Recent Trip to Burma

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2157351.ece

On the run with the Karen people forced to flee Burma's genocide

By Pete Pattisson in Karen State, Burma

Published: 16 January 2007
When the Burmese soldiers arrived at his village, Maung Taungy knew what
would happen next. Seven villagers were arrested, their feet bound
together with rope, and they hung upside down for hours. Exhausted and
with their ankles lacerated, the men, suspected of being linked to the
Karen resistance army, were then beaten. The soldiers did not stop until
they were dead.

"After that," remembers Maung Taungy, an ethnic-minority Karen from
eastern Burma, "we became the virtual slaves of the army. They ordered us
to clear the whole jungle so that they could see approaching enemies. We
had to wade through chest-deep water full of snakes to get the area
cleared. The work was endless, we made roads, dug trenches, cut bamboo and
made fences. We had no choice but to escape."

Maung Taungy now lives in Ei Tu Tha camp for internally displaced people,
ineastern Burma. An estimated 27,000 Karen have fled an offensive by the
Burmese army in northern Karen State, which began last February. Fifty
five thousand Karen remain in hiding in the jungles bordering Thailand,
refugees from the world's longest-running civil war, between the Burmese
army and the Karen resistance, the Karen National Liberation Army. More
than one million Karen have been displaced since 1996 in the face of
systematic human rights violations including rape, forced labour and
torture.

And the situation is worsening. "We'd faced problems with the Burmese army
since the 1960s, but the situation now is worse than ever," says Maung.
According to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, in the past year alone
232 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed, forcibly relocated or
otherwise abandoned. The Karen Human Rights Group claims the most recent
offensive by the Burmese army is part of a deliberate policy of ethnic
cleansing that amounts to crimes against humanity.

Yet the international community is doing little. On Friday a US-sponsored
UN Security Council resolution calling for the restoration of democracy in
Burma and an end to human rights violations was vetoed by Russia and
China; their first joint veto since 1972. They argued that the resolution
was outside the remit of the Security Council as Burma posed no threat to
international security. The Burma Campaign UK points out that China and
Russia are both significant arms suppliers to Burma's regime, and are
seeking investment opportunities in Burma's large-scale gas reserves. A
report commissioned by Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel in September 2005
compared Burma with other countries where the Security Council has
recently intervened in internal conflicts, including Sierra Leone and
Afghanistan. The report identifies five criteria for intervention,
including the overthrow of an elected government and human rights abuses.
Burma was the only country that met all five criteria.

The current offensive in Karen State follows a clear pattern. Burmese
troops force Karen civilians to relocate to villages already under their
control. Old villages are burnt down and land-mined to stop villagers
returning. Forced labour is demanded for months at a time. Anyone caught
trying to leave is shot. Without access to their farms, many Karen suffer
severe food shortages. A September 2006 report by the Back Pack Health
Workers Team, which provides medical care to victims of the conflict,
warns of a health catastrophe in eastern Burma as a direct result of the
army's human rights abuses.

Escaping the conflict can be as dangerous as staying. Heavily pregnant Eha
Hsar Paw took two weeks to reach Ei Tu Tha camp. Shortly after arriving
the camp medics told her the baby inside her was dead, killed by the
stress of the journey. It was the fifth child she had lost. "Our whole
village was burnt down by Burmese soldiers in February 2006. Since then we
have been hiding in the surrounding jungle. The soldiers would just shoot
anyone they saw, even children," she said. "If they found our rice they
would burn it, they cut holes in our cooking pots and tore up our clothes.
The journey here was very difficult. We arrived at one village expecting
to be able to buy food, only to find that they were also getting ready to
leave and so they wouldn't sell any to us. One of my children died in the
jungle before we left and another died when we reached this camp. It was
hard to leave our village, but if we had stayed there we would all be
dead."


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BURMA ACTION GROUP
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University of Washington http://students.washington.edu/burma/
Seattle, WA 98195