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Crimes Against Humanity in Burma
Release to Public25 April 2009
Definition of Crimes Against Humanity
The definition of crimes against humanity under customary international law is contained in
Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute
:“Crimes against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread orsystematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:1. Murder;2. Extermination;3. Enslavement;4. Deportation or forcible transfer of population;5. Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;6. Torture;7. Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any otherform of sexual violence of comparable gravity;8. Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic,cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognizedas impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph orany crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;9. Enforce disappearance of persons;10. The crime of apartheid;11. Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury tobody or to mental or physical health.Note the distinction in the definitional language between the definition of genocide as contained in theGenocide Convention versus the definition of crimes against humanity as recognized under customaryinternational law and contained in the Rome Statute. The definition of genocide in the Genocide Conventionrequires the “
intent to destroy in whole or in part 
” of which intent can be difficult to prove duringcontemporary acts of genocide and especially those acts stemming from conflict situations. In addition, theGenocide Convention only lists four possible identifiable groups for destruction in order for mass atrocitiesto amount to genocide; “
a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group
”. This means that other groupstargeted for destruction or mass violence, no matter how severe, such as groups targeted based on politicalbeliefs, economic or social class, or sex does not amount to genocide. This is where much of the debateamong experts on whether contemporary atrocities being committed on a mass scale equals genocidederives.However, in addition to those groups also listed in the definition of genocide as contained in the GenocideConvention, the definition of crimes against humanity as contained in the Rome Statute encompasses otheradditional groups that are not accounted for in the Genocide Convention; “political, … cultural, … gender”.
 
Page 2 of 26On this point, it is crucial to note another key distinction between the definition of genocide contained in theGenocide Convention versus the definition of crimes against humanity as contained in the Rome Statute.Crimes of humanity as contained in the Rome Statute do not require an “intent to destroy a group in wholeor in part” by the perpetrators, but instead require that such atrocities detailed in the definition such asmurder, extermination and so on, are committed as part of a “
widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack 
”; whereby “knowledge of the attack’ refers tothe knowledge of the perpetrators or supporters of the attack, or of those in power situations who haveacquiesced to the attack, upon any civilian population. survivorsrightsinternational.org
1. 88 Generation Students Group
The group says that although Burma was freed from colonialism in 1948, the Burmese people have notenjoyed any true freedom since the military coup in 1962. It initiated the campaign on 4 January 2007,Independence Day, by calling on Burmese to write letters describing their dissatisfaction with the politicaland social situation in the country.“Wake up, all countrymen and women. Supreme power comes from us. We ourselves will build our newcountry with our own hands. We must raise our dignity ourselves. This New Year is the new year for all of us.” Burmese New Year, 17 April 2007According to a list of victims compiled by the 88 Generation Students group, SPDC security forces killed138 demonstrators. Burma Bulletin, October 2007
2. Amnesty International (AI)
Says Amnesty International, “Torture has become an institution in Burma.” February 2004Amnesty International wrote Friday to Burmese authorities with a briefing paper outlining “grave andongoing human rights violations” committed since the start of the clampdown, which sparked internationaloutrage. 9 November 2007Amnesty International declared the regime’s ongoing campaign of terror in Eastern Burma constituted acrime against humanity in their report: “Crimes against humanity in eastern Burma.” AP, 4 June 2008An onslaught by Burmese troops in the eastern part of the military-ruled country, running for three yearsnow, is laying the junta open to charge of ‘crimes against humanity’. This new charge adds to a growing listof human rights violations that the South-east Asian nation’s ruling military regime is being slammed for,including the use of rape as a weapon of war in military campaigns in areas that are home to the country’sethnic minorities. Eyewitness accounts from civilians fleeing the territory under attack reveal a grim pictureof the ‘tatmadaw’, as the Burmese military is called, targeting unarmed men, women and children in a‘widespread and systematic way,’ say human rights and humanitarian groups. “Burma’s troops are overtlytargeting civilians; they are actively avoiding KNU military installations. That is why we are describing theattacks as crimes against humanity,” says
 Benjamin Zawacki
, South-east Asia researcher for AmnestyInternational (AI), the global rights lobby. “The violations are widespread and systematic.” “This campaignstarted in November 2005 and has escalated. They did not even stop during the annual monsoon period fromMay to October, which was not the case before,” he explained during an IPS interview. 10 November 2008
3. Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Burma
 
Page 3 of 26Meanwhile, several prominent exiled Burmese groups and international bodies lined up to condemn theBurmese junta. The words “crimes against humanity” were never far from their lips.
