The United Nations Security Council’s decision to organise a formal briefing on Myanmar casts the spotlight on the reclusive generals whose disregard for human rights has made the country a pariah state, analysts say.
The decision came after an Asian human rights watchdog group released in Washington what it called the most comprehensive report on torture in Myanmar, accusing the generals of ”brutal and systematic” abuse of political prisoners.
It also came after the junta extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi — who has spent more than 10 of the last 16 years in captivity — by another six months.
Asda Jayanama, a former Thai ambassador to the United Nations and Myanmar, said on Saturday that the formal UN briefing would put ”moral and political pressure” on Myanmar’s military leaders.
”The Burmese mission in New York spends a lot of its time to ensure the [General Assembly] resolution on violations of human rights that comes out each year is as weak as it can be,” he said.
”From the point of view of democrats, the NLD and others, [the formal briefing] is quite a big success.”
The generals have ruled the Asian nation since 1962. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 1990, but it was never allowed to govern. The country currently has no Constitution.
Earlier this month the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution slamming systematic human rights violations in Myanmar, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, forced labour and harassment of political opponents.
The council’s agreement does not mean the Security Council will put Myanmar on its formal agenda, but does mean a senior UN official will brief member states.
Russia’s UN envoy Andrei Denisov said on Friday the agenda was ”overloaded”, while his country and Asian members of the council said they believed Myanmar posed no immediate threat to international or regional security.
Asda said he agreed Myanmar was not an international threat, but that it did threaten Thailand because displaced persons were fleeing Myanmar and there was fighting in border areas.
The retired ambassador said he thought Russia would work hard to ensure Myanmar stayed off the Security Council’s official agenda, which could be one reason why the Russians and Chinese agreed only to the briefing.
”I think maybe they’ve done it because there won’t be anything binding,” Asda said.
The briefing will occur despite the fact that two UN special envoys to Myanmar, Razali Ismail and Paolo Serghio Pinheiro, have been barred from entering the country since 2003.
Pinheiro told the UN General Assembly in October that Myanmar was being driven into further isolation and more had to be done to break the impasse.
Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the Alternative Asean Network on Burma, said activists would like the Security Council to adopt a resolution.
”It’s time that the various members of the Security Council clearly show where they stand on this issue,” she said from Kuala Lumpur.
In September, former Czech president Vaclav Havel and South African Archbishop and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu gave the UN a very critical report about conditions in Myanmar and urged the Security Council to push the junta to reform.
That report, which caused the junta to strongly deny the charges against it, showed Yangon was worried, Stothard said.
The military has thus far made no comment about the UN decision. – Sapa-AFP