MONTREAL – Sept. 19, 2006 – The United Nations Security Council’s decision to add the deteriorating human rights situation in Burma to its formal agenda is a vital and welcome step toward ending more than four decades of brutal military rule there, said Rights & Democracy.

 

The 15-member Security Council voted 10-4 with one abstention in favour of a United States-led motion to include Burma on its agenda. Argentina, Denmark, France, Ghana, Greece, Japan, Peru, Slovakia and the United Kingdom joined the United States in voting for the motion, which deemed the ruling junta a threat to international peace and security and sets the stage for a Security Council resolution. China, Russia, Qatar and the Democratic Republic of Congo voted against the motion and Tanzania abstained.

 

The motion follows a campaign by national governments and international civil society organizations to see the Security Council include the human rights situation in Burma on its agenda. Rights & Democracy, whose involvement with Burma’s struggling democracy movement dates to 1990, contributed letters to Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, and Stephen Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister.

 

The Security Council’s concern underscores the increasingly perilous human rights situation in Burma and its destabilizing effect throughout the region. An ongoing military campaign in eastern Burma’s Karen and Karenni States has destroyed dozens of villages and forced tens of thousands from their homes, adding to the more than 500,000 people from Burma already displaced inside the country. More than a million others have sought refuge in neighbouring Thailand, India, Malaysia, China and Bangladesh.

 

Repression of the military regime’s political opponents also continues unabated, including the ongoing detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel prize winning leader of Burma’s democracy movement.

 

“This motion is an important step that will hopefully lead to a strong and binding Security Council resolution on the human rights catastrophe in Burma,” said Jean-Louis Roy, President of Rights & Democracy. “By underscoring the connection between human rights and regional stability, the Security Council has made an important statement that other abusive regimes will not be able to ignore.”

 

The human rights crisis in Burma is also the focus of Rights & Democracy’s annual John Humphrey Freedom Award. This year’s winner, Su Su Nway, was selected for her courageous campaign against the military junta’s use of forced labour, which saw her win a historic court ruling against the regime last year.