Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has urged US lawmakers to support the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) by the United Nations into alleged human rights violations in Burma.
Suu Kyi delivered the message at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific through a pre-recorded video message. Chaired by Donald Manzullo, the congressional subcommittee convened the hearing on Wednesday.
“Professor Quintana has spoken of the need for a CoI into human rights violations in Burma,” said Suu Kyi in her address to the congressional subcommittee. “I support his call for such a commission.”
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, has recommended that the UN should consider establishing a CoI into war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Burmese government.
Many human rights groups have claimed that the Burmese military regime is guilty of crimes such as the forced displacement of people, murder, sexual violence including rape and sex trafficking, torture, and the persecution of people based on religious or ethnic identity, among others.
Suu Kyi also questioned why the new government continues to detain political prisoners if it really intends to progress toward democracy.
"If [the government] is sincere in its claims that it wishes to bring democracy into Burma, there is no need for any prisoners of conscience to exist in this country," said Suu Kyi.
She also urged the US to look at the Burmese situation in the light of the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution which came out in March. The resolution, she said, includes such very important issues as political prisoners, freedom of association and information, independence of the judiciary, and the right of Professor Quintana to visit Burma whenever he thinks it is necessary.
It also includes the need for an inclusive political process in Burma and conditions where there can be a negotiated settlement leading to national reconciliation.
“All [the issues] that the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution has called for are essential if Burma is to enjoy constitutional liberalism and democratic institutions,” she said.
The hearing also featured testimony from Aung Din, the executive director and co-founder of the US Campaign for Burma, as well as Chris Beyrer, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights.
Manzullo, who has also kept pressure on the military junta in Burma by working annually to renew economic sanctions against the junta and its cronies, said in his statement that one should not forget that there are still 2,200 political prisoners languishing in Burmese gulags, including peaceful monks and citizens that took part in the Saffron Revolution four years ago.
The timing of the hearing also coincided with the Burmese army launching military offensives against ethnic resistance groups in Shan State and Kachin State, a maneuver that has driven nearly 20,000 refugees into hiding along the China-Burma border and into China.
“The recent news of clashes in Burma’s Kachin province between government troops and ethnic minorities, which has been the heaviest fighting in 17 years, adds further evidence to the argument that the situation in Burma has not changed,” wrote Manzullo in his statement.
Manzullo said the Saffron Revolution of September, 2007 exposed the Burmese regime for what it is—a brutal authoritarian regime willing to stop at nothing to crack down on thousands of peaceful, nonviolent protesters simply because they demanded their basic human rights.
“The recruitment of child soldiers, detention and torture of political dissidents, restrictions on freedoms of press, speech, assembly and association, and limited religious freedoms continue to prevail in Burma under the highly authoritarian military regime of General Thein Sein,” he said.
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