http://www.northstarwriters.com/lh026.htm
April 7, 2009
President Obama is about to test an important proposition – that the United States can more effectively improve even the worst global institutions by participating in them than by shunning them.
In this case, the institution is the United Nations Human Rights Council, for which the Obama Administration has applied for U.S. membership, reversing a longstanding policy of the Bush Administration.
When the U.N. General Assembly approves its application in May, as it surely will, the United States will face the challenge of re-directing one of the U.N.’s most notorious and ill-named panels.
The United States can make progress, but only if it seizes the opportunity of council membership to promote its own values of human rights. What it must not do is go along to get along – that is, object too tepidly to the council’s likely activities and, by doing so, give those activities more legitimacy on the world stage.
The United Nations created its Human Rights Council in 2006 to replace its discredited Human Rights Commission. If anything, the council has proved more a human rights embarrassment than its predecessor.
Membership in the 47-seat council is dominated by African and Asian regional groups, which together control 26 seats. These groups, in turn, are dominated by the influential Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
The council includes some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, and it avoids discussion of the world’s worst human rights situations. It has not condemned ethnic cleansing in Sudan, it recently stopped investigating bloodshed in Congo and it largely ignores day-to-day human rights abuses from Cuba to Burma to Zimbabwe.
Instead, the council focuses almost singularly on Israel, the Middle East’s lone democracy but a nation to which many council members are reflexively hostile. The council reserves one permanent agenda item for condemning Israel and another for investigating human rights in the rest of the world, says the Hudson Institute’s Anne Bayefsky, who edits the newsletter www.EyeontheUN.org.
Not surprisingly, the council has issued the vast majority of its condemnations against the Jewish State – more than against all other nations combined. It also has barred Israel from participating in any of its five regional groups through which council members share information and plot strategy.
The council’s other preoccupation of late is a move to outlaw criticism of Islam. It recently passed a resolution that encourages nations to provide legal “protections” against “acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion” that arise from “defamation of religions” or “incitement to religious hatred.”
Though it refers to religion in general, the resolution is clearly designed to prevent criticism of Islam. The resolution states that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human-rights violations and terrorism.” If enacted, such “protections” could severely curtail free speech, including efforts to explore the theological roots of terrorism that emanates from the Middle East and elsewhere.
Obama’s decision to apply for council membership reflects his desire to send a clear message to the global community that, in contrast to President Bush, America’s new leader wants to engage more with allies and adversaries alike.
His decision comes as his administration seeks to develop a new relationship with the Islamic world in particular, highlighted by such steps as Obama’s interview on Al Arabiya TV, his high-profile stop in Turkey at the tail-end of his European trip and his efforts to open discussions between top administration officials and their counterparts in Iran – a U.S. adversary for the last 30 years.
Whether the United States benefits from council membership will depend on what Obama does with it.
Several weeks ago, critics blasted Obama for sending U.S. officials to planning meetings for the upcoming “Durban II” conference, arguing the United States should shun an event that has all the makings of another “Durban I” – the 2001 conference that degenerated into such an orgy of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism that Secretary of State Colin Powell ordered the U.S. delegation to leave.
In fact, Obama used the Durban II process to send a strong signal about U.S. values. After participating briefly, the administration announced it would not continue to do so unless organizers dropped the Israel-bashing and other unacceptable features of emerging conference documents.
Obama will face similar clashes between council priorities and U.S. values. If he turns these clashes into opportunities to promote our values forcefully, U.S. membership may prove a worthwhile endeavor.
© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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Monday, April 13, 2009
Obama Puts Global Engagement to the Test
Beverages in Burma under inspection for containing banned chemical dye
http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/1944-beverages-in-burma-under-inspection-for-containing-banned-chemical-dye.html
by Phanida
Monday, 06 April 2009 21:39
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese military junta authorities have started inspecting food and soft drinks in Burma, to check whether they are tainted with a chemical dye, which is dangerous for health of the people.
This latest move was initiated after the authorities banned over 100 brands of pickled tea leaves for using a banned chemical dye, 'Auramine O'. The authorities also recently, banned two alternative medicines for the high content of lead and arsenic in the products.
"We are inspecting all products, including soft drinks, fish paste, dried fish etc. We are inspecting soft drinks of domestic-make found in the market. Some of them are officially permitted brands," Chairman of 'Food and Drug Administration' (FDA), Dr. Kyaw Lin, told Mizzima.
