BURMA’S military rulers should be brought to the International Criminal Court for crimes committed against victims of Cyclone Nargis, according to an Ireland-based group.
Burma Action Ireland was responding to an independent new report which lifts the lid on severe human rights abuses inflicted on Burmese citizens by their ruling authority, the so-called State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), following the May 2008 cyclone.
The disaster resulted in the loss of nearly 140,000 lives and affected millions of people, particularly in the country’s Irrawaddy Delta.
‘After the Storm: Voices from the Delta’ says the SPDC obstructed relief deliveries, arrested aid workers and severely restrained accurate information in the wake of the worst natural disaster to befall modern Burma.
The report, published by the Centre for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US and the Emergency Assistance Team (Burma), states that Burma’s dictatorial government may have committed crimes against humanity as defined by the International Criminal Court.
Eh Too Hehreh, originally from Burma and living in Ireland since 2001, expressed little surprise as to the report’s findings. “Because [the regime leaders] have done that for so many years, and we expect it,” he explained to Metro Éireann.
Dublin-based Hehreh, who left his native land because of the political situation and lived in a refugee camp on the Burma-Thailand border for 12 years, also feels the international community should take a smarter and stronger approach to Burma’s military rulers – and this would involve interacting with them.
“They are not going to move away,” he said of the regime, “and the armed ethnic groups are not going to be able to overthrow them.”
He emphasised that there was no point sending “a small man” to negotiate with the regime – referencing the UN’s envoy Ibrahim Gambari – but rather a top-ranking official.
According to relatives and friends, basic necessities such as “what will we eat tommorrow” are the main concerns for Burma’s poverty-striken people. He concluded that the EU and other nations should now “review” the effectiveness of their economic sanctions on the southeast Asian country.
A spokesperson for Burma Action Ireland – established in 1996 to raise awareness of the country’s repressive regime – told Metro Éireann that Ireland and the EU must take serious action in response to the report’s revelations.
“We call upon European members of the United Nations Security Council to bring this issue to the United Nations Security Council and to request that the International Criminal Court begin an immediate investigation into these reports of crimes against humanity committed by the SPDC against its own people,” said the spokesperson.
– Catherine Reilly
