Burma’s Karen National Union (KNU) and Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) said Tuesday they would welcome the arrival of a UN team which is being formed to look into charges that they are recruiting child soldiers.

Rebel Groups Welcome UN’s Child Soldiers Probe

The UN announced earlier on Tuesday that it was sending a team to Burma in order to press the ethnic rebel groups and the Burmese regime to stop using child soldiers.

The announcement followed a recent allegation by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the Burmese army and ethnic rebel groups, including the KNU, are recruiting children to serve as fighters. The KNU and KNPP both denied the allegation.

KNU General-Secretary Zipporah Sein said: “I want to tell the UN to come to our areas and monitor the situation by itself. We will allow them if they want to come.”

She said the KNU had stopped the recruitment of child soldiers since 2003 and had signed an agreement with UNICEF in 2007 banning the practice.

Zipporah Sein conceded that the KNU had allowed children to serve as soldiers in the past as some young people wanted to sign up after they and their families suffered torture and other abuse at the hands of Burmese army troops.

The KNPP also denied recruiting child soldiers and said the proposed UN team would be welcome to inspect its territory.

Khu Oo Reh, secretary 1 of the KNPP said: “We warmly welcome them to come and witness the situation in our area.”

According to an Associated Press report, the UN Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to name and shame nations and rebel groups engaged in conflicts leading to children being killed, maimed and raped.

A list of political prisoners to be released in an amnesty has already been drawn up by the Burmese government, according to family members visiting political prisoners last week.

Visitors told of Burma prisoner amnesty
Aug 5, 2009 (DVB)–A list of political prisoners to be released in an amnesty has already been drawn up by the Burmese government, according to family members visiting political prisoners last week.

The Burmese ambassador to the United Nations, Than Swe, said in July that the government would be releasing prisoners “with a view to enabling them to participate in the 2010 general elections”.
The pledge was greeted with widespread skepticism, with some observers claiming it was being done to avoid UN Security Council action.
But the wife of National League for Democracy (NLD) member, Ko Zaw Zaw Aung, who is in Tharawaddy prison, said that authorities there have already drawn up a list of releases.
“According to the sources, the list of people who will be released from prison had already been posted inside the prison,” she said. “They said 52 people will be released.”
Around 100 political prisoners still remain inside the prison, according to Ko Zaw Zaw Aung, who was arrested whilst demonstrating in front of the NLD headquarters in August 2007 against the hike in fuel and commodity prices which triggered the September 2007 monk-led protests.

U.N. team to visit Myanmar over child soldiers

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it was sending a team to Myanmar to press for action by the government and rebel groups to end the practice of using child soldiers.

Reports by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have accused the army of Myanmar’s military government and ethnic rebel militias, such as Karen groups in the east of the country, of recruiting children to serve as fighters.

The latest report, issued in June, said there had been “grave violations” against children in Myanmar. It accused the junta of failing to provide proof of measures it said it was taking to end use of child soldiers, and of blocking U.N. access to rebel groups.

But Radhika Coomaraswamy, U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, said on Tuesday there had been some positive developments and that the government of the Asian country had been releasing some children.

“We still are not sure how comprehensive that is and the extent of it,” she told a news conference. “And so I am dispatching a team (to Myanmar) at the end of this month.”

The team would be talking to rebel groups that had started peace negotiations with the government of Myanmar — also known as Burma — and to the junta, Coomaraswamy said.

She said the aim would be to push for plans that the United Nations seeks to draw up with armies that use child soldiers in order to halt the practice. So far it has none with the Myanmar government or rebels.

The United Nations is already seeking to persuade the junta to democratize and release political prisoners.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited last month but his trip produced no immediate result and the world body is now awaiting the outcome of a trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Coomaraswamy was speaking shortly before the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution aimed at stepping up pressure on the issue of children by expanding a blacklist of government armies and rebel groups contained in periodic reports by Ban.

The resolution asked Ban to include not just those that recruit child soldiers but also those that engage “in patterns of killing and maiming of children and/or rape and other sexual violence against children, in situations of armed conflict.”

The Mexican-drafted resolution mentioned no names, but there have been allegations of such abuses in Democratic Republic of Congo, the western Sudan region of Darfur, and elsewhere.

The blacklist aims at “naming and shaming” but does not provide for sanctions.