UN rights council should deal with Myanmar-Indonesia

CEBU, Philippines, Jan 13 (Reuters) The United Nations' human rights council should look at Myanmar's persecution of minority and opposition groups not the Security Council, Indonesia's foreign minister today said.

China and Russia yesterday vetoed a US resolution calling on Myanmar's military junta to stop its human rights abuses, killing the measure in the UN Security Council.

But both countries argued that human rights violations were not the purview of the Security Council unless they endangered regional or international peace and security, which Myanmar did not.

Indonesia, which currently sits on the council, abstained.

''The case would be more appropriately brought to the attention of the human rights council rather than the UN Security Council,'' Hassan Wirajuda told Reuters, adding that this view was shared by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The 10-member group, currently holding its annual summit in the central Philippines, declined to take an official position on the US move.

But the thorny question of Myanmar has exposed splits within an organisation that has always prided itself on consensus. Some members, especially those from Indochina, say ASEAN should not interfere in Myanmar's domestic affairs; the others say the junta's sorry rights record is already an international issue.

''We share the concern that is expressed at the draft resolution, namely, how to induce changes in Myanmar, in order for Myanmar to make tangible results in their process of democratisation and greater respect for human rights, something we in ASEAN have been trying to assist,'' Wirajuda said.

REUTERS SY RAI1224