[AHRC Article] BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil Fernando on torture of the poor and related issues 16.09.

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September 16, 2010
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An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission

BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil

Fernando on torture of the poor and
related issues
Q: What was your purpose in writing the book
'Torture of the Poor?' Why do we talk about
torture and poverty?
A: Because in the real world, particularly in less
developed countries, we can see that poverty and the
torture are linked.

Q: How are they linked?

A: First of all, the majority of people who are tortured
are from poorer sections of society. That is only one
aspect. The other aspect is that in order to have
poverty, you must have torture.

Q: How is poverty created?

A: Poverty is not created by a lack of means or a lack
of resources. It is created by various arrangements
which suppress people. Without suppression, you
cannot have poverty, because freedom and poverty
cannot work together. When there is freedom, you will
have people who are eager to talk about their
problems, who talk to others about their problems,
who organize themselves to do something about their
problems and their poverty. So to have poverty, you
must break social linkages. You must break the inner
structures that bring human beings to work together. If
human beings could get together and work together,
poverty would not exist because together, they would
find a way out of their poverty.

In order to have poverty then, you must break these

linkages. The state develops various mechanisms to
break these linkages. These mechanisms are usually
what we call security apparatuses. It is through these
various apparatuses that natural linkages among the

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[AHRC Article] BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil Fernando on torture of the poor and related issues 16.09.10 15:01

people are broken. I am talking about our country: Sri

Lanka. I am not generalizing to the whole world. When
you look at Sri Lanka you will find that these linkages
are broken by the intervention of security apparatuses
which create a state of violence in a social situation. All
the time, violence is being created, so people are
constantly preoccupied with this violence. They get
wounded, they get separated, they get bitter, and they
get unhappy. All those things prevent them from
coming together, from understanding each other. They
are prevented from seeing why a problem exists and
how to get over that. This is how poverty is created by
the internal social organization.

Within the social organization, in the creation of

violence, torture is a major instrument. Torture is not
just about somebody being beaten up one day; neither
is it an accident. It is a very organized way of thinking,
a part of the thinking process, a part of the social
organization. Money is spent on it to keep it going.

We can get over poverty by creating spaces for people

to come together, to talk to each other peacefully, but
we cannot create such spaces without fighting against
torture. That is why torture comes first. Of course, the
poverty is the problem. I¡!ll give you an analogy; when
my hand does not work, the cause may be some
problem in the nerve system. But I can only see the
problem in my hand. However, a doctor who looks at it
may say that the problem is my nerve system. Then I
have to threaten the nerve system in order to cure the
problem with my hand. Similarly, if you want to
address poverty, you have to address torture and the
poverty problem will also go away. When there is no
one to intimidate them, there can be open discussions
among the people which will open their minds and
create larger discourses. A conversation among the
poor can be created in this way. It is because torture is
constantly disturbing this process of people coming
together that there is no solution to poverty. For
example, in order for money lenders who give money
to people as loans with high interest rates ¡V so that
they can gain a large percentage of what the people
produce ¡V they use the police to harass and intimidate
people.

It is in order to control and suppress people that

torture is used. The same principle is used when people
distribute essential food items: they increase the
prices. How can such exploitation go on without using
violence? If the people protest against that and take
some bread because they are hungry, a policeman will
say, ¡§oh there is a law, you broke the law,¡¨ and they
will beat up the man. So they keep unfair pricing

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[AHRC Article] BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil Fernando on torture of the poor and related issues 16.09.10 15:01

structures erected for their own benefit. If you want to

buy other people¡!s land cheaply, but they won¡!t allow
you to do so, what do you do? You create an unjust
law and get the police to enforce that unjust law. This
is why torture is such an important component of
keeping the people down.

When people are kept down they also become poor. If

the people are talking with each other and moving and
doing things, there will not be poverty. So in fighting
against poverty, fighting against torture comes first.
Because of that fight, space would be created for the
people to move about and to talk and eventually cure
poverty.

Dealing with poverty is not about throwing something

from the top so that the poor can pick it up. People are
never allowed to pick that up. Before the poor people,
other people pick up these things. No matter how much
you try to change things, in between, there are lots of
people who pick up whatever is available. They do not
wait until those who are most needy can pick up these
things. That is the problem. That is why poverty and
unfair competition is linked.

That is why we started fight against torture, because it

is a very obvious thing, a very natural thing. If we
don¡!t study that, then we cannot help ourselves and
we cannot help the people. When we see the problem,
we recognize the problem and we write about it and
help to fight torture.

Q: If human rights violations have been done by

the government, what can an ordinary person do
to help the poor to come out of their poverty?
All the help we can do for anybody is to help her or
him to help themselves. It¡!s the poor who have to
overcome poverty. Nobody else can come from the
outside and take away their poverty. If we are to help,
then we must help to bring them together. To bring
them together, you must create spaces for them to be
free, for them to talk to each other, to exchange their
ideas, to move and to work together. If a person¡!s
idea of helping the poor is to give them something, it
won¡!t help. It¡!s charity. Charity is not going solve the
poverty problem. It¡!s much bigger than that. By
creating the space for people to come, to discuss, you
will become involved in dealing with poverty.

