Causecast

by AARON HORWITZ, Causecast Editor

Finally, after nearly half a century of human rights violations and genocide in Burma, many in the US House of Representatives are standing up and acknowledging the injustice, calling for more to be done.

55 members of US Congress recently drafted a letter to President Obama, asking for a United Nations Security Council investigation into crimes against humanity committed by Burma’s long-ruling military regime. The move follows a similar letter recently drafted by 60 members of Britain’s Parliament, as well as a 114 page report out of Harvard University on the situation in Burma, drafted by five of the world’s top judges.

The report’s findings reinforced the atrocities that have long been reported by Burmese Human Rights Organizations and aid workers for years, including “Epidemic levels of forced labor in the 1990s, the recruitment of tens of thousands of child soldiers, widespread sexual violence, extra judicial killings and torture.”

Worse still, in the past 12 years over 3,000 ethnic minority villages have been damaged, burned, or destroyed, resulting in the displacement of over 1 million innocent civilians.

The letter from the US Congress comes at a crucial moment. Burma has been receiving more media attention lately than its notoriously camera-shy government would be comfortable with.

Regime ruler General Than Shwe recently denied UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon’s request to meet with imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner and Causecast leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Than Shwe also refused Moon’s appeal to release the country’s staggering 2,100 political prisoners.

To make matters worse, a North Korean vessel was recently spotted possibly trying to deliver weapons to the hostile government.

The UN Security Council in the past has established a special “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate countries with potential human rights crimes, such as Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region of Sudan. However, no such commission has ever been established to investigate Burma, where bloodshed and unrest at the hands of the government have occurred unchecked for over 46 years.

If the Commission of Inquiry is established and human rights violations are discovered (about as difficult to find a cheeseburger at Burger King), then the Commission will make a call to the UN for action.

While this all may sound like a small step, it is a crucial one nonetheless. The drafting of the letter by members of US Congress is a direct result of you, the public, signing petitions and voicing your opinions to organizations like US Campaign for Burma and the Human Rights Action Center.

Now, it is up to President Obama to make the next move.

If you’d like to learn more and find out how you can get involved, check out Causecast’s new partnership with USCB and HRAC, Freedom to Lead.

Photo by Jan van Raay, Wikimedia Commons