UN Rights Envoy, Burmese Activists, Meet in Thailand

From Mizzima, full text available at

http://www.mizzima.com/news/regional/4225-un-rights-envoy-burmese-activists-meet-in-thailand.html

Quintana spoke to such activists at the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) based in Chiang Mai for about an hour after being in Thailand since Friday.

“I presented to him information about the human rights situation in Burma such as the fact that right activists have to hide their human rights educational work from authorities, the activists, who are arrested if they use rights terms in their work,” HREIB staff member Cherry Zahau said. “Moreover, I told him that 43 child soldiers had been recruited so far in this year, according to various reports on this issue.”

Meeting Quintana was for restoration of democracy in Burma and the HREIB was willing to co-operate with the military junta to fulfill this mission, the institute told the UN human rights special envoy at the meeting.

The UN envoy also met pro-democracy and ethnic organisations based in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border on Saturday, Teik Naing, general secretary of the Association Assistance for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPPB), said.

“We explained how the junta has tortured and persecuted political prisoners … For instance, innocent persons were framed as suspects in the Thingyan bomb blast case, were severely beaten under interrogation and forced to give confessions,” Teik Naing said, of those accused of the blasts at a water-festival pavilion in Rangoon in April.

Moreover, Quintana told the Burmese pro-democracy organisations he would collect information on the situation of refugees who had recently fled across the Thai border, Forum for Democracy in Burma General Secretary Dr. Naing Aung told Mizzima.

“And also he told us about the ‘commission of inquiry’ and his opinions on it, the probable obstacles and difficulties it would face, the grounds for constituting this commission of inquiry, who will give a final decision on it, the impact of such a commission would have, not only on the SPDC [the junta] but also on others,” Naing Aung said, of Quintana’s call in March for the UN Human Rights Council to consider the establishment of a commission of inquiry into possible crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.

Such a high-level UN inquiry into serious international crimes in Burma could result in a recommendation for a Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to initiate an investigation.

Quintana said in his March 8 report to the UN rights council that the grave crimes perpetrated by the Burmese army were a “result of state policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels”.

He was appointed in 2008 and has visited Burma three times, last visiting for the country five days in February this year, on missions that led to the recommendations for an inquiry in the March report.

Inter Press Service news agency reported today, citing diplomatic and UN sources that the Burmese junta had denied Quintana a visa to return to Burma for his fourth visit.

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand today to meet activists during a fact-finding mission ahead of the submission of a report on Burmese junta’s rights violations, activists said.

The report said: "But Burmese pro-democracy activists in exile are hardly surprised by the treatment given to the Argentine lawyer, who is currently on a visit to Thailand and Indonesia ahead of preparing another report on Burma to be presented to the UN General Assembly in October."

His investigations on this trip to Thailand also led to meetings with members of the Women’s League of Burma (WLB), the Shwe Gas Movement, and ethnic Shan, Mon and Chin rights organisations.

The junta’s mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, reported on April 7 that the junta’s human rights committee would submit its report to the UN Human Rights Council next February, a year after Qintana’s. Home Affairs deputy minister Major General Maung Oo is head of the committee, which reportedly constituted nine sub-committees handling home affairs, legal, social, labour, health, education, international affairs, religious affairs and women’s affairs rights issues.

Sudan: ICC Warrant for Al-Bashir on Genocide

Published by Human Rights Watch. Full article available at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/13/sudan-icc-warrant-al-bashir-genocide

(New York) - The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on July 12, 2010, for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for genocide committed in Darfur. An earlier arrest warrant for al-Bashir was issued in March 2009 by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

This is the first time the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for the crime of genocide. The warrant is for al-Bashir's alleged role as an indirect perpetrator or indirect co-perpetrator of genocide in Darfur through killing, causing bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring physical destruction.

"President al-Bashir's stonewalling on the initial ICC warrant against him appears only more outrageous now that he's also being sought for genocide," said Elise Keppler, senior counsel with the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Security Council members and other concerned governments should actively press Sudan to stop its blatant obstruction of the ICC and to see to it that al-Bashir appears at the court."

The ICC has jurisdiction over international crimes committed in Darfur, even though Sudan is not a party to the court, under Security Council Resolution 1593, which referred Darfur to the ICC and obligates Sudan to cooperate with the ICC.

