Monthly Archives: January 2012

Our friends in Myanmar keep us up to date on what is going on in the country.

Here is the latest:

Persecution in Chin State Myanmar

Burmese soldiers are systematically using forced labor, torture and
rape to persecute majority-Christian residents of Chin state in
western Burma, according to a report released today.

Entitled, “Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity
in Burma’s Chin State,” the report by Physicians for Human Rights
(PHR) documented “extraordinary levels of state violence” against the
Chin ethnic population in Burma, also called Myanmar.

Due to the influence of U.S. missionaries last century, the Chin are
estimated to be 90 percent Christian, and the study indicates that it
is therefore difficult to separate religious attacks from ethnic and
other human rights abuses. Persecution of Christians is reportedly
part of a wider campaign by the Burmese junta to create a uniform
society in which the only accepted religion is Buddhism, according a
2007 government memo circulated in Karen state giving instructions on
how to drive Christians out of the state.

Respondents who were specifically targeted for their Christian faith
and ethnicity said soldiers had threatened them with the destruction
of their homes or villages and threatened to harm or kill family
members. A total of 71 households from 13 of 90 villages and towns
surveyed also said government authorities had destroyed their local
church buildings.

The most brutal attacks included the forced conscription, abduction or
murder of children under the age of 15, and the rape of men, women and
children. Burmese soldiers, locally known as the Tatmadaw, also
confiscated food, livestock and other property and forced families to
grow the cash crop jatropha, used to produce biofuel, instead of food
crops required for basic survival. The study states that this caused
many Chin to flee across land borders to India or Bangladesh.

Burmese soldiers were responsible for 94.2 percent of all specifically
ethnic and religious incidents in the survey, supporting claims by
advocacy organizations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide that the
military government is systematically working to “cleanse” Burma of
ethnic and religious minorities.

Government agents also placed votes for Chin residents during national
elections last November, warning them that soldiers in a nearby camp
were ready to arrest them if they complained, and ordered a church to
close after the pastor refused to wear a campaign T-shirt. (See
“Burmese Officials Order Closure of Chin Church,” Nov. 18, 2010.)

When asked why the Burmese army acted as it did, 15 percent of
respondents answered, “Because we are Christians.” Another 23 percent
replied, “To persecute us,” and a further 23 percent said, “Because we
are Chin.”

The report confirms evidence submitted to the United Nations for
Burma’s Universal Periodic Review, to take place in Geneva from Jan.
24 through Feb. 4, that holds the ruling military junta responsible
for widespread abuse of its citizens.

‘Crimes Against Humanity’
PHR and five partner organizations, including the Chin Human Rights
Organization (CHRO), used scientific methods to carry out the survey
in the early months of 2010, training 23 local surveyors to question a
random sample of 621 households across all nine townships in Chin
state. PHR identified the households only by survey number to protect
their identity.

Those interviewed reported a total of 2,951 incidents in the previous
12 months, of which 95 percent were carried out by the Tatmadaw, local
government officials, Burmese police or border security forces.

The report made a clear distinction between internationally recognized
“crimes against humanity” and general human rights violations. Of the
crimes against humanity, the most prevalent was forced labor for 91.9
percent of those surveyed, followed by ethnic-religious persecution at
14 percent. After these crimes came arbitrary arrest, detention or
imprisonment at 5.9 percent, abduction at 4.8 percent, torture at 3.8
percent, rape or other sexual violations at 2.8 percent, murder at 1
percent and miscellaneous abuses at 0.2 percent.

As for lesser human rights violations, 52.5 percent of households
surveyed reported livestock killed, 50.6 percent were forced to give
food, 42.8 percent forced to give money, 12.8 percent had property
attacked or destroyed, 11.2 percent had family members beaten and 9.1
percent had family members wounded from gunshots, explosions or deadly
weapons.

In many cases, people suffered from the full range of human rights violations.

Six households, or 1 percent of those surveyed, reported family
members killed by the Tatmadaw in 2009, with two households reporting
multiple family members killed, and two of the victims being under the
age of 15. Three of the six households believed they were specifically
targeted because of their ethnicity and Christian faith.

An elderly grandfather who spoke to PHR in March 2010 said he felt
depressed and helpless after a year when the Tatmadaw killed an
18-year-old family member and forced others in the family to build
roads, porter supplies and carry weapons, threatening to kill them if
they refused. The military also stole livestock, demanded food
supplies, and forced the family to grow a single crop rather than food
crops needed for basic survival.

“We dare not refuse the Tatmadaw, as even mothers with little children
are beaten,” one respondent said.

Burmese soldiers tortured more than one person in the family of a
46-year-old man, while local government authorities forced them to
relinquish livestock, food and money. Seventeen percent of torture
victims and 29 percent of rape victims were under the age of 15.

A 36-year-old father of five in Paletwa township said Burmese soldiers
had raped more than one member of his family at knifepoint within the
past year, arbitrarily detained another member of the household at
gunpoint, conscripted a family member into the army and burned down
the church that once stood in his village.

In a foreward to PHR’s report, Richard Goldstone, a PHR board member
and former U.N. chief prosecutor, and the Rev. Desmond Tutu of
Chairman of The Elders, an independent group of prominent global
leaders, urged that a U.N. commission of inquiry be established to
investigate reports of human rights violations in Burma.

“It is unconscionable that suffering as dire as that of the Chin
people under Burma’s dictatorship should be allowed to persist in
silence,” they wrote.

They also urged Burma’s immediate neighbors and trade partners to use
the occasion of Burma’s Universal Periodic Review to discuss the
violations committed in Chin state and elsewhere in Burma, and work
towards an alternative ‘roadmap’ to democracy for the Burmese people.