Special: Shan want to take their case to International Court

Published on Aug 23, 2002

Shan people want the violence inflicted by the brutal Burmese military against their women to be laid bare for all to see in the International Criminal Court.

“We are voiceless. Our women have been raped, tortured, and sexually enslaved by Burmese soldiers in war for long time but the world has never heard our cry, and the perpetrators are living free,” Naang Mo Hom, of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, told The Nation.

The historic verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal 2000 on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery inspired her and the foundation to seek ways to bring their case as an international criminal suit.

The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal 2000 on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery considered the criminal liability of leading high-ranking Japanese military and political officials, including Emperor Hirohito, for rape and sexual slavery as “crimes against humanity” arising out of Japanese military activity in the Asia-Pacific region during World War II.

The decision marked the first time that the international tribunal found rape and enslavement to be “crimes against humanity”. However, none of the accused have faced charges arising out of the incidents of sexual slavery.

The tribunal, also known as the People’s Tokyo Tribunal 2000, was set up after the failure of the International Tribunal for the Far East (the original Tokyo Tribunal), which only illustrated that rape is a violation of the recognised customs and conventions of war.

The original Tokyo Tribunal, from April 1946 to November 1948, was established by the Allied powers at the end of WWII. Despite overwhelming evidence of the “comfort women” system, the Allies failed to prosecute Japanese officials for these crimes. During World War II the Japanese military forced women in the countries it invaded, including the Philippines, China, Korea and Taiwan, to cater to the sexual needs of its soldiers.

Meanwhile, last February the ICTY imprisoned three former commanders of the Bosnian Serb Army found responsible for the rape and sexual enslavement of Bosnian and Croatian women during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in 1992.

The cases marked the first time in history that an international tribunal brought charges solely for crimes of sexual violence against women. Naang Mo Hom said she wants the International Criminal Court, recently established to investigate and prosecute individuals accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, to name the leaders of the Burmese military regime as co-accused.

Besides the ICTY and the Tokyo Tribunal there are two other tribunals – the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. All four tribunals were established to deal with the issue of individual criminal liability for war crimes cases, breaches of graves, and crimes against humanity.

The Nurnberg Tribunal was the first to be set up. Although the offences were divided into “crimes against peace”, “war crimes”, and “crimes against humanity”, rape was not included in any of the descriptions. No one at Nuremberg was indicted for committing crimes of sexual violence.

Pennapa Hongthong

The Nation

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