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more from the UN HR Commission



Oral Interventions for Item 10
Delivered on the evening of April 14, 1998
To the 54th Session of the UN Commission of Human Rights, Geneva.

In chronological order:

1.  Oral intervention by Dr. Thaung Htun
For Worldview International Foundation

2.  Oral intervention by Debbie Stothard
For Aliran Kesedaran Negara

3.  Oral intervention by Dr. Sein Win
For the International Peace Bureau

4.  Oral Intervention by Maung Min Thu Htaik
For the Society for Threatened Peoples

Please note that prior oral interventions on Items 9 and 16 have already
been sent out.

--------------

Oral intervention by Dr. Thaung Htun
Worldview International Foundation
54th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
Geneva.

Delivered evening of April 14, 1998. 

Mr. Chairman,

Resolution E/CN.4/1997/L.97, "The Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar"
adopted by consensus last year, expressed deep concern at arbitrary and
politically motivated arrests and detention and death in custody, and
called on the Government of Myanmar to urgently improve conditions of
detention. However, we are deeply disappointed  that there have been more
arbitrary arrests of students, Buddhist monks, trade unionists, members of
the NLD and MPs-elect since the beginning of this year. It is very
distressing to hear the stories of deaths in custody resulting from harsh
prison conditions. The Commission should pay urgent attention to the
physical integrity of elderly political prisoners in Burma, some of whom
are around 80 years old, detained by the military regime in the recent wave
of arrests.

Over 100 students were arrested this January and February alone in
connection with their demand for the reopening of universities, closed
since December 1996. The All Burma Federation of Students Union asked the
military authorities to open universities, to recognise the right to form a
committee for protection of students' rights, to allow 150 expelled
students to rejoin their universities and to unconditionally release over
1,000 students activists, including ABSFU Chairman, Min Ko Naing, who has
been detained since 1988. More than 60 monks were also arrested when they
attempted to convene an assembly of Sangha (Buddhist Monks) in Mandalay in
the second week of December 1997. There are between  one to two thousand
political prisoners in 36 prisons in Burma today.

Political prisoners rarely have access to legal counsel or their family
members prior to being charged. They are usually held incommunicado for
long periods and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques designed to
intimidate and disorient. The most common forms of mistreatment are sleep
and food deprivation coupled with around-the-clock questioning. Some
detainees are also kicked and beaten. Political prisoners are subjected to
greater restrictions than criminal prisoners. Prison authorities always
treat political prisoners badly, considering them as the enemy of the
military regime, and harass and torture them whenever possible

The conditions in Burmese prisons remain extremely harsh . These include
lack of exercise, mosquito nets and reading materials, poor nutrition,
inadequate medical care, and the use of solitary confinement and dog cells
as punishment. A tiny solitary-confinement cell has to be shared by 3-5
political prisoners and they are only allowed to leave the room to wash and
bathe for 15 minutes a day. 

In Insein prison, famous for detaining political prisoners, with a
population of about 9,200 prisoners 
there is only one prison hospital managed by one medical doctor. However,
the prison provides no medicines except some kinds of temporary analgesic
and antipyretic, such as paracetamol. The doctor neither examines patients
nor prescribes medicines to patients; these tasks are carried out by other
prisoners who have only an extremely rudimentary knowledge of medical
matters. Medicines from the prison hospital are smuggled out of the prison
and sold in markets outside. Furthermore, the hospital does not admit
patients unless they give bribes to the prison doctors. Otherwise, they are
admitted to the hospital only when they develop serious complications, and
most die.

Because of poor nutrition and sanitation, lack of personal hygiene, unsafe
water supply, unclean and semi-cooked food, amoebic and bacilliary
dysentery, diarrhoea and amoebic and viral hepatitis are very common in
Burmese prisons. In addition to these diseases, another threat in the
cell-blocks, helping the military regime to eliminate its opposition, is
AIDS. Lack of sterilization of needles in prison hospitals and the practice
of using the same needle for many patients lead to the extensive spread of
AIDS in Burmese prisons. The seriousness of AIDS in Burmese prisons was
revealed when U Hla Than, MP for the Coco Islands, died of AIDS in 1996
after spending five years in Insein prison. It is impossible to know how
many deaths are attributable to AIDS since most prisoners are not given
autopsies. One political prisoner recently released from Insein prison said
that prison authorities have been using the fear of needles as a weapon to
threaten and intimidate prisoners. To reuse needles and to subject
prisoners to a serious threat of HIV constitutes cruel and inhumane
treatment and violates prisoners' rights.