Q: Many people from Burma became victims of

trafficking. Trafficking is related to poverty
issues. Which issues should be solved first the
poverty issue or trafficking?
A: This is how it works. People who don¡!t have food to

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[AHRC Article] BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil Fernando on torture of the poor and related issues 16.09.10 15:01

eat try to go out and find food. And there are people
who exploit them, who make all kinds of promises, and
then they take them away. And in the process, they let
them be used. Sometimes, they use very cheap labor,
and if they cannot do that, then they use violence.
They keep them in hidden places. They don¡!t allow
them to return to their houses. They get them to do
things that they don¡!t want to do. That is the process
of trafficking. A trafficker is the person who makes
promises, then hands them over to a place to exploit
them.

Q: How do you fight against that?

A: If you try to find the traffickers, you can kill them,
but tomorrow there will be another person. If you try
to fight them and put them in the jail, still there will be
another person. The question is that you must be
willing to address a number of related questions. You
must expose the structure, and then create it so that
trafficking cannot take place in secret. So you must
document this process. You must get people into a
social debate. You must try to find a solution where
people can find jobs without traffickers. For example, if
there is a proper government service that provides a
way for people to find jobs, then they won¡!t go to the
traffickers. They will go to that good agency.

Q: The trafficker is involved because people are

taken for illegal businesses, such as prostitution.
How can we prevent that without creating
alternative jobs?
A: By creating jobs which are normal. If people can find
a good job and they can find enough money to eat,
they can get the necessary training so that they can
get jobs. If people are carefully helped in finding jobs,
they will not go to traffickers. If they can get accurate
information about a job easily, then they will not go to
traffickers. There needs to be a proper information
service where they can learn about such job
opportunities. That way, human rights groups can
create conditions where it is virtually impossible for
traffickers to exploit the powerlessness of the people.

We can punish these people. But punishment is not

enough. If you punish one person, then they will bribe
the police, and they will both profit. You need to create
an alternative system. The trafficking process can be
made difficult for traffickers by creating a social
debate, by providing a great deal of information and
reaching out to the poor.

Above all, this involves fighting the corruption which

involves the police. Without a negligent, corrupt police
force, there will be no trafficking. If there is an

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[AHRC Article] BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil Fernando on torture of the poor and related issues 16.09.10 15:01

efficient, trustworthy police service, trafficking can be

stopped. It is because there is bad policing, because
the police take bribes that trafficking happens. So
fighting against bad policing is one of the major ways
to avoid trafficking. It should be a comprehensive
approach. Many of us need to work on this. It should
not be left only to a few people who try to help these
poor people. That would be impossible.

Q: According to your experience, what is the

most important human rights violation that needs
to be corrected first?
A: There is nothing that should be corrected first, per
se. There are some major things that we have to
address. One major problem that we have to address is
the question of policing. Poverty and bad policing are
linked. Poverty and corruption is linked. Corruption
cannot happen without a corrupt police force. The
major issue we have to deal with is to try and
understand why the police is like this, who is
supporting them and what the system is like behind
these people. If you want to bring democracy from the
bottom up, the way to do so is to deal with about bad
policing. One major problem about Asia is that in
poorer countries, bad policing seriously affects human
rights. Of course, bad policing is also linked with other
thing. For instance, it¡!s linked with judges, with bad
politicians; many things work together. But the most
important thing is to create a space for the people to
participate. When people begin to participate, they will
sort it out themselves. We should always fight against
torture. Its a very, very important part of the work on
human rights in any of our countries. It is a central
issue.

Q: As the Director of the Asian Human Rights

Commission, what did you think of the 2010
election in Burma?
A: In an election, we make our statements. The main
thing is to use this situation to talk about the larger
problems of Burma. We can start with, what is an
election? An election is the time we have to try to solve
people¡!s problems. So during that election we need to
talk about all the restrictions which are set up against
people. How can you have an election when you keep
the oppositions to the ruling government or party in
prison? Not only the leader, but every member of the
party is in prison. An election can only happen only in a
fair, just context. Without a fair context, how can there
be any proper discussions on the issues?

All the repression that is inside Burma makes it

impossible to have a free, fair election. That must be
exposed. We should show why there will not be a fair

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[AHRC Article] BURMA: Interview with Mr. Basil Fernando on torture of the poor and related issues 16.09.10 15:01

election. If we show why there will not be a fair

election, it will generate a discussion. Such discussion
is deeply necessary.

(Mr. Basil Fernando is a Policy and Programme

Development Director in Asian Human Rights
Commission)

###

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is

a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring
and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong
Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Posted on 2010-09-16
Back to [AHRC Statements 2010]

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