Myanmar human rights challenges remain, UN envoy says

Aug 25, 2011, 13:47 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 opposition 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.

'This is a big moment in Myanmar history, and there are rare opportunities for positive and meaningful developments to improve the human rights situation and bring about a transition to genuine democracy,' Quintana said in a press conference at Yangon Airport before his departure.

He urged the international community to remain engaged with the country, which has been under military rule since 1962, until a general election on November 7 brought a new pro-military government to power.

The special envoy echoed his boss' call for the new government to make further steps towards national reconciliation.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon 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 on 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.

Besides meeting with senior government ministers Quintana als met with Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, on Wednesday.

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.

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