A Kachin human rights group has accused Burmese government troops of multiple cases of rape during the recent armed conflict with the Kachin Independence Army in Kachin State, northern Burma.
In the statement released on Tuesday, Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) claims that at least 18 female Kachins—aged between 15 and 50 years old—were gang-raped by five different Burmese Army battalions in four different townships of Bhamo District from June 10-18.
 |
| From Jun 22, 2011 |
Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 437 and Infantry Battalions (IB) 237, 141, 142, 139 and 437 committed the rapes in Momauk, Monyin, Mansi and Bhamo townships, KWAT alleges.
The statement also highlights evidence that IB 437 soldiers detained three families in Dum Bung Village of Momauk Township, gang-raped six women and girls and killed seven small children. The group also accuses soldiers from IB 139 of murdering a seven-year-old girl in Je Sawn Village of Man Si Township before gang-raping and killing her grandmother.
“I received this evidence from residents, porters and members of our group who are helping refugees in the area. We heard nearly 25 women have been raped in the war zone but 18 of them have been confirmed,” said KWAT spokesperson Shirley Seng to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.
La Nan, joint-secretary of the Kachin Independence Organization, said that cases of rape in the area are difficult to investigate as it is currently under government control.
“The number of victims is likely to be higher than that mentioned by KWAT because there are villages that we cannot reach. We are trying to collect evidence regarding these matters,” explained La Nan.
While The Irrawaddy cannot independently verify any of these cases, the Burmese government has not yet responded to these allegations.
Roi Htoi, a young resident of Liaza, said that villagers far from the town are victims of gang rape. A local Kachin youth group, Education Economics Development for Youth, also distributed a statement on June 16 advising local residents, especially women, to move to safer places.
Another ethnic women’s group, the Shan Women’s Action Network, based in Thailand, released a report entitled License to Rape in 2002, which documented over 600 rapes and sexual assaults committed by Burmese government troops in Shan State.
In 2007, Thailand-based Karen Women’s Organization also released a report called State of Terror which documented more than 4,000 cases of abuse, rape, murder, torture and forced labor by the Burmese regime’s forces in recent years in around 200 Karen villages.
“Gang-rape has been one of the regular tactics of the military regime,” said Tin Tin Nyo, general secretary of Thailand-based NGO Women’s League of Burma (WLB), comprised of 12 Burmese women’s ethnic groups.
“Women don't create the war, but negative consequences of the conflict directly affect them with gang-rape taking place whenever there is a clash. That is why I was worried that the fighting is occurring again,” she said.
“They [military regime] say that a civilian government has now been sworn into power, but the rape cases that still take place demonstrate that nothing is different. Although the government has apparently changed, I'm sure that women are still victims of rape,” added Tin Tin Nyo.
Women's rights groups have long accused Burmese government soldiers of using systematic rape against ethnic women as a weapon and strategy to terrorize the ethnic population.
Since 1997, the Burmese regime has destroyed more than 3,000 villages and displaced over half-a-million civilians in eastern Burma, according to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella organization responsible for the distribution of aid at the Thai-Burmese border.
Recently, international and regional human rights groups —including the International Federation for Human Rights, Altsean-Burma and Burma Lawyers’ Council—urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Burma.
Source : http://www.irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=21544
No comments:
Post a Comment