"Over the past two and half years, Amnesty International has been increasingly concerned about the growing number of reports it has received of serious human rights violations in the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma. These violations have allegedly been committed by Burmese government armed forces and security agencies against mostly non-combattant civilians of ethnic minority origin living in regions where armed insurgent groups are active, notably in Burma?s eastern Karen and Kayah States. Similar information has, however, come out of the Shan State in the east, the Rakhine (Arakan) State in the west, the Mon State in the south and, more recently, the Kachin State in the north (see Amnesty International?s Reports 1985, 1986 and 1987). The alleged violations include the frequent practice of arbitrary arrest and short-term detention without charge or trial of suspected political offenders and the torture and ill-treatment of political detainees, particularly of civilian villagers taken into military custody during military operations. They also include persistent allegations that civilian villagers suspected of supporting or sympathizing with ethnic rebels, porters and traders travelling through restricted areas as well as prisoners of war captured in combat have been extrajudicially executed for political, ethnic or other reasons...".....APPENDIX: SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL?S CONCERNS IN EASTERN BURMA (1985-EARLY 1987): ALLEGATIONS OF EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS, TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CIVILIAN VILLAGERS IN THE KAREN STATE