Saturday, February 28, 2009

Warm welcome in Phoenix after jungles, wire fences

Always I have to run for my life
Boo Htoo and his family lived in Mae La refugee camp for more than ten years before he came to US in 2007. Htoo, now 29, recalls making the long trek with his parents to cross the border when he was about 5. "[It's] a very long way," he says. "We don't have a car, a plane. We don't have a bicycle to ride. My parents just take what they can carry, and then we started walking across the jungle, sleeping in the jungle."

Bring Burmese Military to International Criminal Court


Send SPDC to International Criminal Court

Emergency Assistance Team – Burma and Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights released a report: After the Storm: Voices from the Delta about the Burmese military neglects toward the civilians who have suffered from the cyclone Nargis destruction. The report said:
Crimes Against Humanity
The testimonies presented in this report, document 1) intentional disregard of some cyclone victims, including women and children, that could and may have led to mass loss of life 2) failure to address the health needs of rural women, and of women and children generally, in the cyclone affected areas 4) targeted interference with relief operations on the basis of ethnicity and religion 5) forced labor 6) forced relocation affecting women and children and 7) the use of forced child labor. Each is evidence of the junta’s violation of its legal obligations to uphold the provisions set forth in the CRC and CEDAW conventions. However, taken together, these systematic abuses may also amount to crimes against humanity, as defined by article 7(k) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, through the creation of conditions whereby basic survival needs of civilians cannot be adequately met, “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

You can read a full report here.