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Reuters-Australia explores rights c (r)



Subject: Reuters-Australia explores rights commission for Myanmar 

Australia explores rights commission for Myanmar
04:39 a.m. Aug 02, 1999 Eastern
YANGON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Australia's human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti
met government officials in Myanmar on Monday as part of a mission to study
the possibility of forming an independent rights organisation in the
military-ruled country.

Sidoti, who arrived in Yangon on Sunday, met Interior Minister Colonel Tin
Hlaing and other officials, said a government official who did not want to
be identified.

A Western diplomat said that during his visit until Wednesday, Sidoti was
also expected to meet members of the pro-democracy opposition, which is led
by 1991 Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

The idea of a rights commission was first proposed by Australian Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer a year ago.

Downer raised the issue again during a meeting with Myanmar's Foreign
Minister Win Aung in Singapore last week and said the commission envisaged
would be similar to one set up in Indonesia during the Suharto regime.

However, Downer said the Myanmar government had yet to make up its mind how
such a body would work and added that Suu Kyi had expressed doubts that it
would be independent.

Diplomats, dissidents and international human rights groups

say the military government has been guilty of widespread human rights
abuses, including mass arrests and torture, against political opponents
since seizing power in 1988 by crushing a pro-democracy uprising.

The abuses, mainly against Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and its
allies, have led to the imposition of sanctions by the United States and the
European Union and have been an embarrassment for Yangon's fellow members of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Bangkok-based human rights activist Debbie Stothart, of the the Alternative
ASEAN Network on Burma, said she believed the government would try to
exploit the visit and the idea of a rights commission for its propaganda
value.

``I would be ecstatic if the regime stops violating human rights and allows
an independent judiciary and the rule of law,'' she said. ``Given that
there's no rule of law and no trust in the judicial system, it's a rather
strange and bizarre initiative.''


However, she said it was important to try to take a positive view of the
possibilities the mission presented.

``If it leads to some kind of opening up in the mentality of the military
and they can start talking about the issue, then that would be positive. But
it's a bit like talking about a mission to the moon when you can't even get
the basics working.''