US SPEAKER ERIC STOVER HELPS DOCUMENT HUMAN RIGHTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L RANGOON 000064 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR IIP/G/EAP, G/DHRL, EAP/PD, EAP/MLS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/28/2018 TAGS: KPAO OIIP PHUM BM SUBJECT: US SPEAKER ERIC STOVER HELPS DOCUMENT HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN BURMA Classified By: APAO Kim Penland for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: On December 10-22, 2007, Dr. Eric Stover, Director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley, spoke with a number of key dissident groups and student activists in Burma, including two local human rights organizations and leaders of the 88 Generation Students group, to offer practical skills and advice on reporting human rights abuses. Stover provided invaluable technical advice and detailed assistance in the areas of documentation, report writing, and email campaigning to advance post,s priority objective of promoting greater respect for human rights in Burma. Additionally, Stover increased the level of interest among student activists and ethnic youth leaders in properly documenting all human rights violations. End Summary. BUILD CAPACITY IN BURMESE ORGANIZATIONS -------------- ¶2. (C) Stover met twice with Human Rights Defenders and Promoters (HRDP),a vocal human rights organization made up of approximately 200 activists from throughout the country. Despite constant regime surveillance and intimidation, HRDP held its annual assembly for members on UN Human Rights Day, December 10. Stover met with the HRDP prominent members on December 12 to discuss their current level of activity and needs. Following the introductory meeting, at HRDP,s request, Stover met again with HRDP members on December 17 and spent a full day reviewing 40 pages of documents describing human rights abuses that HRDP collected over the past year. Stover advised the group on how to organize the documents into a more professional report with an introduction, executive summary, maps of reported incidents, and appendix. ¶3. (C) Stover also met on several occasions with Human Rights for All, an underground NGO which keeps a very low profile. A smaller organization than HRDP, HRA is closer to key activist groups, including 88 Generation Students (88GS). Some of its members have stronger English and technical writing abilities than most HRDP members. As such, this group provides support to other organizations working on human rights related activities through networking, training, and material acquisition. HRA translated HRDP,s 40-page report on recent human rights abuses into English. Stover advised HRA on their current activities and encouraged them to begin using more advanced tools to collect and analyze data, including international-standard databases designed for the collection of human rights information. He also stressed to the group the need to disseminate uniform reporting forms so other groups could use them as templates when interviewing eyewitnesses or victims of human rights abuses. Upon his return to the U.S., Stover forwarded HRA,s recent report on human rights abuses against political dissidents and students to United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights Louis Arbor. SPREAD THE WORD -------------- ¶4. (C) While in Rangoon, Stover helped interim leaders of 88GS launch their new Internet initiative called the &Hittaing Campaign.8 Hittaing is a Burmese word for a public complaint to authorities. Stover encouraged 88GS to take advantage of the IT advantage that activists currently hold over the military authorities; Burmese students are more tech-savvy than soldiers. He discussed with them the logistics of waging an Internet-driven campaign, and suggested ways to protect information, such as a statement of confidentiality. Stover also reviewed the draft human rights SIPDIS complaint form that the group planned to email to the wider public, and provided edits and suggestions to make the form more effective and user-friendly. The 88GS interim leaders have since launched the Hittaing Campaign. So far, 88GS has received many responses of support and adulation in response to their email, rather than specific, recorded incidents of human rights abuses, but they hope that the pace will pick up in the future. DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT -------------- ¶5. (C) Stover also met with several Kachin students who are currently documenting forced labor reports in Kachin State. One of the young men showed Stover photographs of villagers, including children, being forced by soldiers to build a road to a helicopter landing pad. Stover explained that the photos, while excellent in building a strong and believable case of forced labor and child labor, could not stand alone, and could only be effective as supporting materials for a narrative recounting the specific incident. These simple instructions helped the young men understand how to improve their efforts to document and report the numerous human rights violations occurring in their community. ¶6. (C) Stover also met with former political prisoners, NLD members and others