BurmaNet Appropriate
Information Technologies, Practical Strategies
The BurmaNet News: November 13, 1998
Issue #1138
Noted in Passing: "The conflict and the government's policy
in dealing with it has caused probably the worst, and least
documented, human-rights abuses currently in Asia." - see
JANE'S: BURMA'S CEASEFIRE AGREEMENTS ...
JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW: BURMA'S
CEASEFIRE AGREEMENTS IN DANGER OF UNRAVELING
1 November, 1998 by Bruce Hawke
[BurmaNet Editor's Note: As this is a rather lengthy article, it
has appeared in BurmaNet in installments. Today's issue
carries the third and final part of the article.]
**Bruce Hawke visits Shan State, Burma, where the Burmese Army is
stifling all opposition with a campaign of ethnic cleansing.**.
The Campaign Against the Shan
A brutal if low-intensity war of attrition is being waged by the
Burmese government against the only sizeable minority army in
Shan State not to have not signed a peace agreement. The conflict
and the government's policy in dealing with it has caused
probably the worst, and least documented, human-rights abuses
currently in Asia. Refugees from the fighting arriving at the
Thai border recount harrowing stories of forced labour, forced
relocation to rural squatter camps, conscription for portering,
gang rape and mass murder, all at the hands of Burmese Army
troops. The catalyst for the atrocities can be traced back to
early 1996.
In January 1996, Khun Sa officially surrendered to the Burmese
government. A large contingent of his army refused to surrender
and became the SURA led by Major Yord Serk, and has been fighting
Burmese forces in southern Shan State ever since. It claims 4,000
men, and operates deep into Shan State. The two other ethnic Shan
armies operating in Shan State, the SSA and the Shan State
National Army (SSNA) have both signed ceasefires with Rangoon.
The SSNA were previously part of Khun Sa's MTA, mutinied in 1994
and made peace with the government.
In late 1996, discouraged by Burmese Army-inflicted human-rights
abuses and serious procurement and financial problems, the SURA
attempted to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese
government. Yord Serk sent several letters to Senior General Than
Shwe, the prime minister of Burma, appealing for dialogue, but
received no reply. In fact, the Burmese government warned the
other two ethnic Shan groups not to contact or assist the SURA.
However, in September 1997, the leaders of the three Shan armies
met at the Shan State Army headquarters Seng Kaeo, near Hsipaw,
and signed an agreement to merge as the Shan State Army, hoping
to be able to negotiate a ceasefire agreement under the SSA'a
umbrella.
The Burmese government refused to acknowledge the union. Sao Sai
Naung, head of the SSA at Hsipaw and of the recently formed
tripartite SSA went to Rangoon in a failed attempt to negotiate
for the SURA faction. The renamed Burmese government junta, The
State Peace and Development Council has reiterated its intention
to crush the SURA. Since March 1996, the Burmese government has
forcibly relocated over 1,400 villages throughout 7,000 square
miles (approximately 18,400 square km) of southern and central
Shan State. The number of people affected by the relocations is
estimated to be in excess of 300,000. The villagers have been
herded into rural slums in a strategic hamlet-type policy aimed
at cutting off supplies and support for the SURA.
At least 80,000 have come to Thailand as unofficial and
unrecognised refugees, according to the Shan Human Rights
Foundation. This is in addition to the 400,000-500,000 economic
refugees from Shan State that are already in the country. They
receive a less than warm welcome from Thai authorities, who are
beset with economic problems and are trying to keep relations
with Rangoon on an even keel. The refugees from the fighting can
be relatively easily discerned from the economic migrants because
they arrive at the border in family groups while the latter
arrive mainly as groups of young men.
The depopulated area in Shan State has become a free-fire zone.
Shan villagers sneaking back to tend their crops are routinely
shot on sight by Burmese troops. As both the government forces
and the SURA have stepped up their campaigns since the beginning
of 1997, some of the re-located villagers have been forced to
move a second time. Since the beginning of 1997, the Burmese Army
has increased the size of the depopulated free-fire zone by 2,000
square miles to 7,000, and it now covers most of southern Shan
State.
