Shan groups say Myanmar junta concedes rape claims in talks with UN envoy ( AFP ) October 29, 2002


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Shan groups say Myanmar junta concedes rape claims in talks with UN envoy

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Oct 29 (AFP)

The authors of a report which claimed the Myanmar junta used rape as a weapon of war against ethnic Shan women said Tuesday that visiting UN envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told them the regime admitted the attacks may have occurred.

Pinheiro, fresh from an 11-day visit to Myanmar where he met with top members of the regime, travelled to this northern Thai city to investigate allegations of the systematic rape of hundreds of Shan women and girls by Myanmar soldiers.

"Pinheiro told us that during talks with the Myanmar authorities, they replied that it may have occured, but they rejected that the rapes had been systematic," Hseng Naung, spokeswoman for the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), told AFP.

The report released in May by Thailand-based SWAN and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF), which documented 625 sex attacks, drew international outrage and has been repeatedly rejected by the military government in Yangon.The junta invited Pinheiro to travel to Shan state to investigate the claims but the envoy turned down the offer, saying he would not have had sufficient time to carry out a comprehensive inquiry.

Pinheiro, who is due to hold a press conference in Bangkok Wednesday, also met Tuesday with other ethnic minority groups in order to assess their human rights situation, Hseng Naung said."We had a chance to tell him what he wanted to know. It was a positive meeting," she said.

Hseng Naung added that members of Pinheiro's UN team were scheduled to go to the Thai provinces of Tak and Kanchanaburi which border Myanamr on Wednesday to investigate human rights issues there.It was not clear if they would attempt to interview any rape victims, many of whom have slipped across the Myanmar border into Thailand.

Myanmar's junta had been hoping that Pinheiro's visit could help clear the air after a series of damning reports, including the rape allegations, which portrayed the regime as a gross human rights abuser.

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