The ICC pre-trial chamber declined to include genocide charges when it issued the first warrant for al-Bashir. The prosecutor's office appealed the decision on the basis that the chamber had used an inappropriate standard of proof in declining to include the genocide charges. In a March 2010 ruling, the appeals chamber agreed and instructed the pre-trial chamber to reassess genocide charges on the basis that genocide could be one reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the material submitted, while not necessarily the only reasonable conclusion. On July 12, the pre-trial chamber issued a ruling that resulted in the second warrant on genocide charges.

Human Rights Watch has found in its research on Darfur that the highest levels of the Sudanese leadership, including al-Bashir, are responsible for creating and coordinating the government's counterinsurgency policy in Darfur, which deliberately and systematically targeted civilians in violation of international law. Human Rights Watch has described the crimes in Darfur as "ethnic cleansing," war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch has not taken a position on whether the crimes constitute genocide due to insufficient information in its research on whether the actions were carried out with the "intent to destroy in whole or in part an ethnic group," an element of the crime of genocide.

Young Blood

By Simon Roughneen

Published in the Irrawaddy, full post available at http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18950

BANGKOK—The number of child soldiers in Burma is impossible to verify and recruitment appears to be ongoing in the Burmese armed forces and ethnic militias, despite some positive steps to curb the practice.

Burma's ruling military has long stood accused of a practice perhaps better known in west Africa's civil wars, popularized by scenes of drugged 12-year-olds firing AK-47s at Leonardo DiCaprio's mercenary character in the movie “Blood Diamond,” which was set in Sierra Leone.

In 2002, Human Rights Watch estimated that there were about 70,000 child soldiers in Burma, a figure that has never been effectively confirmed or rebutted. The NGO Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says Burma as the only Asian country where government armed forces forcibly recruit children.

According to the US State Department’s newly-released “Trafficking in Persons” report: “The regime’s widespread use of and lack of accountability in forced labor and recruitment of child soldiers is particularly worrying and represents the top causal factor for Burma’s significant trafficking problem.”

Worldwide, there are thought to be between 250,000 to 300,000 combatants under the age of 18 in state armies or militia groups.

Speaking in Bangkok, International Labor Organisation (ILO) liaison officer in Burma Steve Marshall told The Irrawaddy that “Whilst a lot more still needs to be done, the [Burmese] army has taken positive steps toward enforcing the minimum age for recruitment and discharging children found to have been illegally recruited.”

The ILO is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the recruitment and use of children in the UN-led MRM Task Force under UN Security Council Resolution 1612 (2005), working through its complaint mechanism on forced labor established in February 2007.

The ILO has a complaint mechanism enabling Burmese to report that a child is being used by the army or a militia group—though this is limited to the parents concerned. The number of complaints is increasing over time as awareness of the procedure spreads—though whether this is having a decisive impact on the number of child soldiers across the country is unclear given the paucity of real information to hand.

“Perpetrators have been disciplined for breaches of the law,” said Marshall. “And children, being the subject of complaint to the ILO, are in most cases discharged back to the care of their families.”

While top brass directives state that recruiters should neither accept nor coerce underage people joining the army, and the military government seems generally cooperative when evidence-based cases of child soldiering are put before them, in practice the regime's drive to create the largest army in Southeast Asia puts pressure on local officers to fill the ranks and meet recruitment quotas.

Precise military spending in Burma is unknown, but on top of senior roles in the country's dominant institution, senior military figures enjoy a lifestyle and access to lucrative commercial contacts unknown to ordinary Burmese or lower level officers.

Desertion and low army morale is thought to be common—according to defectors interviewed by Benedict Rogers in research for his new biography of Burma's military leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe. These factors, if replicated at local levels around the country, would make recruitment for the Burmese army more difficult and perhaps increase the temptation to use child soldiers.

It is thought that around one-third of child soldiers in the Burmese army volunteer to join or are asked to do so by family members due to extreme poverty and an inability to make a living or support their parents. Another third are tricked into joining by brokers who promise jobs in the private sector, while another third are coerced into joining.

Voluntary child soldier recruitment takes place among the country's ethnic militias. A May 2009 report by the US-based Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, titled “No More Denial: Children Affected by Armed Conflict in Myanmar,” said, “Most non-state Armed Groups (NSAGs) have reportedly recruited and used children in their armed groups, albeit on a much lower scale than the Myanmar Armed Forces.”

