DOCUMENT: SI_KAREN.TXT
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY
for the
PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
REPORT FOR 1985
to the
UNITED NATIONS WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AGAINST ETHNIC MINORITIES IN BURMA
The Anti-Slavery Society wishes to express concern about the
fate of the civilian Karen and other ethnic minorities of
Burma. During the last 18 months there has been increasing
evidence of serious human rights viloations being
perpetrated against unarmed villagers by the Burmese armed
forces. This has led to thousands of Karen refugees fleeing
their homelands to seek temporary sanctuary in neighbouring
Thailand.
About one quarter of the population of Burma is composed of
ethnically distinct hill people. They consist of eleven
main groups of which the largest are the Karen, Shan and
Chin. In total they number seven million people. At
independence in 1948 the Panglong Agreement gave the
Kachins, Chins and Shans semi-autonomous status within the
Union of Burma with the option to secede at the end of a ten
year perios. No plebiscite was taken in 1958 and in 1962 a
military dictatorshop under General Ne Win was established.
In 1974 a new constitution created centrally-controlled
administrative districts and formally dismantled the
minority states. The Karen people, despite being the
largest threatened ethnic group in Burma, were excluded from
the discussions that took place between the British
Government under Clement Attlee and the Burmese Nationalists
at the time of independence in 1948.
The socialist government of Burma has congronted the Karen
independence movement since 1948, and in the 1960s it faced
armed resistance from the Shan, Kachin and Chin. Since 1976
the military and political organizations of the nine main
ethnic groups have formed the National Democratic Front
whose objective is the establishement of a federal union of
Burma providing full political, social and economic rights
to all the indigenous minorities. The present Karen state
(Kowthoolei) has a well organized military and political
structure, and although not recognised by the Burmese
government, has its own annual budget, taxation system,
elected civilian government, armed forces and education and
health services.
However, the costs of the war which has now endured 36 years
is high on the civilian population. Burmese offensives into
the hills of the Dawna Range, occupied by the Karen and
other hill people, have brought countless deaths -- possibly
as many as 300,000 since 1948 -- and acts of brutality.
Since early 1984 the Burmese government has escalated its
military activities and increased its attacks on civilian
villages, accusing villagers of supporting the Karen
National Liberation Army. The violence against the civilian
population seems to have been undertaken to sow terror,
empty the villages and, thereby, reduce support for the
Karen army. It has resulted in massive flights of Karen and
other minorities into Thailand where they have settled in
refugee camps. Today some 15,000 refugees are living in
seven main camps on the Thai side of the border.
The experience of the fefugees are a testimony of the horros
which they have faced. Men, women and children have been
indiscriminately shot and killed, villages havebeen shelled
without warning, and villagers havebeen rounded up and
placed in concentration camps. Men and women have been used
forcibly as porters for the Burmese army and many have been
employeed to precede Burmese patrols as living mine
sweepers. One woman described to a representative of the
Anti-Slavery society how the Burmese troops attacked her
village near Mae La Tha without warning in May 1985, killed
her pregnant daughter and shot and wounded her grandson in
the eye. The woman had carried the grandson for four days
until she reached the refugee camp and got treatment. In
another case, one woman refugee explained how a 75mm shell
had been fired into the middle of her village, Yo Poo Tha,
and killed 5 people outright. All the villagers had fled to
the forests. Another refugee described how the Burmese
troops visited her village of Kyaw Te Ley Ko in June 1985
and accused two old women of being the mothers of Karen
soldiers. Although the women denied this, the soldiers tied
them up with ropes and dragged them around the village by
their necks. Finally they beat them to death in front of
the other villagers. Such stories are common fare in the
refugee camps.
Many villages now lie abandoned, thousands have succeeded in
escaping into Thailand but 100,000 or more Karen are
believed to be eking out an existence in the mountain
jungles hiding from the Burmese armed forces. As the rainy
season gets under, many of these people will be forced
through starvation to abandon their hideouts and run the
gauntlet to the safety of Thailand.
In the view of the Anti-Slavery Society the situation of the
Karen and other minority peoples in Burma has gone unnoticed
too long by the international community and it has cost too
many lives. The recent escalation of human rights
violations, especially against civilians, the influx of
refugees into Thailand and the likelihood that many more
victims of Burmese military attacks will swell those camps
still further, leads the Anti-Alavery Society to recommend
to the Working Group tha tit urge the Commission on Human
Rights to use its influence to find a rapid and peaceful
political solution to the conflict.
We further urge the Workgin Group to recommend to the
Commission of Human Rights that it facilitate international
travel documents for representaives of the Karen people so
that they can attend and inform these meetings. At the
present time, they have no rights to a Burmese passport nor
would they be permitted by the incumbent government to
travel.
We also call upon the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees to visit the refugee camps at Malo Muta, Sho Klo,
Mae Tha Wa, Wang Kha, Old Maela, Kamo Layko and Naw Pah Doh
and inform himself of the situation and provide whatever
assistance he deems necessary.
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