Submission from Christian Solidarity Worldwide:
Burma
ABOUT CHRISTIAN
SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE
(CSW)
CSW is a human rights non-governmental organisation,
established in the United Kingdom in 1979, which specialises in
religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their
Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all. We exist
to redress the injustice faced by those who are discriminated
against or persecuted on religious grounds, to champion human
rights and to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. In much
of our work we address broader human rights issues that affect
all people regardless of their religion, working with people of
all faiths or none.
SUMMARY
— The military junta ruling Burma is guilty
of every possible violation of human rights, and ranks as one
of the worst regimes in the world.
— Over 2,100 political prisoners are
in prison in Burma today, subjected to severe torture.
— Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and democracy
leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, and has
spent more than 13 years in detention.
— The regime is guilty of the widespread
and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, forced labour,
forcible recruitment of child soldiers, forced relocation, the
use of human minesweepers, extrajudicial killings and torture.
— Since 1996, over 3,300 villages
in eastern Burma alone have been destroyed by the Burma Army,
and at least a million people internally displaced. Civilians,
including women and children, are targeted and shot at point-blank
range.
— Religious persecution is widespread,
particularly against Christians and Muslims. Christians in Chin
State experience particularly severe religious persecution, but
Christians throughout the country, including those in the Kachin,
Karen and Karenni areas and in major urban centres such as Rangoon,
experience serious discrimination and restrictions on their activities.
Muslims, especially among the Rohingyas, are also targeted for
religious discrimination and persecution.
THE FOREIGN
AND COMMONWEALTH
OFFICE HUMAN
RIGHTS ANNUAL
REPORT
1. CSW welcomes the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office Human Rights Annual Report 2008, and the section on Burma.
In particular, CSW welcomes the reference to the plight of the
Muslim Rohingya people in northern Arakan, who are denied citizenship
despite having lived in that part of Burma for generations. In
August 2008, CSW visited Rohingya refugees on the Bangladesh-Burma
border, and documented the human rights violations they face in
Burma. CSW agrees with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human
Rights Annual Report 2008 in its description of their plight,
and of the "draconian restrictions on their freedom to travel,
marry, study or practise their faith".
2. CSW also welcomes the reference to the
famine in Chin State. CSW would wish to highlight the religious
persecution faced by Christians in Chin State, in addition to
the other human rights violations they suffer, and the current
humanitarian crisis.
3. While CSW is in complete agreement with
the description of the situation in Burma in the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office Human Rights Annual Report 2008, we note one important
omission. On 14 February 2008, the General Secretary of the
Karen National Union (KNU) was assassinated by agents of the military
regime, in his home in Mae Sot, Thailand. We believe this is an
important example of the lengths to which the military regime
will go to silence its opponents, and we believe the Annual Report
should have noted this tragic event.
4. CSW also believes greater recognition
of the plight of the ethnic nationalities in Burma could have
been expressed in the Annual Report. CSW believes that the central
problem in Burma's political crisis is a constitutional one, and
we would have liked to see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
acknowledge not only the suppression of democracy but also the
issue of equal rights for ethnic nationalities. A genuine federal
democracy is the key long-term solution to Burma's constitutional
crisis, and we hope the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will work
pro-actively to highlight this issue. CSW also hopes that the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office will recognise the scale of the
human rights and humanitarian crisis in eastern Burma, including
the widespread targeting of civilians, the killing of women and
children, rape, forced labour and the displacement of hundreds
of thousands, as crimes against humanity.
RECOMMENDATIONS
5. CSW welcomes the action taken by Her
Majesty's Government, and the leadership shown on Burma by the
Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State
for International Development. However, CSW would like to see
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office working pro-actively to achieve
the following measures:
6. A universal arms embargo on the regime
in Burma, by the UN Security Council;
7. The establishment of a commission of
inquiry into crimes against humanity in Burma;
8. An inquiry by the UN Special Rapporteur
for Freedom of Religion and Belief into violations of religious
freedom in Burma;
9. Targeted financial and banking sanctions
to be introduced by the European Union;
10. Increased efforts by the UN Secretary-General
to secure the release of political prisoners and to engage the
military regime in meaningful tripartite dialogue with the National
League for Democracy and the ethnic nationalities, including making
a personal visit to Burma at the earliest opportunity and initiating
a visit by a high-level UN official to pave the way for such a
visit.
24 April 2009
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