attending the Indiana University distance learning program at the Embassy,s American Center. Stover encouraged the students to document the abuses they and their friends experienced while in prison or in their home villages. Based on that conversation, ONE student, who is a lead organizer of the Shan Literature and Culture Association,s workshops on journalism and human rights education, said that he now saw how the two subjects overlapped. The Shan youth told an emboff that Stover,s discussion on the practical application of human rights knowledge gave him the know-how to instruct his peers more effectively on how to document human rights abuses they come across in their communities, and that he would work this into future workshops. On December 19, Stover provided a two-hour lecture to 45 &politically sensitive8 students at the British Council. Students reported that his lecture was particularly well-timed and constructive, as they had just finished studying human rights theory. Until Stover,s presentation, they said, they had never received instruction on how to apply the theory they had just learned. PROVIDE HARD EVIDENCE -------------- ¶7. (C) On December 18, Stover met with a small group of doctors and dissidents who took part in the September 2007 &Saffron Revolution8 protests. This group of healthcare professionals worked together to provide medical relief to protestors injured in the marches and subsequent regime repression. They also provided medical care to persons freed from detention after the regime crackdown and their interrogation and torture. None of the healthcare volunteers had systematically recorded or documented the injuries sustained by protestors in any systematic manner. Stover introduced the group to the &Istanbul Protocol,8 a UN-written manual for HEALTH care professionals on steps to follow in investigating and documenting torture and other abuses. A month after this meeting took place, ONE doctor from the group asked the Embassy for 30 additional copies of the Istanbul Protocol. ¶8. (C) Stover also met individually with the heads of several international organizations and NGOs, including the UN Development Program (UNDP),Population Services International (PSI),and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). All welcomed the opportunity to meet with him to discuss the humanitarian, development and human rights situation in Burma, but most expressed concern about aggressively advocating human rights education or teaching people how to document human rights violations due to the regime,s likely hostile reaction against their programs in Burma. UNDP deputy director Sanaka Samarasinha informed Stover that since September, his supervisors in New York advised his Rangoon office to avoid training employees on any "human-rights based advocacy approach" to development work (U.S. speaker Clarence Diaz lectured UNDP staff on this theme in March 2007). Stover also met ONE of Burma,s top activists, the actor/comedian Zarganar, and talked to other political activists during his visit to Burma. ¶9. (C) COMMENT: This program was a great success that met all of our objectives and helped advance our top MSP goals of promoting greater respect for human rights in Burma. Eric Stover,s background as an investigator of human rights abuses in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Rwanda and elsewhere helped him establish instant credibility with his interlocutors. Because of his prior experience with Burma issues, he was able to connect immediately with the right audiences and help train them to become the eyes and ears of conscience in a closed society. No other international organizations that we are aware of currently provide this kind of substantive, detailed and practical consultation to local human rights groups. The groups that met with Professor Stover are under constant threat, and some members remain on the run from authorities who would arrest them for the crime of documenting the truth. To protect the identity and security of these sensitive contacts, most of Stover,s sessions took place in hotel rooms, restaurants, and private offices, rather than at Embassy facilities. He was an unusual kind of U.S. Speaker, since we did not seek to present him before large audiences, and are using this Confidential channel to report on his program rather than SIPDIS OpenNet Plus. However, this arrangement did not detract from Stover,s ability to make a powerful impact on his audience. It also allowed him to dedicate more time and attention to the needs of each group with whom he met. Stover and others from the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center plan to return to Burma to follow up on this visit; we would welcome him at any time. We would also not hesitate to recommend Professor Stover to any post where flagrant abuses of human rights are a reality, and for whom training those who seek to document and prevent them is a priority. His December visit to Burma inspired a cadre of brave, dedicated Burmese who are struggling to keep a spotlight focused on the regime,s inhuman treatment of its own citizens as part of its relentless effort to hold onto absolute power. End comment. VILLAROSA