The UN Security Council's decision to organize a formal briefing on Myanmar casts the spotlight on the reclusive generals who se 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 confirmed it had 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.
The generals have ruled the Asian nation since 1962. 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.
Asda Jayanama, a former Thai ambassador to the UN and Myanmar, said yesterday 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," he said.
Earlier this month the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution slamming systematic human rights violations in Myanmar, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, forced labor 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.
The military junta has thus far made no comment about the UN decision.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
RSS