Aug 26, 2004

No Peace for Indigenous Peoples in Burma


The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) reported on August 5 that killings, torture, sexual harassment, and other human rights violations against indigenous people in Burma have continued, despite recent peace negotiations with insu
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The United Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) reported on August 5 that killings, torture, sexual harassment, and other human rights violations against indigenous people in Burma have continued, despite recent peace negotiations with insurgent groups.

The Karen National Union (KNU), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), the Shan State Army-South (SSA-South), and small armed opposition groups in the Mon State are actively opposing the Burmese government’s policies against indigenous peoples. In December, the KNU and the KNPP entered into a cease-fire, but fighting continues throughout the country due to the longstanding history of mistrust between the Burmese government and its indigenous people. For some indigenous groups, the only form of outside contact has been through violent interactions with the Burmese military.

"The country has been terrorized by the Burmese junta for more than four decades and the people have, time and again, tried to get rid of this tyrannical regime without success," said Sai Myo Win, general secretary of the Shan Democratic Union and ambassador of the Shan States. "Many lives have been sacrificed but still the military regime is intact."

Burma’s government is headed by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), a military junta that largely focuses its energies on controlling opposition groups by destroying civilians' ability to support the groups with food, money, and intelligence. According to Win, the Shan, Mon, and Karen Karenni, who live in the eastern and southeastern part of Burma, are the worst hit due to the ongoing armed resistance against the occupying Burma army.

Win said the Shan State Army-South is well supported by the greater Shan population. The movement stands for the restoration of self-determination, equality, and democracy within the Shan State.

Yet indigenous civilians often find themselves caught between insurgents, who may be relatives or friends, and the Burmese Army, which accuses them of being rebel supporters. The Kao Wao news group reported on August 3 that the SPDC killed two Mon village headmen in Mon State. The two leaders were accused of supporting Mon insurgents.

As reported by several news and human rights organizations, including the Kao Wao news group and Amnesty International, rape and sexual harassment are also tactics that Burmese Army soldiers use against indigenous civilians. Soldiers target young girls and women in ethnic areas and threaten young single men in the villages. Nai Soe, a Mon civilian from southern Mon State seeking refuge at a camp on the Thailand border, told the Kao Wao news group that "The SPDC soldiers also threaten and intimidate young single men by pointing guns at them, after, they routinely search and stay at the houses of beautiful women." Many women and girls have been raped and some have fled their communities to seek refuge in Thailand due to shame and fear.

A SPDC policy known as four cuts aims to deprive militant groups of four things: money, food, recruits, and intelligence. The SPDC implements the cuts by means of forced civilian relocations. After a relocation deadline has passed, the army usually sends out patrols to destroy the villages and food supplies. A Christian Aid report from May 2004 states: "SPDC patrols hunt them, trying to force all civilians into army-controlled villages where everyone is used as forced labor, maintaining military access roads and portering supplies to outlying army camps. In the SPDC-controlled villages even food supplies are tightly controlled; rice cannot be bought without army permission, and farmers must hand over all food crops to soldiers, who eat most of it and hand back only a tiny and insufficient ration."

The United States Department of State 2004 country report for Burma cites estimates that say more than 2,500 villages have been destroyed or forcibly relocated by government forces since 1996, displacing more than 600,000 citizens. Win estimates that this "unimaginable human tragedy" has created more than 1 million internally displaced peoples and half a million refugees in neighboring countries.

"It should be clear that the people of Burma need help the way the German people needed to free themselves from the Nazi rule," Win said. "The same situation is also true with Burma; if the international stakeholders will continue to be indifferent and refuse to come to the rescue, it will become a failed state and meet the fate of a slow death much sooner than we expect."

Source: Cultural Survival