A list of documents

Burma Peace Foundation, 19 January 1995

1991

Burma (re-named Myanmar) at the Commission on Human Rights, Geneva 1991 (April 1991). UN, Government and NGO statements and documents (63 pages).

Burma Isolated at the UN (November 91). Press release in the form of a brief history and analysis of the adoption of the 1991 GA Resolution on Burma.

1992

Dossier on Aung San Suu Kyi (January, 1992). Contains writings by and about Aung San Suu Kyi, background material, address lists of support groups, etc (110 pages).

Letter Campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma—January 1992 (flyer and background information).

Burma (Myanmar) at the Commission on Human Rights 1992 (January 92). A paper for NGOs in Geneva, analyzing some of the procedural issues regarding Burma at the Commission on Human Rights, and suggesting that they urge the Working Group on Communications to transfer discussion on Burma from the confidential to the public procedure.

Arguments for the Transfer of the Discussion on Myanmar (Burma) from the Confidential Procedure of the Commission on Human Rights to the Public Session (February 92). An expansion of the above paper, for members of the Commission.

The Urgent Need for Security Council Action on Myanmar (Burma) (February 92, updated March, June 92). An analysis of the implications for international peace and security of the continuing civil war in Burma, with recommendations for action by the Security Council and the Secretary-General. This paper was endorsed by a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Letter to The UN Secretary-General (May 92). A letter endorsed by a number of Burma experts analyzing internal and external aspects of the situation in Burma, and arguing for UN mediation and other forms of preventive diplomacy.

The need for enhanced international action to resolve the crisis on the border between Bangladesh and Burma (Myanmar) and to seek a political solution to the civil war (August 92). Background paper on the Burmese Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, followed by Elements for resolutions on the Burma/Bangladesh crisis and the civil war.

Some Elements for a Draft Resolution on Myanmar (August 1992, updated October, November 1992. Background paper on the deteriorating human rights situation in Burma, containing: an analysis of the recent “reforms”; a discussion of the latest UN decisions on Burma; procedural considerations for the GA, followed by 5 pages of Elements for a draft resolution on Myanmar in the 3rd Committee, and the texts of the resolutions on Burma at the GA in 1991 and the CHR in 1992.

Burma (Myanmar) at the United Nations General Assembly 1992 — Selected Documents from UN, Governmental and Non-Governmental Sources (December 92). A dossier of most statements and docu- ments on Burma at or around the GA 1992 (100 pages).

Introduction to “Burma (Myanmar) at the United Nations General Assembly 1992” (December 92). A brief history of the activities of the Burmese opposition in New York 1992, and how they contributed to the adoption of the resolution.

Major UN Defeat for the Burmese Military. (December 92). Announcement and brief description of the adoption of the 1992 GA resolution on Burma.

Letter to the New York Times in reply to a Burmese diplomat (December 1992)

1993

The Burma Papers, 1993 (May-August 1993). This compilation of background material, analyses, UN documents etc. on Burma was produced for the 1993 session of the General Assembly (110 pages).

p4. The Human Rights Situation in Burma (Written principally for diplomats working on UN Burma resolutions, this document contains a brief historical background and analysis of the human rights situation in Burma, with a short description of the international response, and summaries or full texts of UN Burma documents.

p27. Prospects for the 1993 Burma Resolution at the UN General Assembly (Written mainly for those interested in the Burma debate at the UN, it discusses some of the pros and cons of various options)

p29. Notes on the Development of the European Arms Embargo on Burma into a General Arms Embargo on SLORC (Written for Europeans wanting to reduce the flow of arms to SLORC from the former Eastern bloc)

p30. The Need for Widespread Criticism of SLORC's National Convention (Written principally for organisations intending to draft resolutions or make statements on Burma, this text presents an analysis of the National Convention, and suggests language which could be included in resolutions.

p34. Burma: A Suitable Case for Preventive Democracy (Written for government and UN officials, this text presents Burma as a potential flash-point in Asia and argues for a “whips and carrots” approach to Preventive Diplomacy)

p37. The Hunting of the SLORC: Politico-Military Strategies (This text is an analysis of the Low Intensity Conflict strategy which SLORC is using to force a settlement of the civil war, and shows the relationship between this strategy and the legitimation SLORC is seeking through the National Convention). The enclosed version is updated to April 1994.

