Clinton backs UN probe on Myanmar rights
HONOLULU, Hawaii — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threw her support Thursday behind an international probe into human rights in Myanmar as US frustration grows with elections planned next week by the military regime.
Activists have long sought an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in the country formerly known as Burma, with which President Barack Obama's administration last year initiated a dialogue.
Clinton, delivering a speech in Hawaii at the start of a two-week trip across Asia, offered the most explicit US backing yet for a probe, which could lead to international warrants for junta leaders.
"I would like to underscore the United States' commitment to seek accountability for the human rights violations that have occurred in Burma by working to establish an international Commission of Inquiry through close consultations with our friends, allies and other partners at the United Nations," Clinton said at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
Human rights groups say that Myanmar has one of the world's worst human rights records, with the regime detaining thousands of opponents, systematically destroying ethnic minority villages and using rape as a weapon of war.
Several other countries, including Australia and Britain, also support a UN commission, which could follow the lines of a probe on Darfur that has led to an arrest warrant for genocide against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
A senior official in President Barack Obama's administration said in August on condition of anonymity that the United States would support a probe.
But some analysts had believed the United States would hold off on more overt support for an investigation until after the election as it tries to preserve dialogue at a time of potential transition in Myanmar.
Clinton said that the United States considered the November 7 election "deeply flawed," but also indicated a willingness to engage Myanmar.
"We will make clear to its new leaders that they must break from the policies of the past," she said.
The elections are the first in Myanmar since 1990, when democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide. But the party was never allowed to take power and the Nobel Peace laureate has spent 15 years under house arrest.
Facing criticism at a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in Vietnam, Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win indicated that the regime was ready to release Suu Kyi soon but only after the elections.
In unusually strong remarks, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley criticized the offer and renewed the US call on Myanmar to free all political prisoners and allow Suu Kyi to participate in the election.
"This is a craven manipulation by Burma. How convenient that they are hinting that she might be released after an election that is unlikely to be fair, free or credible," Crowley told reporters in Washington.
"Burma knows what it has to do. It has to open up its political space for Aung San Suu Kyi and others to participate fully in the politics of Burma," Crowley said.
"It has to release its political prisoners -- all of them -- and it has to have meaningful dialogue with all elements of Burmese society."
Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia who has led talks with Myanmar, said last month that he was disappointed with the dialogue but insisted that engagement was the best path forward.
"The period after the election might create new players, new power relationships, new structures inside the country, so we think we need to stand by and see how that plays out," Campbell said in September. (.google.com/hostednews)
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.
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