BurmaNet News, April 23-25, 2005

[Editor]

April 23-25, 2005 Issue # 2704

‘ "This is like a concentration camp," said Senator Kraisak Choonhavan,
chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the group of
five senators.’
- as quoted in Associated Press, April 24, 2005, following a visit to a
refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border forcibly holding Burmese refugees
and political dissidents


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Political prisoners’ health deteriorating, says report
DVB via BBC: Karen group confirms pylon attack; accuses Burmese government
of "treachery"

ON THE BORDER
Nation: UN protected persons: exiles decry camp conditions
AP: Thai senators blast Myanmar refugee relocations

ASEAN
Philippine Daily Inquirer: Annan meets with GMA, pushes freedom for Burma
Antara News Agency via BBC: Indonesian president believes Burma to uphold
democracy

REGIONAL
Reuters: Asian, African leaders hail historic partnership

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: EU to renew sanctions against Myanmar for another year
Nation: UN's Annan delivers message to Rangoon junta
Australian: Burmese in distress
Reuters: Stinging rebuke for U.N. human rights body swan song

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 25, Irrawaddy
Political prisoners’ health deteriorating, says report - Shah Paung

Political prisoners who were formerly students are suffering from grave
physical and mental health problems, according to the exile group All
Burma Federation of Student Unions.

A statement issued by the ABFSU’s foreign affairs committee on Monday
blamed the prisoners’ health problems on poor medical treatment,
unsanitary conditions and the prolonged prison stay of most political
dissidents.

The release detailed the story of Ye Kyaw Zwa, a student dissident now
being held in Upper Burma’s Myingyan prison. One of the leaders of the
1996 student demonstrations, he has been suffering from serious depression
for about a year.

A former student political prisoner who was held in the same prison as Ye
Kyaw Zwa said he had contacted Ye Kyaw Zwa’s family, who told him: “They
said he did not talk to them when they visited him. He also did not ask
them to bring a book for him to read, as he used to do.”

The ABFSU media release claims Ye Kyaw Zwa had not been receiving the
proper medical care for his condition.

According to information released on April 23 by the Thai-Burma
border-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), Ye
Kyaw Zwa was first arrested and held in Insein and Thayet prisons from
1990 to 1993. He was re-arrested in 1996 and sentenced to 19 years
imprisonment.

The head of the ABFSU foreign affairs committee, Min Naing, said “all
student political prisoners have to be released if the military government
really wants a national reconciliation and a democratization process in
the country.”

The ABFSU media release named other students besides Ye Kyaw Zwa who are
afflicted with health problems. According to the release, Thet Naung Soe,
who carried out a solitary protest in front of Rangoon city hall in 2002,
and Kyaw Linn Htun, who was arrested in 2004 because of student union
activism, are also suffering skin diseases and severe depression inside
Rangoon’s Insein prison. They have similarly been denied adequate medical
treatment, the ABFSU release said.

____________________________________

April 23, Democratic Voice of Burma via BBC
Karen group confirms pylon attack; accuses Burmese government of "treachery"

[Newsreader] The SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] claimed that
the KNPP [Karenni National Progressive Party] insurgents had mined an
electricity supply pylon whose grid links Lawpita Hydropower Station and
Toungoo. This was reported in the Myanmar Alin newspaper on 23 April but
the report failed to give details on why it was mined and where the pylon
was situated.

When DVB [Democratic Voice of Burma] contacted the KNPP, Foreign Affairs
Director Saw Doh Hsay confirmed the report and gave the following
explanation:

[Saw Doh Hsay - recording] Yes, that is correct. It was near Tower No 130.
The locality was close to Toungoo border. That was the KNPP army doing
what should be done. It is not only the responsibility of the Karenni
[Kayah] people but the KNPP army as well to try to stop everything that
support the SPDC military junta to hold on to power. Furthermore, the
Lawpita Hydropower Station has been in service for more than half a
century and the Karenni people have no right to use that electricity
especially those living near the vicinity of Lawpita have to rely on lamps
and candles. Meanwhile, the junta has been supplying electricity to the
major industries in Rangoon and Mandalay for their benefit.

[DVB correspondent] Recently the KNU [Karen National Union] was engaged in
a skirmish and now the KNPP has launched this attack. Is it coincidence or
increased activity of ethnic armed groups?

[Saw Doh Hsay] Well, we are always ready and we will attack anything that
supports the SPDC if and when the opportunity arises. We have proposed to
solve the problems peacefully by various means but they have rejected
them. Furthermore, they are not honest with us. That is why we have to
defend ourselves and the people in the regions under our control. We will
continue to do what we have to do. [end recording]

That was Saw Doh Hsay from the KNPP Foreign Affairs Department. The KNPP
and the SPDC held cease-fire talks and signed a deal in 1995 but it lasted
only three months and fighting has continued ever since. Saw Doh Hsay said
the KNPP would never consider holding cease-fire talks with the SPDC as
long as they are not honest.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 25, Nation
UN protected persons: exiles decry camp conditions - Supalak Ganjanakhundee

Relocated Burmese say they don’t have sufficient food, water or electricity

Burmese exiles with protected United Nations status as “persons of
concern” said their lives in camps along the Thai border are currently
under threat.

The group, which is waiting for asylum in third countries, was relocated
to camps in Ratchaburi, Kanchanaburi and Tak at the end of March after
being instructed by Thai authorities to register with the government.

They were subsequently barred from urban areas. “We do not have sufficient
quality food, electricity or enough clean water. It’s even worse because
we are not allowed to contact the outside world,” said an exile, who
declined to be named.

According to the exiles, their mobile phones were confiscated by
authorities and they are not allowed to access public telephones.

Each is allocated 15 kilograms of rice, one litre of cooking oil,
charcoal, beans and one kilogram of fermented fish per month. They say
they need more, better-quality food.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kraisak
Chonhavan, visited the camps in Ratchaburi and Kanchanaburi on Friday and
promised to raise these issues with the government.

Sunai Phasuk, consultant to Human Rights Watch in Thailand, also visited
the camps, describing them as crowded areas with poor shelters made of
plastic sheeting.

“The camps apparently are not ready to house them,” he said.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) agreed with the
government in July of 2003 to transfer the 3,000-strong group into the
camps, after complaints by Rangoon about the exiles’ political activities
mobilised against the ruling junta.

“It is clear that the Thai government moved to control them to please the
junta,” Sunai said.

Reportedly there are 750 Burmese in the same category who failed to
register by the March deadline. While authorities threatened to treat them
as illegal migrants and not issue exit clearances for resettlement in
other countries, this group continues to live in the cities.

“To our disappointment many of our friends who failed to register on March
31 are continuing their resettlement process with foreign embassies in
Bangkok,” the Burmese exile said.

“We urge the UN and the Thai government to allow us to return to the towns
and continue our asylum procedures as well,” he added.

The United States’ Senate Committee on Foreign Relations recently urged
its embassy in Bangkok to pressure the Thai government to treat the exiles
better.

Many of the exiles at the camps are democracy advocates and journalists.

_____________________________________

April 24, Associated Press
Thai senators blast Myanmar refugee relocations

Tham Hin refugee camp: A group of Thai senators has called on the
government to stop relocating hundreds of Myanmar political dissidents to
"concentration camps" along the Myanmar border, which suffer from disease
outbreaks and a lack of water.

The decision to move the refugees -- many of them living in Bangkok -- was
made more than a year ago after their high-profile involvement in
political activities, including demonstrations at the Myanmar Embassy in
the Thai capital.

A total of 1,955 asylum seekers were transferred early this month under
the protection of the UN refugee agency to three camps in western
provinces after being given a March 31 deadline to register for the
relocation at detention centers around Thailand.

The senators urged the government to halt the program during a visit
Friday to one of the camps, Tham Hin, in western Ratchaburi province. They
visited a second camp in Kanchanaburi later in the day. The purpose of the
trip was to inspect the refugees' living conditions.

"This is like a concentration camp," said Senator Kraisak Choonhavan,
chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the group of
five senators.

Tham Hin and the other camps lack electricity and water pipelines, have
poor sanitary conditions and occasionally suffer disease outbreaks,
Kraisak and other officials said.

Theradej Posaphan, head of Tham Hin, said the refugees were prohibited
from using mobile phones at the camp because authorities did not want them
to send news or photographs to outsiders.

Some 410 dissidents were moved to Tham Hin, about 230km west of Bangkok,
which is already overcrowded with about 9,000 other Myanmar refugees.

Thailand has hosted tens of thousands of refugees at camps along its
western frontier with Myanmar for years. Many fled fighting or repression
in neighboring Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military for more than
four decades.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government has moved to crack down on
political dissidents and rebel groups from neighboring countries who
operate from Thailand. Critics say his administration has tried to curry
favor with Myanmar's junta in particular.

Myanmar's current regime took power after crushing a pro-democracy
uprising in 1988. Several western countries have imposed economic
sanctions over its dismal human rights record and failure to release
opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house
arrest.

Kraisak urged the government to stop rounding up dissidents, saying the
policy would give Thailand a "bad reputation" in the eyes of the
international community.

The UN refugee agency has submitted applications for Myanmar asylum
seekers to be resettled in third countries, but the timeframe remains
unclear, said Kirsten Young, a UNHCR spokeswoman.

The US has taken more than 1,000 Myanmar asylum seekers for resettlement
in the past year and is planning to take more, Ralph Boyce, the US
ambassador to Thailand, told reporters recently.

_____________________________________
ASEAN

April 24, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Annan meets with GMA, pushes freedom for Burma - Christine O. Avendaxo

Jakarta(via PLDT): United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan met with
President Macapagal-Arroyo on Thursday to express his concern over the
slow pace of democratization in Burma (Myanmar), which along with the
Philippines is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(Asean).

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Annan sought the meeting with the
President and that his "general" message was how Asean members like the
Philippines could help step up the democratization process in Burma.(See
related story in The World, Page A13)

Bunye said Annan had been vocal about the need to accelerate democracy in
Burma. "That is something he repeated not only in his meeting with the
President but with all other heads of state that he met, especially the
heads of state of Asean."

Asean is a regional grouping that includes the Philippines, Burma,
Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia.

Burma, which is set to chair the Asean next year, has been criticized for
its continued detention of democratic leader Aung Sung Suu Kyi who has
been under house arrest for several years.

Bunye said Ms Arroyo told Annan that the Burma issue was "normally handled
in the Asean way and members of Asean normally looked toward Thailand,
being the closest neighbor of Myanmar, as far as dealing with Myanmar is
concerned."

"But there seems to be a consensus that this issue has to be stepped up,"
Bunye said.

Bunye said Annan raised during the meeting with President Arroyo the calls
made for Asean leaders to prevent Burma from assuming the chairmanship of
the regional grouping next year due to Rangoon's poor human rights record.

Bunye said that Manila would rather not take up the issue "out of
delicadeza."

"The President sort of anticipated the question so the President
specifically did not want to touch on the chairmanship," Bunye added.

He echoed the position taken by Ms Arroyo last week that the Philippines
could not take any initiative preventing Burma from assuming the Asean
chairmanship because Manila stood to benefit from it.

If Burma does not assume the Asean chairmanship next year, it would be the
turn of the Philippines to do so, Bunye said.

"So the matter of discussing that as far as the Philippines is concerned
was really not opportune," he told reporters.

Bunye also disclosed that President Arroyo invited Annan to visit the
Philippines and that the latter was "definitely interested."

Bunye said the gist of the meeting between President Arroyo and Annan had
to be the "request for mutual support for different initiatives."

Annan had sought support for reforms he wanted to make within the UN
system and, in return, President Arroyo committed her support for his
proposal for a peace-building commission, human rights council, and
enhancement of working methods within the Security Council, he said.

_____________________________________

April 23, Antara News Agency via BBC
Indonesian president believes Burma to uphold democracy

Jakarta: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Saturday [23
April] expressed his belief that democracy could be upheld in Myanmar
[Burma].

"ASEAN has supported the process of road map to democracy in Myanmar and
believes that democracy in Myanmar could run inclusively by involving
other groups in Myanmar," a spokesman to the President, Dino Pati Jalal
said after a bilateral meeting between President Yudhoyono and his Myanmar
counterpart Than Shwe.

In addition to Myanmar, the President conducted bilateral meetings on the
sidelines of Asia Africa Summit with leaders of India, Nigeria, Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu, Tajikistan, and Tunisia.

Dino said during the meeting President Yudhoyono did not raise any
question on democratic process in Myanmar but discuss development of
democracy in Indonesia and his readiness to share experience on the issue.

"It is the Myanmarese [Burmese] President who has the initiative to convey
development of democracy in Myanmar, and his plan to form a new
constitution," he said.

Dino noted the issue on Myanmar leadership in ASEAN was not discussed in
the meeting and its position in the summit was one of five countries which
initiated the Asia Africa Conference in 1955.

Myanmar, Dino said, has a strong will to transform towards democracy and
it has a commitment to intensifying communications.

Indonesia wants to see Myanmar as a stable country which makes progresses
and is able to settle its domestic problems.

On the occasion, Than Shwe invited President Yudhoyono to visit Myanmar
and the latter responded positively to the invitation.

Previously, the Indonesian government called on Myanmar to carry out its
road-map to democracy.

Myanmar has promised to conduct a national convention which will involve
all groups in the society. It also promised possible release of detained
Aung San Suu Kyi.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

April 23, Reuters
Asian, African leaders hail historic partnership - Dan Eaton

Jakarta: Leaders from Asia and Africa struck what they called a historic
deal to build economic and political links on Saturday, and South African
President Thabo Mbeki said millions of their people expected real action.

The declaration, after two days of talks in Jakarta attended by the
leaders of three-quarters of the world's population, pledged to boost
trade and investment ties and stressed multilateral approaches to solving
conflicts.

"The declaration of the new Asian-African strategic partnership is a
milestone," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a
closing speech.

Mbeki, who co-chaired the meeting with Yudhoyono, warned that the hard
work of implementing the agreement lay ahead.

"We have the responsibility to follow up on all of this," he told the
gathering of presidents, kings and ministers from 100 African and Asian
nations.

The "New Asian-African Strategic Partnership" will also seek to address
issues such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and organized crime,
the four-page declaration said.

It commits countries to meeting internationally agreed targets for poverty
eradication, development and growth.

To institutionalize the partnership, foreign ministers from the two
continents will meet every two years and heads of state every four.

The next summit will be in South Africa, Yudhoyono said.

The meeting marked the 50th anniversary of the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference
in the Indonesian city of Bandung, where the Third World sought to assert
itself for the first time, inspiring the Non-Aligned Movement.

Leaders will end the summit on Sunday with a nostalgic visit to Bandung,
in West Java province.

ROWS TAKE SPOTLIGHT

But Asia's diplomatic rows and old rivalries took center stage in Jakarta,
including a spat between economic giants China and Japan over Tokyo's
World War II aggression, which has seen mass protests in China and sent
jitters through the region.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, which is seeking a broader
leadership role in world affairs, apologized on Friday in an opening
speech to the summit for his nation's wartime past and pledged to double
aid to Africa.

Japan and China stole the limelight again on Saturday as Koizumi met with
Chinese President Hu Jintao in an effort to ease tensions.

Military-ruled Myanmar's top general was also present, refusing to budge
on democratic reform despite growing pressure from the U.N. and fellow
Southeast Asian nations.

And the number-two leaders of North and South Korea met twice, the
highest-level contacts in five years, but there was no breakthrough in the
crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear program and stalled bilateral dialogue.

The summit declaration called for reform of multilateral institutions,
including the United Nations, to make it more democratic and ease the grip
of large powers.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was on hand and made an impassioned plea
for leaders from the two continents to be ready to compromise on his
proposals to reform the world body. (Additional reporting by Dean Yates,
Jerry Norton, Achmad Sukarsono, Telly Nathalia, Benjamin Kang Lim and
Sinta Satriana)

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 22, Agence France Presse
EU to renew sanctions against Myanmar for another year

Brussels: EU foreign ministers will renew sanctions against Myanmar at a
meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, an EU diplomat said.

The decision, which has the unanimous backing of the EU's 25 members, is
to be taken without a debate.

"We are going to renew the sanctions in practically an identical form for
a year," a diplomat said Friday.

"Nothing in the current situation in Myanmar justifies a lifting and since
we already reinforced them six months ago, nothing justifies changing them
either," the diplomat added.

The EU in October bolstered sanctions against Myanmar, after Yangon failed
to meet
 EU demands for greater democraticization.

Under the sanctions, members of the ruling military junta and their
families are forbidden from entering the EU.

The EU has also forbidden EU companies or organisations from making
investments in Myanmar.

_____________________________________

April 24, The Nation
UN's Annan delivers message to Rangoon junta - Kavi Chongkittavorn

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday urged Burmese junta leader
General Tan Shwe to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to allow
her National League for Democracy to take part in the country's national
convention.

Tan Shwe and Annan met on the sidelines of the Asian-African summit, and
the UN chief said later the junta leader had briefed him extensively on
the situation in Burma.

"I did raise the question of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD [the National
League for Democracy] and the fact that it was important that all parties
and citizens are able to participate in the constitutional process, freely
and without restrictions," Annan told a press conference. "I think he
listened to me and he got my message," he said. "Obviously he'll go back,
hopefully to think about it and do something about the message I gave
him."

Burma has not allowed Annan's special envoy, Malaysian diplomat Razali
Ismail, to visit Rangoon for more than a year.

Meanwhile Jakarta-based diplomatic sources say there is a strong
possibility, despite tough ongoing rhetoric, that Burma will postpone its
chairmanship of Asean to a later date.

The secretive state, ruled by the military since 1962, is due to take over
the chairmanship of Asean next year, but the United States and Europe,
which have imposed sanctions on Burma, have threatened to boycott Asean
meetings hosted by Rangoon. If it forgoes the rotational chairmanship, the
Philippines will succeed Malaysia as chair of Asean next year.

However, the diplomatic sources say Burma hopes to host an Asean meeting
in the near future, knowing full well that Asean, as a group, does not
want to break the principle of non-interference in the affairs of member
nations nor abandon the rotational nature of the grouping's chairmanship.

On Thursday the UN Commis-sion on Human Rights unanimously urged Burma to
halt killings, rapes and torture by government forces and the harassment
of opposition activists led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi.

Burma's fellow Asean members have also renewed their pressure on Rangoon
to free Suu Kyi from house arrest and implement reforms.

The Rangoon junta has promised to bring the country back to democracy
through a seven-stage road map laid out in 2003 by then prime minister
Khin Nyunt, who was purged last October.

The diplomatic sources say the junta leaders plan to complete the drafting
of a constitution and will refer it to the nation.

_____________________________________

April 23, The Australian
Burmese in distress - Rosalie Higson

Inside Australia: Unchain My Heart 7.30pm, SBS

There was a time not so long ago when the beautiful face of Aung San Suu
Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma, gazed out from every
newspaper and television set. Burma's ruling military junta had briefly
released her from house arrest and we saw her waving to ecstatic
well-wishers from behind a fence, smiling, a flower tucked into her hair.

Then came the disturbing news that she was on a hunger strike. Soon she
was back at her home-cum-prison and her face disappeared from our media.
In all, Suu Kyi has been in detention for more than nine years since her
National League of Democracy won a 1990 election in a landslide that the
country's military rulers refused to acknowledge.

Human rights groups report that the activities of the NLD remain
curtailed, while the military regime in Rangoon uses internationally
outlawed tactics in pursuing conflicts with ethnic minority rebel groups,
including "extrajudicial execution, rape, torture, forced relocation of
villages and forced labour".

Suu Kyi is the visible face of oppression in Burma, but there are
thousands of others languishing in prison for their political beliefs or
activities. Refugees have been fleeing the country for decades to escape
the military dictatorship's brutal repression and the economic stagnation.
The flow increased with the crushing of the democracy movement led by Suu
Kyi.

The subject of this documentary, Htoo Htoo Han, lives in Brisbane with his
Thai wife and small children, including a newborn boy. Han was an activist
in Rangoon and we see photographs of him leading pro-democracy rallies
just before his arrest. He spent three years in hideous conditions in a
military prison, much of the time in leg-irons. His mother was imprisoned
for seven years. Eventually, he came to Australia as a refugee and is now
a citizen.

What happens to a political being when they leave their old life behind is
the subject of this documentary. Unfortunately, the banal style the
film-makers adopt lets down the subject. All the good intentions in the
world don't make up for repetitious talking heads, harsh lighting and
wonky camera angles.

But Han's story is engrossing. "My heart is still not unchained from my
people in Burma," he says. To raise awareness in Australia of Burma's
plight, he plans to chain himself for three months in the same kind of
leg-irons he wore in prison. Burmese community leaders are suspicious and
he tries to placate them.

He meets sympathetic politicians. His brother worries. Han is busy and
forgets to pick up his children. He struggles to write a manifesto, his
poor English not really up to the job. Then the baby is taken seriously
ill, money is tight. Pulled between his duty to his family and his duty to
his homeland, he is also worried that his actions will affect his parents
in Burma. Eventually his wife tires of the whole thing and throws him out
until he has finished his campaign. "I didn't have a girlfriend in my
country," he says. From the age of 18 he led an adult life, with prison
and politics, politics, politics: "I didn't know about love."

At the end of his successful campaign Han returns home and swears off
politics and activism -- at least for the time being. "Daddy, Daddy" his
little girl yells in welcome.

Meanwhile, in Burma life goes on. Next year the country is due to chair
ASEAN; and this is causing headaches among the international community and
ASEAN members, but a decision on the junta's role has been put into the
too-hard basket and deferred until July. And in Thailand the Government
has announced a crackdown on the estimated 3000 Burmese refugees living
there. They must all report to detention camps, sans possessions,
otherwise they will not be allowed to move to a third country.

____________________________________

April 22, Reuters
Stinging rebuke for U.N. human rights body swan song - Richard Waddington

Geneva:United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour delivered a
stinging closing report to the U.N.'s top rights forum on Friday, saying
the way it singled out just four states for rebuke was "not credible."

Addressing the 53-state Commission on Human Rights at the end of its
annual six-week session, Arbour said nobody could believe that only those
four -- Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and Belarus -- merited scrutiny by the
Geneva-based body.

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which the
question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in any
part of the world is answered by reference to just four states," the High
Commissioner for Human Rights added.

Israel was, as usual, singled out over alleged violations in the occupied
territories, but it is not dealt with under the individual country section
and Arbour did not include it.

The former international war crimes prosecutor urged the commission
quickly to take up one of the recommendations made by Secretary-General
Kofi Annan in his plan for reform of human rights' monitoring -- namely
that the records of all states should be periodically reviewed.

"I commend to you the concept of peer review ...The space is there, now,
for its creation: the status quo on this issue is not a credible option,"
said Arbour, who was attending her first commission since her appointment
last year.

RADICAL CHANGE

If Annan gets his way, the 61st session of the commission will be its last
and it will make way under his reform plan for a slimmer and more credible
Human Rights Council next year.

Arbour has been among those questioning the workings of the commission,
telling journalists she had initially feared it lacked "legitimacy and
credibility," and finished up feeling "that the hypothesis is entirely
justified."

Rights activists said that decisions taken -- and those not taken -- over
the past six weeks had underlined the need for radical change, despite
some positive developments.

"This year's session ... ended without addressing a number of the most
disturbing human rights situations which afflict the world," the
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Some activists were highly critical of what they saw as velvet glove
treatment of Sudan: the commission condemned violence in the country's
western Darfur region, but without specifically blaming government forces.

While Cuba and the three other nations were again pilloried, the
commission rejected a call by Havana for an investigation into alleged
abuse of detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention center, which is
on Cuban territory, drawing cries of "double standards" from Cuba and
activists.

Other areas of concern to activists, such as the Russian rebel region
Chechnya and China's alleged mistreatment of some ethnic and religious
minorities, were not debated.

"The five permanent members of the (U.N.) Security Council are still
untouchable. Regional blocs of states still protect some of the worst
violators in their ranks," said Nick Howen, secretary-general of the
International Commission of Jurists.

On the positive side, activists applauded the decisions to name a special
investigator for Nepal and to monitor counterterrorism measures and the
activities of transnational corporations to ensure the latter meet ethical
standards.