RP should press for justice in Burma — rights group

President Benigno Aquino III must announce support for the creation on an international commission to probe into human rights violations in Burma, as he meets with Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ leaders during his week-long working visit to the US. In a letter to the President, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said, “the Aquino [administration] should be a leader in the ASEAN to actively raise human rights abuses in Burma (Myanmar)… to back up his human-rights rhetoric with action." HRW’s deputy director for Asia Elaine Pearson said “the ASEAN should promote justice rather than continuing to take a hands-off approach to abuses among its members." She also reminded Aquino of his inaugural address on June 30, in which the president said, “There can be no reconciliation without justice. When we allow crimes to go unpunished, we give consent to their occurring over and over again." This rings particularly true for Burma, HRW said, adding that the US-ASEAN summit in New York, which began on September 24, presents an opportunity for Aquino to show his commitment to human rights. The abuses by Burma’s military government, as well as by armed ethnic minority groups, have gone unpunished for decades. Members of the UN and major international human rights organizations have issued repeated and consistent reports of widespread and systematic human rights violations in Burma. The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly called on the Burmese Military Junta to respect human rights. [see list List of UN resolutions on Burma] In promoting human rights in Burma at the ASEAN meet, Aquino would be following the lead of his late mother former President Corazon Aquino, Pearson said. In a June 1999 speech to the Forum on Democratic Leaders in Asia Pacific entitled “It is Burma’s Time Now," the former president said, “For there is something in [the Filipinos'] sense of justice that recoils at the thought that justice should elude, after all these years, the Burmese people – kind, gentle, hardworking; but also brave and persevering." Last March, Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, called on the UN to consider the possibility of establishing a Commission of Inquiry into crimes in violation of international law committed in Burma. Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the countries that have already publicly announced their support for such an inquiry. Aquino must do the same on behalf of the Philippines, the HRW said. The Philippines is ASEAN Country Coordinator for the ASEAN-US Dialogue for the years 2009-2012. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Aquino was scheduled to visit the UN headquarters in New York, address its General Assembly, and meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. In an article on the online Official Gazette that, Aquino attended two key events in New York last Saturday, September 24 (Manila time). Aquino was among the heads of state of the 10 ASEAN-member states who met with US President Barack Obama to discuss progress on ASEAN-US cooperation, the Official Gazette said. Asean's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. — Jerbert Briola/LBG, GMANews.TV