A seat at the table

Aung San Suu Kyi, the general secretary of the National League for Democracy and Opposition leader, of Myanmar (Burma), has been under house arrest for over four years, and has spent more than 11 years in detention since her party, the NLD and its allies, won the 1990 election with over 80 per cent of the parliamentary seats. The junta generals chose to ignore the election results.

In 1991 San Suu Kyi was made a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Following the Myanmar Government’s crackdown on peaceful protesters recently, a UN special adviser has made three trips to talk to the generals and to visit her. Under pressure, the generals promised a referendum would be held on a new constitution in May before multi-party elections in 2010. But the word is San Suu Kyi would not be allowed to stand.

Dr Shirin Ebadi, in her 60s, remains a pro bono lawyer in Tehran where she lives with her engineer husband and two daughters. She came to Australia for a 2006 Brisbane environment conference organised by Mikhail Gorbachev. She spoke about her work as a pro bono human rights lawyer in Iran and the environment in which women, children and dissidents lived under a theocratic Islamic government. Her speech was moving and disconcerting. She enjoyed a standing ovation.

In 2003, after they heard she had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work, thousands of Iranians, including several government ministers, crowded the airport and surrounding streets to welcome her home. She was the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Yet, when she returned from the Australian conference, the authorities were making threatening noises again. In retaliation, she was able to point out their complaint was not valid, much to the relief of fellow human rights workers, who believe if the government ever attacks her successfully, it will go after all human rights activists.

Malalai Joya, the Afghan parliamentarian, is given support by RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an independent political and social organisation of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan. Malalai Joya has recently been talking to the Canadians.

The RAWA founders were a number of Afghan woman intellectuals under the leadership of Meena who in 1987 was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan. RAWA says its objective is to involve an increasing number of Afghan women in social and political activities to achieve women’s human rights and contribute to the struggle for a government based on democratic and secular values. They have a long way to go.

Wafa Abel Rahman is executive director of Filastiniyat, an organisation committed to ensuring the equitable participation of Palestinian women and youth in public discourse, and Romy Shapira is a peace and human rights activist, former Israeli co-ordinator of the IWC, a group facilitator and a board member of Bat Shalom of the Jerusalem Link. They were speaking in Australia to celebrate International Women’s Day, designated by the United Nations and marked by women around the world.

These were the two women, a Palestinian and an Israeli, who stood side-by-side to address a UNIFEM International Women’s Day event as representatives of the International Commission of Women. The commission was set up in 2005 by Palestinian, Israeli and international Women, under the auspices of UNIFEM.

The members work for a genuine negotiation towards a just and sustainable peace based on a two-state solution. Members include 20 Palestinians, 20 Israelis and 20 international women leaders and activists. The commission aims to ensure the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (October, 2000) that calls upon all state parties to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels.

Romy Shapiro told the meeting that women’s perceptions were able to contribute to negotiations for “women talk together, work together “and women never give up”. She said commission members continued to tell leaders that women wanted a seat at the negotiating table.

At her side, Wafa Abel Rahman urged Australians not to be passive, to proclaim a position on human rights, to be active and not just leave the current situation to the Americans. Palestinians, she said, were both victims of the occupation and victims of a silent international community.