p42. Towards an Asian Burma Strategy (This text suggests long- term approaches which could be used by Burma's neighbours in place of “constructive engagement” which has failed to procure real changes in Burma's economic and political life)

p43. Buddhism, Human Rights and Justice in Burma (by Ven Dr Rewata Dhamma, Chairman of the Burma Peace Foundation, is a Buddhist approach to human rights, stressing the responsibility which rulers have towards their people and which, from a Buddhist/ Burmese perspective, SLORC has so clearly failed to fulfill)

p46. Myanmar or Burma? (A brief discussion of the two names)

p47. Oral Statements on Burma to the UN Commission on Human Rights (by David Arnott, on behalf of the World Conference on Religion and Peace; these statements present aspects of the situation in Burma using various UN human rights categories)

p53. Elements for a Draft Resolution on Burma at the 1993 Session of the UN General Assembly (Written mainly for diplomats working on the GA resolution, this is a com-pilation of paragraphs intended as building blocks for the Burma resolution.

Annexes. Mainly press cuttings on the National Convention, the Burmese economy, Burma's relations with China and India, and the narcotics trade.

Documents on Forced Relocation in Burma (December 1993, currently being updated), A dossier with material from direct interviews, reports by human rights organisations, newspapers etc (current dossier 250 pages. Updated it will be approx. 450 pages).

1994

Suppliers and users of information on Burma (periodically updated) An 11-page list with phone, fax, postal and, where available, email addresses.

Elements for a Draft Resolution on Myanmar at the 50th session of the Commission on Human Rights (February 1994) Its basic elements are similar to the “Elements” prepared for the General Assembly, though the difference in mandate of the two bodies is reflected in the text.

Forced Labour and Development in Burma (February 1994) David Arnott's Item 12 intervention at the 1994 session of the Commission on Human Rights.

In Brief: The Human Rights situation in Burma (Written by David Arnott for the International League for Human Rights and used as a background document in at the 1994 session of the Commission on Human Rights).

In Brief: Human Rights in Burma (Myanmar) IV A shorter version of the previous document, updated for the 1994 session of the UN General Assembly. Collective authorship.

Burma (Myanmar) at the Commission on Human Rights, 1994 (March 1994). A selection of UN, governmental and non-governmental documents (90 pages).

Caveats, Cautions and Stringent Conditions (April 1994) An examination of the pros and cons of NGO involvement in Burma, and a list of conditions to be adhered to if NGOs go in (60 pages).

Military “Development” in Burma —The Burmese Civil War as “Development” (June 1994). Earlier drafts of this document had the title “Recent Developments in the Burmese Civil War”. This is a 20-page analysis of the events which followed SLORC's invitations to the ethnic opposition to discuss “cease-fires”. The analysis is followed by a compilation of 158 documents from various sources, covering the different ethnic groups as well as Thai and SLORC positions. Being updated to September 94 (approx. 450 pages).

Dossier on Aung San Suu Kyi (1994) (July 1994). About 10% overlap with 1992 dossier. Contains list of Burma information suppliers, statements made around the 5th year of Suu Kyi's house arrest, suggestions for action, speculations regarding her possible release, UN resolutions, etc etc. (approx. 230 pages).

Op-ed published in the Washington Post, 21 July 94 (written with Maureen Aung Thwin and Matthew Kapstein)—full version before the “Post” editors chopped it up.

Slorc's National Convention—Selected Documents, (August 1994). A dossier containing a chronology, statements by SLORC and the Democracy movement as well as legal analyses and UN statements (approx. 400 pages).

Forced Labour in Burma (Myanmar) (September 1994) A dossier from various sources, on forced portering and forced labour on road and railway construction and tourist sites. It also contains UN statements and legal analyses (approx. 600 pages).

Mon Chronology 1994 (September 1994) —A dossier tracing the refoulement by the Thai army of several thousand Mon refugees into a war zone in Burma. The documents also suggest the commercial and military reasons for this serious violation of customary international law (approx. 270 pages).

