Myanmar human rights deficits remain, UN envoy says

Aug 25, 2011, 13:20 GMT

Yangon - The new Myanmar government's human rights challenges remain despite recent steps towards rapprochement with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the United Nations human rights envoy for the country said Thursday.

'The new government has made some positive steps but the challenges for human rights remain,' visiting UN human rights envoy for Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana said in Yangon after completing a five-day assessment tour of the country, long deemed a pariah state in the West for its poor human rights performance.

Quintana's visit came at a time of an apparent thaw in relations between oppostion leader Suu Kyi and the pro-military government.

On Friday, for the first time, Suu Kyi was invited to the capital in Naypyitaw for private talks with the new government's President Thein Sein, who came to power following last year's November 7 general election.

'This is a big moment in Myanmar history,' Quintana said in a press conference at Yangon Airport before his departure.

The special envoy, however, echoed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call for the new government to make further steps towards national reconciliation.

Ban on Monday welcomed the meeting between Thein Sein and Suu Kyi as a positive step, but called on the government to release some 2,100 political prisoners jailed by the previous junta.

The government is also under scrutiny for its dealings with the ethnic minorities, several of whom have been the target of brutal military campaigns by the former junta.

In a letter to Quintana Wednesday, a coalition of eight ethnic rebel groups called on the UN envoy to urge that the government restrain its soldiers from rape, burning villages, looting and confiscating properties.

The letter also asked that the envoy 'request tripartite peace talks immediately,' between the ethnic groups, the government and Suu Kyi.

Quintana was only recently granted a visa after being denied entry to the country since March, 2010, when he angered the then-ruling junta by urging a UN inquiry into Myanmar's human rights record.

Myanmar has been the target of economic sanctions by Western democracies since 1988, when an army crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators that left an estimated 3,000 dead.

The junta that ran the country between 1988 to 2010 has notched up one of the world's worst human rights records.

Although the current government is an elected one, it is packed with former military men.

The UN and Western nations have demanded clear signs that the new regime is committed to change, such as opening a dialogue with the opposition and ethnic minority groups that have been the target of military offensives.