Bulletin N 22 - September 2005

Major Internationnal appeal for nationnal governments’ support for ONU initiative on BURMA seeks French government action

A new report commissioned by former President Vaclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutu calls on the UN Security Council to take up the situation in Burma "immediately".

The report, entitled "Threat to the Peace - A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma" was prepared by DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, a global law firm.

The report concludes: "As a result of the severity of the overall situation in Burma and in consideration of all of these factors, which are analysed in detail in this report, the situation in Burma constitutes "a threat to the peace," thereby authorizing Security Council action. Binding Security Council intervention is a necessary international and multilateral vehicle to restore the peace, promote national reconciliation, and facilitate a return to democratic rule."

Furthermore, as previously reported, Guy Horton has authored ’Dying Alive’, a report on genocide and crimes against humanity in Burma .

Guy Horton has spent the last five years gathering evidence of human rights abuses in Burma . He has painstakingly documented evidence of slave labour, systematic rape, the conscription of child soldiers, massacres and the destruction of villages. His 600-page report, ’Dying Alive: A Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma ’ details evidence to meet the standards of international law in an attempt to bring Burma ’s regime to account in an international forum such as the International Criminal Court.

His aim is to prompt the international community to do more to prevent the estimated 10,000 deaths at the hands of the military regime every year since they seized power.

Guy Horton’s claim for the use of the word ’genocide’ in relation to Burma rests on the 1948 Genocide Convention, ratified by Burma in 1956. The convention cites one expression of genocide as ’deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’. There are over a million people internally displaced in Burma and more than 2,500 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed since 1996.

BURMA ARMY LAUNCHES NEW ATTACKS ON DISPLACED PEOPLE

Burma ’s military regime has launched three new attacks against Internally Displaced People (IDP) in Karen State this September, causing hundreds to flee.

The Burma Army has also closed three main roads in Toungoo District, in an attempt to block all assistance from villagers to Karen resistance forces in that area.

On September 18, two Burma Army battalions attacked Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) resistance forces in Nyaunglebein District, Western Karen State . During the attack one civilian IDP, Saw Tho Tha, was killed.

Three days later, Burma Army Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 4 and Infantry Battalion (IB) 4 followed their earlier attacks by raiding KNLA battalion headquarters in Nyaunglebein District, an area where many IDPs were sheltering. One KNLA soldier was wounded in the attack. Over 400 IDPs are now in hiding.

In Toungoo District, the main Toungoo to Mawchi road, the Tantabin to Mon road and the New Thandaung to Old Thandaung road have been closed. According to reports received by CSW (JSM partner) from sources on the ground, this is "an attempt to block all rice supplies to IDPs and assistance from the villagers to the Karen National Union / KNLA in that area". Civilian villagers report a loss of revenue because they are unable to transport their crops. “Rice also cannot be brought out from the plains of Toungoo and this is a serious problem as many IDPs rely on the purchase of rice from the Toungoo area," sources claim. “This is a deliberate attempt to starve the IDPs in the mountains north and west of Toungoo. It is also an attempt to put pressure on the KNU."

These attacks come at a time when pressure is mounting to bring Burma to the UN Security Council agenda next month.

JSM’s President, Henri Durel, said: "The urgency for the UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL to explore this appeal for dialogue and reconciliation, which does not concerne sanctions, is paramount. We are confident that our Gouvernment shares these concerns and supports President Havel and Bishop Tutu in this regard".