Change in Burma—Rhetoric or Reality? An evaluation of the Burmese Foreign Minister's Statement to the UN General Assembly, 11 October 1994

Reports by the Karen Human Rights Group, 1992-1994 (November 1994) A dossier compiled and introduced by the Burma Peace Foundation, which also provided an Annotated Contents and Thematic Index. These high-quality reports consist mainly of interviews with refugees, displaced persons and people still living in their villages in the regions of Burma bordering Thailand. The reports describe the collective and individual suffering of the people in these areas. They document the activities of the Burmese army— killing, torture, raping, forced relocation, forced labour, pillaging, looting, extortion. They also describe the economic and social breakdown of the villages in hese areas resulting from the combined effect of these activities. The Annotated Contents takes each report and lists the principal human rights violations described in the report. The Thematic Index takes the principal human rights violations and refers them to particular reports. (approx 700 pages)

Annotated Contents and Thematic Index to the “Reports by the Karen Human Rights Group 1992-1994”. (November 1994) (Distributed separately from the Reports as well as together with them.) The Annotated Contents takes each report and lists the principal human rights violations described in the report. The Thematic Index takes the principal human rights violations and refers them to particular reports.

In preparation: Dossier on military extortion and pillaging; The Burma Papers 1994.

We also have cassettes of the song “Free Aung San Suu Kyi” in English and Burmese, color slides of Aung San Suu Kyi and video copies of Leon Desclozeaux's documentary on Aung San Suu Kyi. If anyone would like any of the documents or other items, please contact:

David Arnott, Burma Peace Foundation, 6th Floor, 777, UN Plaza, NY, NY 10017, USA Tel (+1-212) 338 0048, Fax 692 9748.

The items are available from the Burma Peace Foundation for cost of postage and reproduction (5 cents a page. The size of the longer documents is given—approximate if subject to update).

Front pages or introductions to some of the above documents

DOCUMENTS ON FORCED RELOCATION IN BURMA

These documents deal with the forced relocation by the Burmese army of civilians belonging to most ethnic groups, including ethnic Burmans. Some examples are given of relocations from urban centers, but most of those relocated are from villages. The village life of Burma, with its ancient traditions and structures, and deep bonds to place, is one institution which has so far resisted the militarization which has destroyed most other aspects of civil society in Burma. Forced relocation, particularly when accompanied, as it almost always is, by forced labour, is demolishing the village economy. Reinforced by killings, rapes and other atrocities, it is threatening the very cultural, social, and economic fabric of Burmese village life. Which is perhaps the idea.

(Material basically arranged by ethnic group. One reason there is more information about the Karen and Karenni than other groups is that their territories are more accessible to observers than, for instance, Kachin State. We have so far received no actual documents about relocations of Chin, Naga and other groups.)

1. General and Mixed

2. Mon

3. Karen

4. Karenni

5. Shan and Palaung

6. Kachin

7. Rohingya

8. Evictions from Urban Centers

Readers with further information on forced relocations in Burma are invited to send it to the Burma Peace Foundation at the address below for inclusion in the dossier.

CAVEATS, CAUTIONS AND STRINGENT CONDITIONS

A memo on the suggestion that NGOs should go into Burma

In recent months the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the martial law administration currently acting as the de facto government of Burma, has expressed interest in having international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) undertake relief and development projects in the country. This study summarizes some of the issues involved for the international community in general, and NGOs in particular. It concludes that NGO involvement at this time would not be in the long-term interests of the Burmese people; but for those organizations which decide to go in, it lists a number of conditions which, if followed, would help limit the damage. The critique of NGO involvement applies even more of course to bilateral and multilateral loans, aid or development assistance. The memo is offered as a working document within the current debate on NGO involvement in Burma rather than an authoritative rule-book. It assumes that readers have a basic understanding of the political, economic and human rights situation in Burma.

BURMA (MYANMAR) AT THE 1994 SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

This year's resolution on Burma at the Commission on Human Rights was the strongest so far, covering the whole range of human rights concern, including torture, extrajudicial executions, forced labour and forced displacement of populations. Its demands included the immediate release of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and the other political prisoners in Burma, the transfer of power to the representatives elected in 1990, and the lifting of martial law decrees. It criticised the National Convention on several grounds, including its objective of maintaining the political dominance of the military. It renewed the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and asked the Secretary-General to provide him with all necessary assistance (see the full text, document 8).

