AI report Shan State

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amnesty international


MYANMAR
UPDATE ON THE SHAN STATE

JUNE 1999	SUMMARY	AI INDEX: ASA 16/13/99 

DISTR: SC/CO

It has now been over three years since the tatmadaw, or Burmese army,
started a mass forcible relocation program of  hundreds of thousands of
Shan civilians.  In March 1996 the army began to relocate over 300,000
members of the Shan ethnic minority in central Shan State in an effort to
break up any links between civilians and members of the Shan State Army -
South (SSA), an ethnic minority armed opposition group.  After villagers
were relocated, they were forbidden from returning to their homes and farms
to work in their fields and collect belongings -- those who disobeyed were
frequently shot on sight by Burmese troops.  In addition relocated Shan
civilians were used as a pool of labourers to do work without pay and
against their will.  In April 1998 Amnesty International published a major
report on human rights violations in the context of these forcible
relocations, including documentation of the killings of 42 people during a
13 month period.1 

	In February 1999 Amnesty International interviewed recently-arrived Shan
refugees in Thailand in order to obtain an update on the human rights
situation in the central Shan State. The pattern of violations has
remained the same, including forced labour and portering, extrajudicial
killings, and ill-treatment of villagers. Troops also routinely stole
villagers' belongings, including rice, cattle, and gold, using them to sell
or to feed themselves.

	The tatmadaw began major counter-insurgency activities against the Shan
State Army - South (SSA) in early 1996 in the central Shan State. However
as is often the case in guerrilla warfare, most of their victims were Shan
civilians, not SSA fighters.  Forcible relocation was the main tactic which
the SPDC has employed in its counter-insurgency strategy against the SSA
-South.   As a result large areas of the Shan State have been cleared of
civilians whom the SPDC believes are supporting the SSA.  


	Over three quarters of refugees interviewed by Amnesty International had
been forcibly relocated from their home villages in Murngnai, Kunhing,
Laikha, Kaesee, and Murngton townships. Most of these people had initially
gone to designated relocation sites near towns or military bases, but had
eventually found it impossible to survive there. The vast majority of them
have been deprived of the right to earn a livelihood, after they were
pushed off land where they cultivated rice and raised livestock.

	The practice of forced labour goes hand in hand with the policy of
forcible relocations of ethnic minority civilians by the tatmadaw.  Once
the Shan were relocated from their villages into larger sites near towns or
army bases, they became sitting targets for forced labour duties by the
military, as they now lived under total military control. Three quarters of
the Shan refugees interviewed by Amnesty International were forced by the
Burmese military to act as porters for troops or work on roads and other
infrastructure projects.  Even children were forced to work on construction
sites -- one worker reported that 10% of the workforce on a pagoda in
Kunhing were children.   

	Shan refugees interviewed by Amnesty International in February 1999
reported 20 extrajudicial executions of  fellow villagers and relatives by
the tatmadaw.  Many villagers who went back to their fields and  former
homes for food and other belongings were shot on sight, even when they had
permission from the military to return. 

	Some of the Shan refugees who were interviewed said that they had
encountered troops from the SSA-South, but none had reported any
ill-treatment by them.  However Shan armed groups have targeted ethnic
Burman civilians for killing.  In June 1997 reliable reports indicated that
25 Burman civilians were taken off a bus and deliberately and arbitrarily
shot dead by a Shan armed opposition group.  More recently 10 ethnic Burman
civilians were reportedly killed in late October 1998 by an unknown Shan
armed group.  A veteran Shan  leader Sao Hso Hten said about the incident:
"We are at war and such things as these cannot be avoided."2   Amnesty
International condemns such killings and calls on all armed political
groups to respect minimum standards of international humanitarian law and
to put an end to abuses such as deliberate and arbitrary killings, torture
and hostage-taking.

KEYWORDS:
This report summarizes a 12 -page document (5098   words), : MYANMAR:
UPDATE ON THE SHAN STATE (AI Index: ASA 16/13/99) issued by Amnesty
International in JUNE 1999. Anyone wishing further details or to take
action on this issue should consult the full document.
Follow the link from http://www.angelfire.com/al/homepageas/index.html