Former UN Rights Officials Call for Burma Inquiry
Source: The Irrawaddy
Date: 06 Oct 2010
By LALIT K JHA
WASHINGTON — Two top former human rights officials of the United Nations on Tuesday urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma, as recommended by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma.
The request was made by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil and Yozo Yokota of Japan, who served as the special rapporteurs on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma in (2000-2008) and (1992-1996), respectively, in a letter to Catherine Ashton, the high representative of the EU.
"As former UN special rapporteurs on human rights in Myanmar [Burma], it is our firm conclusion that the pattern of human rights violations perpetrated by the military regime in Burma/Myanmar is severe, widespread and systematic, and directed at civilians, and may therefore violate international human rights and humanitarian laws," Pinheiro and Yokota said.
"As the current special rapporteur has concluded, the abuses are a matter of state policy and there is more than sufficient evidence to justify the creation of such a Commission of Inquiry," the letter said.
Pinheiro and Yokota also urged that the EU should propose the commission in a forthcoming UN General Assembly resolution. "It is essential to send a strong message to the regime ahead of the elections that the international community will not continue to tolerate its violations of international humanitarian law and that impunity must end," they wrote.
The letter noted that evidence of the widespread and systematic use of forced labor, rape as a weapon of war, the forcible conscription of child soldiers, religious persecution, torture and killings is well documented and has been presented by many respected human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), among others.
Copies of the letter were sent to the government of Belgium, the current president of the Council of the European Union, foreign ministers of EU member states and permanent representatives of EU member states to the United Nations in New York and Geneva.
"Since 1996, over 3,500 villages in eastern Burma alone have been destroyed, and at least half a million people internally displaced. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee to the borders of neighboring countries, and beyond. These violations of international humanitarian law have been documented by the UN in numerous resolutions by the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, and in our own and other reports of Special Rapporteurs," the letter said.
The two former UN officials said the new Constitution, which will come into force after the regime's elections in November, contains a clause providing blanket immunity for all crimes, past, present and future, committed by the military, and guarantees the military a quarter of the parliamentary seats.
"The election laws issued earlier this year, the recent de-registration of Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, and the regime's decision to exclude many ethnic populations and parties from participating, mean that the forthcoming elections offer little hope of meaningful change in Burma. The elections, in our opinion, will perpetuate military rule and result in continuing human rights violations," they said.
So far, 13 nations have expressed their support for the establishment of the UN Commission of Inquiry in Burma, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Estonia, which became the 13th supporter on Saturday.
Aung Din of the US Campaign for Burma said the European Union is the major author of the Burma draft resolution at the UN General Assembly and it has been working on a draft in Brussels since September.
Pro-democracy activists including the US Campaign for Burma are pushing the EU to include the language, "calling for the secretary-general to establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in Burma" in the draft resolution, which will be submitted to the UN General Assembly soon.
So far, the EU hasn't agreed to the proposal.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Former UN Rights Officials Call for Burma Inquiry
A close friend of Burma withdraws from public life
A close friend of Burma withdraws from public life
Wednesday, 06 October 2010 11:51 Mizzima News
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The cause of democracy for Burma is not short of proponents, but few can be said to carry a better pedigree than South Africa’s archbishop emeritus, Desmond Tutu.
Recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, Tutu made it known this year that with his 79th birthday tomorrow, he would greatly scale back his public activities.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela – the joint recipient of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with the last president of apartheid-era South Africa, Frederik Willem de Klerk – has called Tutu “sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour”.
“Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless,” Mandela said.
A long-time vocal supporter of Burma’s democracy movement, especially Aung San Suu Kyi, Tutu expounded at length on his views regarding Burma and its detained opposition leader in an editorial written for the London Guardian newspaper in July last year.
In the essay Tutu writes, “I think of my sister Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi every day. Her picture hangs on the wall of my office, reminding me that, thousands of miles away in Asia, a nation is oppressed.”
Both Tutu and Suu Kyi are members of The Elders, a group of a dozen eminent global leaders including former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and former US president Jimmy Carter.
In late August, the archbishop emeritus joined Amnesty International’s open-palm campaign for the release of Suu Kyi, writing her name on his palm and extending it forward for all to see.
Referring to Suu Kyi as the embodiment of a country’s hope, courage and quest for freedom, Tutu has, meanwhile, singled out Burmese strongman Than Shwe for his inability to comprehend the innate human drive for freedom that cannot be suppressed forever.
“Our world is sometimes lacking wise and good leadership or, as in the case of Burma, the leadership is forbidden to lead,” Tutu furthered in the Guardian piece.
The South African, along with supporting an international arms embargo against Than Shwe’s Burma, was an early advocate for a UN commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by Than Shwe and his military regime, voicing his confidence that an inquiry would surely find the former senior general guilty on numerous accounts of gross violations.
Having lived through apartheid and fought for its end, Tutu believes there are lessons inherent in the South African experience from which Burma could benefit. Long supporting a total economic boycott of apartheid-era South Africa, the Nobel laureate further assesses targeted sanctions as critical in the eventual collapse of the apartheid government. Similarities in the tactics of Burmese opposition icon Suu Kyi and Western governments in their approaches towards confronting Burma’s generals are clearly discernable.
Though a vocal advocate for the presidency of Barack Obama, Tutu nonetheless credits the Bush administration for its approach vis-à-vis Burma, having spoken out sceptically of the Obama administration’s possible alternative approach to Burma, which attempts to counter negative policy with limited engagement.
Tutu, for his part, maintains Washington must differentiate between engagement and wishful thinking when it comes to dealing with Burma’s generals.
“Nothing in our experience suggests that offers of aid will cause Burma’s generals to change course; unlike some authoritarian regimes, this one seems to care not a bit for the economic well-being of its country,” penned Tutu on The Elders website last spring as the White House pondered a changed approach towards Burma.
Archbishop Tutu, together with a plethora of other accolades, was the 2008 honoree of the 18th W. Averell Harriman Democracy Award, presented by Washington’s National Democratic Institute “for his work on behalf of democracy and human rights, which includes a focus on Burma”. Aung San Suu Kyi was previously honoured with the same recognition.
While Tutu will still pursue public activities once a week, and his commitment in supporting Suu Kyi and Burma’s pro-democracy opposition can be expected to remain undiminished, he says he is looking forward to watching cricket and drinking tea with his increased leisure time.
Posts
