CALD Internship Report

Name of Intern: Naw K’nyaw Paw

Country: National Council of the Union of Burma

Internship period: 10 January 2006 – 27 January 2006

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Christina Fink (Coordinator of Foreign Affairs Training of NCUB-FAC), the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), the Council of Asia Liberals and Democrats (CALD), and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats of Europe (ALDE) for making it possible for me to take part in this internship program with the European Parliament.  Working at EP was interesting and gave me a great experience of how government performs its work in strong democratic countries.

I was assigned to work with the Foreign Affairs Committee, in which Jacques Lecarte was my Supervisor and Marcia Kammitsi was an assistant. They both were very friendly and helpful. Jacques, despite his busyness, invited me to join many meetings. Marcia was especially helpful when Jacques was away and busy. She let me know about the meetings that would take place, sent me the schedule and helped me with everything that I needed during my internship period. Everyone in ALDE groups was helpful when I need them.

I attended an urgencies meeting, the plenary session in Strasbourg, an ALDE group meeting, the foreign affairs committee meeting and a human rights subcommittee meeting. I especially followed the Cambodia country situation as it is the closet country to Burma in the region. The Cambodia situation is now back in a dictatorship, or at least a very authoritarian government, catching up with Burma.  The government tightly controls the freedom of their citizens, including freedom of press and expression, especially when it comes to criticizing the government. The government arrested several activists, human rights defenders, opposition MPs and trade union leaders, and used the judiciary to justify the arrest of its citizens. I was satisfied with the action that the EP took regarding the human rights situation in Cambodia, passing strong resolutions and trying to influence the Cambodian government.

For the urgencies meeting, I found it interesting at the same time challenging. There were many current and urgent issues going on around the world. But only three issues were taken to put forward for resolutions. This was when different political groups had to make negotiations, to decide on the most urgent and important issues. According to my observation, issues that they agreed on this meeting are urgent (some thing that is going on now and really needs attention). The EU has influence on these issues, and also looks at human rights perspective.  Sometimes other issues are important but left out due to limited choices.

In addition I observed the plenary session in Strasbourg, and this was the favourite part of my internship. I like the way that the parliament debated and argued. MEPs could speak open, frankly and express themselves freely. This was really impressive and works well in democratic society. Coming from a country that has no or very limited freedom, sometimes I was surprised by listening to the discussion, especially the reactions of MEPs after the Austria presidency speech. I also observed the voting. The first three days, more than 600 MEP took part in voting. Resolutions are simply passed by majority vote.

Another meeting that I attended was the group meeting, where the groups informed each other and debated on issues that will be discussed in the plenary, or committee, meeting.  It was great meeting and a lot of debates were going on even within the group over different views on some issues. Besides working with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I also attended other committees such as human rights, as it was in my interest.  I observed how human rights violation issues are handled by different EU institution such as commission, council and parliament.

In conclusion, my internship with EP gave me a great experience on how democratic countries function, and the work of the parliament inspired me. I also understand how human rights issues are brought up and handled within EP and this also help me to bring up human rights situations in Burma in the future. I met with some people that interested in Burma and got in contact with them too. This is my first time ever experiencing Parliament and seeing for myself the parliament’s daily work. Even if it was only a three week internship, a very short time, it really means a lot to me.  MEPs are working hard and they do have power to promote and protect human rights around the world and to deal with many other issues as well. Of course these are the roles of MP in a typical democratic society.