"We have already tested samples of these soft drinks before production. But, the market survey is more important, so we are focusing on the market survey. We inspected all the brands, so as not to leave anything untested," he added.
The brands of domestically produced soft drinks are Scorpion, C +, Ve Ve, Max, Stan Crusher produced by Myanmar Golden Star (MGS), Pepsi, Sparking and Fantasy Orange among others.
A reliable source from Scorpion Soft Drink Trading and Distribution said that they had not yet received any notice from the department concerned, and they were distributing their products as usual to their customers.
"Scorpion is not yet included in the list of banned products. I do not know whether other brands are included in this list or not. So, we are continuing our sale to the customer companies. The buyers are still buying our products. We have not yet heard any significant news regarding it. We must inform our company, when we hear such news as we are agents for them. The ban order must be made public officially in newspapers," he said.
They buy these products from Pholapye Co. in wholesale and redistribute them.
The officials from the Health Department have not yet visited Pholapye Co. and have not yet banned their products, he added.
It has been learnt that local food and drug administration committees have been formed in each township.
The committee consists of a Township Medical Officer, a Township Health Department Officer, and responsible persons from the municipal body, police force, General Administration Department and Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department.
"These committees are in every township. They will inspect all the products, banned by the government as unfit for consumption in Burma, and recall these products from the shelves and destroy them in the presence of the shop owners. They can also inform about putting these products in the market again, depending on how much they are working," Dr. Kyaw Lin said.
It has also been learnt that no new rules and regulations have been announced yet and these tainted products will be removed in accordance with the existing National Food and Drug Law.
"They will know our Burma Food and Drug Administration regime in this way. We do not need to issue any new regulations. These regulations and rules are already in existence. We need to take action in accordance with them, such as the National Food and Drug Law. We will continue to enforce this law," Dr. Kyaw Lin said.
In today's edition of the state-run 'New Light of Myanmar', it has been reported that in a forum held in Rangoon, Liver Disease specialist, Professor Dr. Khin Maung Win, said that it had been found meat, fish and dried shrimps were tainted with chemical dyes for preservation and to artificially seem fresh. And also the salt found in the market was bleached with chemicals to whiten the product, which is originally brown, he added.
Fruits such as apples, grapes, papaya and watermelon were also dyed with chemicals to make them colourful and attractive to the customers. These banned chemicals, were also found in some snacks such as tea, roasted peanuts, cakes, phaluda and plums, the paper reported citing Dr. Khin Maung Win.
The state-run papers also explicitly announced on March 12 and March 29, that the Ministry of Health had banned 43 pickled tea leaf brands, including famous 'Ahyeetaung' and other 57 brands of pickled tea leaves for being tainted with the banned chemical dye called 'Auramine O'.
'Auramine O' is the industrial chemical dye usually used in dyeing of yarn, wool, silk, paper and hides, which may cause liver and renal diseases, cancer and may also affect the growth of the body if it is consumed for a long time.
[Ye Yint Thet Zwe] “ကမၻာပ်က္ အလြမ္း”
(တနဂၤေႏြ ၅ရက္ေန ့က အိမ္နဲ ့မနီးမေ၀းမွာ ခ်ယ္ရီပန္းၾကည့္ပြဲ
သြားေတာ့ ခ်ယ္ရီပင္တန္းေအာက္မွာ တိုးမေပါက္တဲ့လူေတြကို
ေငးေမာၾကည့္ရင္းနဲ ့ ၂၀၀၇၊ ဧၿပီလကေရးခဲ့တဲ့ ကဗ်ာေလးကိုျပန္ရြတ္မိတယ္။
အားလံုးကိုလည္းခံစားမႈေတြေ၀မွ်လိုက္ရဲ ့။)
“ကမၻာပ်က္ အလြမ္း”
