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Burma war crimes commission receives growing support
Irrawaddy - September 22, 2010
A proposed UN Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate war crime in Burma has received growing support, with the governments of the Netherland and New Zealand giving their approval.
A CoI would investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma especially in eastern Burma where armed conflicts between the Burmese army and ethnic rebels has gone on for decades.
The expression of support was in response to a draft resolution in the Netherlands Parliament calling on the government to support an inquiry and work for the proposal to be included in a forthcoming UN General Assembly resolution on Burma.
Zoya Phan, the International Coordinator at Burma Campaign UK, said, "The official support of the Netherlands for a UN inquiry into crimes in Burma is very welcomed. Every EU member supporting it brings us a step closer to official EU support. The EU should urgently support an inquiry. Horrific human rights abuses which break international law are being committed every day. There is no excuse for delay."
The Netherlands is the nineth country to officially support a CoI, and the fifth European Union member to express support. Other supporting countries are Australia, UK, Czech Republic, Slovakia, US, Canada, Hungary and New Zealand.
Naing Ko, a spokesperson for Burma Campaign New Zealand, said, "It's great to see the New Zealand government is willing to stand in solidarity with the people of Burma. It's a necessary first step to ending impunity and bringing the perpetrators to justice."
He said that there is no doubt that the Burmese military junta is one of the worst human rights violators in the world. Torture, sexual violence, forced labor, recruitment of child soldiers and the killing of civilians in ethnic areas are widespread and systematic, according to human rights groups.
"The international community has long been aware of the systematic nature of human rights violations committed in Burma, and it is imperative they start to investigate these crimes," he said.
In its latest Periodic Report on Wednesday – documenting human rights violations in Burma from January to July of this year, a Thailand-based rights group, the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma) said that arbitrary and corrupt taxation is a violation that is challenging the survival of many families in Burma.
In areas where cases were gathered, forced labor, confiscation or destruction of property, torture and inhumane or degrading treatment were among the most prevalent human rights violations, according to the rights group. ND-Burma has documented 352 human rights violations in the report.
Tate Naing, an advisory board member of ND-Burma, said, "These are not just isolated cases. The military regime is systematically attacking civilians in Burma. The cases in this report add more details to the growing body of evidence that the regime may indeed be committing crimes against humanity."
The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an umbrella organization of NGOs and humanitarian agencies that assists internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees at the Thai-Burmese border, said that between August 2008 and July 2009 some 120 communities were destroyed, making a total of more than 3,500 villages and "hiding sites" in eastern Burma that have been destroyed or forcibly relocated since 1996.
In a 2008 report, the TBBC said that the total number of IDPs in eastern Burma was likely to be well over half a million people with at least 451,000 people estimated to have been displaced in rural areas alone.
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