WASHINGTON (AP)--A State Department report released Wednesday said human rights conditions worsened in Myanmar and Cambodia last year, but improved in Indonesia.
The annual report is the first since the U.S. lifted a six-year military embargo with Indonesia in November. It called the end to fighting in Indonesia's Aceh province a "major step forward," but noted "low intensity guerrilla conflict" in Papua province, and bombings and violence elsewhere.
Improvements, the State Department said, included free local elections; the Aug. 15 peace agreement with rebels in Aceh province; and a government anti- corruption campaign "that achieved some results, including high profile convictions."
Problems, however, still remained in Indonesia, the report said, including serious violations by security forces and widespread corruption.
Thailand was said to have generally respected human rights, though " significant problems" were seen in some areas. Separatist violence in the southern provinces led to an emergency decree that "gave the government significant powers to restrict certain basic rights," the report said.
Thailand's media was also targeted by government lawsuits.
Vietnam's human rights situation "remained unsatisfactory," the report said, although economic reforms have helped reduce governmental control of daily life.
The Philippines generally respected human rights, the report said, although " pervasive weakness in the rule of law, official impunity and the wide disparity between rich and poor contributed to cynicism about official justice."
Cambodia saw no reported political killings last year, the report said, but the government's human rights record worsened, as officials tried to "neutralize its critics through a limited number of arrests of journalists, leaders of civil society, human rights activists and members of the political opposition."
Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, saw "numerous serious abuses," the report said, including:
- killings, disappearances; and rape, torture and beatings of prisoners.
- life-threatening prison conditions.
- politically motivated arrests.
- the continued house arrest of leading dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
- violence against women.
- forced recruitment of child soldiers.
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