Since the beginning of 1997 there has been a sharp increase in
reported atrocities on the part of Burmese government soldiers,
who appear to have been given a carte blanche by Rangoon to do
anything deemed necessary to control the spread of the SURA. The
carte blanche, in addition the usual forced portering, includes
the mass rapings and killings of Shan villagers, even well
outside the free-fire zone. According to eye-witnesses who have
visited some of the relocation sites, they more closely resemble
concentration camps than strategic hamlets. An 1800 to 0600
curfew is often brutally enforced. The relocated villagers, cut
off from their fields, are often forced to either beg or move to
look for waged employment. There is serious malnutrition among
many at the relocation sites. There have also been several
documented cases where Burmese Army troops have shelled and
killed civilians inside relocation sites in retribution for
battlefield losses against the SURA.
The Shan Human Rights Foundation, a non-governmental organisation
(NGO) working with refugees on the Thai border and internally
dislocated villagers inside Burma, has confirmed and documented
664 extrajudicial killings of Shan villagers during 1997,
including the designations of the battalions responsible.
Although the list is by no means complete, some murders are not
reported and others cannot be verified and are left out of the
compiled figures, it provides a guide as to which units were
responsible for the worst atrocities.
Most of the eastern command battalions and some northeastern and
golden triangle command units have engaged in
extra-judicial killings. A handful of battalions stand out in the
scale and brutality of their abuses. The worst offenders are from
the eastern command based in Tanggyi which maintains a degree of
relative autonomy, rather than from the 55th Light Infantry
Division (LID) based at Aung Ban, which takes its orders directly
from the War Office in Rangoon. This suggests the killings were
not ordered by Rangoon as a matter of policy, but that the War
Office is turning a blind eye in the interests of wiping out the
Shan resistance.
The worst offender was the Light Infantry Battalion 524 (LIB524)
based at Kwan Heng, with 193 killings of civilians, including the
massacre of almost an entire village during July 1997, which left
96 dead. Second, and the most consistently brutal over the year
was Infantry Battalion 246 (IB246), also based at Kwan Heng, with
157 documented killings of villagers in 28 incidents. Troops of
the LIB515 based at Le Char was documented as killing 66
civilians, while the LIB 332 based at Ming Peng, has been
documented as responsible for the deaths of 41. There were two
mass murders in July 1997 which left no known survivors, one with
26 victims and another with 17 dead, which occurred in areas
where the LIB524 and the LIB516 (based in Nam Sam) operate.
The abuses have been largely - though not entirely - one sided,
perpetrated by Burmese government troops on Shan villagers. In
early June 1997, SURA troops massacred 25 ethnic Burman settlers
at Pha Lang, east of Kun Hing. The Burmese Army responded with an
orgy of rape and murder of Shans in the area. In all 215 Shan
civilians were documented as killed in a joint operation which
included troops from the IB246, the LIB513, LIB516, and LIB524
and lasted four weeks. Many were tortured before being executed,
43 were beheaded and left on the side of the road as a warning to
others. Figures for the first six months of 1998 are as yet
incomplete, but anecdotal evidence suggests the scale and
brutality of the abuses has if anything increased.
Documented mass murders by units with no previous record of such
activities in areas formerly not subject to slaughter, suggest
the Shan State commands are widening the net, both to wipe out
the SURA, and to intimidate the rump-SSA and SNA. In early May,
the Hsipaw-based IB22 of the northeast command massacred 36
villagers, near Nam-Zarng. The victims all had valid permits to
be in the area. There have been documented mass-killings of
civilians by three Golden Triangle command battalions to June of
this year by the Mine Tong-based IB65 (15 killed), the Mine
Sert-based LIB333 (28 killed), in addition to mass killings by
eastern command units and numerous smaller-scale killings by
troops from all three commands and the War Office-controlled 55th
LID.
