UN calls Burma crisis meeting
An emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council is being called to discuss the Burma crisis.
The crackdown on opposition marches led by Buddhist monks has drawn condemnation from Burma’s neighbours and Western powers, and UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon has dispatched a special envoy to the Southeast Asian nation to seek a solution to the crisis.
The Geneva-based council was criticised earlier this week by an independent UN rights expert for failing to take Burma to task over its abuses.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who was appointed as the UN’s independent expert on human rights in Burma seven years ago, said world leaders “need to act or there will be a disaster, and the international community will be responsible for what happens in Burma.”
The emergency session is being called because a petition led by Western countries gained the support of a third of the body’s 47 nations.
Since replacing the discredited Human Rights Commission last year the council has held three special meetings to examine alleged Israeli human rights violations and one to look at the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.
US President George W. Bush called earlier this week for reform of the council, citing America’s disappointment with its failure to scrutinise the world’s worst human rights violators while focusing its criticism “exclusively” on Israel.
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