Ban Ki-Moon Set to Visit Burma on Friday

On Friday, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Burma, where the military junta clings to power and continues its major counter-insurgency campaigns against ethnic minorities in the east. The Secretary-General's top three priorities for the country are:

• The release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy and a Nobel Peace Laureate, who was detained by the military junta after her party shored up 85% of the vote in a 1990 democratic election. She has been kept under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years and is currently on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest, charges which are widely believed to be baseless attempts to keep her in custody through the planned 2010 general election. If convicted, she faces five years in prison.
• The resumption of dialogue between the Government and Opposition
• The creation of conditions conducive to credible elections, which the government has scheduled for 2010, but which, without dialogue between the government and the NLD, will simply guarantee a continuing role for the army for years to come.

According to some, the UN chief's visit is a "high stakes gamble". If he comes away without a significant concessions from the regime, he may undercut the authority of the UN in a country where neither sanctions nor diplomacy have yielded many positive improvements.  

Ban's visit also comes amidst calls for the United Nations Security Council to urgently establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate and report on crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma. A May 2009 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School documented extensive evidence that grave violations of international law have been committed with impunity by the Burmese military regime against the civilian population. A Commission of Inquiry is an initial step on the road to what is hoped to be an eventual referral of the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

-Stephanie Figgins, Advocacy Assistant