Former UN Special Rapporteur for Burma Paulo Sergio Pinheiro speaks out
strongly for human rights in Burma. The New York Times
May 28, 2009 Op-Ed Contributor By PAULO SERGIO PINHEIRO
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
has spent 13 years under house arrest in Myanmar. This week, the Burmese junta
is likely to extend her detention for up to five years under the trumped-up
charge of allowing a visitor into her compound.
During eight years as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, I
repeatedly called on the Burmese junta to release Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and
Burma’s 2,100 other political prisoners, to no avail. It is imperative that she
be released immediately for the country’s process of reconciliation to move
forward.
But while Suu Kyi has deservedly received a great deal of international
attention over the past two decades, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities — more than
one-third of the population — have suffered without international outcry. For
Myanmar’s process of national reconciliation to be successful, the plight of
the minorities must also be addressed.
Over the past 15 years, the Burmese Army has destroyed over 3,300 villages
in a systematic and widespread campaign to subjugate ethnic groups. U.N.
reports indicate that Burmese soldiers have frequently recruited child
soldiers, used civilians as minesweepers and forced thousands of villagers into
slave labor.
An official policy of impunity has empowered soldiers to rape and pillage.
According to one account, in December 2008 a Burmese soldier marched into an
ethnic Karen village in eastern Myanmar and abducted, raped and killed a 7-year
old girl. Authorities refused to arrest the soldier; instead, officers
threatened the parents with punishment if they did not accept a cash bribe to
keep quiet.
In 2002, I received a report about 625 women who were systematically raped
in Myanmar ’s Shan State over a five-year period. There was not a single
account of successful prosecution.
I repeatedly documented the military’s many abuses in reports to the U.N.
General Assembly and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. My work is only one
example of U.N. efforts in Myanmar — since 1990, U.N. representatives have
visited the country 37 times in an attempt to facilitate dialogue and promote
human rights.
They have exhausted all domestic and diplomatic remedies without achieving
human rights protection and national reconciliation in Myanmar. And while the
U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council have passed over 35
resolutions regarding Myanmar, the U.N. Security Council has yet to pass a
single one. The United Nations will not be successful until the Security
Council acts to directly address our stagnant efforts.
It is clear that the attacks in Myanmar will continue. It is equally evident
that the country’s domestic legal system will not punish those perpetrating
crimes against ethnic minorities.
It is time for the United Nations to take the next logical step: The
Security Council must establish a commission of inquiry into crimes against
humanity and impunity in Myanmar. The Security Council took similar steps with
regard to Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. The situation in Myanmar is equally as
critical.
Creating a commission of inquiry will accomplish three important goals:
First, it will make the junta accountable for its crimes with a potential
indictment by the International Criminal Court. Second, it will address the
widespread culture of impunity in Burma. Third, it has the potential to deter
future crimes against humanity in Myanmar.
For two decades, ethnic minorities in Myanmar have suffered while our
diplomatic efforts failed to bear fruit. The time has come for the Security
Council to act.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro was the United Nations special
rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar from 2000 to 2008.