Message-ID: <199804150758.DAA11500@access5.digex.net>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 03:58:35 -0400
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From: Alex G Bardsley <bardsley@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject: Fwd: BU: ‘300,000 fled purge terror’ (SCMP)
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300,000 fled purge terror
South China Morning Post, Wednesday 15 April 1998
BURMA by Agence France-Presse in London. The Burmese Army has tortured hundreds of people from the Shan ethnic minority and forced at least 300,000 to flee their homes in two years, Amnesty International said yesterday.
Amnesty researcher for Burma Donna Guest said the victims included women, children, the elderly and Buddhist monks. “Witnesses described the most horrific methods of killing, including beating and kicking to death, stabbing, smashing heads in and being burned alive,” she said.
The killings followed a state drive to relocate the eight-million-strong Shan population in March 1996, cutting support from the rebel Shan State Army.
About 1,400 villages were destroyed, the report said, with some people being relocated three or four times, and about 80,000 people fleeing to Thailand.
Between mid-June and mid-July last year, the Burmese Army killed 300 people, mostly hungry civilians who returned home to look for food.
Amnesty said women captured and interrogated were raped, sometimes over a few days, and some died as a result.