UN pressure grows on Myanmar human rights conditions
on: March
25, 2017In: ASIA, OPINION, POLITICSNo Comments
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By Rene Wadlow
On Friday 24 March 2017, the 47-member UN Human Rights Council adopted a
resolution without a vote ( a consensus-type procedure) to create an
international independent commission to study the human rights situation in
Myanmar (Burma). The representatives of the Russian Federation and China, who
do not like independent investigations anywhere, indicated that had there been
a vote they would have voted against but that they would not block a consensus
motion. The Ambassador of Myanmar, Hlin Lynn, indicated before the adoption
that such a commission was not necessary and that his government would not
cooperate. The resolution had been proposed by the members of the Council from
the European Union who often have difficulty in reaching agreement among
themselves. The fact of their joint action indicates that awareness of the
dangerous situation in Myanmar has been growing in the past months.
The creation of an independent commission is the strongest form of
pressure that the Human Rights Council has and is rarely used. The most
noteworthy commission created concerned the armed conflict and resulting human
rights violations in Darfur, Sudan. The government of Sudan did not let the
members of the commission into Sudan, but interviews with refugees in Ethiopia
and Geneva confirmed the information which representatives of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) had been providing the Commission on Human Rights, the
ancestor of the Human Rights Council. As I had been the first NGO
representative to raise the Darfur situation in 2004 in the Commission on the
basis of information from sources that I trusted but without myself having been
on the ground, it was a satisfaction to have the Darfur Commission confirm what
I had been saying.
Since I have been addressing the Commission on Human Rights on human
rights in Myanmar since 1989, I am not sure that there is much new evidence to
be presented, but events can always be updated. In 1992, a Special Rapporteur
(then the sharpest tool available to the Commission) on Myanmar was named,
Prof. Yazo Yokota of Japan. The government of Myanmar did not cooperate with
him but did not attack him either because the government of Myanmar needed
trade and investment from Japan. Later Special Rapporteurs on Myanmar who came
from less powerful States were attacked by name in the Commission ( a break in
diplomatic practice as people are referred to by their title and not their
personal name.) I had helped Prof. Yokota meet Burmese exiles in Bangkok. His
reports were a model of fact-finding and calls for the appropriate measures of
international law, in particular the Geneva Conventions.
In response to Yokota’s report the Commission expressed its “deep concern
at the violations of human right in Myanmar which remain extremely serious in
particular concerning the practice of torture, summary and arbitrary
executions, forced labour, including forced portering for the military, abuse
of women, politically motivated arrests and detention, the existence of
important restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms and the
imposition of oppressive measures directed in particular at minority groups.”
The then Foreign Minister of Myanmar, Ohn Gyaw, had replied to the Yokota
report that the government’s aims were “our systematic endeavour towards
establishing the democratic system in an atmosphere of peace, tranquility,
prosperity and orderly processes rather than under anarchy, disintegration of
the nation and tragic and senseless destructive acts. This democratic system we
aim to establish will be on foundations that are within the parameters of our
history, traditions and culture.”
In early 1992, there was increased pressure against the Rohingys resulting
in their massive flight into Bangladesh. Due to pressure from Arab and Islamic
States such as Indonesia and Malaysia, which had never been concerned with
refugee flows of largely Buddhist “national minorities” to Thailand , a Special
Representative of the Secretary-General was named. Thus the fate of the
Rohingyas started to be discussed in the Commission on Human Rights.
It is not clear to me why there is the current flair up of violence in
Rakhine State on the Bangladesh-Myanmar frontier. In a future article, I will
try to set out the causes as I see them. The destructive situation was well set
out to the Human Rights Council by the current Special Rapporteur Ms Yanglee
Kee earlier in March and by the Report of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights for the Human Rights Council but there was little discussion of causes
or possibilities for mutual understanding.
My aim in this article is to welcome the creation of an independent
commission on the model of that for Darfur-Sudan but also to warn that data
collection is not an answer in itself as the continuing armed conflict in
Darfur shows. There are long-standing obstacles to peace and development in
Myanmar which require planning within a basic needs framework and then real
international cooperation for socio-economic development.
Rene Wadlow is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an
international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the
United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and
problem-solving in economic and social issues.