According to Marshall: “There is evidence that a number of the NSAGs (encompassing both those with and without cease-fire agreements) also have children in their ranks.”

Listed alongside the Burmese army as violators in the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest annual report on children in conflict, are a number of the Burmese ethnic militias. The proportion of volunteer under-18s in ethnic militias is thought to be higher than that in the Burmese army, with some militias having, at various stages in recent years, a one-child per family recruitment policy to boost numbers.

However, some of the armed groups say that they are working to stop child soldier recruitment.

Assessing the number of child soldiers in ethnic militias in Burma, and whether steps are being take to end the practice, is difficult; the ILO cannot access ethnic areas inside Burma to establish the full facts on the ground.

There is increasing pressure on the ruling junta to do something about the country's child soldier problem, and during the June 16 UN debate on the Secretary-General's report, junta envoy Than Swe said, “The Myanmar government had taken serious measures to address under-age recruitment, but in some cases, in the absence of official birth certificates or national IDs, some underage children slipped into the military. There was, therefore, stringent scrutiny at various stages, as a result of which, hundreds of children had been discharged and punitive actions taken against military personnel who failed to abide by rules and regulations.”

He was backed indirectly by Chinese representative Li Baodong who said, “Local conditions must be considered, as conflict situations—both on and outside the Council’s agenda—were different.”

The report outlined that “New information received by ILO indicates that recruitment and use of children by the Tatmadaw-Kyi [Burmese army] continued during the reporting period. Reports have recently been received from Shan State (north) and Irrawaddy Division, indicating that the Tatmadaw-Kyi is ordering Village Peace and Development Council chairmen to organize mandatory military trainings for village militias known as 'Pyithusit.' A trend may be emerging in both those regions, where adult males, who are the primary breadwinners of the family, are unable to attend the military training sessions and are sending their children instead.”

The junta clearly prefers that it be removed from the UN Security Council “register” of child soldier offenders. During the June 16 debate, Than Swe questioned the logic used to keep the junta on the list, saying that “Myanmar was not in a situation of armed conflict and, therefore, should not be discussed under the theme of children and armed conflict.”

He said he regretted that the country’s well-trained national army was still listed in Annex I of the report and urged that the progress achieved by the government be duly recognized and the army de-listed from future reports.

He received implicit support from Thailand's representative Jakkrit Srivali, who said the report's scope should be confined to situations of armed conflict and that “there should be more transparency on the listing and de-listing of parties in the annexes.” He added that “reference to countries in which there was no armed conflict and 'sweeping generalizations' were misleading and counterproductive.”

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is due to visit Burma in August, after a trip scheduled for 2009 was postponed due to the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi for alleged breach of house arrest terms.

With UN human rights envoy Tomás Ojea Quintana saying in March that a Commission of Inquiry should be set up to investigate whether war crimes and crimes against humanity have been carried out in Burma, the issue takes added significance. Child soldier recruiters may face prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose statute defines the use of children under 15 in hostilities as a war crime. It is thought that the bulk of child soldiers in Burma are 15-16 years of age, thought there are documented cases as young as 11.

In 2006, the ICC successfully prosecuted a Congolese warlord for the recruitment of child soldiers. Heads-of State are not immune, taking us back to West Africa . The indictment issued by the Special Court for Sierra Leone against former Liberian President Charles Taylor includes charges of recruiting or using children under the age of 15 to fight in Sierra Leone, where a proxy militia linked to Taylor sought to overthrow the government.

ILO: Forced Labor Still Widespread in Burma

By Ron Corben

The United Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO) says Burma has made limited progress in curtailing the use of forced labor.

Steve Marshall, the International Labor Organization's liaison officer in Burma, says over the past three years there have been "significant steps" toward eliminating forced labor in the country. The most progress has been in private organizations and the civil administration.

"To an extent, the government has passed laws which say that forced labor is illegal, which is a very important first step of cours," said Marshall. "The government has undertaken quite a lot of educational activity among local authorities particularly within the military as to the law and the responsibilities under the law."

Burma's military government has long used forced labor in everything from building roads to carrying military supplies through the jungle. At its extremes, there have been reports of people being pressed to walk through mine fields as human minesweepers.

Rights groups say thousands of Burmese are forced to work against their will, including children and the elderly. Many suffer abuse, including gang rape and murder.

Marshall said Thursday in Bangkok the military particularly continues to use forced labor.