Because of late admission to hospital, mistreatment, lack of medicines and
minimal care for patients, 45 political prisoners have died in custody
since 1988. The 53rd session of the Commission called on the military
regime to investigate the death of a well-known political prisoner, Mr.
James Leander Nichols, and to prosecute the person or persons responsible.
"The last Days of Mr. Leo Nichols", an eyewitness account written by Moe
Aye, a former political prisoner, demonstrated that Mr. Nichols died
because of round-the-clock interrogation and psychological torture by
military intelligence, sleep deprivation, lack of proper food and medical
care while he was suffering from diabetes and dysentry. We are disappointed
to see the lack of transparency and accountability by authorities regarding
deaths in custody.

The conditions of political prisoners are harsher in prisons in upper Burma
than in Rangoon. Thayet and Thayawaddy are well-known in this regard. In
April 1997, 150 political prisoners including 59 NLD members from Insein
prison were transferred to upcountry prisons. We are concerned that such
kinds of transfer impose additional hardships in the form of reduced access
to family support, food, clothing and medicine.

Given the harsh conditions and inhumane treatment of political prisoners
leading to illness and deaths in Burmese prisons, I would like to recommend
the Commission to strongly urge the authorities of Burma to allow the
competent international humanitarian organization to communicate freely and
confidentially with political prisoners.

Thank you.

------------

[Items in brackets not to be read out]

Oral Intervention on Item 10
Aliran Kesedaran Negara - National Consciousness Movement
Delivered by Ms Debbie Stothard

Delivered evening of April 14, 1998. 

Mr. Chairperson,

It is tragic that the Commission on Human Rights has witnessed increasing
reports of situations where human beings like all of us here are being
murdered or violated, and denied our civil, political, economic, social and
cultural rights.

Many of us are making the effort and expense to be here to speak for a
five-minute slot because we often have no other arena to engage with those
governments responsible for the violations and those governments who have
become accomplices through their actions or inaction.

Today, I focus on Burma but also express respect for human rights struggles
in my region and other parts of the world.

The refusal of the military junta of Burma to recognise the urgent need to
cease its violations on the peoples of Burma and to engage in genuine
dialogue with the government-elect, is making a mockery of the United
Nations system.

The actions of governments, some of whom are actually members of this
Commission, to support the regime, is a further mockery. They cheapen their
UN positions by providing economic and diplomatic alibis for this regime to
maintain its reign of fear and aggression.

Admission of the regime into Asean [the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations] has not substantially changed its behaviour. Eight months of
membership has seen an increase of violations, including arbitrary arrest,
extra-judicial killings, torture, forced relocation and forced labour.

The junta's aligned troops have violated the sovereignty of a fellow Asean
member, and attacked three refugee camps in Thailand last month, using
mortars and guns to kill Karen and Thai people. This impunity is a clear
insult to Asean as a regional organisation.

As the regime loses its grip on the crumbling economy, it has stepped up
its attacks on the democracy movement led by the NLD [National League for
Democracy], the party which overwhelmingly won the last election. More
activists have been arrested this year, even those over 80 years' old or
those who rent premises to the NLD are not safe.

We have seen a name change of the regime. Just as the State Law and Order
Restoration Council conspired to deny order and the rule of law to the
peoples of Burma, the State Peace and Development Council seems
fundamentally opposed to real peace and development.

[Funding of health and education continues to be 4 per cent of the budget
compared to at least 40 per cent on military spending. Almost all the
universities remain closed since December 1996. The combination of the
massive forced relocation programs and a crumbling economy is severely
undermining the peoples' capacity to feed themselves.]

Therefore, Mr Chairperson, I urge all the governments and organisations
represented in this room to take these simple steps now to remedy the
situation:

· Please make it very clear to the military regime that they cannot
continue to delude themselves. It is imperative that the regime immediately
stops its attacks against the ethnic peoples and the democracy movement,
instead, it should begin genuine dialogue with these groups. Those
governments which openly support human rights should be prepared to
[temporarily] freeze all forms of support to the regime until dialogue begins.
 
· Please urge the regime to release all political prisoners. Those
prisoners include people with the intellect, expertise and commitment to
rebuild Burma.
 
· Please urge the regime to stop attacking its own population. These
violations hurt the entire country, and in the end, hurt the regime itself.
Dialogue, not warfare will help the country.
 
· Please discourage businesses from risking their money in Burma until
dialogue restores genuine stability. Years of investment have not
contributed to Burma's human development.
 
· Please include space in this year's Burma resolution to condemn massive
forced relocation and forced labour programmes, which have resulted in
hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people.
 
· Please ensure that women are included in this resolution. Don't forget
those women struggling to survive in their prison cells, forced relocation
and forced labour sites, and refugee camps.
 
