UN demands Independent
Probes into Human Rights in Burma
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK:
The U.N. human rights envoy to Burma, Paulo Pinheiro, has asked
the country's military regime to permit independent investigations
into human rights violations, in the face of recent reports that
sexual violence, rape and conscription of child soldiers is commonplace
there.
Human
rights allegations ''are not to be denied; allegations are to
be investigated,'' Pinheiro, the U.N. special rapporteur on human
rights for Burma, said at a press conference. ''There is a need
to have credible, independent investigations.''
''That is the case in any part of the world, where you have to
have credible assessments,'' added Pinheiro, who finished his
11-day fact-finding mission in Burma. This
mission, his third since being appointed to the U.N. post last
year, began on Oct. 17.
''I have expressed to them (the military government) that it is
necessary to put in place independent investigations,'' he revealed.
''I am convinced that there are very serious human rights violations
that need to be investigated, because in some of them there is
a pattern of repetition of these allegations in the last 15 years.''
The Brazilian diplomat's call will serve as a crucial indicator
as to how far Rangoon's rulers, who have renamed the country Myanmar,
are willing to change their practice of dismissing allegations
of human rights violations as fabrications.
That was the stance Rangoon maintained following a report released
earlier this month by the New York-based rights lobby Human Rights
Watch (HRW), which charged that Burma had the highest number of
child soldiers - as many as 70,000 -- in the world.
The majority of these children had been ''forcibly conscripted,''
revealed the report titled 'My Gun Was as Tall as Me'. But Rangoon
denied the charge and accused HRW of attempting to tarnish Burma's
image.
The
junta was as dismissive of another report released mid-June by
two minority rights groups, which accused the Burmese army of
raping close to 625 women and girls between 1996 and 2001 in the
country's eastern Shan state.
The military government forced village elders in the Shan state
to sign petitions that the rapes did not occur, says Hseng Noung,
spokeswoman for the Thai-based Shan Women's Action Network, one
of the rights groups that brought out the report.
The pressure that Pinheiro is applying on the Burmese government
is necessary, she says, because ''right now, inside the Shan state,
no team can investigate freely''.
''Pinheiro's call is unprecedented and it is a slap in the face
of the Burmese government,'' adds Sunai Phasuk of Forum-Asia,
a Bangkok-based regional human rights watchdog. ''It means he
has been convinced that there have been serious violations, such
as sexual violence and rape.''
The U.N. envoy's position also challenges a common practice of
the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the military
government is officially known, of appointing government teams
to investigate rights violations, Sunai points out.
''After the report on the rapes, the SPDC appointed its own investigation
teams, including a military one, that said no systematic rapes
took place,'' Sunai said. However, as another U.N. agency revealed
Wednesday, securing space for independent human rights investigation
in Burma is a daunting task.
Rangoon bluntly refused to permit the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) to conduct a study of child soldiers conscripted
by the government and ethnic rebel groups in Burma.
''We did make a request to conduct interviews inside Myanmar,
but could not do so,'' said Bo Viktor Nylund of the East Asia
and Pacific division of UNICEF at a press conference. ''So we
had to conduct the interviews along the border (which Burma shares
with Thailand)''.
''We need to engage the Myanmar government in greater depth on
this issue,'' added Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director,
during the press conference to launch a study on the shattered
lives of child combatants in six countries across the region.
Among the Burmese child soldiers interviewed for the report 'Adult
Wars, Child Soldiers', was a boy who was 12 when he was conscripted.
''I still want to take revenge because I am separated from my
family. I want to give them (the government soldiers) the same
suffering I have had,'' he told UNICEF researchers.
''I feel I was coerced,'' adds another child from Burma, who was
conscripted into the army when he was 13. ''I knew nothing. I
regret it now. I am not satisfied with my situation.'' One in
four of the world's 300,000 child soldiers are found in the East
Asian and Pacific region, states the UNICEF report. The six countries
it surveyed include Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New
Guinea, the Philippines and Burma.
Apart from charges of child conscription and the military's rapes
of raping girls and women, Burma has also been taken to task for
forced labour, suppressing press freedom and jailing political
opponents.
Pinheiro will present his findings of his visit to Burma to the
U.N.
General Assembly in New York on Nov. 6.
''The cycle of human rights violations needs to be broken, and
there is a need for policies and mechanisms in place to prevent
the repetition of these violations,'' he said. He
conceded, however, that his recent trip provided some evidence
that Rangoon has been willing to address criticism about its political
prisoners by making periodic releases of detainees, and by not
disputing the number of the prisoners it holds - estimated at
over 1,200.
''The SPDC has not contested these numbers,'' Pinheiro revealed.
''What is positive is a serious concern (by the government) to
discuss the issue without denial.''