ေလာကပါလ တရားကေလး
မစို႔မပို႔နဲ႔
လွေနတဲ့ ညေနခင္းေလးတခု
ခ်ယ္ရီပြင့္ေတြက
အဆုပ္လိုက္ အခိုင္လိုက္
အၿပိဳင္းအရိုင္း ေဝေဝဆာဆာ
ခ်ယ္ရီပင္ေတြေအာက္မွာ
ေသာကဒုကၡမ်ား
အခိုက္အတန္႔ ေမ့ေလ်ာ့ထားရာ
လူအမ်ား
ခ်ယ္ရီပြင့္ေဝရႈ ့ခင္းထဲ
သူတို႔ဘဝေတြကို ပစ္တင္ရြက္လႊင့္လို႔ ။
ဒီအခ်ိန္ဆို
တို႔တိုင္း တို႔ေျပ
တို႔ေရ တို႔ေျမေပၚမွာ
ပိေတာက္ေတြ
အဆုပ္လိုက္ အခိုင္လိုက္
အၿပိဳင္းအရိုင္း ေဝေဝဆာဆာ
ဖူးပြင့္လာဘို႔ အတြက္
မဝံ့မရဲနဲ႔ အားယူေနရွာေရာ့မယ္ ။
‘စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ေအာက္မွာ
ေအးျမတဲ့ သႀကၤန္ေရလည္း
ျပည္သူလူထႀုကီးရဲ ့ ရင္ထဲကအပူမီးကိုို
မေအးျမေစႏိုင္ေတာ့ဘူး
မွားယြင္းတဲ့စနစ္တခုအေပၚက
အာဏာကိုရူးသြပ္ဖက္တြယ္ထားသူလူတစုရဲ႔
ရိုက္ခ်က္ၾကမ္းၾကမ္းေအာက္မွာ
ပိေတာက္ေတြေတာင္ တထိတ္္တလန္႔္႔နဲ႔ဲ႔ဖူးပြြင့့္္ရ
ခေလးသူငယ္မ်ားေတာင္မွ
အေၾကာက္တရားနဲ႔ႀကီးျပင္းရ
ေက်ာင္းသားလူငယ္မ်ားေတာင္မွ
မ်ိဳးဆက္လိုိုက္ စနစ္တက်ဖ်က္ဆီးခံေနရ
တိုို႔ု႔ေခတ္ေရာက္္မွ ညံ့ၾကေတာ့မွွာလား ’
ခ်ယ္ရီပင္ေအာက္က
ပိေတာက္ခ်စ္သူတေယာက္ရဲ႔အေတြး
အလြမ္းေတြနဲ႔ ကမၻာပ်က္လို႔ ။
ရဲရင့္သက္ဇြဲ
--
Posted By Ye Yint Thet Zwe
US ‘Not Averse’ to Direct Talks with Burmese Regime
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15440
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By LALIT K JHA Friday, April 3, 2009
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WASHINGTON — The new US administration is not averse to the idea of entering into direct negotiations with the Burmese military junta, according to insiders at the State Department in Washington.
Proponents of such a policy move argue that if the Obama administration can support reconciliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan and offer an olive branch to Iran, with which it does not even have diplomatic ties, it would not be a bad idea to try the route of talking to the Burmese military junta, either on a bilateral level or at a multi-party platform.
The recent meeting of Stephen Blake, director of the US State Department’s Office of Mainland Southeast Asia, with Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win in Naypyidaw was part of a process of touching base with the junta and exploring the possibilities of engaging with it directly, officials say.
“The US wants to see progress for a democratic Burma that respects the rights of its citizens, is at peace with its neighbors and is integrated into the global economy,” one State Department official told The Irrawaddy.
“We are prepared to work with other countries in the region and elsewhere to achieve these goals and we are flexible on the mechanisms and the modalities that underpin that effort,” the official said, on condition of anonymity.
“We are still in the process of reviewing our policies on Burma and are considering ideas from a variety of stake holders,” he said.
Observers take issue with State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid’s description of Blake’s Naypidaw visit as a routine one. They point out that a meeting between a Burmese foreign minister and a US official of Blake’s level is a rare event.
The substance of the Naypyidaw talks has not been disclosed by the State Department. A tone of flexibility has, however, since been noted by observers.
Dissatisfaction with the sanctions policy adopted by the Bush administration has been voiced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Obama administration is also not very keen on a continuation of the UN-led international effort under special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, believing it has failed so far to yield any results.
The two approaches, the administration believes, have only helped pushed Burma into the lap of China, consolidating the position of the Burmese military junta.
None of the key objectives of the international community—restoration of democracy and protection of human rights of Burma’s citizens—have been achieved. Despite all the rhetoric at the UN and within the Security Council, and in spite of a series of visits to Burma by Gambari, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest and more than 2,000 political prisoners are still being held.