In the debate, the Myanmar delegation distinguished itself, as in previous years—this time by trying to stop the speech of the Prime Minister of the National Coalition of the Union of Burma (see press release in NGO statements) and by failing to respect the time constraints for speakers.

This compilation of documents, arranged in rough chronological order, contains:

1) This year's report by the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar

2) The Burma Peace Foundation's exegesis of the report

3) Myanmar's statement on religious intolerance

4) The Special Rapporteur on Myanmar's oral introduction to his report

5) Selected statements on Burma by non-governmental organisations (including a press statement on the incident when the Myanmar delegation tried to stop Dr Sein Win's speech and was ruled out of order by the Chair)

6) Selected statements on Burma by governments

7) Myanmar's item 12 statement (which was not delivered in its entirety because the Chairman, after several warnings to the speaker, turned off the microphone 15 minutes into the speech — observer delegations are allowed 10 minutes)

8) Text of the resolution on Myanmar adopted by the Commission on 9 March

9) Myanmar's statement protesting the resolution

10) NCGUB's statement welcoming the resolution

MILITARY “DEVELOPMENT” IN BURMA (THE BURMESE CIVIL WAR AS “DEVELOPMENT”)

This study examines recent claims that SLORC is working towards national reconciliation and a just political resolution of the civil war. No substance is found in these claims, and the study concludes that SLORC's goals remain the military occupation and economic exploitation of the non-burman areas.

The analysis and chronology are basically a brief introduction to the documents, which indicate the reality of the civil war and ongoing atrocities by the Burma army. It is difficult to see the consistent and widespread abuses as anything other than a coordinated policy to destabilize village life and advance SLORC's occupation and exploitation of the non-burman areas.

INTRODUCTION

Burma is a land rich in strategic and other industrial minerals which, however, are located mainly in the territories of the non- burman peoples, some of whom have been in a state of war with Rangoon for the past 45 years. (The non-burman peoples comprise about half the population of Burma, and the territories where they predominate cover rather more than half the total land area.) SLORC's military and economic interests combine in the project of subduing these peoples and making preparations for the large-scale extraction of their resources.

For the consumption of the international community, which will buy anything under this name, the undertaking is described as “development”, but the predominance of the military component is clear. It involves extending SLORC's strategy of Low Intensity Conflict into the creation of military/economic enclaves in non- burman areas, the massive use of forced labour, forced relocations and economic sabotage to destabilise village life, and the arrangement of local “cease-fires” around the “development projects” with the groups in question. Pressure on their organisations to agree such “cease-fires” (essentially piecemeal surrender) is coming in large part from Thailand, on which they are dependent for most of their supplies and communications. Some observers claim that Japan, under pressure from her multinationals, is supporting this kind of “development” at the international level, but the massive and well-documented use of forced labour in SLORC “development” projects would make such support an extremely sensitive issue.

Recent “changes”

Looking back over the past two years or so, one can identify two annual SLORC Public Relations “seasons”: late August to October — to influence the vote on the Burma resolution at the UN General Assembly, and January-February, to convince the UN Commission on Human Rights that SLORC is a reformed character, or at least is doing its best to reform. Though welcome, none of the so-called “reforms” has reduced the power of the military over the country, and some have been rather less than substantial (for instance on 5 October 1992 Foreign Minister Aung Gyaw announced to the UN General Assembly that SLORC had declared a cease-fire with the Karen. The very next day came the devastating offensive against Karen positions at Saw Hta which was only repelled with difficulty and at the cost of many lives on both sides). While the additional visits allowed to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi have broken her isolation somewhat, SLORC has announced that her house arrest will be extended for another year; and although a number of political prisoners have been released, all the real leaders of the National League for Democracy are still in detention.

In the civil war, however, there have been important developments, which this text traces. These include the signing of a cease-fire between SLORC and the Kachin Independence Organisation and the pressure from Thailand on the rest of the ethnic opposition to do the same. A relatively new and unpredictable factor is the military and political success of Khun Sa, hitherto known chiefly for his drug-related activities in Shan State.

