists late September, during which at least 13 people were killed and 2,000 detained.

The demonstrators marched through Tokyo’s popular Shibuya district waving banners and shouting, ‘Freedom for Burma’ and ‘Japan stop ODA (official development assistance) to Burma.’

“Today’s public rally was the greatest event since the Japanese Trade Union Confederation and Diet (parliament) members became involved,” said Tin Win Akbar, a member of the Burmese Democratic Opposition Party living in Japan, at the protest. “We are making the international community aware through demonstrations and symposiums to pressure the Japanese government to do more.”

Than Thon Oo works in a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo and her father has been in a Burmese prison for the past seven years. She told IPS: “The money doesn’t go to the people. We don’t want Japan to give our country ODA. It has to stop!”

Japan is the largest donor of aid to Burma. In 2006, Japan provided grants and technical assistance totaling 26.1 million US dollars to Burma, according to the latest ministry figures. In contrast, the European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on Burma for its refusal to enact democratic reforms.

Masaki Koyama, assistant general secretary of the association of metal, machinery, and manufacturing workers, and one of 800 Trade Union Confederation members who demonstrated, is fighting to help Burmese workers in Japan. “We want to establish a union for them here because they are unlawfully fired and some do not receive their salaries,” he said. “Workers should help each other.”

Koyama does not support Japan’s aid programme to Burma. “Japan is the world’s second richest country and the leading democracy in Asia; therefore they have an international duty to support Burma.”

Mariko Iwate, a 23-year-old student at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, says the problem is that many Japanese are not aware of Burma’s problems. “The Japanese people are indifferent,” she says. “Before we can do anything, first we need to spread information to them.”

That is slowly changing.

The nation was outraged when Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai, 50, was killed in Rangoon in September while covering peaceful protests there. Japanese TV showed footage of Nagai holding his camera, collapsing after being shot at point-blank range by a Burmese soldier, then trying to raise his camera for another picture before falling.

According to Japanese experts, the footage contradicts the official Burmese explanation that Nagai was killed by a ‘stray bullet’.

Nagai was a popular and respected professional whose work led him to hotspots around the world, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, the Palestinian territories and finally Burma. He went to these places knowing he could lose his life, according to his colleagues. His motivation, as his former boss Toru Yamaji wrote in a recent tribute, was to highlight the plight of the powerless.

Soon after Nagai’s death, Japanese media urged the government to impose sanctions and withdraw its ambassador. Members of Japan’s parliament condemned the shooting by Burma’s “brutal regime’’. Many Burmese dissident groups in Japan called on the government to impose sanctions, refugees staged a hunger strike, and there were large demonstrations in front of the Burmese embassy in Tokyo.

Bowing to the public outcry, chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura said the government was cancelling a grant worth 4.7 million dollars for a business education centre slated for a university campus in Rangoon.

Sunday’s protestors say that is not enough.

Min Nyo, head of the Burma Office which gives legal and social assistance to Burmese living in Japan, says Japanese companies should stop doing business with Burma as it helps only the military leaders and does not benefit the Burmese people. “The humanitarian aid given by the Japanese government doesn’t reach the people, it only reaches the military.”

Japanese officials say it has chosen aid over sanctions as a way to push for democracy in Burma, and that it will continue funding humanitarian projects because of the country’s worsening living conditions. The Japanese government does admit its concerns about the political situation, however, and has called for the release of political prisoners, including Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Burma’s military rulers have been under international pressure to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. The detained opposition leader has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

Burma has been ruled by the military since 1962. The U.N. and international human rights organisations have charged the regime with widespread human rights violations, including torture, executions and the use of child soldiers.

According to Tin Win the regime is against the U.N. and has no intention of cooperating with Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari, or starting a process of genuine political dialogue. “It rejected Gambari’s proposal of three-way talks with himself, and Aung San Suu Kyi, and left us dispirited.”

However, Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time in three years said she was “optimistic” about political reforms in her country, when she met Friday with members of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), a party spokesman told IPS correspondent Larry Jagan in Bangkok.

Tin Win disagrees. “We have reason to believe this may be a new ploy. They (military leaders) have always acted in bad faith. These are people who hold general elections that they then ignore. They are not famous for sticking to their word. The pessimists have always been right in Burma.”

Today there is relative calm in the isolated country, but reports from inside Burmese borders are dreary, indicating there will be increasing economic hardships for the people as a result of the protests, says Tin Win.