Myanmar troops, trying to stamp out a decades-long rebellion by the Karen minority, have beheaded civilians and torched villages in an offensive which has forced 1,000 refugees to flee into Thailand and thousands of others to hide in the jungles, a report from inside Myanmar said yesterday.
The attacks, which began in the middle of last November in Western Karen State, follow a longtime strategy of the army in Myanmar to separate the guerrillas from a possibly sympathetic population. But human-rights groups say numerous atrocities have been committed against innocent civilians.
"The Burma army is burning homes, rice barns and laying land mines to stop villagers from returning to their homes and fields," said a report from the Free Burma Rangers, a group of Westerners and ethnic minority volunteers who provide aid to displaced people.
At least 5,000 villagers with little food or clothing have fled into remote areas of the state's Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts, while some 1,000 others have crossed the eastern border into Thailand, the group said in a report and an earlier telephone call from the area.
In village-by-village accounts, the group said that in recent weeks casualties included 40-year-old Saw Po De, who was decapitated at Ker Der Gah village, four villagers shot and killed in Nyaunglebin district, and a number of others wounded and captured elsewhere.
In other areas, villages were mortared, rice fields destroyed, property stolen and farm animals slaughtered and eaten by the attacking troops, the group said.
The military-run government has denied any human-rights violations against ethnic minority groups, including the Karen, who have been fighting for autonomy from the central government for more than half a century in one of the world's longest-running insurgencies.
"There is no offensive against the Karen National Union but security measures have been taken and cleaning up operations are being conducted in some areas where [KNU] terrorists are believed to be hiding," Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told reporters in Yangon yesterday, referring to the main Karen rebel group.
The government has blamed the KNU for a spate of recent bombings in the country.
Decades of conflict have uprooted hundreds of thousands of ethnic people, including about 140,000 now in refugee camps in Thailand.
The Karen rebel group has been holding ceasefire talks with the junta since late last year.
"The door for peace with the KNU is always open and we will continue with our efforts to achieve peace with the KNU," the information minister said when asked about the peace talks.
The Washington-based US Committee for Refugees has said the recent attacks were larger in scale than earlier ones and described the Karen as "one of the most ignored groups in one of the most difficult humanitarian emergencies."
US Representative Joe Pitts, a Republican who is vice chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights, has called on the UN Security Council to condemn the attacks and for the US to provide food and shelter for displaced villagers.
The Burma Border Consortium, a refugee aid group, said earlier this year that the conflict in eastern Myanmar has destroyed some 3,000 villages and displaced 80,000 people a year in most recent times.
But the world's attention has largely been focused on the continued house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the suppression of her National League for Democracy by the ruling junta.
A former junta member, General Khin Nyunt, negotiated ceasefires with 17 insurgent groups, but his ouster in 2004 reinforced hard-liners within the ruling group and "resulted in increasing hostility directed at ethnic minority groups," US-based Human Rights Watch said in its report for this year.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in