Post by Shan Man on Nov 19, 2005 21:15:34 GMT -5
Fresh Burmese army rape claims
The Burmese army is practising "widespread and systematic" rape of ethnic minority women, a human rights group has said.
Refugees International (RI) said that 75% of the women it interviewed knew someone who had been raped by the military.
Allegations of the use of rape as a means of suppressing women from the Shan state in Burma caused international concern when they were first published last year.
RI say that its new report proves that women from other ethnic groups in Burma have suffered similar abuses, an allegation that the Burmese government has branded "ridiculous".
The report by RI arises from interviews conducted with ethnic minority women either in Burma or living in refugee camps in Thailand.
After the soldiers left I went into her house.She had bruises on her arms and face, blood from her nose, and liquid on her legs and body
Burmese woman
The women came from five ethnic groups: the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Shan and the Tavoyan.
The report documented 43 cases of rape or attempted rape of ethnic minority women by the Burmese military, 23 of them confirmed through either physical evidence or eyewitness testimony.
One woman described what happened to a victim in her village:
"After the soldiers left I went into her house. Spit was coming out of her mouth and she could not speak. She had no clothes on.
"She had bruises on her arms and face, blood from her nose, and liquid on her legs and body. The medic came and said: 'I cannot do anything for her'."
...almost all of the allegations were highly exaggerated and their main purpose was to hurt the prestige of Myanmar
Burmese government spokesman
According to RI, the rape of ethnic minority women is systematic, and made possible because of the culture within the military.
Although rape is illegal under both Burmese military and civil law, RI says that they are unaware of a single case of rape punished through military tribunals.
"Widespread rape is committed with impunity, both by officers and lower-ranking soldiers... The culture of impunity contributes to the atmosphere in which rape is permissible," it said.
Formal complaints against members of the military are extremely rare.
This is because "it is more common than not for victims and families, fearful of reprisals, to choose silence over accusation when it comes to rape", according to RI.
The Burmese Government has dismissed claims that rape is being systematically carried out by the military as "lies" created by organisations whose sole desire is to discredit the regime.
The Burmese government did conduct investigations into the allegations of rape in Shan state, and found no proof, authorities said.
"Preliminary investigations and findings show that almost all of the allegations were highly exaggerated and their main purpose was to hurt the prestige of Myanmar and the Myanmar Armed Forces", they said.
But according to a report that the United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur for Burma, Professor Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, presented to the United Nations in December 2002, the investigations "lacked the independence required to be convincing and credible".
"From the reports, one can assume that they were conducted in such manner that very few people would dare to testify out of fear of reprisals against them and their families," he said.
The US state department is also taking the issue seriously, saying that they are "appalled by reports that the Burmese military is using rape as a weapon against civilian populations in the ethnic regions."
They conducted their own investigation into allegations of rape in Shan state in 2002 and found consistency amongst women's stories.
The US is urging the Burmese government to conduct thorough investigations into the allegations.
In the meantime, RI say that the Burmese government's failure to prevent rape "demonstrates that it is systematic and under these conditions could be considered a war crime".
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/2928297.stm
I have a friend from Myanmar Army working as a major. Rape is not a special matter in border area. They are kings. They don't need to rape. They can do what they want, according to him. They can have sex with young girls without any resistance. He usually asked 1-2 Shan young girls to come and do massage on him on a daily basis. But he didn't reveal if he had sex with them.