By WAI MOE
The Burmese military regime’s failure to respond effectively to Cyclone Nargis, its refusal to allow foreign relief workers access to the affected areas and its forcible eviction of refugees from shelters and health facilities amounts to crimes against humanity, according to Burma’s opposition and several prominent international figures.
Under international law, a “crime against humanity” is an act of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, and is the highest level of criminal offense. The term was first used in relation to the post-World War II Nuremburg Trials when Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes.
In 1996, the UN General Assembly recognized the racial persecutions of the former South African government’s Apartheid system as crimes against humanity.
The terminology was broadened in 1998 when the International Criminal Court (ICC) was set up in The Hague and a treaty known as the Rome Statute was introduced.
Under the Rome Statute, “Crimes against Humanity” was described as acts “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”
Those acts include systematic murder, rape, enslavement and imprisonment. According to US-based rights group Human Rights First, the case against the Burmese junta would also incorporate crimes against humanity in terms of: forced displacement of ethnic minorities; forced labor; recruitment of child soldiers; extrajudicial killings; and torture.
As of June 2008, 106 member nations had ratified the Rome Statute; however, most notably, the US, China and Burma have refused to ratify the treaty.
Thein Nyunt, a member of the legal panel on Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the Burmese authorities had committed a crime against humanity by ignoring the crisis caused by Cyclone Nargis.
Tropical cyclone Nargis hammered lower Burma, including the Irrawaddy delta, and the country’s largest city, Rangoon, on May 2-3. The cyclone has claimed as many as 134,000 deaths and affected about 2.4 million people. Survivors claim that no immediate relief was provided by the state in the aftermath of the disaster.
“From a legal point of view, blocking aid for cyclone victims was not only breaking international law, but also Burma’s own criminal code,” said the NLD lawyer. “Under Burmese criminal law, failure to save lives in a disaster situation is noted under criminal laws 269 and 270.”
Last week, cyclone survivors in the Irrawaddy delta were forced to return to their villages which were totally destroyed and uninhabitable, according to numerous independent reports.
Thein Nyunt said that by forcing cyclone survivors to return to their villages is also a form of crime as it breaks the Burmese military government’s agreement with the International Labor Organization (ILO) on banning forced relocation in Burma.
“The SPDC’s (the State Peace and Development Council, the official title of the junta) refusal to allow more aid to the delta has contributed to a large number of fatalities,” said David Mathieson, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch in Bangkok.
He said it was still too early to determine whether the junta’s actions constitute a crime against humanity. However, the crisis is “suddenly, a very serious situation,” Mathieson said, which “should be investigated by the UN Security Council.”
Human rights advocates and legal groups in Canada and Europe also say the military regime’s blocking of aid to cyclone victims has cost tens of thousands of lives.
Advocates of prosecuting the junta say that they must go through the UN Security Council first before filing a motion with the ICC.
Mathieson said that although China and Russia would probably veto any motion against Burma at the Security Council, the issue of crimes against humanity should be pursued.
Burma watchers also accuse the Burmese regime of being preoccupied with holding a national referendum on May 10 at a time when it could have been saving lives in the delta.
Meanwhile, several prominent exiled Burmese groups and international bodies lined up to condemn the Burmese junta. The words “crimes against humanity” were never far from their lips.
Bo Kyi, the joint- secretary of a Burmese human rights group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, said the Burmese military regime knew that a massive number of people had died in the wake of the cyclone. However, the top generals ignored the death and destruction and went ahead with its constitutional referendum, he said.
Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defense, said on Sunday that the Burmese regime was guilty of “criminal neglect” for blocking large-scale international aid to cyclone victims.
And the European Parliament stated on its Web site that the Burmese military junta’s behavior with regard to relief work during the cyclone disaster was a “crime against humanity,” and suggested that the Burmese leadership face international justice.
“Blocking food and medicine for cyclone survivors is extermination,” said Aung Htoo, the secretary of the Burma Lawyers’ Council. “If this case does not go to the ICC, then many more people will die.”
Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12449&page=2