Dutch, New Zealanders back UN inquiry on junta abuses

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 23:47 Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - The Netherlands and New Zealand have today joined what is becoming a procession of countries calling for a UN inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Burmese ruling military junta.

Australia, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and the United States, along with many rights groups that have documented such crimes including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, had already endorsed such an inquiry.

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed to Mizzima that its minister, Maxime Verhagen, was “indeed supportive of calls for a UN commission of inquiry on human rights violations in Burma”.

In an e-mail to Mizzima, Jetty Kouwen, a senior policy officer at the ministry’s Southeast Asia and Oceania department, said that the Netherlands “will work closely with all other partners, within the EU and outside” to advance the cause of an international inquiry.

In March, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, issued a report to the UN Human Rights Council, which stated that in Burma, there existed a pattern of “gross and systematic” human rights abuses that suggested the abuses were state policy that involved authorities at all levels of the executive, military and judiciary. It also stated that the “possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes under the terms of the Statute of the International Criminal Court”.

Quintana urged the UN to look further into rights abuses committed by the Burmese regime and consider launching a “commission of inquiry with a specific fact-finding mandate to address the question of international crimes”.

Dutch say NLD dissolution shows polls to be neither free nor fair

Kouwen also told Mizzima that Verhagen “deplores the fact” that Burma’s military regime had recently ordered the dissolution of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). She added that Verhagen believed the action taken against the NLD “shows that the elections to be held on November 7 cannot be free and fair”.

Verhagen, who served as foreign minister in the coalition government led by Jan Peter Balkenende that collapsed in February, is presently part of an interim caretaker government, while negotiations to form a new conservative minority coalition continue. It is expected that Verhagen who first became foreign minister in 2007 will maintain his position in a new Dutch government.

New Zealand joins growing list of nations supporting UN inquiry

The Burma Campaign New Zealand (BCNZ) reported today that its government had also come out in support of an investigation into Burma abuses.

BCNZ spokesman Naing Ko, a former political prisoner, was quoted in a statement as saying that his organisation “welcomes the government’s decision to support [a] commission of inquiry. We urge other nations to do the same and pledge their support for the establishment of a commission of inquiry in the UN General Assembly resolution on Burma this year”.

Unclear when Dutch government will form - Burma supporter likely to stay

It remains unknown when talks to form the Netherlands’ new government will conclude. The winners of June’s national elections, the free-market liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) headed by Mark Rutte secured only 31 parliamentary seats, making them the “smallest winning party” in Dutch history.

The VVD and the Christian Democratic Action (CDA) led by Verhagen have struggled with talks to form a new government because of controversy surrounding the inclusion of the third-largest party in the Dutch parliament, the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, 47.

The PPV is commonly known as an anti-Islam party and has made headlines around the globe because of Wilders’ provocative statements about the religion and its peoples. Wilders and his party colleagues want to ban the Koran, ostensibly for human rights reasons, and pass laws limiting the religious rights of Dutch Muslims.