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UN Security Council action sought over Myanmar crackdown

Posted: 30 August 2007 0847 hrs Related Videos UN Security Council action sought over Myanmar crackdown WASHINGTON: US lawmakers on Wednesday called on President George W. Bush's administration to demand an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the Myanmar military government's crackdown on dissent.

Senior lawmakers from the House of Representatives and the Senate wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking her to press for such a meeting, as pro-democracy supporters in Myanmar defied a clampdown and staged rare street protests against a staggering increase in fuel prices.

More than 100 people have been arrested, including some of the nation's top pro-democracy leaders, following the largest non-violent demonstrations in Myanmar in five years.

"We strongly urge you to send a letter to the President of the Security Council requesting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to expeditiously provide a complete briefing to the Security Council," Tom Lantos, the Democratic head of the House's foreign relations committee, and four other lawmakers from the chamber wrote.

A similar call was made in a separate letter to the chief US diplomat by the Senate's Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and senior Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein.

"The current situation in Burma merits a strong and meaningful response by our government," they said.

The lawmakers welcomed the Bush administration's swift condemnation of the Myanmar military government's "brutal behaviour" as well as similar condemnations from France and Britain -- two other permanent members of the Security Council -- along with Canada, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, the European Union, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"However, at this critical juncture, words of support from the world's democracies are not enough," McConnell and Feinstein said. "The matter needs to be addressed by the UN Security Council."

There was no immediate reaction from Rice's office but Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said earlier Wednesday that Washington expected discussions on Myanmar in the Security Council as well as during the upcoming meetings of the General Assembly.

With full bipartisan support from Congress, the United States has led a diplomatic drive to place the Myanmar issue on the permanent agenda of the UN Security Council.

"We must avail ourselves of this diplomatic forum; the brave people of Burma deserve no less," Lantos and the other House legislators said.

Last January, China and Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution urging Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual violence by the military.

The United Nations estimates there are some 1,100 political prisoners in Myanmar, including Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Her National League for Democracy overwhelmingly won 1990 elections, but were never allowed to take office, and she has now spent more than a decade under house arrest.

Under military rule since 1962, Myanmar tolerates little public dissent, but analysts say the military government has been shaken by the persistence of the latest protesters.

The military government sparked public anger when the government secretly hiked key fuel prices by as much as five-fold on August 15.

That immediately doubled the cost of transport, which left many people unable to even afford the bus fare to get to work.

- AFP/ac