Emphasizing food also clarifies the difference between campaigning for human rights and campaigning for political change, two related but separate agenda. One easily loses this distinction because Burma's odious government seems to embody everything a state should not be at the close of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, by putting all blame on the current government we conflate fact with fiction. While government culpability in violating human rights is fact, the inference that mere change in government will undo systemic human rights abuse is fiction. Burma's military government has incorporated denial of food into the policies, structure and routine operations of state.
Ethnic conflict is entrenched in cultural life.
Corruption and exploitation are social realities. Studying hunger's political structure, the Tribunal confirms a trend towards militarization throughout Burmese society. Militarization orients public policy toward military purposes in opposition to the general population's best interests. In managing the rural economy, the government consistently prefers military needs above farmers' food security. The Tribunal was made possible by dozens of people, some named by this report and many others remaining anonymous.