"There are some indicators within the civilian side of the administration, which is very good," said Marshall. "In the military side of the administration, there is no clear evidence of any change whatsoever."

One area of progress has been a new system that allows citizens to complain to the ILO. That has helped the rescue children forced to join the military.

In its new report, the ILO report says the government now regularly discharges under-age soldiers if complaints are filed.

Some armed ethnic groups also use child soldiers and Burma's government has allowed the ILO to talk with them to try to end the practice.

Marshall says there are moves to write new labor laws to allow trade unions once a new parliament is convened after elections later this year.

Regional political analysts say Burma's government appears to be taking a more cautious approach in dealing with labor and economic issues ahead of the elections. The vote will be the first in 20 years and is expected to place the government under the international spotlight.

Notes on the First Review Conference on the International Criminal Court

At the first International Criminal Court (ICC) Review Conference earlier this month in Kampala, Uganda, state delegates and civil society organizations from around the world took stock of the Court’s successes and challenges since its inception in 2002. The conference focused on the five situation countries currently before the Court: Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Kenya. The Court is at various stages in these five countries, ranging from investigations to ongoing trials.

Those attending the Review Conference debated the effectiveness of Court in achieving a sense of justice for victims, methods for victims and affected communities to participate in the Court, and ways in which the Court could support and strengthen domestic legal systems. The Conference cast into sharp relief the differences between the voices of victims and the state delegates who were reforming the Court. There is a disconnect between the agony of surviving criminality and the politics of passing amendments and making official statements. Those operating at the international level to reform the Court should remember why the Court is so necessary – to allow victims to receive some measure of justice and to end impunity in places where it has thrived for so long.

While we must thoroughly analyze the work of the Court relating to these five countries, we must not forget the situations out of the reach of the ICC – situations including the ongoing abuses in Burma.

War crimes and crimes against humanity are occurring amid systematic impunity in Burma. The ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), commits crimes against its people including unlawful killings, forced labor, sexual and gender-based violence, forced relocation, and the use of child soldiers. These and other crimes are targeted with shocking regularity against members of ethnic groups. Because Burma has not ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that initiated the ICC, the only way the Court could have jurisdiction over the situation in Burma is through a United Nations Security Council referral.

There is widespread support to end impunity in Burma at the grassroots level. Victims of heinous human rights violations are clamoring for justice. Burma’s domestic legal system offers little comfort. The nation’s courts serve to implement the whims of the ruling elite. Controlled by the SPDC, Burma’s judiciary interprets Orwellian laws that greatly restrict freedoms of association and the press in ways that quash any modicum of dissent or opposition. There are currently over 2100 political prisoners in Burma who were arrested under such laws that prohibit freedoms of speech, press, and assembly. Elections later this year, which experts predict will be mired in corruption and illegality, will lead to the implementation of the 2008 constitution, a document that purports to grant a blanket amnesty for all government officials for all crimes, even those defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute.

Victims of Burma are looking elsewhere. The international community must support the call to end impunity in Burma. The challenge facing human rights activists is translating the local energy for justice from within Burma into concrete action at the international level. Those advocating for criminal accountability have achieved several recent landmark successes. In a March 2010 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana recommended the establishment of a commission of inquiry in order to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma. His call was echoed by the United Kingdom, Australia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. There is significant momentum toward the creation of a commission of inquiry, and the international community must seize it in order to truly end international crimes in Burma.

Statement on the Special Rapporteur’s Recommendation for a Commission of Inquiry

The Burma Lawyers’ Council applauds the recent report from Tomas Ojea Quintana, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar/Burma, which acknowledges the widespread and systematic nature of human rights abuses in Burma, indicates that the abuses may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes as defined under the Rome Statute, and calls on the United Nations to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate international crimes in Burma. The report explained that a culture of impunity, weak rule of law, and a lack of independent judiciary allow the regime to implement its pattern of widespread and systematic human rights abuses. Quintana’s report to the Human Rights Council explained the following:

Given the gross and systematic nature of human rights violations in Myanmar over a period of many years, and the lack of accountability, there is an indication that those human rights violations are the result of a State policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels. According to consistent reports, the possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes under the terms of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The mere existence of this possibility obliges the Government of Myanmar to take prompt and effective measures to investigate these facts. There have clearly been cases where it has been necessary to establish responsibility, but this has not been done. Given this lack of accountability, United Nations institutions may consider the possibility to establish a commission of inquiry with a specific fact-finding mandate to address the question of international crimes.

