EU urged to join calls for UN probe

Friday, 09 April 2010 17:38 Mizzima News

Mizzima (New Delhi) - The European Union should follow the lead of its members United Kingdom and Czech Republic in calling for a United Nations commission of inquiry into serious crimes committed by the Burmese junta, campaigners have said.
Burma Campaign UK, based in London, on Thursday applauded the Czech Republic’s stance on its support for the establishment of commission of inquiry to probe possible crimes against humanity committed by the Burmese rulers. Similar commissions have been set up to examine events in the Darfur region of Sudan and Lebanon.

Prague, in response to a reporter’s questions, said: “The Czech Republic remains concerned at continuous grave human rights violations in Burma/Myanmar. Despite the government’s ‘Roadmap to Democracy’ and before the expected this year’s elections, political repression, and military attacks against civilians of ethnic nationalities continue in scale and gravity that may entail international crimes under the terms of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

Mizzima contacted Czech Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Filip Kanda, who confirmed the government’s stance.

The Rome Statute is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) after a UN General Assembly in 1998 convened a diplomatic conference in Rome. It came into effect in 2002. As of last October, 110 states are party to the statute and 38 states have signed but not ratified the treaty. It defines the functions, jurisdiction and structure of the permanent tribunal to punish individuals who commit genocide and other serious international crimes.

“We believe that the possibility of establishing a commission of inquiry should be seriously examined,” the original reply said, as quoted on the Burma Campaign UK website.

The Czech Republic is the third country to call for the UN to establish a commission of inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation, after Australia and the United Kingdom last month expressed backing for such a move.

In response to that stance, Burma Campaign director Mark Farmaner on Thursday said: “It is time that the EU discussed officially adopting support for a UN inquiry, and should include this in the draft United Nations General Assembly resolution on Burma later this year.”

He said, as with the Czech Republic, it is time other EU countries also began to take the initiative and support the call for the establishing a commission of inquiry, he said. “We want other European countries to come aboard and we hope the European Union will officially support as they support the global arms embargo,” Mr Farmaner told Mizzima.

The calls for such an inquiry on Burma and to bring the ruling generals to the ICC have long been raised by campaigners. But UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, last month brought fresh momentum with his recommendation for such an investigation. Mr Quintana, who has made three visits to the country in the almost two years since taking the UN post, said the continuing rights violations needed to be investigated because of the “pattern of gross and systematic violations of human rights”.