UNITED NATIONS, September 17 -- Myanmar, or UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Group of Friends on Myanmar, have a place in the upcoming UN General Debate week. In the run-up, fifteen blocks from the UN, there was a film screening and panel discussion about the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma, held at the glitzy Paley Center for Media on September 16.
Jody Williams of the Nobel Women's Initiative told an auditorium packed with well dress and well meaning New Yorkers that they should write to US Permanent Representative Susan Rice to thank her for President Obama's belated joining of a call for a international inquiry into war crimes in the country.
Some are dubious of this change in US position, after Obama first changed policy to one of engagement with the Than Shwe military government. It's easy for an unnamed US official to join a call for an international inquiry which will never happen, these skeptics say.
Inner City Press, which reports daily on and from the UN Security Council, can attest that the US these days rarely even tried to raise the issue of Myanmar. A senior US official who met with the Press earlier on September 16 confided not being briefed about the upcoming Group of Friends on Myanmar meeting.
The strategy propounded at the September 16 session was to press for Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court. Since Myanmar is not a member of the ICC, this could only be accomplished by a referral from the UN Security Council.
But it is crystal clear that any referral of Myanmar to the ICC would be vetoed by China, as well as Russia. Strangely in Thursday night's discussion, the word China wasn't once used.
Several attendees found it strange to be promoting a strategy that has no chance of success to such high profile and high income New Yorkers. But perhaps that's not the goal?
After the session of the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma in March 2010, Jody Williams and several others including Thin Thin Aung of the Women's League of Burma met with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. So far, no read out appears to have been given, nor follow up taken. Watch this site.
Footnote: before the panel discussion the movie “This Is My Witness: Women of Burma Break the Silence” was screened, and afterward Jody Williams urged moderator Pat Mitchell to do what she can to get it screened at Sundance. Also, a portion of “Burma Soldier” by Annie Sundberg was shown, in which a former Burmese military officer described the routine rape of ethnic women in Myanmar.
Reference was made to using UN Security Council resolution 1820, about sexual violence and conflict, which may be more promising that the UNSC to ICC strategy. But will UN sexual violence and conflict official Margot Wallstrom, asleep at the switch during the recent Congo rape scandal, do anything about Burma?
