Despite United Nations' request to release of Nobel laureate and Burma's opposition leader Aung Suu Kyi from a 10-year house arrest, global action is still lacking to address the ongoing abuses in the country run by a military regime.
Last week, a one-year extension to Suu Kyi's house arrest term was announced. The forcibly ousted leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) has been incarcerated for 10 out of the last 17 years.
Trouble began in 1990 when the military junta refused to relinquish power to her NLD party following a landslide victory in the elections.
The UN reports many human rights atrocities occurring under the totalitarian military regime, forcing thousands of Burmese citizens to flee across the Thai border. The BBC describes them as "the victims of the conflict between the government and rebels from the Karen minority in the East of the country."
While the UN condemns Burma on this issue, it simultaneously commends it on the release of a jailed labour activist Su Su Nwei. It has urged the country to "unconditionally release all its remaining prisoners of conscience," reported Reuters.
Furthermore, the US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack "voiced concern…over reports that [Suu Kyi] might be in hospital and urged the [Burmese] authorities to release her from house arrest."
Little has been done by the international community to address the oppressive situation in Burma. Unlike countries like Sudan or Somalia, which have received wide-spread attention due to the ongoing human rights abuses, Burma remains in the largely "untouched territory".
In the Asian Tribune report Kavita Shukla, author of the book Ending the Waiting Game, argues that the crisis in Burma has reached a point people simply cannot wait any longer for outside assistance. Immediate problems include health services, education, food production and building the capacity of civil society organizations.
"The Burmese people suffer from disease, malnutrition and poverty at alarming rates and those who have been forced from their homes are particularly vulnerable," said Ms Shukla, also Advocate for Refugees International in the same report. "It is unconscionable to sit back and watch their plight without taking concrete measures to help them," she added.
Burma receives a little more than $100 million in international aid each year, about $2 per person in a country of about 50 million.
Australia has been providing relief assistance to displaced Burmese people living in camps along the Thai-Burma border since 1984. Care Australia special project to improve rural household livelihood contributed $A3.4 million over the last five years.
Feeds