Strasbourg, 17/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - By adopting several resolutions at the end of its emergency debates on Thursday, the European Parliament voted on:
Burma: Parliament encourages the SPDC in power to accelerate the process of dialogue with Aunbg San Suu Kyi and to lift without delay and unconditionally her house arrest, as well as the restrictions on the freedom of movement and association of other political leaders. It welcomes the release of certain political prisoners but calls on the government to release that are still incarcerated and improve conditions in prisons and labour camps. The EU Council, that is to review its common position in April, is urged to maintain the current sanctions against Myanmar and consider strengthening them if further progress is not made within six months. The Commission is urged to refer the problem of the generalised and permanent recourse to forced labour to the WTO.
Indigenous minorities in Vietnam and closure of refugee camps in Cambodia: Parliament urges all parties (Cambodia, Vietnam, UNHCR) to seek a lasting solution to the fate of the Mois, asylum-seekers, and the Cambodian Government to respect its obligations under the 1951 Convention on refugees and calls for the suspension of the repatriation programmes as long as solid guarantees are not provided that returns are not totally voluntary and that the lives of the Mois concerned will not be threatened on their return to Vietnam. Parliament calls on the Vietnamese Government to put an end to the arbitrary detention of the Mois that have been repatriated from Cambodia. It also urges the Commission to contribute to the development of Vietnam to stem the economic exodus, and asks the Vietnamese Government to authorise access to UNHCR teams to the region of the high plateaux to control the situation of asylum-seekers candidates to return. EU Member States are urged to contribute in receiving Vietnamese refugees.
Violation of women's rights in Nigeria: Parliament welcomes the recent decisions concerning the acquittal of Safiya Hussaini and Hafsatu Abubakar who risked being stoned to death for adultery. It denounces the ruling of the court of Bakori (State of Katsina) that condemns Amina Lawal to death by stoning for having been found guilty of having a child after her divorce. Parliament urges the Federal Nigerian Government to ensure that court act in accordance with international law on human rights and the declaration of rights that appears in Nigeria's Constitution. It also calls upon it to take steps to put an end to all executions and abolish the death sentence. Parliament urges the Council to engage, in the framework of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, in a political dialogue with Nigeria so as to consolidate Nigeria's pluralist democracy.
Guatemala: Parliament deplores the human rights violations, as well as abuses (trafficking, money laundering, car-theft networks, kidnapping for a ransom, illicit use of protected public land, sexual harassment….) that certain national and international economic actors engage in, and again calls on the legal authorities to benefit from independence and total liberty. It urges the Guatemalan Government to implement the legislative reforms provided for by the peace agreements, with a precise agenda, and to allocate the necessary resources to the social aspect and judicial review.
Angola: Parliament welcomes the signing of the additional memorandum to the Lusaka Protocol, urges the Angolan Government to make the cease-fire definitive and irreversible, and encourages full integration of UNITA on the national political stage. The EP calls on the Commission, the ACP-EU Council and the United Nations to support the mine-clearance programmes and to promote the conditions necessary for the country's economic recovery, humanitarian aid, the social re-integration of displaced persons, demobilised soldiers, invalid members of the armed forces and war orphans, and for the organisation of an international donor conference for the reconstruction of a peaceful Angola. It considers that free elections should be organised in Angola as soon as free movement is assured throughout the country.
Extraordinary session of the United Nations' General Assembly devoted to children: Parliament calls on the EU and its Member States to strive actively so that, at the end of the extraordinary session: - the Convention of children's rights be fully implemented; - progress is made on the path to the universal ratification of instruments like the protocol on the protection of children in times of armed conflict or the ILO Convention 182 on the ban on the worst forms of child labour; - solid mechanisms be set up to control the respect by governments of commitments made. Member States are urged to ratify the protocol on the protection of children during conflicts. The EP calls on the Commission to ensure that all proposals it makes are the subject of an analysis aimed at assessing their potential effects on children.