Policy framers in the Obama administration believe that a new approach on Burma should be based on lessons learned from the past and the ground realities. It should not be driven by idealism alone, they feel.
They insist that any new policy would keep as its goal the restoration of democracy in Burma, protection of human rights and the establishment of peace with its neighbors.
Burma’s integration in the global economy is a recently added objective, indicating that the US would be willing to lift economic sanctions if the Burmese military junta takes steps in the right direction.
If the Obama administration’s latest move on Afghanistan is any indication of its foreign policy, the US could insist in any talks with Burma on the restoration of democracy and free and fair elections, without being seen to support any particular candidate or a party.
This is the Obama administration’s approach in Afghanistan, where presidential and provincial elections are to be held later this year.
Unlike in the past, where the US threw its support behind specific candidates, the White House has said it would work to ensure a level playing field for all the candidates.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Myanmar announces peace deal with Karen rebels
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C04%5C06%5Cstory_6-4-2009_pg20_6
YANGON: Myanmar on Sunday confirmed that it had made peace with a splinter group of Karen rebels.
Government spokesman Ye Htut told The Associated Press in an e-mail statement that Saw Nay Soe Mya, the son of a late Karen leader, his 71 followers and 88 of their family members turned themselves in to authorities in Htokawko village on Monday. They will be allowed to keep their weapons, he said. Nay Soe Mya could not be reached, and it was impossible to independently verify the report.
Even if true, the latest peace deal is unlikely to end fighting between Karen rebels and the government since his group represents such a small number of fighters. The Karen National Union has been fighting for half a century for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It is the largest ethnic rebel group and the only major one which has yet to sign a cease-fire with the junta.
The United Nations and human rights groups say that over the years the military has burned villages, killed civilians and committed other atrocities against the Karen and other ethnic minorities. The Myanma Ahlin daily newspaper on Saturday said Nay Soe Mya returned to the legal fold “as he has confidence in the government’s roadmap and understood the genuine goodwill of the people and the military,” referring to the junta’s plans to hold elections next year.
Cease-fire talks broke down between the KNU and the government 2004, and the Myanmar army launched a major offensive in eastern Karen state in 2005. It has also successfully enticed elements of the KNU to the bargaining table as part of a campaign to split up the group. In 2007, the government announced that a splinter group led by Brig. Gen. Htein Maung had agreed to a peace deal. Maung was reportedly on hand Monday when Nay Soe Mya and his followers arrived at Htokawko. A KNU spokesman could not be reached for comment. ap
Rogue Agent: How India's Military Intelligence Betrayed the Burmese Resistance
http://www.mizzima.com/book-reviews/1941-indias-betrayal-of-burmas-democratic-aspirations.html
by Nandita Haksar
Monday, 06 April 2009 14:21
Publisher: Penguin Books India, 2009
Price: Rs. 299
Reviewed by: Joseph Ball
Traveling east, crossing the internal border demarcating the Indian states of West Bengal and Sikkim, there is the distinct feel of entering a frontier area outside the unchallenged purview of the central state – special travel documents, an immediate upsurge in national propaganda and, on the return trip, a dash by virtually all travelers, businessmen and drivers alike for the 'duty free' shops on the Sikkim side of the divide. India's northeast can indeed feel very far from the halls of power in New Delhi.
It may seem improbable that India's northeastern border with Burma, significantly closer geographically to Bangkok than the Indian capital, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located nearly 800 miles offshore from Kolkata, would be linked in a complex nexus of international politics and intrigue. Yet, this is precisely the story that Rogue Agent sets out to tell – a saga that has left 34 Arakanese and Karen Burmese freedom fighters wallowing in Indian detention for over a decade, wrongfully accused by a corrupt Indian intelligence officer of gunrunning for insurgents operating in northeast India, and anonymous victims of a shift in Indian foreign policy away from Burma's democratic opposition and in favor of closer ties with Burma's ruling generals.
Along these lines, Rogue Agent asks searching questions of why India's bureaucracy has betrayed the Arakanese and Karen resistance movements, Burma's struggle for democracy and, in a wider context, what the evolution of Indian foreign policy says of India's own struggle to adhere to the democratic ideals upon which the state was founded.