The extent of the dislocation of villagers and the brutality the
military displays in dealing with civilians, including the rapes
and massacres of children, has led many Shan leaders to suspect
that Rangoon is intentionally depopulating Shan State. Author and
Burma specialist Bertil Linter described the abuses as "a
policy of ethnic cleansing." There has been an increase in
the number of ethnic-Burman civilian settlers in Shan State over
the past two years, according to residents of Shan State, but as
yet there does not appear to be any centrally co-ordinated
migration to the region.
Bruce Hawke is a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
THE NATION: JUNTA CLOSING SUU KYI PARTY
OFFICES
12 November, 1998
AP
RANGOON - The opposition party led by Nobel Peace Prize winner
harassing members and forcing local offices to close. Official
newspapers meanwhile reported yesterday that the local office of
the National League for Democracy in Bilin, eastern Burma, had
closed and all its members had resigned. The papers claimed the
opposition members took the action of "their own free
will". Local NLD offices appear to be the latest targets in
the clash of wills between the military which has ruled Burma
since 1962, and the beleaguered opposition led by Suu Kyi. The
party said in a statement on Monday that the government has
detained a total of 920 members since May, when the NLD made
known it intended to convene a parliament elected in 1990 but was
never allowed by the military to meet.
The NLD overwhelmingly won those elections, but the military held
on to power. The government has constantly pressured elected NLD
legislators to resign the posts and leave the party. Those
detained since May include 184 of the elected NLD legislators -
about half, the party said. Only three - one who is very old,
another who is ill and a third who has been out of touch with
party headquarters for some time - have been freed, the party
said.
The ruling State Peace and Development Council issued a statement
yesterday saying that 27 detainees who were described as having
been "invited for the exchange of views" returned home
in the past week. According to the official press, the Bilin
township NLD office closed on Monday and the entire 21-member
executive committee resigned. The newspapers claimed that members
had "no desire to continue to take part in the NLD party
activities". Since last Friday, official newspapers have
also reported the dissolution of two other NLD township offices
in western and southeastern Burma and the resignation of
opposition members in Kachin State in the north.
The NLD said on Monday that local authorities "are forcing
party members and elected representatives to resign and to
dissolve township organising committees". The NLD has urged
the chairman of the ruling council of generals, Sen Gen Than Shwe
to stop the harassment.
REUTERS: MYANMAR, CAMBODIA FACE HUGE AIDS
PROBLEM
12 November, 1998
BANGKOK, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Myanmar and Cambodia could face AIDS
epidemics of "Africa-like" proportions unless effective
programmes are implemented to stem the disease, UNICEF's director
for East Asia and the Pacific said on Thursday. Thailand, Myanmar
and Cambodia have the highest rates of AIDS and HIV infection in
the region, Kul Gautam told Reuters. "Thailand,
although it has the largest number of cases in Southeast Asia
also has the most imaginative, effective and innovative
programmes," he said. "Cambodia and Myanmar on
the other hand have serious problems but do not yet have serious
programmes."
Gautam spoke at a conference on child development in Bangkok
where UNICEF presented statistics from a U.N. report showing that
by 1997, nearly 50,000 children had been orphaned by AIDS in
Thailand, nearly 15,000 in Myanmar and about 8,000 in Cambodia.
"In the coming years, HIV aids is going to be a problem
everywhere," Gautam said. "No country is immune, but
Cambodia and Myanmar are going to require particular attention.
"If we do not act and act firmly and decisively and in an
ambitious manner, I fear in a few years time we may have the
problem of HIV/AIDS taking on Africa-like proportions in these
countries." According to U.N. data, Cambodia, Myanmar
and Thailand all show a "very high" level of HIV
infection -- between 1.01 and 2.4 percent of the adult
population. This compares with countries like Laos or China with
prevalances of 0.01 to 0.06 percent.
Guatam said it was difficult to determine the exact extent of the
disease. "Part of the problem of not doing enough is not
even knowing how serious the problem is," he said. He said
in Myanmar, and to some extent Vietnam, intravenous drug use is a
bigger cause of infection than sexual contact. Northern
Myanmar's Shan State is the world's biggest single source of
heroin and drug users in the country frequency resort to needles
shares by multiple users. Increasingly, HIV in both countries was
being transmitted from mother to child, either during pregnancy
or during breast feeding, Gualam said.
