UN committee condemns Myanmar rights record

(November 19, 2010) A key United Nations committee on Thursday strongly condemned human rights violations in Myanmar and sharply criticized the country's first election in 20 years for restricting opposition parties and candidates - including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The 65-year-old Nobel peace laureate was released from house arrest last Saturday - a week after the election – and the UN General Assembly's human rights committee urged Myanmar's military junta to follow up by releasing all political prisoners, “currently estimated at more than 2,100.” The European Union, United States and other Western nations have sponsored General Assembly resolutions for many years condemning Myanmar's human rights record, but this was the first to focus on the election and the political exclusion of many opposition, pro-democracy and ethnic supporters. Suu Kyi was barred from running under the country's new electoral laws. The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party won a landslide victory in the Nov. 7 election which opposition parties and international critics allege was rigged to keep the military rulers in power. The last election in 1990 was won in a landslide by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, but the military refused to hand over power and instead clamped down on its opponents. The human rights committee called on Myanmar's new government to take “immediate measures” to start serious talks with Suu Kyi and other concerned parties, civic organizations and ethnic groups, stressing that genuine dialogue and national reconciliation are essential “for a transition to democracy.”