UN should probe Burma’s abuses

As the UN General Assembly convenes its 66th session this month, the Partido ng Manggagawa calls on foreign affairs officials to support the international campaign for the creation of a United Nations body which can inquire into allegations that Burma’s ruling junta is involved in crimes against humanity.

Burma, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, has been ruled by a military junta since 1962. A constitutional reform initiated by the junta in 2008 led to the holding of elections in 2010. After the November 2010 elections, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party won 80 percent of the votes. But opposition groups disputed the results and accused the junta of involvement in massive election fraud.

President Aquino should uphold the “tuwid na daan” even in the international arena by pushing for the establishment of the UN-led Commission of Inquiry with a specific mission to probe international crimes in Burma which reportedly include sexual violence, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, forced labor, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

Governments as well as democratic social movements have the duty to defend the human rights of people who are under systematic state repression, especially when they are their own neighbors.

The Philippine government should also use its influence inside the Asean to apply more pressure on the Burmese junta for genuine democratic reforms, including immediate cessation of hostilities and all forms of human rights abuses in Burma.

—YUEN ABANA, Partido ng Manggagawa, 144 Legaspi St., Barangay Marilag, Project 4, Quezon City