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CWS Calls for Urgent Action to Stop Attacks on Ethnic Minorities by Burma's Military Regime

April 28, 2006

Burma's military regime (the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC) is unrelenting in its suppression of political and ethnic opposition to its rule. As a result, more than one million refugees have fled Burma (also known as Myanmar), and another half million of Burma's 55 million citizens are internally displaced in eastern Burma alone.

Over the past seven weeks, Burma's military junta has escalated attacks against civilians, in particular against the country's Karen ethnic minority. In early April, the SPDC attacked villages in Ton Oo and Yong Lay Pin townships, burning villages and food supplies and committing atrocities. In all, up to 11,000 people have been driven from their homes in eastern Burma in this brutal anti-insurgency campaign. Some have been tortured and/or killed.

Some observers believe these are the most serious attacks since 1997. There is speculation that the military is trying to secure the territory east of Pyinmana, Burma's new capital city. The SPDC is apparently attempting to clear the immediate area of any ethnic armed groups (including the Karen National Union) and ethnic minority civilians.

About 1,500 new arrivals have been documented in Mae Ra Ma Luang, Thailand, since December 2005 and more than 1,000 are believed to be waiting to cross Salween River into Thailand, according to the recent reports from the new arrivals. Aid officials fear others will follow in the coming months to swell the more than 140,000 population currently in border camps, where assistance already is at subsistence levels.

The refugees are arriving with "stories of increased (junta) troop activity, destruction of villages and crops, and human rights abuses," reports Jack Dunford, executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium. Church World Service is a founding member of the TBBC, an alliance of nongovernmental organizations working together with displaced people of Burma to respond to humanitarian needs, strengthen self-reliance, and promote appropriate and lasting solutions to their suffering.

US lawmakers, on both sides of the political aisle have condemned the brutal offensive and atrocities committed by the junta against the ethnic civilians in eastern Burma. Republican Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) shared his concern at reports that the Junta is actively hunting down more than 2,000 civilians who were driven from their homes and are hiding in the jungle. "The thugs of Rangoon are on a violent rampage," he said. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) called the recent attacks a "deadly escalation of what is already one of the world's most serious humanitarian disasters."

Church World Service is calling for:

The UN Security Council (UNSC) to pass a binding resolution requiring Burma’s SPDC to stop attacking ethnic minorities. The UNSC had a first ever briefing and debate on Burma in December 2005. Now it needs to move beyond words and act. The longer the Security Council waits, the more villages will be destroyed and the more people will die.

The UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Dr. Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, to publicly condemn the latest attacks by SPDC on ethnic minorities in eastern Burma.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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