Nandita Haksar is well positioned to tell the story of the ethnic Burmese freedom fighters. A trained human rights lawyer, she is also a long standing friend of Burmese pro-democracy elements, having formed tight bonds not only with the freedom fighters chronicled in the book, but also with communities of Burmese refugees living in India.
The strength of the book lies in the close relationship between the author and the detained freedom fighters, whose testimonies vividly portray not only the harrowing trials of their betrayal by India's intelligence system, but also the often neglected sagas of the fights of the Arakanese and Karen for their rights as citizens of Burma – struggles that have waged for generations, spanning the entire history of modern Burma.
Haksar, an ardent proponent of the argument that India's national interests are best served by supporting Burma's opposition elements, goes to great lengths to chronicle the changing face of Indian foreign policy vis-à-vis Burma as emblematic of why Indians should be much concerned over the future of democracy in their own country.
Even some of those detained are described as having adopted a similar mantra during their time under detention in the world's largest democracy. Haksar says of one Burmese inmate, "[His] obsession throughout the period of his ten-year detention has been to understand why India has refused to support the Burmese resistance movement."
Haksar at least partially answers this by contending that "India does not have a cohesive policy towards Burma because it never had a policy for its North-East." Indian nationalists, it is said, see Karen and Arakanese movements in similar light to separatist movements in northeast India. And as an Indian Admiral is quoted in the text as saying, "Surely even Ms Aung San Suu Kyi would oppose the balkanization of her country."
Such reasoning, at the forefront of India's change in orientation with respect to Burma, in addition to combating Chinese influence, fighting for its own economic interests and allotting greater importance to its eastern neighbors, highlights a crucial question at the center of the debate: are Indian interests best met by focusing on a staunchly nationalist agenda or, instead, through a discourse led by a trans-state agenda of interwoven rights?
However, as the Burmese freedom fighters embarked on their fateful journey to Landfall Island in 1998, such a question was likely far from their minds – preoccupied as they were with matters of daily struggle and survival.
Isolated, with few friends to whom to turn, the National Union Party of Arakan (NUPA), from which several of those detained are members, was forced to turn to anyone willing to help – and an overture from a ranking Indian military intelligence agent could not be discarded.
Lured to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the promise of a sanctuary from which to direct activities against Burma's military rulers, in exchange for espionage services against Chinese interests in the region and assistance in combating piracy, the tale of the ethnic Burmese freedom fighters also comes across as one of dwindling available options forcing misplaced trust in an individual whose sincerity should well have been questioned.
Epitomizing the desperation of the NUPA camp, Haksar writes, "The Arakans had no choice but to fulfill his demands since he was their only contact with the Indian authorities." She goes on to explain how he demanded such exorbitant gifts from the rebels as gold for his wife and a new house in Punjab. For a cash-strapped resistance movement, the tens of thousands of dollars poured into the private coffers of a wayward Indian intelligence agent provides a somber appraisal of their dire position.
In contrast to Grewal, Haksar points to George Fernandes as reflective of what Indian approaches to Burma used to encapsulate and representative of the direction the country again needs to take. Fernandes, a long-standing personal friend of Burma's democratic forces, is a former Defense Minister and outspoken political voice for the rights of estranged communities, including the cause of Tibetans as well as that of Burma’s democratic opposition.
However, the policies espoused by Fernandes and others like him were far from in the ascendancy during the mid-1990's. In combination with Grewal’s agenda of greed, the ethnic Burmese rebels were doomed by the near 180 degree shift in India's Burma policy, which – encapsulated by the 'Look East Policy' – was just starting to come into its own at the time of their arrests. In short, Burma's rebels had become expendable, the purported reasons for the rebels' activities in Indian waters and territories coming in direct conflict with New Delhi's newfound interpretation of what best served India's national interests.
The shortfall of the book comes in the form of the factual errors and questionable inferences sprinkled throughout the text.
From spelling errors associated with Burmese names, the country's Foreign Minister is identified as Nay Win as opposed to Nyan Win, to oversights regarding general associations and figures, Muslims are sited as comprising 20 percent the Burmese population – approximately five times the common estimate, the informed reader is unfortunately distracted from the text.
More thought provoking, however, are a number of 'interpretative liberties' taken with respect to historical timelines, geopolitics and geography.