"I think in Thailand, the government has acknowledged and
has confronted the problem, but I think in Myanmar and Cambodia
there is not sufficient acknowledgement or sufficient
action. "Cambodia has just come out of so many years
of war and revolution and trouble but Mynamar is some ways has
been a bit of a period of denial. "I think they
are slowly beginning to acknowledge the problem, but I think
their actions are not yet commensurate with the gravity of the
problem," he said.
AFP: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH URGES UN PRESSURE
ON MYANMAR
10 November, 1998
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (AFP) - As UN delegates begin their annual
study of human rights in Myanmar, a leading human rights group is
urging pressure on the junta to free dissidents and lift curbs on
civil liberties.
"After three months of escalating tensions and constant
security pressures, the human rights situation remains grim and
the political situation remains deadlocked," Human Rights
Watch said in a statement.
The New York-based organization called for UN member states to
urge the ruling State Peace and Development Council to
"immediately and unconditionally" free its critics and
ease restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and
assembly. Human Rights Watch cited the arrest since August of
more than 200 members of the opposition National League for
Democracy and hundreds of others suspected of backing the party.
"While over 100 have been released, 544 NLD members were
still in detention as of early November by the government's own
count," Human Rights Watch said.
As it now does annually, the UN human rights committee this week
took up a resolution condemning human rights violations in
Myanmar, formerly Burma. The UN General Assembly was expected to
approve the measure again. Earlier Tuesday, Myanmar's government
reacted angrily to last month's human rights report to the United
Nations by special rapporteur Rajsoomer Lallah, calling it
insulting and highly biased.
"To flippantly imply that the Myanmar armed forces is
committing human rights violations as a matter of policy is an
affront which will not be tolerated by the Myanmar people, for it
constitutes an insult to the whole nation," Myanmar's UN
envoy Pe Thein Tin said.
Lallah's report spoke of routine and widespread human rights
abuses under Myanmar's military government, including the use of
forced labour, summary executions, rape, and torture. The
rapporteur voiced serious concern about the "virtual
blockade" of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in her
compound, "about her continued vilification and the
inability of her party to organize normal political meetings and
functions."
Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi led the National League
for Democracy party to a landslide victory in 1990 elections but
the junta has refused to recognise the result. Hundreds of the
junta's critics have been detained since Aung San Suu Kyi
demanded in August that the junta convene the parliament elected
in 1990. Military leaders have run Myanmar since 1962.
REUTERS: UNICEF PUTS MYANMAR AT THE
BOTTOM OF THE CLASS
12 November, 1998
BANGKOK, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Less than a third of all children in
military ruled Myanmar now complete primary school, one of the
lowest percentages in the world, the regional director of the
U.N. Children's Fund said on Thursday.
"Primary school coverage in Myanmar has plummeted to one of
the lowest levels in this region and one of the lowest levels in
the world," Kul Guatam, UNICEF director for East Asia and
the Pacific, told Reuters. He was speaking on the sidelines of a
conference on children and development.
Until the military seized power in Myanmar in 1962 the country
enjoyed one of the best literacy records in the region.
"Primary school completion rates are now about 27 percent,
which is very low," Gautam said, adding that this compared
with an average rate of about 81 percent in Vietnam.
"Myanmar right after its independence (in 1948) did a very
good job in its education and in literacy. They were one of the
more successful countries," he said. "In basic
education there has been this deterioration that worries us
greatly."
Guatam said UNICEF was also very concerned about higher education
in Myanmar, where schools and colleges have been kept closed by
the government for most of the decade since troops crushed a
student-led uprising for democracy. He said that unlike
university level, the problem at primary level was more one of
neglect than deliberate policy, although the lack of teacher
training had the effect of discouraging school attendance.
He said two successful UNICEF projects in Myanmar had shown what
was possible. "It's not only a financial
problem," he said. "In areas in which we are involved
the coverage is not 27 percent, it's in the 70s," he said.
"So what this shows is that it's possible to improve and one
of our messages to the government and to others is please
replicate these working models."