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BBC-Amnesty slams Burma repression



Wednesday, June 30, 1999 Published at 05:02 GMT 06:02 UK
World: Asia-Pacific

Amnesty slams Burma repression


The human rights organisation, Amnesty International, has accused the
Burmese military government of systematic repression of some of the
country's ethnic minorities.
An Amnesty report accuses Burmese soldiers of killing dozens of unarmed
civilians from the Karen, Karenni and Shan ethnic groups, which are fighting
for greater autonomy.

It says the authorities have forced hundreds to work as unpaid labourers and
that the situation has deteriorated since Burma's admission to the Asean
regional grouping in 1997.

Amnesty's research is based on interviews conducted in Thailand earlier in
1999 with refugees who said they had personally witnessed Burmese solders
kill dozens of people, mainly unarmed farmers.

Civilian suffering

According to Amnesty, most interviewees said they had been used as unpaid
labour by the military, and had been forced to relocate from their
traditional lands.

Most of the human rights abuses reported by Amnesty result from Burmese army
operations, but Amnesty says civilians, and not insurgents, have suffered
most.

The group calls on the Burmese Government to investigate reports of torture,
forced labour and extrajudicial killings and bring those responsible to
justice.

Hopes that the admission of Burma to Asean would encourage the government to
improve its human rights record have proved false, and Amnesty called on
Asean to come up with a new strategy to deal with the Burmese authorities.

Amnesty also reports evidence of the torture and extrajudicial killing of
unarmed civilians by ethnic insurgents on Burmese and Thai territory.
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