Soldiers Commit Gang rape in Karen State: Villagers

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

A gang rape against an ethnic Karen woman committed by Burmese soldiers has been reported in Karen State in eastern Burma

Villagers in Kawkareik Township claimed that a 30-year-old Karen woman was taken from her farm hut to the jungle and raped by soldiers of Infantry Battalion 283 led by Capt Htay Win on May 25'09, according to the Karen Information Center, a Karen news organization.

On May 27, the UN human rights special rapporteur Sergio Pinheiro urged the UN Security Council to undertake an investigation into crimes against humanity in Burma committed by the Burmese military regime.

Pinheiro said that for the past two decades, ethnic minorities in Burma—more than one-third of the population—have not received enough of the world’s attention, adding that, “For Burma's process of national reconciliation to be successful, the
plight of the minorities must also be addressed.”

In 2007, the Karen Women’s Organization (KWO) released a report titled: “State of Terror,” highlighting the campaign of abuse against women in Karen State, including rape, torture and forced labor.

The KWO said it documented more than 4,000 cases of abuse, including rape, murder, torture and forced labor over the past few years in more than 190 villages by troops from more than 40 Burmese Army battalions. Many of the human rights violations were from late 2005 through 2006.

Many of the abuses took place during ongoing military offensives in eastern Burma since early 2006, which have displaced more than 25,000 civilians and have forced thousands of refugees to seek safety along the Thai-Burmese border, he report said.

The UN human rights envoy also advocated that the UN Security Council form a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity and impunity in Burma.

Meanwhile, Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the ethnic Karen National Union, said that it is time for the UN Security Council to take action against the Burmese regime’s use of systematic rape in ethnic minority areas.

In a statement, Pinheiro said that he received a report in 2000 estimating 625 women were systematically raped in Burma's Shan State over a five-year period. However, there was not a single account of a successful prosecution, he said.

The UN special rapporteur said in December 2008 a Burmese soldier went into an ethnic Karen village in eastern Burma and abducted, raped and killed a 7-year-old girl. Authorities refused to arrest the soldier; instead, officers threatened the parents with punishment if they did not accept a cash bribe to keep quiet.

During the past 15 years, the Burmese Army has destroyed more than 3,300 villages in a systematic and widespread campaign to subjugate ethnic groups, Pinheiro said. UN reports indicate that Burmese soldiers have recruited child soldiers, used civilians as minesweepers and forced thousands of villagers into slave labor, he said.

READ MORE---> Soldiers Commit Gang rape in Karen State: Villagers...

Karen Refugee Testifies to Junta Crimes

Karen IDPs flee a Burmese army attack (Photo)

By LALIT K JHA
The Irrawaddy News

WASHINGTON—A Karen woman based in the United States on Thursday called on the US Congress and the Obama administration to push the UN Security Council to establish an international inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by Burma’s military junta against its own people.

Giving graphic details of the some of the human rights violations the junta has perpetrated, particularly against ethnic communities and in this case against her and her family, Karen refugee Myra Dahgaypaw told a Congressional committee that the Burmese regime must be held accountable for all the crimes it has committed.

A member of the Karen Women’s Organization and a board member of the Karen American Communities Foundation, Dahgaypaw testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which had convened a Congressional hearing on human rights abuses in Burma.

“I urge members of Congress and the new US administration to support and push for a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry into the regime’s crimes against humanity and system of impunity,” she said.

Demanding that the military regime be held accountable for the crimes it commits against the people of Burma, Dahgaypaw urged the international community to continue to pressure the junta into ceasing all human rights abuses and violence against civilians.

She said the Burmese army often uproots an entire village in just a few minutes, and sends the villagers running with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Myra Dahgaypaw, a member of the Karen Women’s Organization and a board member of the Karen American Communities Foundation, testifying before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at a Washington congressional hearing on human rights abuses in Burma.

Then the Burmese troops place landmines around the area to ensure villagers remain on the run and do not return to their homes, she said. Today, Eastern Burma is one of the world’s most heavily mined areas.

“After villagers are forced from their villages, they live minute by minute, like nomads. They eat what they find in the jungle, and often go to bed hungry. They are always on the move, children in tow. They live in constant fear of the military,” she said.

“According to my personal experience, my family and I had nothing. We didn’t have food to eat, places to sleep or enough clothes [to wear], a situation made more difficult when it was cold or raining. We were constantly running from regime troops and we hid in the caves, bushes and jungle. The places we called ‘homes’ were burnt down many times a year. I will never forget sleeping with half of my body in the rain and the other half under a plastic tarp,” an emotionally choked Dahgaypaw said.

As humanitarian organizations could not get past the military regime to reach such people, Dahgaypaw said there was not enough food or medicine.

“I suffered from malaria, flu and other diseases many times a year. Many of my cousins died from malaria and other diseases,” she said.

“There were many times we had no food to eat. Sometimes, we had only one can of rice to feed seven family members. The older people didn’t eat. Instead they gave the rice to my sister and I because we were the youngest. We survived by eating bamboo shoots from the jungle. Sometimes we had to go to bed without any food in our stomachs,” Dahgaypaw said.

She emphasized to the committee that her story was neither unique nor exclusive to her ethnic community alone.

“There are several other ethnic groups besides the Karen. Each one of them also faces oppression and displacement at the hands of the Burmese military regime that will force them to live as IDPs [internally displaced persons] or to flee to the borders and other countries,” she said.

READ MORE---> Karen Refugee Testifies to Junta Crimes...