EU must keep up reform pressure: HRW

Thein Sein, who is on a tour of Europe, met leaders including Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament; Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission; Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council; and Catherine Ashton, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

European leaders should urge Thein Sein to honour his pledge to give the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights a mandate for full rights protection, promotion, and technical assistance and allow full and unimpeded access of humanitarian organisations to areas where civilians are in need, Human Rights Watch said.

“EU leaders should treat the reform efforts to date in Myanmar as just the start of a process, not the end,” said Lotte Leicht, EU director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“They should of course encourage President Thein Sein’s reforms but also press him to address the hard reality of serious ongoing human rights violations in Myanmar.” 

The rights group urged EU leaders to recognise that recent positive changes in Myanmar are due in large measure to international pressure and the Myanmar leadership’s desire to escape economic and political isolation. Thus it was critical that the EU not ignore ongoing abuses by the Myanmar security forces, including attacks on civilians in ethnic conflict areas and crackdowns on peaceful protesters in Yangon and elsewhere, it said. 

Since the resumption of the armed conflict with the Kachin Independence Army in Kachin State in 2011, the Myanmar military has been responsible for numerous violations of the laws of war, including shelling of civilians, summary executions, rape, the use of child soldiers, unlawful forced labour, and looting. Tens of thousands of displaced Kachin civilians have been unable to gain access to humanitarian assistance. The government has also failed to address deadly sectarian violence against ethnic Rohingya Muslims and others last year in Arakan State, HRW said. 

The government-formed inquiry on the violence once again postponed the publication of its findings, until late March. Thein Sein has already indicated that his government does not intend to revise the 1982 Citizenship Law, whose discriminatory provisions are used to deny citizenship to most Rohingya.

EU leaders should urge Thein Sein to allow unimpeded humanitarian assistance to Kachin and Rakhine States and other areas where the population is at risk, HRW said.