Apart from these events, the main real changes since 1988, when the military killed up to 10,000 students involved in the democracy movement, are that:

The Burma army has doubled its strength (now approaching 400,000, with the goal of 500,000 by the end of the decade) and thanks to a $1.2 billion arms deal with China, is much better armed. Until recently the army has not been able to think seriously about total occupation of the areas inhabited and administered by the various non-burman peoples, but it is now approaching the kind of numbers which would allow this.
SLORC now has the confidence to engage in long-term planning, as manifested in the convening of the so-called “National Convention” to endorse SLORC's next constitution; the forming of a mass organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development Association, designed to contest new elections as the pro- government party; and the Low Intensity Conflict “development” strategies which constitute the current stage of the civil war.

Recent events in the civil war have led to predictions of an imminent general cease-fire (document 8). The events in question are:

1) The discussions between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and SLORC which have led to a formal cease-fire.

2) Increased pressure from Thailand on the other ethnic groups to follow suit. They have dropped most of their earlier preconditions, at least insofar as cease-fire talks are concerned, and preliminary discussions have already been held (documents 34-88). However, major differences in position will have to be overcome before serious negotiations can begin. The differences are, briefly:

A) The non-burman ethnic nationalities are seeking a nation- wide cease-fire leading to negotiation of a comprehensive political settlement of the civil war, whereas SLORC's demand is for local suspensions of hostilities around specific development projects and strategic installations, with no talk of general cease-fires or political negotiations.

B) SLORC has firmly resisted Karenni preconditions, including the withdrawal of SLORC troops from certain areas.

C) SLORC has not accepted the Karen preconditions of a neutral venue with international observers.

D) The conditions offered to the Mon amount to virtual surrender

A critical question is whether SLORC's basic logic and goals remain military, or whether genuine development considerations now prevail, as SLORC's spokesmen and supporters claim. Or whether, as the true believers of Constructive Engagement devoutly intone, economic advance automatically (but not necessarily immediately) produces a change of heart. This is clearly a matter of concern to the ethnic opposition groups, which are ultimately being asked to disarm and put their trust in SLORC's goodwill and sincerity. After 45 years of civil war and the continuing massive violations of human rights by the Burma army, it comes as no surprise that they adopt a somewhat skeptical attitude to SLORC's talk of peace and development. It is also a crucial question for the international community.

A sign of SLORC's real conversion to a politics of reconciliation and genuine development rather than conquest would be its willingness to sit down with the authentic leaders of the political and ethnic opposition to work out a peaceful future for the country and, as a preliminary to such discussions, to accept the ethnic opposition's offer of peace talks in a neutral country with UN observers.

FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA

These documents on forced labour in Burma are arranged chronologically, with the most recent at the front, in a binding which permits the user to update the dossier. The minus numbers are used for documents added since the first edition, on 10 August. There are no ethnic divisions, and UN documents, to their dismay, are lying cheek-by-jowl with press clippings, raw interviews, legal analyses and reports from biased sources. However, to make life easier for the researcher, the dossier is headed by a simple index. Where more than 50% of a document deals with forced labour, or if it has special value as background, the whole text is given. Otherwise it's the scissors and glue-stick.

This has kept the dossier to a modest 600 pages at the risk, however, of isolating forced labour from the other aspects of the Burmese army's strategy of destabilizing Burmese village life (described by the junta as “development”). These include forced relocation, extortion and other forms of economic sabotage, and terrorization of village people by rape, torture and, it is alleged, biological devices. It is the combined impact of these tactics which does the damage and is destroying the economic, social and cultural structure of Burmese village communities, especially in the border regions. (Last year the Burma Peace Foundation produced a dossier on Forced Relocation in Burma, and intends to compile one on extortion and other forms of economic sabotage later in 1994.)

The point in putting all these documents together is to create a blunt instrument with which to beat the skeptical into submission and hint at the persistent and wide-scale nature of the abuse. They provide a mere glimpse into the activities of the Burmese army, a body of soldiers approaching 400,000 in number. The Thai/Burmese border is the main source of information, which therefore covers the Karen and Mon more than the other peoples of Burma who over the years have suffered no less—the Kachin, for instance—but who are further away from the public eye.

