New Zealand's opposition National Party said Prime Minister Helen Clark's claim that telecommunications company Kordia's work on cell phone towers in Burma contributes to democracy is unrealistic and fanciful.
Murray McCully, a spokesperson of the National Party, in a statement released today said that Prime Minister Clark and the ruling Labor Party is making excuses for the fact that a wholly-owned government company is conducting work in Burma, whose military government is criticized as one of the most brutal, and repressive regimes in the world.
According to the statement, Kordia, an Auckland-based telecommunications company, is working with Thai firm ALT Inter Corp. to install mobile-telephone towers in Burma.
In an interview with New Zealand's TVNZ, Clark said the government-owned company is not trying to conceal its contract with Burma and believes that the work is contributing toward democracy in the Southeast Asian nation.
"The job was worth $80,000. It was something to do with putting up towers for cell phones. Now quite frankly I think that is probably aiding democracy in Myanmar, not a step back from it because one of the ways of getting news out to the world ... is precisely through that technology," Clark was quoted as saying.
However, the National Party said the Prime Minister's claims are ridiculous and are inconsistent with the government's policy on Air New Zealand carrying Australian troops to Kuwait and sanctions against Fiji.
"All of the evidence that New Zealanders have seen on their television screens shows that the Burmese government is not interested in democracy," McCully said.
"It would be hard to find a regime with a more despicable track-record," McCully added.
The Burmese military junta attracted world-wide condemnation in September last year when it brutally cracked down on massive, peaceful protests, which had started on a much smaller scale in August over sudden fuel price hikes.
The United Nations says at least 31 people have been killed and more than 70 people went missing during the crackdown. But activists say the death toll and arrests are much higher.
McCully said Kordia's work for the Burmese government agency - Myanmar Post and Telecommunications – is against New Zealand's policy not to assist undemocratic regimes around the world.
Burma, which has been ruled by military dictators since 1962, has maintained a tight grip on communications and the flow of information – tapping telephone lines, filtering the Internet – in an effort to stop anti-government movements.
Despite the tight grip, dissidents inside Burma were able to effectively use the Internet and telephone lines to provide information, images and even video clips of the latest demonstrations in September, shocking the world with the junta's brutal actions against protestors.
Following the junta's violent suppression of protests led by Buddhist monks, the Burmese regime was internationally condemned and several countries and organizations, including the United States and European Union, further tightened economic sanctions on the generals.
"New Zealanders expect their Government to show fairness and consistency in conducting foreign policy. Neither fairness nor consistency is being shown here," McCully said.
