Blog de Eliza Costello

Here at the EarthRights School Burma, we’re constantly adapting our curriculum to match the evolving situation in Burma. In the past year, ERSB has made some significant changes to the material in order to better equip students with the skills and knowledge to become powerful earth rights advocates for Burma.

Our government class now focuses more on free and fair elections, and includes greater discussion of the students’ experience with past elections. There will also be a greater emphasis on transitions to democracy, where the students will look at recent case studies and use the concepts they learn to analyze what is now happening in Burma.

Studying elections at ERSB

A greater emphasis will be put on civil society’s ability to influence change. Students will not only share their own experiences with advocacy strategies and their successes, but they will also have the opportunity to examine the recent successful campaigns to stop the Myitsone Dam in Kachin State and the coal-fired power plant in Dawei. They will also become familiar with large development projects still underway in Burma, such as the Shwe oil and natural gas pipelines.

With Burma scheduled to become the ASEAN chair in 2014, our human rights class will delve deeper into regional legal institutions within ASEAN, like the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. We will also bring in local experts to discuss their experiences conducting human rights documentation.

This year the students will use their reports for advocacy purposes because, while the recent changes in Burma have been positive, it is important to remind people that there are still ongoing earth rights abuses occurring throughout the country. Many of our students are from ethnic areas that have yet to see significant change, where human rights violations and environmental destruction are still common.

On March 1^st, the Shwe Gas Movement launched their 7^th Annual Global Day of Action against the Shwe Gas and China-Burma Pipelines Project.  With support from over 100 organizations in over 20 countries, SGM drew attention to the human rights abuses being perpetrated as a direct result of the pipeline and  demanded that the project be suspended until the negative environmental and social impacts of the project are addressed.

Over the past year, Burma has become more open and civil society groups have had success in campaigning to suspend or modify several controversial development projects; the Mytzone Dam in Kachin State and the coal-fired power plant in Dawei.  The recent changes in Burma have left many, myself included, cautiously optimistic.  However, excitement from those successes should not overshadow the work that is left to be done. As Katie judiciously stated in her post, back in December, “even the most optimistic agree that it will take a long time before any of what we’ve heard from Burma’s capital is felt on the ground by those who have suffered the most.  It took decades to build one of the world’s most notorious armies… those half-million soldiers won’t change their brutal ways overnight.”  This is evidenced by the continuation of brutal Burmese military offensives in areas near controversial development projects. The renewed violence between the Burmese Army and ethnic armed groups in Northern Shan State, more specifically, in areas slated for the Shwe Oil and Gas Pipelines, is a perfect example of this.