Hitherto the best-documented form of forced labour has been forced portering whereby the Burmese army raids villages and towns for porters to carry their supplies and ammunition in the course of offensives in the border regions. Over the past three years, however, “development” projects have begun to overtake portering as the principal employment of forced labour. These are principally infrastructure projects like road and railway building and, as the army grows in size and creates new regiments in the non-burman regions, the construction of farms, buildings and training grounds and other installations for the military.

The index does not contain words like “portering”, “killing”, “torture” etc because if it did, the index would be three times as long.

If any reader has further documents on forced labour in Burma, please send them to the Burma Peace Foundation, and they can be incorporated into the dossier.

MON CHRONOLOGY 1994

Since 1993 the Royal Thai Government has been cooperating with the Burmese military junta (SLORC—State Law and Order Restoration Council) to force several Burmese ethnic groups which have been fighting Rangoon for up to 46 years, to surrender (the term used is to agree a “cease-fire”).

These documents, arranged chronologically, trace events relating to one of these groups, the Mon, who live in South-east Burma, along the Thai border. The documents, drawn from various sources, demonstrate the interrelation of military, commercial and political factors which have led to several thousand Mon refugees in Thailand being forced back into a war zone of Burma. They detail an attack by the Burmese military on one of the villages built by the forcibly repatriated refugees, the subsequent exodus of 6,000 Mon back into Thailand, and the means used by the Thai army to force them back once again into Burma.

It appears that the Thai and Burmese military are using the refugees as pawns to force the Mon resistance into a “cease- fire”. A major motivation for this strategy is to facilitate the construction of a pipeline through Mon territory to bring natural gas from a Burmese off-shore field into energy-hungry Thailand — gas for Thailand, cash for the SLORC, and profits for the multinational corporations involved in extracting the gas, namely Unocal and Texaco of the United States, Total of France, Nippon of Japan and Premier of Britain.

And the Mon? Well, the Mon who live outside the area controlled by the Mon resistance are busy “contributing voluntary labour” (the SLORC euphemism for slavery) to various infrastructural projects like rail and road construction which will support the pipeline. The appalling conditions of work on these projects and the collapse of village economies as the farmers are unable to work their fields when they are “contributing voluntary labour” are a major cause of internal displacement and flight into Thailand.

SLORC'S NATIONAL CONVENTION

These documents on the National Convention are arranged chronologically within the categories of:

1. Chronology

2. Statements and documents from SLORC

3. Selection of proceedings at the National Convention

4. Statements and documents from the Democracy Movement

5. UN Statements and documents

6. Legal analyses and other comments

CHANGE IN BURMA—RHETORIC OR REALITY?

AN EVALUATION OF THE STATEMENT BY HIS EXCELLENCY U OHN GYAW, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND CHAIRMAN OF THE DELEGATION OF THE UNION OF MYANMAR IN THE GENERAL DEBATE AT THE FORTY-NINTH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 11 OCTOBER 1994

On 11 October 1994, Burmese Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw addressed the UN General Assembly. The first half of his statement was devoted to expressing the support of his Government (the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC) for the work of the United Nations and the positions taken by the Group of 77 (of developing countries). The second half comprised a positive description of developments in Burma, and his government's cooperation with the United Nations.

The present paper examines a few highlights of what the Foreign Minister said (or did not say), in the light of recent reports on Burma and the principal demands of UN resolutions on Myanmar since 1990. In summary these demands are:

Respect for human rights, including the right to life, freedom from torture and from arbitrary detention
The restoration of democracy in the light of the 1990 elections
Respect for the rights of the civilian population in conflict areas
The unconditional release of Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
Cooperation with the United Nations

ANNOTATED CONTENTS OF THE REPORTS OF THE KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP 1992–1994, BY THE BURMA PEACE FOUNDATION

INTRODUCTION

Until 1990 the main civil war offensives of the Tatmadaw (the Burmese armed forces) took the form of dry-season combat with the armies of the different ethnic groups. This strategy involved temporary occupation of civilian areas and a return to barracks in the rainy season. Since 1990, however, improvements in logistical support and weaponry have allowed the Tatmadaw to stay in the field all year, and make its occupation of the civilian areas permanent. These occupations, which have involved the violation of a wide range of human rights and humanitarian norms, are offensives against the civilian population. As occupation of territory and control of people, they are an end in themselves, as well as constituting a means of exerting pressure on the armed groups to surrender, though this strategy has not entirely replaced the offensives against the armed groups, as we see from the the current assault on Khun Sa's positions in Shan State.

