18.12.2005
"Silent Killing Fields"
[By Christ Sinclair]
The Shan people, Burma's largest minority, numbering nearly 6 million, reside at the heart of what human rights groups consider to be today's "silent killing fields". Their dreams of an independent Shan nation were shattered by a 1962 military coup that has resulted in the world's longest-standing ethnic insurgency. To cut off popular support for the Shan rebel groups, hundreds of thousands of Shan families are being driven at gunpoint from their ancestral lands in the Shan State, Burma's largest ethnic state. Seeking asylum in neighboring Thailand, they remain the only minority not granted legal status as refugees by Thai authorities. Scraping out their existence on construction sites, farms and orchards in the north, they have emerged exploited and marginalized, citizens of no land.
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A Shan with an amputated foot because of land mines
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A Shan blinded by shrapnel from landmines
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Shans fleeing from military conflicts
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A Shan refugee carrying his mother
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Shans in the refugee detention camp
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Shans calling for freedom and human-rights
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Shan
protestors
Photos © Chris Sinclair
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