July 7 2004

Fresh attacks have been launched against Karenni villagers even while Burma's military regime talks peace.

During the past fortnight, Burma Army Light Infantry Brigade (LIB) 135 has launched several attacks on villages in Karenni State, according to a relief team assisting those displaced by the offensives. In one incident, Burma Army troops decapitated Ler Moo, an elderly Karenni man. They also murdered a 27-year-old school teacher in Western Karen State, Burma. Some 500 people were displaced after these attacks and are terrified of returning to their land on the Karen/Karenni border.

Attacks on Karenni villages in the Buko area, near the Karen/Karenni border, are continuing. Burma Army LIB 428 has split into two columns and is searching for villagers in hiding. On June 30, soldiers approached Gay Lo village, causing over 100 villagers to flee. "In this area, 200 people are in hiding and over 800 more who were in the path of the operation are preparing to flee," according to CSW's source.

The attacks are the latest in a series of fresh offensives against the Karenni this year. In January, more than 5,000 Karen and Karenni people were displaced in this area and there are reported to be an estimated 50,000 internally displaced people in Karenni state and a total of at least one million in Burma. A further one to two million are refugees in neighbouring Thailand, India and Bangladesh.

The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is currently holding a National Convention to draft a new Constitution as well as holding peace talks with the Karen.

CSW's Advocacy Director, Tina Lambert, expressed growing concern about the developing situation in Karenni State: "The Karenni people have suffered so much for so many years and have been ignored by the rest of the world. Burma's brutal military regime is guilty of gross human rights violations, and is responsible for creating a humanitarian crisis in Karenni State. The international community should respond to this crisis with emergency assistance for the thousands of internally displaced people on the run for their lives."

CSW has photographs of the current situation in Karenni State, available upon request.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

On June 24, two Burma Army battalions began an operation designed to clear villages north-west and south-west of the Mawchi-Toungoo road. Burma Army LIB 428, accompanied by a group from the Karenni Solidarity Organisation (KNSO), a militia sponsored by the junta, launched an offensive around Buko Kwa village, north of the Mawchi-Toungoo road, on the Karenni side of the Karenni/Karen border.

On June 25, troops from Burma Army LIB 135 approached the village of Paho, and the 230 villagers fled and are now in hiding. Paho is located five miles north of the Karenni-Karen border. The Burma Army has placed landmines extensively in the area.

Three days later, the same brigade returned to the area, and captured one villager. A total of at least 500 villagers from these two attacks fled into the jungle, with nothing except the clothes on their backs. The Burma Army LIB 135 searched the area for seven days but did not locate the main hiding places, and has now returned to its base in Mawchi. According to our source, "it is not clear whether or not the Burma Army will launch another operation into this area and because of this the villagers are ready to flee at any time." Although food is being taken to those in hiding by relief teams, unless international humanitarian assistance is provided, these displaced people will run out of rice this month.

The SPDC initiated ceasefire talks with the Karen National Union (KNU) earlier this year, but these talks have so far failed to produce a permanent agreement. Although an informal ceasefire was agreed, the Burma Army continues its operations against the Karen. CSW is calling on the SPDC to initiate a nationwide ceasefire with all ethnic national groups, withdraw its troops from ethnic areas, and enter tripartite talks with the ethnic groups and the NLD.

Most ethnic national groups have also refused to participate in the National Convention, which is regarded by international human rights organisations as a sham. The SPDC failed to release democracy leaders Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin U from house arrest, or the estimated 1,400 political prisoners held behind bars, and so the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won the 1990 elections but has never been allowed to assume power, boycotted the event.

Burma's ruling junta stands accused of a catalogue of human rights violations in the ethnic areas, including ethnic cleansing, the widespread, systematic use of rape, forced labour, forced relocation, human minesweepers, child soldiers, religious persecution and destruction of villages and crops.

CSW has made many visits to the Karen and Karenni peoples of eastern Burma, and has documented evidence of gross human rights violations in these areas. Reports are available from the CSW website, www.csw.org.uk