Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups

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Title: Myanmar: Ethnic Minorities: Targets of Repression
Description: Myanmar?s ethnic minorities, comprising one third of the population, continue to suffer disproportionately from a wide variety of human rights violations compared to the majority Burman people. This is particularly true of minorities living in areas where ethnically-based armed opposition groups are fighting against the tatmadaw, or Myanmar army. These groups live primarily in the Tanintharyi Division and in the Shan, Mon, Kayah and Kayin States in the east of the country. The army maintains an increasingly large presence in these areas, particularly in the so-called "black" or "grey" zones where armed opposition groups are active. As troops move through the countryside they pass through farming villages searching for insurgents and seeking intelligence about their movements from the farmers. While on patrol troops steal villagers? livestock, rice, money, and personal possessions, seize them for forced labour duty, and sometimes torture or even kill them for imputed links with the armed opposition.These human rights violations have been occurring for decades, and in spite of some recent positive developments in Myanmar, continue to be perpetrated by the tatmadaw." KEYWORDS: ETHNIC GROUPS / DISPLACED PEOPLE / ARMED CONFLICT / EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION / FORCED LABOUR / TORTURE/ILL-TREATMENT / HARASSMENT / FARMERS / RACIAL DISCRIMINATION / REFUGEES / NON-GOVERNMENTAL ENTITIES / MILITARY
Source/publisher: Amnesty International
Date of publication: 2001-06-13
Date of entry/update: 2010-07-26
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Ethnische Minderheiten im W?rgegriff
Description: Die ethnischen Minderheiten stellen rund 30 Prozent der 50 Millionen Bewohner Burmas. Sie leben ?berwiegend in den Bergregionen an den Grenzen zu den Nachbarl?ndern. Seit 1948 ringen sie um mehr Selbstverwaltung und Menschenrechte. W?hrend sich die internationale Gemeinschaft nun f?r die Freilassung der bei der Niederschlagung der Proteste in Rangun Festgenommenen einsetzt, nimmt kaum jemand wahr, dass in den Minderheitengebieten seit Jahren schwerste Menschenrechtsverletzungen andauern; Menschenrechtsverletzungen vor und nach 2007; Chin; Karen; Biosprit; Human rights violations before and after 2007; natural ressources, bio-fuels
Ulrich Delius
Source/publisher: Gesellschaft f?r bedrohte V?lker
Date of publication: 2008-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2008-05-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: German, Deutsch
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Title: Unterdr?ckung durch die Milit?rjunta
Description: Mindestens 82 000 Angeh?rige von Minderheiten flohen in 2005 vor den schrecklichen Menschen-rechtsverletzungen in Burma. In Thailand sind mehr als 150 000 burmesische Fl?chtlinge registriert, wobei sich dort Sch?tzungen zufolge mindestens 1,5 Millionen illegal aufhalten. Allein die Zahl Hilfe suchender Karen-Fl?chtlinge ist um fast 60 Prozent auf 900 Neuank?mmlinge pro Monat gestiegen. Zwei Drittel dieser Fl?chtlinge sind Kinder. In Burma selbst leben nach offiziellen Angaben 500 000 Binnenfl?chtlinge; die tats?chliche Zahl d?rfte in Millionenh?he liegen. Salween; Staud?mme; Salween-River; dams
Anna Bucur
Date of publication: 2006-12-31
Date of entry/update: 2008-05-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: German, Deutsch
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Title: BURMA: EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION, TORTURE AND POLITICAL IMPRISONMENT OF MEMBERS OF THE SHAN AND OTHER ETHNIC MINORITIES
Description: "This document presents new evidence of a consistent pattern of unlawful killing and ill-treatment of members of Burma's ethnic minorities by security forces, including the army and police. It is a follow-up to a document published in May 1988, Burma: Extrajudicial Execution and Torture of Members of Ethnic Minorities. That document presented evidence of unlawful killings and torture of members of the Karen, Kachin and Mon ethnic minorities. This document provides information about allegations of similarly severe violations of the human rights of members of the Shan ethnic minority. It also describes the cases of two or three Shan who may be prisoners of conscience. There is information suggesting they may be imprisoned because of their ethnic background and their non-violent political opinions or peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (ASA 16/10/88)
Date of publication: 1988-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2006-04-30
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 1999-2000: 08 - Extrajudicial Killing, Summary or Arbitrary Execution - table
Description: Table of people killed in Nyaunglebin District, Karen State (Pegu Division) by the Sathonlone (SSS) troops in 1999.