 Bo Kyi
, the joint-secretary of a Burmese human rights group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, said theBurmese military regime knew that a massive number of people had died in the wake of the cyclone. TheIrrawaddy, 2 June 2008There are 2,131 political prisoners in Burma, including 15 members of Parliament, 229 students, 220monks, 47 members of the movement “88 Generation Students,” and 456 representatives of the NLD. FromAugust 21, 2007 - the beginning of the “saffron revolution” promoted by the Burmese monks - until March12, 2009, the military has arrested 1,055 protest participants, including 147 monks; another 110 are on trialat the moment, 446 have been sentenced to prison, and there are 19 detained in the labor camps.speroforum.com, 18 March 2009Bo Kyi, the joint secretary of a Burmese human rights group, the Assistance Association for PoliticalPrisoners-Burma (AAPP), said, “For prisoners, medical care and food and water quality in Burma’s prisonsare the main challenges. Many political prisoners, including some prominent activists, are in poor health.”According to the AAPP, 138 political prisoners have died in Burmese prisons since 1988 and at least 115are currently in poor health. The Irrawaddy, 24 March 2009Bo Kyi said the UN and other international organizations needed to back up their calls for the release of political prisoners with action. “International organizations, including the UN, need to take effectivemeasures,” he said. “We are very concerned about the health of political prisoners because they do not havemedical doctors and hospital care. They should be transferred to prisons located near their families andrelatives. If a prisoner is denied medical treatment, that’s murder.” Convicted political activists arecommonly incarcerated in prisons far from their homes, a form of also punishing their families, who haveheavy financial and personal hardships in visiting and keeping in touch with their loved ones. According tohuman rights groups, the Burmese junta allows political prisoners to meet family members once every fourweeks. The Irrawaddy, 24 April 2009
4. Burma Digest
Genocide in BurmaIn the case of Burma, although it ratified the Convention in 1956, the current military regime has adoptedGenocide as a terror against the ethnic national groups of Karen, Karenni and Shan people, etc. and theevidences were well-documented in the resources of Rogers, Benedict (2004) “A Land Without Evil:Stopping the Genocide of Burma’s Karen People”; Horton, Guy (2005) “ Dying Alive: A legal Assessmentof the Human Rights Violations in Burma”; Rummel, R. (2001) “Saving Lives, Enriching Life” Pg.18-22;and so on.As the ‘Genocide Acts’ of Burmese military regime were obvious,
 Baroness Cox
, Chief Executive of Humanitarian Aids Relief Thrust (HART) and a deputy speaker of the British House of Lords, who hasvisited the regions of Karenni, Shan and Karen people many times, called on the international community toinvestigate claims of genocide and crimes against humanity.In his work of “A Desperate situation: Genocide in Burma”,
 Browning
also mentioned that the torching of villages, destruction of food stores and crops, theft of livestock and property, extra-judicial killings and rapewere every day occurrences affecting hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. (Browning, C. (2002),Australia Karen Youth Project, Vol. 1, Issue 2, September 2005)Moreover,
Guy Horton
’s claimed for the usage of the concept ‘genocide’ in relation to Burma rests on the1948 Genocide Convention, ratified by Burma in 1956 as “According to the convention, the genocide isdescribed as ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
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