Burma's military regime relies on forced labor and election fraud to retain power, Edith Mirante, an artist and expert on Burma, said in a lecture at the Rockefeller Center on Tuesday. Mirante's lecture, "Burma's Human Rights and Environmental Crisis," also highlighted the country's environmental problems, including deforestation.
Mirante began Project Maje, a non-profit organization that seeks to raise awareness about Burma, in 1986.
The State Peace and Development Council Burma's military regime came to power in 1988 after the military violently suppressed a peaceful protest against the dictatorship, Mirante said.
The regime now uses torture, mutilation and rape to scare its subjects into submission, she said.
The most common form of torture is forced labor, where citizens are removed from their homes and forced to complete special government projects like minesweeping, she said.
"People on forced labor are often literally worked to death," she said.
The regime also deprives the Burmese people of their own energy sources, Mirante said, by selling petroleum concessions for profit. China, for example, is building an 800-kilometer pipeline that will run through the country. Many of Burma's farms and homes are lit by candlelight, and citizens who live near the pipeline hope for leakages so they can collect petroleum for their own use, Mirante said,
The regime doubled the price of petroleum in 2007, which hindered people's ability to get to work. As a result, "people live on a very thin margin of survival," Mirante said.
The regime quickly and violently suppressed a peaceful uprising that began in response to the increased gas prices, Mirante said. Buddhist monks were beaten and their requests for apologies denied, she said.
The regime also refused to recognize the 1990 electoral victory of Aung San Suu Kyi a peaceful demonstrator who was detained for standing up to the oppressive government. Suu Kyi remains under house arrest to this day.
"Please use your liberty to promote ours," Mirante said, quoting Suu Kyi.
The regime has also contributed to environmental degradation by selling logging rights to fund its military, Mirante said. After Thailand purchased these rights, Burma moved from the world's seventh most deforested nation to the third, she said.
The nation's environment was further devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which killed nearly 140,000 people and left nearly one million homeless.
Mirante said students who want to get involved in efforts to aid Burma should help refugees in the United States.
"They need food, toys, English tutors and sweaters," Mirante said.
Mirante, who graduated from Sarah Lawrence University with a degree in art and art history, said she became interested in the topic by chance. In the 1980s, Mirante was living and painting in Thailand. After a spontaneous decision to visit the Burmese border, she began interviewing Burmese citizens about their lives and living conditions, she said.
At the time, the United States was providing Agent Orange to the Burmese government, Mirante said. The narratives of the farmers affected by the pesticide resonated with Mirante, and she undertook a mission to make their stories heard.
Mirante has written two books "Burmese Looking Glass" and "Down the Rat Hole" about the country.