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit of the NCGUB
Date of publication: 2000-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-11-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : PDF
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 1999-2000: 14 - Rights of Minorities
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit of the NCGUB
Date of publication: 2000-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-11-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : PDF
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 1999-2000: 15 - Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading, Treatment or Punishment
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit of the NCGUB
Date of publication: 2000-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-11-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : PDF
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 2002-03: Rights of Ethnic Minorities
Description: "Throughout its entire existence as an independent state Burma has experienced a complex set of conflicts between the central government and ethnic minority groups. More than half a century of civil war has caused immense suffering and devastation for Burma and its people. A series of ceasefires between the SPDC and armed ethnic opposition groups since the late 1980s have brought relief in some areas but no real solutions and fighting continues. The government?s determination to preserve a unified state remains the main justification for military rule, and armed conflict is a root cause of ongoing human rights abuses and a deepening humanitarian crisis in ethnic minority areas..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit of the NCGUB
Date of publication: 2003-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2003-11-10
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 1994: 13 - Protection of Minorities
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit of the NCGUB
Date of publication: 1995-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 2000: Rights of Ethnic Minorities
Description: "...Burma is a country rich in ethnic diversity. Yet although the SPDC attempts to promote this diversity, and the existence of its 135 "national races" (SPDC term for the country?s ethnic minority groups), the rights of ethnic minority people remain in violation...n areas where cease-fire agreements have been reached, human rights abuses continue to take place. In fact, in these "national reconciliation" areas human rights abuses have increased rather than abated. There has been no move on the part of the SPDC to engage in political discussions with opposition groups to reinforce the military cease-fire agreements. Under the terms of the cease-fire, some ethnic groups have been allowed to keep their arms and soldiers, however, SPDC had vastly increased the number of its soldiers in those areas... The continuing armed conflicts in the Karen, Karenni, Shan and Chin States have been accompanied by massive human rights violations..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit, NCGUB
Date of publication: 2001-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Burma Human Rights Yearbook 2001-2002: Rights of Ethnic Minorities
Description: "...Ethnic minorities, which make up more than one-third of the population of Burma, have long struggled for political rights and greater independence from the Rangoon government as a reaction to political isolation and oppression. As a result, the military junta has implemented a ?divide and rule policy? in which divisions between and within ethnic groups are developed and encouraged and majority Burman troops in ethnic minority areas oppress the general population. Throughout the year, Burmese soldiers were responsible for a large number of documented abuses against minority peoples including killings, beatings, and rapes..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit, NCGUB
Date of publication: 2002-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Burma: One of the World?s Landmine "Black Spots"
Description: Stephen Goose, co-founder of Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, is one of the world?s foremost authorities on the use of anti-personnel landmines. In this exclusive interview with The Irrawaddy, he describes the situation inside Burma, where, he says, there are an estimated 1,500 landmine casualties each year.
Stephen Goose
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy", Vol. 8. No. 10
Date of publication: 2000-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Forced Labour in Myanmar (Burma)
Description: "Report of the Commission of Inquiry appointed under article 26 of the Constitution of the International Labour Organization to examine the observance by Myanmar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)"...Full Text (about 400 pages) The central ILO report on forced labour in Burma. Appendix III contains 246 interviews, largely with people from non-Burman ethnic groups - Chin, Rohingya, Arakanese, Karen, Karenni, Shan, Pa-O, Mon. The interviews cover forced labour, but also many other violations of human rights such as killings (executions), rape, torture, looting, forced relocation (forced displacement) violence against women, violence against children, looting. ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move, displaced
Source/publisher: International Labour Office
Date of publication: 1998-07-02
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Size: 1.78 MB 2.15 MB
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Title: Incoming Field Reports
Description: "The following reports have recently been sent in by human rights monitors operating independently inside Karen areas. A few of the incidents were reported in radio messages from Karen frontline military units, and these are noted as such. Note that these field reports are not even close to a complete summary of all the killings and looting being done by SLORC troops -for every field report which is sent in, there are a hundred similar incidents which are not being reported..." Area: Mone Township, Nyaunglebin District, Thaton District, Toungoo District, Kya In Seik Gyi Township, Dooplaya District, Lu Thaw Township, Papun (Mudraw) District, Kyauk Kyi Township, Nyaunglebin District, Kyauk Kyi Township, Nyaunglebin District, Nyaunglebin District, Kyaikto Township, Mon State.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of publication: 1994-08-10
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Title: Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts: Internally displaced villagers cornered by 40 SPDC Battalions; Food shortages, disease, killings and life on the run.
