The UNPO General Secretary has issued a Declaration expressing opposition to the vetoes which defeated a UN Security Council resolution condemning Burma’s campaign of human rights violations and its persecution of minorities.

Declaration by UNPO General Secretary Marino Busdachin:

The Hague, 18 January 2007: “The vetoes of Russia and China in the Security Council have effectively condemned numerous ethnic groups within Burma to a further dark period of imprisonment, torture, rape and execution at the hands of the military Junta that has ruled their country since 1988.

UNPO strongly opposes the Security Council’s decision, which has in effect helped strengthen the military regime’s grip on power, granting them further means to continue their programme of human rights violations and crimes against humanity.

UNPO calls for the restoration of Democracy in Burma, beginning with the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as recognition of the need for a strong commitment to this cause from the international democratic community.”

Marino Busdachin
UNPO General Secretary

Background

Burma’s rise to prominence on the international agenda has followed a distressing expansion in its catalogue of human rights violations, and an increasing willingness to wage war on its minority communities. Following the annulment of the 1990 elections, in which the National League for Democracy swept to victory, and the subsequent imprisonment of its Nobel Laureate leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese military Junta has maintained its grip on power through fear and a campaign of arbitrary and indiscriminate arrest, rape, torture and execution. Concerted efforts to drive out its ethnic minorities, including the Shan, Karenni, Mon and Chin, all UNPO Members, have resulted in a large scale humanitarian crisis, and massive refugee flows into neighbouring countries.

The recent attempt of the United Nations Security Council to condemn these practices by means of a resolution was described by British Ambassador to the UN, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, as an attempt to "do the right thing by the people of Myanmar [Burma]". The resolution was indeed a landmark instance of cooperation between liberal democratic states, human rights campaigners, and development agencies, and a positive indication of the Security Council’s intention to take seriously the United Nation’s newly announced “mandate to protect”.

The resolution, however, did not pass. Though nine Members of the Security Council voted in favour, with only three against, vetoes from Russia and China effectively killed the resolution. The US Ambassador to the UN expressed his disappointment at the Council’s failure, emphasising that the resolution was an urgently “needed statement about the need for change in Burma whose military regime arbitrarily arrests, tortures, rapes and executes its own people and wages war on minorities within its own borders (...)”.

Russia and China have excused their actions by suggesting their vetoes reflect only their view that the Security Council in an inappropriate forum within which to discuss these issues. Burmese media has however interpreted their decisions as “a victory for people who love truth". Sceptics have also pointed to China’s growing economic engagement with the Burmese Junta, noting the planed construction of a trans-Burma pipeline and an interest in its vast untapped reserves of natural gas.

Reassurances have underlined that the process of bringing the military dictatorship in Burma to account for its crimes will not end with the Security Council’s failure. The UK and the US have reaffirmed their commitment to the cause, and it remains on the agenda of several other UN bodies. China’s Ambassador to the UN has even expressed regret at the pace of reform in Burma, urging authorities to "speed up the process of dialogue and reform" in an effort to move towards "inclusive democracy".

UNPO has also expressed its disappointment at the Security Council’s failure through a Declaration issued by UNPO General Secretary Marino Busdachin.