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AP_9.8.96: RIGHTS GROUPS MOVE ON DI
Subject: AP_9.8.96: RIGHTS GROUPS MOVE ON DISPLACED BURMESE
ASIA: BURMA MILITARY DRIVES OUT 100,000 VILLAGERS: RIGHTS GROUP
BURMA VILLAGERS
GENEVA, Aug 9 AP - Burma's military government has driven more
than 100,000 villagers from their homes in the past five months, a
UN human rights panel was told today.
The Burmese government has forcibly relocated members of the
Karenni and Shan minorities in violation of their human rights,
activists told the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination
and Protection of Minorities.
"Forced relocation is but one of the methods by which the Burma
Army is destroying the social and economic structure of the Burmese
village," said War Resisters' International, a London-based group.
Some minorities have fled to Thailand while "others are living
in makeshift shelters on the Burma side of the border, swelling the
hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people internally
displaced in Burma," spokesman David Arnott said.
These relocations "demonstrate very clearly the lawless nature
of the military regime of Burma," he said.
Many members of Burma's ethnic minorities now live in remote,
squalid camps along the country's borders with Thailand and
Bangladesh. They include the Karenni, Shan, Mon, and Muslim
Rohingyas.
"Forced relocation, land confiscation, the economic impact of
forced labour, systematic extortion, arbitrary taxation by local
battalions, draconian rice procurement policies, and looting and
pillaging by groups of soldiers are causing the collapse of the
Burmese village, particularly in the ethnic minority areas," Arnott
said.
Also urging the UN panel to publicly criticise these acts was
Seng Suk, a Shan activist, who testified that half of Burma's 45
million population was composed of minorities.
Yet, he said, the army and government are almost entirely
composed of ethnic Burmese, education in non-Burmese languages is
rare and few hospitals serve ethnic areas.
Government policies discriminate against minorities when such
essential commodities such as rice and gasoline are distributed, he
said.
Burma's government did not immediately comment.
Previously, they have defended forced labour as part of a
strategy for creating employment or said people are working
voluntarily.
A US embassy report from Burma this week said forced labour
accounts for three per cent of Burma's total economic output.
The human rights subcommission meets yearly for four weeks in
August. Its members may adopt resolutions criticising practices
they find discriminate against minorities.
AP sl
AMNESTY SLAMS BURMESE TREATMENT OF MINORITIES
BURMA RIGHTS (BANGKOK)
Amnesty International has accused Burmese military authorities
of widespread human rights abuses in ethnic minority areas --
including rape, torture and summary executions.
A report by the London-based human rights group focuses on the
situation in eastern Burma's Shan and Mon states and the southern
TENASSERIM Division.
It says forced labour is common and tens of thousands of people
have been ordered from their homes in army counter-insurgency
operations.
Minority guerrillas have been fighting the government for
autonomy since Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948,
although ceasefires have now been reached with most of the main
rebel groups.
REUTER RTV sl/gr