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Evidence of Genocide in Burma

Ruslana................

The Sydney Morning Herald today, carries an article from the Telegraph London, about the regime's troops. An anonymous Thai intelligence officer "Thau", based this on intelligence intercepts. Tatmadaw troops are said to be high on methamphetamine when they go into action. This is claimed from observations of an Australian from the Australian National University, David Matheson. The Free Burma Rangers are said to have video footage of the brutality of the army when it attacked a village.

Khun Hom.................

I have been given the tasks of organizing the badly needed resources for the processing of raw data, compilation and producing presentable reports to ISG and eventually to ICJ. From expert advice given to us, we will follow the format of Guy Horton who has dedicated a similar work for six years on the same topics covering areas under the control of KNU and KNPP. The SPDC might or might not wittingly know the consequences of all devious military tactics used in punishing ordinary unarmed Shan people for alleged collusions with the SSA soldiers. As their methods become more efficient and sophisticated, the atrocities follow a certain organized pattern that was identical in all areas of ethnic armed resistance. We have double checked these patterns with our military alliance on this issue and there is no disagreement viewed from the perspectives of human rights violation. There are mass graves still to be uncovered under international security and expert forensic investigations. What we have so far uncovered are just a tip of the iceberg. The first mass grave uncovered recently reflected mass executions of 172 innocent Shan people similar to Khmer Rouge's style consisting of children women and elderly people.

Now the area concerned is much bigger and complex due to armed conflicts going back to 1959, but mainly after the surrender of MTA in 1996. Unlike the KNU regions, Central Shan State was inaccessible by foreign correspondents and hence remained to be uncovered by outside viewers, except of course reports filtering through second recounts via the SHRF.

We have detailed records of human rights abuses going back as far back as 1996 all written in Shan, including photos, stacked up in "TWO JUTE BAGS" waiting to be processed for ICJ and international media consumption.

In addition to these, secret (official) Burmese leaflets issued to all ranks and file of Tamadaw to burmanize Shan people by mix marriages had been sighted in all ethnic states of Karen, Karenni and Shan. There were also policy statements by SPDC issued at high level of military administration with ulterior motives to subjugate Shan State and carve up through "divide and rule" strategies.

Derek Tonkin................

I note that these "secret" official leaflets have only been "sighted" , although they have been issued to "all rank and file". You would have thought that, as there are some 400,000 troops in the Tatmadaw, one such leaflet would by now somehow have become available to international scrutiny.

But even then, I doubt that this would amount to "genocide" which is the allegation in the "Daily Telegraph" article and BBC "Today" programmes by Mike Thomson, and which I have challenged.

No one denies that the Tamadaw have committed serious atrocities and human rights abuses in areas inhabited by other ethnic nationalities, and that they are doing their best to subdue and pacify the Shan, Karen and Karenni. But this is not genocide.

As regards "mixed marriages", I am sure that it happens all the time, and I would not be at all surprised if the Junta quietly encourages it. But its level must be low, since Tatmadaw troops involved in operations in ethnic areas are not allowed for operational reasons to have their wives and families with them, so that the problem arises of what to do with a Shan, Karen or Karenni wife once they are officially married to a Burman soldier. Only in those areas where Burmese troops are settled more or less permanently would I suspect that formal marriages take place - and, if I may say, what is wrong with that? - provided the marriages are not forced, which is rape. As it is, I imagine that back in Central Burma, Burman women must be complaining like fury because their local men have either gone into the priesthood (400,000) or into the army (another 400,000), and their attitude to those Shan, Karen and Karenni women who are stealing their prospective husbands must be awesome to behold.

I could tell you a lot about mixed marriages over the years in the UK, between the original Celts, and subsequent invaders who included Romans, and Danes, and Vikings, and Jutes, and Angles, and Normans, and Goths, and Visigoths, and Friesians, and indeed almost every race under the sun. It is the way of the world, and there is nothing you or I can, or even should do about it. It certainly made the British the way we are! And just look at the ethnic cauldron in the United States!

Why does a person of impeccable integrity like Professor Pinheiro, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, who has done nothing but study serious human rights abuses in Burma for the past six years and has access to every available source of information, say he cannot characterize these undeniable human rights abuses, which he reports in great detail, as either "genocide" or even as "crimes against humanity" - and the 191 countries of the UN agree with him?

Eric Bruce Johnston................

The reason the people who could actually bring charges (i.e. governments) are doing nothing is that if the regime were to be convicted, the complainants would have to do something about it. They do not wish to be put in this position. They prefer to keep public opinion happy by paying lip-service to democracy and human rights in Burma.

One must hope that before too long the governments of the world, under pressure from their populations and because the Burmese problem will be increasingly seen as a world problem, will decide to act. But this is unlikely to happen without strong signs from within Burma that the regime is losing its grip.

Dr. David Law................

Just because the 191 countries don't say anything does not mean they agree with Pinheiro. Silence does not mean agreement.

191 countries of the world are too busy with their own affairs to bother about a 4th world nation that only has disaster after disaster. The problem we have been having in Burma is that it had been too isolated for over a quarter of a century by the socialist regime that Burma has been forgotten. Pinheiro had all the facilities available to him and yet he remained blind because he chose to remain blind. Like Eric pointed out -- many Western leaders choose not to raise issues of genocide, because once they do so, then, they are morally bound, obliged if you will, to take action.

Pinheiro probably realized all too acutely, that if he raised the alarm, then the UN would be in the awkward position of having to deal with it. The last time these things happened were in Bosnia and in Kosovo. ....and the UN was UNable, UNsuccessful to take action. The UN Dutch forces stationed in Bosnia were brazenly ignored by the Serbians as they carried on their business as usual (genocide business) I, with only a plane ticket to Bangkok and a bus ticket to the frontier region, was able to uncover evidence. Pinheiro, with his powers, could have unearthed much more than I could ever dream of.

Henry Soe Win.................

I think Eric is right; military regime committed the brutal killings even without the soldiers high on drugs. These evidence of the mass killings of unarmed peoples, students and monks were in 1962,1974 and 1988. Ethnic cleansing and the rape, torture of villagers by the soldiers were video recorded and with photos by the Free Burma Rangers. What more do you need as proof to the international community that SPDC did commit crimes against humanity.

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Comments

Nhoth Chouravong said _

I can provide interview with my personal friend and village mate, Mr. Kaw Liya, who was tortured and left permanently crippled by Burmese soldiers simply because his nephew went underground.

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