By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unhr1myanmar102209.html
UNITED NATIONS, October 22 -- As two repressive countries were reviewed Thursday at the UN, the different approach of the two UN rapporteurs emerged through torture as a story in itself. Both Myanmar and North Korea have country specific rapporteurs, to which the UN's other human rights experts defer on events in the two nations. For example, when Inner City Press asked the UN's expert on the rights of the indigenous James Anaya about the plight of Rohinga and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar, Anaya said he defers to the country expert, Tomas Ojea Quintana.
Likewise when Inner City Press asked the UN's expert on business and human rights, John Ruggie, about Total's investment in Myanmar, Ruggie said he deferred to Quintana.
But Quintana on Thursday appeared to some to defend the regime of Than Shwe. When Inner City Press asked about the Rohinga, rather than speak about the denial of citizenship and mass exodus as boat people, Quintana praised a Burmese court decision that Rohinga can marry each other.
When Inner City Press asked about Total's and others investment with the Than Shwe government in the gas and oil sector -- payments from which are said to make up the 41% of the regime's budget which goes to military spending, Quintana referred the question back to Ruggie -- who not three hours earlier, sitting in the same seat as Quintana, had said he has nothing to say on company-specific questions.
Inner City Press asked Quintana point blank if when he goes to Myanmar, he is escorted by the military. Quintana said "there are limitations," but would not describe them.
By contrast, the outgoing rapporteur on North Korea Vitit Muntarbhorn, called Kim Jong-il's a dictatorship, described the punishment of those who seek to flee, and noted that the World Food Program can't inspect its programs except on one week's notice. Click here for that.