On the social and economic front, the occupation has produced widespread economic and social breakdown of village life throughout most non-Burman areas, and in many Burman rural zones as well. Many villages no longer exist, and of those which remain, none has lost less than 25% of its population since 1991. The combination of forced labour, forced relocation, economic sabotage and terrorisation by the Burmese army which has brought about this state of affairs is well documented in these reports.

The reduction in actual fighting typical of a strategy of occupation has entailed a corresponding reduction in the use of coerced porters in combat. The level of violation of humanitarian norms and civil and political rights has therefore diminished somewhat. However, the violation of economic, social and cultural rights has grown. This is due largely to an absolute increase in the use of forced labour since 1992, with several hundred thousand farmers being forced to work on various “development” projects like the construction of roads, railways and army camps. When added to those still being seized as forced porters, the result is an all-time high in forced labour. In addition, the period for forced portering corresponds roughly with the dry season, ie about four months a year. “Development” projects, however, such as road and rail construction, are carried out for as much as eight months a year, overlapping with vital agricultural activities like planting and harvesting. When added to systematic looting and pillaging by a poorly-paid and poorly-disciplined army, the resulting severe reduction in the agricultural work-force frequently leads to the collapse of the village economy, the abandonment of the village, a vast increase in the number of people internally displaced, and more refugees seeking protection in neighbouring countries (Thailand in particular) than ever before.

CONTENTS WITHOUT CONTENTS

The “Annotated Contents” highlights the principal human rights violations documented in the Karen Human Rights Group reports. The reports, from January 1992 to October 1994, with a number of colour photographs and some in black and white, take up about 600 pages. In photocopied form this is rather bulky and expensive to give away. The “Contents” is therefore being circulated without its documents. Those who would like a copy of the whole dossier can request it from the Burma Peace Foundation at 5 cents per page plus 3-hole binding and postage. With colour photos at US$1 per sheet (there are about 20 sheets) and a $1.50 binding, this comes to about $50 plus postage (as of November 1994. More pages can be expected later, thus increasing the cost).

TECHNICAL EXPLANATION

The reports are mainly interviews and summaries of interviews, arranged by date of publication. The title is in upper case. Place is by Township or District. The date of the event(s) and ethnicity and gender of victims are given, where known. The human rights and humanitarian violations are listed when not obvious from the title in the order they appear in the text (though if a violation appears several times in one report, it is only listed once). Predominant violations not in the title, or which provide representative or detailed examples, are underlined. If a report contains photo evidence of an event, the entry is marked “see photo(s)”. (Photos are placed after the report.)

Abbreviations and definitions

F=Female,

M=Male,

C=Child (less than 18 years old)

IT=Inhuman Treatment (eg deprivation of food and water, beating and other actions which although causing suffering, appear to lack the intention to torture).

ES=Economic Sabotage—destruction of means of livelihood (crops, livestock, food reserves, fishing nets etc) by the Tatmadaw. This generally occurs as systematic looting and pillaging which, combined with forced relocation, forced labour, confiscation of land and terrorisation by the army, frequently results in devastation and ultimate breakdown of the village economy and abandonment of the village. Economic sabotage in any of its guises is a clear violations of economic, social and cultural rights including property rights, but hardly exists outside the context of the violation of civil and political rights. It should be noted that the systematic looting and extortion which are major elements of economic sabotage seem almost inevitable given soldiers' extremely poor pay and supplies. A question is whether the low rates of pay are due to pure economic restrictions in the military budget, or whether there is a deliberatepolicy to encourage soldiers to live off the people, sabotage theireconomy, and thereby further the destabilisation of non-Burman groups and increase the relative power of the military.

Pillaging is deliberate destruction of property, and a principal weapon of economic sabotage.

Looting is stealing for use rather than for destruction.

Violence against women refers to violence other than rape and the use of women as coerced porters, which are mentioned separately.