DEVASTATION AND MISERY IN BURMA

By Son Chhay and - - Reprint | | Print |

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PHONM PENH, Apr 1 2006 (IPS) - A recent visit by ASEAN parliamentarians to a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border provided a searing glimpse of a country devastated by violence and repression, writes Son Chhay, a member of the Parliament of Cambodia and an active member of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus and other pro-democracy networks in Asia. In this article, Chhay writes that military offensives, forced labour, forced relocation, extra-judicial killing, and torture by Burma\’s military government have driven many hundreds of thousands of Burmese into neighbouring countries as well as into the myriad refugee camps that line the country\’s borders. Forced labour and forced relocation have been perpetrated to allow military control over economic activity. Systematic sexual violence by military personnel targeting ethnic nationality women is rife and has been widely documented. Moreover, children as young as eleven are often forcibly taken from their homes for military duty in the Tatmadaw, the Burmese army.

A recent visit by ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) parliamentarians to a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border provided a searing glimpse of a country devastated by violence and repression.

Military offensives, forced labour, forced relocation, extra-judicial killing, and torture by Burma’s military government have driven many hundreds of thousands of Burmese into neighbouring countries as well as into the myriad refugee camps that line the country’s borders. As many as 700,000 Burmese may have escaped to and now be living in Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and India. Burma is also known as Myanmar.

Forced labour and forced relocation have been perpetrated to allow military control over economic activity. Land has been cleared of civilians for commercial plantations and natural resource extraction such as logging and gas pipelines, for which the displaced people are then used as forced labour.

Systematic sexual violence by military personnel targeting ethnic nationality women is rife and has been widely documented by the UN Commission on Human Rights as well as by women’s groups.

The ASEAN parliamentarians who visited the refugee camp were, like myself, deeply concerned about the situation in Burma. The current level of violence followed the rise of the hardliners after the purge of former PM general Khin Nyunt in late 2004. Since then the regime has been threatening to crush, once and for all, all opposition groups, implying that even groups that have declared ceasefires are not safe and should surrender or else. This threat appears to have intensified after the regime abruptly moved the capital to the jungle fortress of Pyinmana in November 2005.

Like many camps along the border, this one, which I will not name for obvious security and political reasons, houses over 20,000 refugees, including children, women, and men. War and military oppression have a devastating effect on people’s lives, leaving victims anxious, depressed, and desolate. They develop a feeling of hopelessness about their inability to change their situation and redirect their future. This is particularly true when refugees have lived in camps their whole lives.

Aware that there were MPs from the ASEAN region visiting their temporary homes, the refugees, who were from various ethnic communities, used this opportunity to remind me and my fellow politicians why our mission was so urgent and necessary.

They said that needed our voice to speak on their behalf because their own voices had been violently silenced and oppressed living in a camp. They wanted us to tell the world that they want their freedom and justice. They demanded more than rhetoric; the world must through its actions and by genuinely committing itself to do all in its power to ensure democratic reforms are brought to Burma.

Coming from Cambodia, which is still recovering from the human devastation caused by the genocide during the Pol Pot regime, I was deeply saddened to learn from the refugees that among the many tragic similarities between our nations is the use of children as soldiers.

In Burma, children as young as eleven are often forcibly taken from their homes for military duty in the Tatmadaw, the Burmese army. According to a recent United Nations report commissioned by former Czech president Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, Burma currently has the largest number of child soldiers in the world, an estimated 70,000.

These children do not have access to even the most basic of needs: proper schooling, and a safe family environment.

Even those children that escape the military are frequently subjected to forced labour. As a consequence, the Burmese youth are often left with no choice but to flee into the jungles with their families to avoid the impending ”duties” which frequently lead to torture and death. For some it is too late. Many of the refugees we met personally recounted to us how they had witnessed the deaths of their loved ones from military violence, landmines, or simply from the unbearably harsh conditions of jungle life.

Cambodia has been trying to recover from this dire legacy and move on for over fifteen years now. Burma, however, has not changed in far longer than that. The world can no longer afford to stand idly by while these innocent and unique lives are destroyed.

The unacceptable use of child soldiers and forced labour in Burma must be addressed immediately and with great urgency. We cannot afford to allow young children to regard war and atrocity as an everyday part of life. We cannot afford to lose generations of people to fear, anger, and despair. We must not allow the flicker of hope in their eyes to be dimmed. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)