· Please ensure protection for those who fled the rampant human rights
abuses in Burma. The government of Thailand has made a key step to allow
some access for UNHCR. We urge the Thai government to allow greater access
and involvement of UN agencies and NGOs to ensure the safety and well-being
of these refugees, as well as humane treatment of those not termed refugees.
 
· Finally, please commit your political will to implement the terms of the
UN resolutions on Burma [Myanmar] to accelerate positive change in Burma
THIS YEAR. Change will happen in the country - our task is to ensure that
it happens with respect for human dignity and human rights.

Thank you.

------------

Oral intervention by Dr. Sein Win
for the International Peace Bureau
54th Session of the UN Commission of Human Rights
Geneva.

Delivered evening of April 14, 1998.

Mr. Chairman,

I am Sein Win, a representative from the Paukkhaung Constituency, elected
in the 1990 general elections.  It has been 8 years since 1990, the people
of Burma overwhelmingly voted for the National League for Democracy (NLD)
with the anticipation that democratic governance will be able to protect
their fundamental freedom and basic human rights. However, the will of the
people expressed in the 1990 general elections has not been honored yet and
instead, Burmese military regime has chosen the another path of
confrontation against its own people. Burma has become a pariah state where
grave violations of human rights continued. 

Since 1992, the Commission has passed resolutions on "the situation of
Human Rights in Burma". None of the terms of resolutions have been
implemented by the military regime. The worst is the constant refusal of
the military regime to the repeated request of the Special Rapporteur to
visit the country in order to perform his mandate given by the commission.
The non-cooperation with the UN and blanket denial of human rights
violations are not only the irresponsible attitude of the regime but also
the clear violations of the Articles 55 and 56 of the UN Charter that
require all member states to take "joint and separate action in cooperation
with the Organization for the achievement of universal respect for, and
observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without
distinction as to race, sex, language or religion".

We, people of Burma, are truly grateful to the UN Commission on Human
Rights for making public the human rights violations in Burma and for
passing resolutions. We also welcome the report of the Special Rapporteur,
his constructive recommendations and relentless efforts of UN
Secretary-General to bring about national reconciliation and early
restoration of democracy in Burma. We fully agree with the concluding
remark of the Special Rapporteur that "genuine and enduring improvements in
the situation of human rights in Burma cannot be attained without respect
for the rights pertaining to democratic governance." In that respect, we
believe that a substantive political dialogue between the authorities of
military regime, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other political leaders
including leaders of ethnic nationalities, is urgently needed.

On 18 December 1997, Deputy Home Minister called in five CEC members of the
NLD. We are disappointed to learn that this is merely an occasion where CEC
members were scolded and reprimanded for releasing statements critical on
government. We believe that such kind of hostile attitude against the NLD
would not be the positive step leading to national reconciliation. Dialogue
could be successful only if it is based on equal footage, honesty and
mutual respect. 
  
We observed that severe restriction is still imposed on freedom of
movement, social and political activities of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
Secretary-General of the NLD. U Aye Win and U Cho Aung Than, who are
cousins of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and served as close aides of her were
arrested and sentenced for long prison terms. Weekend address from her home
were stopped and access to her by her supporters and journalists is
restricted by imposing constant surveillance by military intelligence. 

NLD is deprived of basic rights of political parties such like freedom of
expression, freedom of expression and freedom of publication. NLD is not
allowed to print anything, to publish anything, it is not allowed to
operate a Gestetner machine or photocopier machine. It is not allowed to
own an international direct dialing telephone. It is not allowed to hold
meeting in its own offices. The military regime launched a terrible
campaign to shut down NLD offices around the country. House owners who
rented space for NLD offices haven been intimidated, harassed and in some
cases, arrested.

While the military regime could reconcile with drug traffickers, duly
elected representatives of the people have been treated as criminals. They
are constantly subjected to intimidation, harassment, economic coercion and
arrests. Politically motivated arrests and detentions of NLD MPs and
members, students activists and trade unionists have been continued. There
is between about a thousand and two thousand political prisoners in
estimate including 18 MPs. Over 100 students were arrested in January and
February 1988 alone in connection with their demand to reopen Universities. 

Given the deteriorating human rights situation and growing political
tension in Burma, we would like to urge the Commission to extend the
mandate of the Special rapporteur on Burma and request the UN
Secretary-General to assist in the process of national reconciliation and
democratization. We also urge the member states to take a greater interest
in getting the terms of the UN resolutions on Burma implemented.

Thank you.

----------------

United Nations Commission on Human Rights
Agenda Item ( 10 )
Oral Intervention
By Maung Min Thu Htaik
For the Society for Threatened Peoples

Delivered evening of April 14, 1998. 

