One of Robinson's top UN investigators resigns

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, has suffered a serious blow with the resignation of one of her top investigators.

Mr Rajsoomer Lallah, the United Nations special human rights rapporteur on Burma, said he had not received the administrative and financial support he needed to do his job properly.

Mr Lallah, a former supreme court judge from Mauritius, wrote to Mrs Robinson last week setting out the reasons for his decision. "If I don't have the support, I'm not able to make a useful contribution," he told the AFP news agency.

Since he was appointed four years ago, Mr Lallah has been trying to visit Burma. Last month, he helped produce a damning report accusing the military government of torture, rape, massacres and forced labour. "I've seen little change from one year to the next, in spite of all the resolutions at the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission. It's all rather frustrating," he said. A spokesman for Mrs Robinson said she had given Mr Lallah as much support as possible and could understand some of his frustrations. UNHCHR had limited resources and had to juggle these as best it could.

Mr Lallah had other responsibilities and was a member of his own country's human rights committee, the spokesman said. Last month Mrs Robinson said her commission and other UN agencies found it "very frustrating" to be deprived of the funding needed for their tasks. She called on the US to pay arrears, estimated at $1.7 billion, owed to the UN.

Mrs Robinson has called on the Burmese authorities several times to allow Mr Lallah to visit the country but without success. In 1998, she urged Burma to release all political prisoners after failing to get a satisfactory response in a meeting with the country's foreign minister.

Since becoming high commissioner in 1997, Mrs Robinson has frequently caused controversy in her quest to put human rights at the top of the political agenda. In April the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, refused to meet her after she criticised Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Speaking at a conference in Dublin last July, Mrs Robinson described the UN as slow, weak, unwieldy and beset by bureaucracy but added that it was the best system of international regulation that was available.