UN human rights envoy allowed to visit Myanmar

August 18, 2011
UN human rights envoy to Myan­mar, Tomas Ojea Quin­tana, @elciudadano

After being denied entry for more than a year, Tomas Ojea Quin­tana will make his trip to Myan­mar next week. A gov­ern­ment offi­cial who requested anonymity said that Quin­tana will arrive in the coun­try on Sun­day for a five-day visit.

Before return­ing to Yan­gon to have a planned meet­ing with oppo­si­tion leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednes­day or Thurs­day, Quin­tana will first travel to Naypy­itaw to meet with gov­ern­ment ministers.

Quin­tana will be allowed to visit for the first time since March 2010 when he dis­pleased author­i­ties by urg­ing a UN inquiry into Myanmar’s human rights record, Kyaw San, Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter announced over the week­end. Dis­plea­sure can­not dis­cour­age the planned offi­cial UN inquiry if the human rights abuses have indeed been committed.

The UN human rights envoy accused the gov­ern­ment who assumed power in Novem­ber of com­mit­ting human rights abuses includ­ing land con­fis­ca­tion, inter­nal dis­place­ment, forced labour, extra­ju­di­cial killings, inter­nal dis­place­ment and sex­ual violence.

Quin­tana told a press con­fer­ence in May that the com­mis­sion of inquiry ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs an option and he will go through with it. Added to the above abuses is the polit­i­cal harass­ment of other polit­i­cal par­ties and the deceit­ful tac­tics maneu­vered by the mil­i­tary junta to win in the election.

A spe­cial probe of Myan­mar labour rights abuses was con­ducted by the Inter­na­tional Labour Orga­ni­za­tion sev­eral years ago which is one of the 50 com­mis­sions of inquiry launched by the UN in its entire history.

The present gov­ern­ment is dom­i­nated by for­mer mil­i­tary men, Myan­mar hav­ing been under mil­i­tary rule from 1962 to 2010. The fore­go­ing news is sourced from mon­ster and critics.(Between News)