Speech delivered at the conference: "Charter 77 and Global Perspectives on Open Society" Prague, Czech Republic January 10, 1997 By George Soros Twenty years ago a few hundred courageous men and women in Czechoslovakia, true believers in freedom and open society, started a movement called Charter 77. Their manifesto demanded that the country's Communist regime recognize and protect basic human rights: freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and religion, freedom from fear, the right to education; and they protested arbitrary and unlawful violations of individual rights such as telephone taps, house searches, and politically motivated prosecutions. Over the years, only two to three thousand people signed the manifesto, but the Charter's importance to Czechoslovakia, to Eastern Europe, and to the world cannot be overstated. Charter 77 kept alive the spirit of freedom and stood as a symbol of hope to people inside the country and out. The outside world did not have much influence on Czechoslovakia's hard-line regime at the time, nevertheless Charter 77 proved to be instrumental in imposing restraints on the authorities. The regime did not want to outrage world public opinion beyond a certain point so it resorted to indirect methods, imprisoning some, like Vaclav Havel, denying them basic rights and opportunities, and, what was the most cruel, punishing their children by refusing them access to education. The course of the dissidents seemed hopeless at the time but they persevered and eventually the regime collapsed. I am proud to have been a supporter of Charter 77 from the outside since 1980 and I had the pleasure of hearing the then prime minister, Marian Calfa, tell me in December 1989 that the regime had lost its legitimacy and he was determined to hand over power to Vaclav Havel. It is fitting that on this 20th anniversary of Charter 77's contributions to the transformation of Eastern Europe we are here to honor the equally courageous stand of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy in Burma. The parallels between the situations in Burma and Czechoslovakia are striking. If anything, the military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, rules Burma even more cruelly than the communists of the Charter 77 years. The SLORC took control of the Burmese government in 1988 by crushing pro-democracy demonstrations, killing thousands. The military continues to hold power through martial law: arbitrary arrest and detention, cruel and inhuman detention conditions, torture of suspected dissidents, absence of fair trials and due process, censorship of the media, and quick punishment of political opponents. The SLORC has forcibly relocated at least a million people since 1988, and commandeered hundreds of thousands, including children, pregnant women, and the elderly, into forced labor, sometimes pulling people off the streets or dragging them from trains and buses. Suu Kyi has spent more than six years under house arrest. Her party, the NLD, won by a landslide in the elections of 1990, but the SLORC, in the manner of dictatorships everywhere, refused to recognize the results and transfer power to the new government. In Burma, we again have a regime that appears impervious to extraneous pressures. Just as Czechoslovakia's communist government had the protection of the Soviet bloc, the SLORC is counting on the support of ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, which plans to admit Burma as a full member sometime this year. Malaysia and Indonesia are particularly strong supporters, championing the cause of Burma as a way of thumbing their noses at the West and refusing to accept so-called Western values such as democracy and human rights. Asian values, they argue, demand a powerful ruler and an obedient populace. This, of course, is sheer nonsense, an attempt to excuse the arbitrary rule of dictators. The people of Burma showed what they thought of this perversion of values in the elections of 1990 when they rejected the SLORC and voted for the civilian rule of Suu Kyi's NLD. Asian people want the right to decide what kind of government they will have, just as people everywhere. In 1988, when the SLORC first took power by killing protesters, and in 1990, when the SLORC refused to cede power to the democratically elected NLD, the world, preoccupied by the changes in Eastern Europe, paid scant attention. Now is the time to make amends. The SLORC is more vulnerable to outside pressures than appearances indicate. In spite of the tremendous investment boom in the region and Burma's cheap labor costs due to the use of forced labor, the country's economy is on the verge of collapse. The foreign currency reserves have fallen drastically in the last year, and there is a billion dollar balance of payments deficit. Foreign debt service obligations are financed out of foreign investments, mainly export credits from the ASEAN countries and the mortgaging of Burma's portion of the earnings from a new natural gas pipeline being built by a syndicate led by Total and UNOCAL. The ASEAN countries' support for Burma, based on anti-West sentiments, creates great difficulties for international public opinion. The fear is that the more support Suu Kyi gets from the West the more defenders of Asian values will resist the pressure. Despite this possibility, however, we must recognize our responsibilities as champions of open society and speak out on behalf of Suu Kyi. Only the voices of a watchful world can stay the hands of her oppressors and encourage her supporters to persevere. Sooner or later even rulers like Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia will find it embarrassing to support the SLORC. Last month in Brussels, the European Commission called for European Union countries to suspend Burma's trade privileges because the SLORC sanctions the use of forced labor. The commission's recommendation, if heeded, will not have a great deal of direct effect on Burma's economy because Europe accounts for less than 5 percent of the country's exports. But it will constitute an important statement of principles. No one should buy goods from a country whose economy benefits from slave labor. And that goes for the oil companies that are eager to make money from the natural gas reserves in the seas off Burma. The syndicate led by the French company Total and the U.S. company UNOCAL is building the Yadana pipeline, which will stretch underwater 220 miles through the Gulf of Martaban and 30 miles across Burma to Thailand. The use of forced labor is integral to the SLORC's efforts to create the infrastructure needed for the project. The pipeline, when completed, will be the SLORC's single largest source of foreign currency. Nothing would hurt the SLORC more than the oil companies suspending operations on the Yadana pipeline under the pressure of public opinion in Europe and the United States. The oil companies bear a grave moral responsibility. All people who believe in the values of Charter 77 should let Total and UNOCAL know that they disapprove of doing business with the SLORC. Experience shows that corporations pay more attention to their consumers than to moral principles. Governments and corporations are not the only ones who must be reminded of their ethical and moral responsibilities. Every citizen of the world should abstain from traveling to Burma as a tourist. The SLORC is counting on increasing tourism during "Visit Myanmar Year" as a way of digging the country out of the economic hole its repressive policies created. Again, the use of forced labor has made it possible for the military regime to fix up tourist attractions and build new hotels. No one should be lured by Burma's natural beauty and cultural riches into betraying her people's aspirations for democracy. No one should visit Burma until SLORC heeds the wishes of its people and Suu Kyi is free to lead her party. Prague is a long way from Burma, but Aung San Suu Kyi needs to hear from us. We send her our message: We are with you in spirit.