Lithuania joins chorus seeking UN inquiry on Burma abuses

Thea Forbes

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Lithuania has joined the growing list of countries supporting calls for a UN commission of inquiry into the Burmese junta’s documented cases of human rights abuses, after France and Ireland in the past week.

The call came in a statement the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent to Mizzima.

“Lithuania is deeply concerned by the situation in Burma/Myanmar, especially by the situation of human rights and by the detention of political prisoners, pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi among them … [The] Lithuanian Government supports the launching of the UN commission of inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma,” it said, using the Burmese female honorific, daw, to refer to the Nobel Peace laureate, whom the junta continued to detain under house arrest.

“Having in mind the gross and systematic nature of human rights violations mentioned in Special Rapporteur Quintana’s report last March, the situation must be properly investigated,” it added.

It was referring to the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, who in March submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council stating that in Burma there existed a pattern of “gross and systematic” human rights abuses that suggested the abuses were a state policy that involved authorities at all levels of the executive, military and judiciary. The report 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 [Rome] Statute of the International Criminal Court”.

Lithuania said it supported the initiation of such an inquiry with a specific fact-finding mandate, stating that it would be one of the best ways to evaluate the nature and scope of the human rights violations committed in Burma.

London-based rights advocacy Burma Campaign UK welcomed the country’s backing of such an inquiry. The organisation’s international co-ordinator, Zoya Phan, commended Lithuania’s decision. “I am grateful to the government of Lithuania for listening to the voice of the people of Burma, and standing by us in our struggle for justice and democracy.”

Lithuania is the 7th country in the European Union to offer its support for the inquiry and Zoya Phan hoped this addition would signal the beginning of work towards official support from the European Union.

With the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s recent evasion of comment on the commission of inquiry proposal after the Group of Friends of Myanmar (Burma) meeting in New York on Monday, immediate substantial progress is however clearly some way off.
Mizzima also questioned Lithuania on its stance regarding the widely reproached general election due on November 7.

“We must also admit with regret that the elections planned on the 7th of November… do not meet the criteria of a free, fair and democratic electoral process and cannot be accepted as such,” the ministry statement said.

It also condemned the military regime’s decision to formally dissolve Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy.