"Crimes against humanity”: Burma’s government is violating humanitarian international law

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) charged the government of Burma on Friday with massively violating humanitarian international law by blocking and hindering humanitarian aid. "The planned obstruction of humanitarian aid deliveries in the Irrawaddy Delta must be seen as a "crime against humanity”, said the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius. This serious accusation must be raised although there is no civil war in this region. For experts in international law there is adequate proof that the government authorities are deliberately preventing the delivery of relief aid to the people who are in need. In view of the refusal of entry visas, the policy of holding back news and the failure to issue permission for deliveries to be landed and for aid-workers to act, there can be no doubt on this.

Not only in the Irrawaddy Delta, but also in the areas populated by minorities in the east and north of the country, the authorities are deliberately preventing the entry of humanitarian aid-workers. There has been civil war here for 60 years, so that the refusal of humanitarian relief for the civilian population in these war-zones must be seen as "war crimes”. There are 100,000 soldiers stationed here.

"If Burma’s authorities in the Irrawaddy Delta really want to provide credible aid then soldiers from the regions inhabited by ethnic minorities should be sent to the disaster area to support national and international helpers in their work”, said Delius. For in the Delta there is a lack of reconstruction workers to rebuild destroyed roads, telephone lines and the electricity supply. "If the relocation of soldiers is refused then there is new proof of the cynicism of the military junta in deliberately accepting the deaths of tens of thousands of people.”