Mr. Quintana’s report is groundbreaking. Human rights and democracy groups including the Burma Lawyers’ Council have been calling for an investigation into crimes against humanity and war crimes for years, but this report represents the first demand for such an investigation from a United Nations official. The Special Rapporteur’s unprecedented demand signifies the growing outrage over the commission of international crimes in Burma which until now have been met with impunity.

During a dialogue on Burma during a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting, several country representatives echoed Quintana’s call. A representative of the Australian government expressed its support for the establishment of a commission of inquiry and a representative from the United States government indicated that the Special Rapporteur’s recommendation for such an investigation was significant. This meeting demonstrates the growing concern in the international community about impunity in Burma and forecasts increased action from governments at the United Nations level.

The Burma Lawyers’ Council welcomes Mr. Quintana’s report and urges the international community to seize the current momentum and push for a commission of inquiry into international crimes in Burma. Because this year’s elections promise to perpetuate military rule, implement the illegal 2008 Constitution, and enshrine impunity for even the most serious crimes, the international community must act now to end impunity for perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

UK Backs Move to Refer Burma's Leaders to War Crimes Tribunal

Via The Guardian

Britain is backing moves to refer Burma's military leaders to the international criminal court for investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity. The move is part of a heightened campaign to force the junta to embrace genuine democratic reforms, diplomatic and government sources told the Guardian today.

In a tough démarche that will increase pressure on the isolated regime ahead of planned elections this autumn, Britain's ambassador to the UN said the UK supported a recommendation by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma that The Hague-based international court opens a war crimes investigation.

Speaking after a security council meeting, Sir Mark Lyall Grant said the council's five permanent members were "not sufficiently unanimous" in their views to allow an ICC referral to happen immediately. But if such a proposal were tabled, he said, Britain would support it. Nearly 200 MPs have backed the referral campaign.

Britain, the former colonial power, is keen to use the threat of security council action to press the junta into dropping new rules that exclude political prisoners, past and present, from standing for election or belonging to political parties.

"Our number one objective is to increase pressure on the regime to clarify the election rules and hold free and fair elections," a British official said. The UK was pursuing the issue "robustly" with the US, France and other like-minded states at the UN and in other forums, such as the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the official added.

If Burma's junta refuses to change the election rules and opposition parties are forced into a boycott, Britain is understood to be ready to propose a tough range of EU economic sanctions. Any decision on proposing such sanctions would be made by Gordon Brown, who has taken a personal interest in the plight of the Burmese people, and could come as early next week.

A government source said the election rules were "clearly taking the piss" and were not a serious effort to democratise the country, a view that was increasingly shared by Burma's neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

An announcement of an election date could come within the next few days, the source said. "This will clearly be a big moment for the regime and there is no sign they will change course. So all our efforts will be focused on trying to make sure there is a chorus of condemnation and making clear that they [the polls] won't do anything to legitimise the regime."

Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD), the largest opposition party led by the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, is expected to announce on Monday whether it will register to participate in the elections. As matters stand, she and many of the NLD's other leading figures would be automatically disqualified because they have served, or are serving jail terms.

"If [Aung San] Suu Kyi decides to pull out, that will be the death knell for the elections," the British source said.

Aung San Suu Kyi was quoted this week by her lawyer as saying she opposed the NLD's participation, but that the decision was not hers alone. "Personally I would not dream of registering the NLD under such an unjust and one-sidedly drawn-up state constitution," she said.

The junta's decision to hold elections, the first since 1990 when the NLD won in a landslide, is widely seen as an effort to gain international respectability for the regime and end US and EU sanctions. But activists and human rights groups have already denounced the rules of the poll.

Welcoming Britain's backing for an ICC referral, Anna Roberts, the director of Burma Campaign UK, said: "The generals in Burma will never allow justice and democracy ... Rather than engaging with the fake elections, the international community should focus on putting the generals in jail, where they belong."

The campaign to bring war crimes charges against junta members, including General Than Shwe, Burma's de facto head of state, received a boost this month when the UN's special rapporteur, Tomás Ojea Quintana, described "a pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights" of Burmese civilians. The abuses, including killings, rape, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced labour, were the result of long-standing state policy, he said.

See original article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/25/uk-backs-case-against-burma.