[sections bracketed like this will not be read out]

I would like to testify on the gravity of the human rights crisis that
exists in Burma today, especially in the ethnic border areas.

Since 1996, the military regime has been conducting a massive forced
relocation program in Shan State, to bring the civilian population under
its control. By the end of 1996, we documented that over 600 villages [in 8
townships] in an area of 5,000 square miles in Central Shan State, had been
forced to move to strategic relocation sites. Since then, this forced
relocation program has been intensified and expanded [into 12 townships] to
cover an area of over 7,000 square miles. [Because this area is in the
center of Shan State, out of bounds to foreigners, very few people are
aware of what is going on there.]

Only six weeks ago, a further 38 villages in Ho Pong township were forcibly
relocated. A total of 1,459 villages have been relocated, with almost
60,000 households affected. With most households containing at least 5
people, this means at least 300,000 people have been pushed out of their
homes.

When people are relocated, they are usually given only 3 to 5 days to move,
after which their homes become "free-fire" zones where they can be shot on
sight. They are forced to move to strategic locations on main roads or near
towns, which may be up to a day's walk away. Villagers with ox-carts can
carry some possessions with them, but those walking on foot can carry
almost nothing. Those refusing to move have been beaten, shot or burned
alive in their houses. 

The affected villagers are nearly all farmers, who are forced to leave
behind their crops and their animals, which are usually looted by the
regime's troops. There is absolutely nothing provided for the villagers at
the relocation sites, and they are forbidden to go back and cultivate their
old fields unless they are nearby. By being deprived of their lands, they
of course lose their means of livelihood, and can only survive by trying to
find wage labour or begging.

The worst development over the past year has been the sharp increase in
extra-judicial killings of villagers in the relocation areas. The regime's
troops have often killed those trying to return to their old homes to find
food. We have documented the extra-judicial killings of 664 people in 1997.
[Please note that these figures only show confirmed cases. Since most
people are killed out in the jungle, it is impossible to know the real
figures, which must be much higher. These figures include mass killings
committed by the regime's troops.]

On June 16, 1997, people relocated to Kun Hing town, who had been given
written permission to return and collect rice from their old villages, were
caught on the way and massacred. One group of 29 people and another group
of 27 people were killed.

I actually interviewed a woman who had survived one of these massacres. She
was spared because she had a young baby with her. She described her terror
as the SLORC troops called the people away in groups to be shot. She could
hear the machine-gun fire as they killed her husband, her sister and
brother-in-law. One woman who was with her begged for mercy from the SLORC
troops; she even lifted up her shirt and squeezed milk from her breast, to
show she had a young baby she needed to care for, but she was shot anyway.

It is not only people caught outside the relocation sites who are
massacred. The SLORC actually fired shells into some relocation sites.

Apart from killings, other human right abuses such as torture, rape,
arbitrary detention and looting are common occurrences in these areas of
forced relocation. Torture methods have included beating, being roasted
alive, being scalded by boiling water, being suffocated with plastic
sheeting, being submerged in water and electric shocks.

The relocation sites are also used as a pool of forced labour by the
regime's troops. Most of the sites are strategically placed close to army
camps, and the villagers are made to work in the camps [building barracks
or fences, digging ditches, collecting firewood or water for the troops.]
They are also made to work building roads, or standing sentry along the roads.

[Forced labour is not limited to the areas of forced relocation. It is
prevalent throughout the Shan State, as well as the rest of Burma. Numerous
Shans have fled in the past year from southern Shan State to avoid labour
on a main road from Larng Khur to Mawk Mai. One person from every household
in the area is being forced to work on the road every day, where they have
to split stones by hand. On one section of the road alone, 2,500 people at
a time are being forced to work. They are paid nothing, and have to provide
their own food. Villagers in the area have no time to even plant their own
fields. Work on this road is continuing to this day.]

It is human rights abuses such as these that are driving large numbers of
Shans to seek refuge in Thailand. We estimate that during the last two
years over 80,000 Shans have fled to the Thai border, but unfortunately,
unlike for Karens and Karennis, there are no refugee camps for Shans in
Thailand, so they end up becoming illegal migrants, subject to all kinds of
exploitation.

[The human rights crisis I am describing is not just limited to Shan State.
The figure of 116,000 Karen, Karenni and Mon refugees along the Thai-Burma
border is sufficient testimony of this, not to mention the hundreds of
thousands of internally displaced in these areas.]

[The recent attacks in March carried out with the support of the regime on
three Karen refugee camps in Thailand, in which over 50,000 refugees lost
their homes and many killed and wounded, is clear evidence of the total
disregard by the regime of any norms of human rights.]

We recommend that the Commission's resolution on Burma should contain a
separate paragraph dealing with forced relocation.