Speaking to the strategic importance of The Straits of Malacca, Haksar writes, "The Pentagon has been trying to militarize the region since 11 September 2001." Increasingly militarize, possibly. But the insinuation that 9/11 ushered in the U.S. military's interest in the region ignores a longstanding commitment of the U.S. government to the need to secure The Straits – the Dulles brothers of the 1950s serving as but one prime example of America's long-standing strategic thinking regarding Straits security.
Additionally, it is somewhat surprising that the critical role India played in supporting Burmese Prime Minister U Nu's fledgling government in the immediate post-independence years is somewhat glossed over. To this end, the question must be asked if this has anything to do with the fact that the Karen National Defense Organization was very much at the head of the opposing camp, threatening the very outskirts of Rangoon and the government of U Nu – Indian democratic posturing, and support for the central state, at this early stage squarely conflicting with the self-determination agendas of Burma's ethnic communities.
And what is the reader to make of the assertion that if allowed to benefit from a base in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands "they [the rebels] would have been able to carry out an effective resistance against the military junta in Rangoon." The critical stronghold of the Karen resistance, Manerplaw, had already been overrun some three years previously, and the organization was facing daunting internal divisions. As for the Arakanese resistance, by the mid-80s scholarly reports were already speaking pessimistically of the chances for success by Arakanese forces – citing war weariness, disunity and the global situation among other factors for the bleak outlook.
Throughout the book, the fight to free the detained freedom fighters is put forth as a mission to right both moral and political wrongs – the two aspects of the cause rarely divorced. Even Dynyalin, one of those detained, concludes from his study of early Indian support for Burma's opposition elements: "While other East Asian countries engaged Burma 'constructively', India pursued a moralistic policy."
The morality of politics has in turn been a central tenet of Burma's struggle for democracy, with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi occupying a not undeserved position of dominance atop the moral dais. But does morality necessarily lend itself to effective politics either domestically or with respect to the formulation of foreign policy? Is the pursuit of changing the policies of governments best served by headlining arguments of international rights, or national interest?
While paying heed to the larger political context, Rogue Agent succeeds in telling the story of an often neglected subplot to independent Burma’s woes, the subterfuge of Indian Ocean politics and the pursuit of Arakanese and Karen resistance forces for their basic rights – fights which predate the trendy historical focal point of Burmese resistance, 8-8-88, by several decades.
But Rogue Agent was never just about the depravity of rights enjoyed by Burma's fringe populations and the incarceration of 34 ethnic rebels from Burma, it is very much also a impassioned plea for what the author sees as an Indian democratic tradition threatened by misplaced calculations of national interest. As Haksar concludes, "In the final analysis my solidarity for the Burmese peoples' struggle for democracy was dictated by my concern for protecting the democratic space in my own country" – fates forever intertwined.
And what has come of those whose wrongful detention inspired the book? They remain right where Rogue Agent left them, with the reconvening of their trial scheduled to commence in June of this year after India's military establishment continued to impede the pursuit of justice and access of information to key witnesses during the most recent hearings concluded this past March.
However, even if released, what then for the freedom fighters? Sadly, freedom could yet prove but a poisoned chalice.
Though already agreed to be accepted as refugees in either the Czech Republic or East Timor, without approval of refugee status forthcoming from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) such offers hold no protection against the possible persecution the 34 may face if repatriated to Burma.
To date, the UNHCR’s acknowledged reluctance to act on behalf of the appeal for refugee status stems from statutes contained within Article 1F of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The importance of procuring refugee status for the ex-combatants lies in the prohibitions of forced return related to Article 1F. An exclusionary principle related to the Article in question states: "No Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political persuasion."
Ultimately, then, the case of return or exile would hinge on weighing the seriousness of the threat of reprisal upon return to Burma – the threat of which is manifestly undeniable.
Further, as spelled out in a UNHCR position paper, when dealing with ex-combatants of non-international conflicts, the right against torture should reign supreme.
According to the study, “refugee law should not lag behind human rights law,” the two, it is argued, need to be brought closer together in recognition of the vision of the Preamble to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
And, as UNHCR research concludes: "[W]here substantial grounds have been shown for believing that the person in question, if expelled, would face a real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 [of the Convention Against Torture] in the receiving country. In these circumstances, Article 3 implies the obligation not to expel the person in question to that country."
But without action on the part of UNHCR in recognizing the 34 as refugees and the imminent threat against their well-being if repatriated to Burma, their future freedom remains seriously jeopardized – even if their days in Indian custody are finally brought to a close.
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