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US raises Myanmar heat with war crimes panel call
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US raises Myanmar heat with war crimes panel call
AFP - Thursday, August 19
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US raises Myanmar heat with war crimes panel call
WASHINGTON (AFP) - – Critics of Myanmar are voicing hope for intensified global pressure on the military regime after the United States signaled it would support a UN inquiry into alleged war crimes.
President Barack Obama's administration last year opened a new policy of engagement with Myanmar, also known as Burma, concluding that longstanding Western efforts to isolate the junta had failed to bear fruit.
But the administration has voiced growing dismay over the junta, which has faced allegations it is pursuing nuclear weapons and has stepped up efforts to marginalize democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi ahead of rare elections.
An administration official said the United States has opened discussions on how to set up a war crimes probe, a longstanding demand by activists as it could lead to the eventual indictment of junta leaders.
"The United States supports establishing an international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma," the official said.
While most global attention on Myanmar focuses on Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's only detained Nobel Peace laureate, activists point out that millions more have suffered in the country's ethnic conflicts.
"It is long overdue that the world acknowledges that the Burmese regime is guilty of heinous and brutal acts against its own people," said Representative Joseph Crowley, who led calls in the US Congress for a war crimes probe.
"Burma's military regime has destroyed or forced the abandonment of 3,500 villages, raped countless ethnic minority women and recruited thousands of child soldiers," said Crowley, a member of Obama's Democratic Party from New York.
Crowley called for more nations to back an inquiry, saying the Obama administration's move "brings us one step closer to delivering the justice the Burmese people rightfully deserve, but the fight does not end here."
The US Campaign for Burma, led by exiled activists, said that Australia, Britain, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have also supported an inquiry.
It pledged to shift attention to persuading the European Union as a whole and Canada to offer support.
China, the main commercial and political partner of Myanmar, wields veto power on the UN Security Council, meaning that any effort to establish an inquiry would likely come instead at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Former US president George W. Bush's administration, while determined to isolate Myanmar, would have been in an awkward position to press for a war crimes panel.
Under Bush, the United States shunned the Human Rights Council -- considering it ineffectual and tainted by poor membership -- and staunchly opposed the International Criminal Court.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the Obama administration was committed to using a "range of tools" on Myanmar, including dialogue.
"Our strategy has always envisioned not only direct engagement, but also using tools like sanctions to put pressure on the Burmese government," said Crowley, who is not related to the congressman.
The State Department spokesman said the United States hoped to press the junta to "open up political space in its society for broader participation, to have a credible dialogue with minority and ethnic groups (and) to improve its human rights record."
The junta last week announced elections on November 7, but the United States has voiced doubt that the vote would be "inclusive or credible."
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the last election in 1990 but was never allowed to take power. It is boycotting the upcoming vote, viewing it as a sham to cement the junta's power.
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