Media Release from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma
A cross-party group of MPs today table an Early Day Motion calling on the British government and United Nations to act now to support more than 11,000 people who have been forced from their homes by a new military offensive against civilians.
The Early Day Motion calls on the government to provide support to the thousands of internally displaced people who have fled in the face of the attacks, and are now homeless in the jungle with no food, shelter, or medical support. It also calls on the government to push for the United Nations Security Council to pass a binding resolution on Burma requiring democratic change in Burma.
Burma’s military dictatorship has launched brutal attacks against villages occupied by Burma’s Karen ethnic minority. Civilians, including children, are being shot, tortured, mutilated and even beheaded. Despite the scale of the crisis the British government has remained silent. Nor has the government provided any humanitarian assistance for these internally displaced people.
John Bercow MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma, said; “The Burma Army is guilty of the most sadistic savagery against innocent civilians in Karen State. Those internally displaced people in Eastern Burma who are struggling to survive in the jungle are in desperate and urgent need of humanitarian assistance and DFID should now provide it. Simultaneously, the UN Security Council must condemn unreservedly the government of Burma for its slaughter policy and pass a binding resolution calling for democratic change, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the freeing of other political prisoners.”
MPs who have so far backed the EDM include Conservative shadow foreign secretary William Hague MP, Liberal Democrat shadow foreign secretary Michael Moore MP, Joan Ruddock MP, Julie Morgan MP, Mark Pritchard MP, Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, Andrew Mitchell MP, Michael Gove MP, Jim Dobbin MP, Robert Walter MP, Andrew Selous MP, Caroline Spelman MP, David Burrowes MP and Peter Bottomley MP.
Full text of the EDM follows:
ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS IN KAREN STATE, BURMA
That this House condemns the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by the Burma Army in Karen State, Burma, in recent months, including the displacement of over 11,000 villagers, the shooting of civilians at point-blank range, the beheading and mutilation of civilians, the shooting of a nine year-old girl, and the continued attacks on Karen civilians in the worst offensive since 1997; calls on Her Majesty’s Government and the European Union to condemn these atrocities; urges the Department for International Development (DFID) to provide urgently-needed humanitarian assistance to the Internally Displaced People in eastern Burma through Thai-based relief organisations; calls on the UN Security Council to use its authority to stop the violence against civilians in Eastern Burma and to pass a binding resolution requiring democratic change in Burma; calls on Her Majesty’s Government to work with UNSC member states to ensure such a resolution is passed as a matter of urgency.
For more information contact the office of John Bercow MP on 020 7219 6458.