Description: Food shortages, disease, killings and life on the run.Based on new interviews and reports from KHRG field researchers, this update summarises the increasingly desperate situation for villagers in these two districts. In the hills, the people of several hundred villages are still in hiding, their villages destroyed by SPDC troops. Their survival situation is now desperate as 40 SPDC Battalions continue to systematically destroy their rice supplies and crops and landmine their fields, and shoot them on sight. In the villages under SPDC control, people suffer under an impossible burden of many kinds of forced labour and extortion.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG (Information Update #2001-U3)
Date of publication: 2001-04-09
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Title: A strategy of subjugation: The Situation in Ler Mu Lah Township, Tenasserim Division
Description: "This report aims to provide an update on the situation in Tenasserim Division, Burma?s southernmost region. It is based primarily on interviews from Ler Mu Lah township in central Tenasserim Division, but also gives an overview of some background and developments in other parts of the Division. At the end of the report two maps are included: Map 1 showing the entire Division, and Map 2 showing the northern part of Tenasserim Division and the southern part of Karen State?s Dooplaya District. Many of the villages mentioned in the report and the interviews can be found on Map 1, while Map 2 includes some of the sites mentioned in relation to flows of refugees and their forced repatriation..." An update on the situation in central Tenasserim Division since the Burmese junta?s mass offensive to capture the area in 1997. Unable to gain complete control of the region because of the rugged jungle, harassment by resistance forces and the staunch non-cooperation of the villagers, the SPDC regime has gradually flooded the area with 36 Battalions which have forced many villages into relocation sites where the villagers are used as forced labour to push more military roads into remote areas. Thousands continue to hide in the forests despite being hunted and having their food supplies destroyed by SPDC patrols. They have little choice, though, because if they flee to the Thai border they encounter the Thai Army 9th Division, which continues to force refugees back into Burma at gunpoint." Additional keywords: Tanintharyi, Burman, Mon, Karen, Tayoyan, road building, free-fire zones, destruction of villages, resistance groups, extortions, internal displacement, refoulement, forced repatriation, killing, torture, shooting, restrictions on movement, beating to death, shortage of food, 9th Division (Thai Army). ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Regional & Thematic Reports (KHRG #2001-04)
Date of publication: 2001-12-21
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Title: Thai-Burmese Border: Shan, Karen, Karenni (KHRG Commentary)
Description: "The State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC) junta ruling Burma is now using mass forced relocations of entire geographic regions as a major element of military strategy. While this is not new to SLORC tactics, they have seldom or never done it to such an extent or so systematically before. The large-scale relocations began in Papun District of Karen State in December 1995 and January 1996, when up to 100 Karen villages were ordered to move within a week or be shot [see "Forced Relocation in Papun District", KHRG #96-11, 4/3/96]. These were all the villages in the region between Papun and the Salween River, an area about 50-60 km. north-south and 30 km. east-west. Most of them were ordered to move to sites beside military camps at Papun, Kaw Boke, Par Haik and Pa Hee Kyo, where SLORC was gathering people to do forced labour on the Papun-Bilin and Papun-Kyauk Nyat roads. However, the main reasons for the forced relocation were to cut off all possible support for Karen guerrilla columns in the area, most of which has only been SLORC-controlled since mid-1995, and to create a free-fire zone which would also block the flow of refugees from inside Karen State to the Thai border. Recently, though, SLORC troops in the area have limited their movements rather than combing the area, allowing some villagers to trickle back to their villages. This may be partly because of rainy season or because of the current SLORC-Karen National Union ceasefire talks, but it is probably largely because SLORC realised it could not control the result - people were fleeing into hiding in the jungle, some were fleeing to Thailand, but none were heading for the relocation camps..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of publication: 1996-07-18
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Language: English
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Title: A Village on Fire: the Destruction of Rural Life in Southeastern Burma
Description: "...Under military control, rural Burma?s subsistence farming village is losing its viability as the basic unit of society. Internally displaced people are usually thought to have fled military battles in and around their villages, but this paradigm doesn?t apply to Burma. In the thousands of interviews conducted by the Karen Human Rights Group with villagers who have fled their homes, approximately 95 percent say they have not fled military battles, but rather the systematic destruction of their ability to survive, caused by demands and retaliations inflicted on them by the SPDC military. Where there is fighting, it is fluid and sporadic, and most villagers can avoid it by hiding for short periods in the forest. Once the SPDC occupies the area around their village, however, the suffering is inescapable. Villages, rooted to the land, are defenseless and vulnerable, and villages can be burned -- destroying rural life in southeastern Burma. "
Kevin Heppner
Source/publisher: "Cultural Survival Quarterly" Issue 24.3
Date of publication: 2000-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Title: Voice of the Hungry Nation
Description: This document presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma. The Tribunal?s work will appeal to all readers interested in human rights and social justice, as well as anyone with a particular interest in Burma. The Asian Human Rights Commission presents this report in order to stimulate discourse on human rights and democratization in Burma and around the world.
Source/publisher: People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma
Date of publication: 1999-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Title: Voice of the Hungry Nation
Description: an edited version of a report by the People?s Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma, which was published by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in October 1999.
People
Source/publisher: "Burma Debate", Vol. VI, No. 3
Date of publication: 1999-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Language: English
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Title: Voice of the Hungry Nation
Description: Burmese version
Source/publisher: People?s Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma
Date of publication: 1998-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese
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