In Myanmar, a New Voice for Human Rights

Su Su Nway was orphaned as a child and has a heart condition. But that hasn’t kept her from challenging one of the most brutal regimes on Earth.

The soft-spoken 34-year-old, who lives just outside Yangon, thought it was wrong that local officials forced her and her neighbors to work repairing a road without pay. So she took them to court under a 1999 law, never enforced, that banned compulsory labor.

To the surprise of many, a judge convicted the town chairman and a deputy last year and sentenced them to eight months in prison. It was the first time a government official had been jailed in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for the widespread practice of making citizens work for free.

But in the end, Su Su Nway paid a bigger price. The new town chairman accused her of harassing him by shouting and swearing at him. She denied the charge, insisting, “As a Burmese Buddhist girl, I would not do such things as they said I did.” But she was found guilty by a different judge of “insulting and disrupting a government official on duty.” She was sentenced to 18 months.

“That this would be grounds for an intimidation case is ludicrous,” said Richard Horsey, the chief representative in Myanmar of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization. “She’s about 5 feet tall with a heart condition. The idea that she would yell obscenities and that village leaders are going to be intimidated is highly unlikely.”

In a country where much of the population has passively accepted authoritarian rule, Su Su Nway has become a standard- bearer for human rights, a young woman willing to defy the military regime that has run Myanmar for longer than she has been alive.

After taking the mayor to court, she challenged the regime further by speaking out on the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition radio service that is operated from Norway and broadcasts in Myanmar despite strict censorship laws.

“They want to send me to prison because they are afraid of me,” she told the radio service shortly before her imprisonment in October. “I have no responsibility, no power and no position. They plot against a common girl, a disease sufferer, and sue her because they are afraid. If they are afraid like that, our side is winning.”

With her arrest, Su Su Nway joined the more than 1,100 political prisoners in Myanmar. The best-known is opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 60, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been detained for more than 10 of the last 16 years.

Su Su Nway, part of a new generation of activists, is a youth leader in Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy. Her courage in challenging the regime has won her international attention.

The Bush administration condemned Su Su Nway’s detention on “trumped-up charges” and expressed concern that her heart condition was worsening in prison. Amnesty International declared her a prisoner of conscience and issued a worldwide appeal in April on her behalf. Myanmar activists in exile and human rights groups created Web pages praising her as fearless.

“Su Su Nway’s case highlights the brutality of the Burmese regime and its disregard for democratic principles and fundamental human rights,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in February. “We call on the regime to release Su Su Nway and over 1,100 political prisoners it is holding and to initiate a credible and inclusive political process that empowers the Burmese people to determine their own future.”

In facing a government that rules by fear, Su Su Nway has shown uncommon courage. Horsey, who met with her before the case went to court, described her as modest in her demeanor but resolute in pursuing her claim.

“She seems quite conservative and traditional, not someone likely to hurl obscenities in the streets, for example, but very determined and driven by a strong sense of justice,” said one foreigner who met her.

After winning her case against town officials, Su Su Nway realized she would face retaliation.

“I know that they are watching me every day. They are looking for my mistake,” she told DVB radio. “They will come and get me anytime when they see my weakness and mistake. I will wait for them eating my rice.”

Su Su Nway, who is single, said she would have no regrets about standing up to authorities. “I will stand for the truth,” she said, even on the pain of imprisonment.

A resident of Htan Manaing village near Yangon, the former capital, she was the first to file a complaint under the 1999 law -- five years after it was passed. Her case opened the door for other complaints to be heard, and within months, 10 officials had been sentenced to prison for forcing citizens to work. One of those she sent to prison was her cousin.

She filed her case at a time when the government was attempting to improve its standing in Western eyes. But after a high-level shake-up and the arrest of then-Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, the regime cared less how it looked to the world. By June, local officials were no longer going to jail and she was accused of intimidation.

In 1988 and ‘89, the regime quashed hopes for peaceful change by slaughtering thousands of democracy protesters in the streets. It held an election in 1990 but threw out the results after Suu Kyi’s party won 80% of the seats in a new parliament. Human rights groups criticize its use of torture and arbitrary arrest.

The United States and the European Union have sought to bring about change in the mostly Buddhist nation of 50 million people by imposing sanctions, but Myanmar’s isolation from the West has done little to loosen the military’s grip on power.

China and other Asian nations have stepped into the gap to exploit business opportunities and prop up the regime. Top generals have become wealthy by selling the country’s resources -- gems, timber, oil and, some say, opium.

The regime has long relied on forced labor to carry out public works projects and fill the ranks of the army. Children as young as 12 have been forcibly recruited as soldiers, said Horsey, the International Labor Organization liaison officer in Myanmar.

By some estimates, as many as 800,000 people have been forced by the regime to work without compensation. The practice is most common in areas with a significant military presence, such as in ethnic minority regions where the army is fighting separatist rebels.

At times, the army has forced civilians to act as porters and walk ahead of the troops, sometimes through minefields, human rights groups say. The International Campaign to Bar Land Mines calls it “atrocity demining.”

The government defends its labor practices, saying that citizens are engaging in a traditional form of volunteerism. It contends that any claim of forced labor is a politically motivated attempt to discredit the regime.

The government says it is trying to end the use of compulsory labor. But in practice, those who lodge a complaint alleging that they were forced to work are prosecuted on charges of filing fabricated claims.

“The government says it will prosecute anyone who makes a false allegation of forced labor,” Horsey said. “Every case we have brought to the government in recent times the government considers false.”

The 178-member ILO, which was founded in 1919 as an arm of the League of Nations and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969, works in relative obscurity in most parts of the world. But in Myanmar, it has become one of the few organizations that citizens believe will help them pursue complaints against the government. Some claims brought to the U.N. agency have nothing to do with labor issues.

The regime has responded by arresting people who contact the ILO. One man was sentenced to death for having Horsey’s business card in his pocket. Horsey says he has never met the man. The sentence was later commuted, and he was released.

“The real problem is the complete absence of the rule of law in Burma, where citizens are unable to make any complaint against state authorities at any level, on any grounds, without facing some kind of retribution,” said the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission.

Horsey, a 32-year-old Briton, also has been singled out. Last year, he received numerous death threats in the mail at his home in Yangon. The letters, many of them written on Mickey Mouse stationery, warned that he would be “cruelly beaten,” crushed, poisoned or decapitated if he did not leave the country.

“I don’t like you,” one read. “You should leave our nation. You face dainger. Take care.”

“The 21 letters were clearly part of a campaign of intimidation,” said Horsey, who left the country temporarily. “As to who’s behind it, I don’t know. But I believe it was officially sanctioned and officially organized.”

Today, Su Su Nway is locked up in notorious Insein Prison, a colonial-era penitentiary in Yangon where many of the country’s political prisoners have been held, including Suu Kyi after she was arrested again in 2003.

The prison is crowded and inmates are not given enough to eat, advocates say. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which inspects detention centers all over the world, has been barred from entering Myanmar’s prisons since last year because it won’t let government agents accompany its inspectors.

Although Su Su Nway was imprisoned on criminal charges, she is kept with other political detainees. She was initially denied her heart medication but received it after supporters complained.

In February, the Myanmar Supreme Court summarily rejected her appeal. “I will be sent to jail one day or another,” she said before her sentencing. “If I go to prison, I want to urge all those who have been subjected to forced labor like me not to feel dejected but to fight on bravely. Everyone is afraid, but be afraid with your eyes open.”