Junta waging ethnic cleansing war

Junta waging ethnic cleansing war, charges Shans

The statement issued by an exiled Shan organization yesterday (2 July) has accused Rangoon authorities and their military forces as pursuing a racist warfare. 

Coming out as a salutation to the recently published report, License to Rape: The Burmese military regime's use of sexual violence in the ongoing war in Shan State, the Shan Democratic Union maintained, "(T)he junta is not fighting an anti-insurgency war but an ethnic war, under the guise of fighting rebels and purporting to prevent the breakup of the country, to safeguard national solidarity, and other such claims. Hunting down (people already displaced by the massive forced relocation program, 1996-98) in their homeland in order to kill them and rape their wives, mothers, sisters, aunties, loved ones and so on because they are Shan, of a different ethnic group, is waging ethnic warfare." 

The report confirmed that no Shan women was safe, no matter whether they live in "white, grey, or black" areas or in towns, said the statement. 

It did not believe Burma could be "kept together" by subjugation and humiliation of other cultures and population groups. "By waging ethnic warfare against .... non-Burman population segments, the junta is ensuring the breakup of the country," it warned. 

The way out was to revive the Union Spirit jointly forged at Panglong in 1947 by Burman and non-Burman leaders prior to the independence of Burma, it concluded. 

The statement also urged the international community to send Rangoon a clear and firm message "that crude and brutal ethnic warfare, and the targeting of women, the use of rape as a weapon of ethnic war will not, and cannot, be tolerated." 

The full text of License to Rape may be located by those interested at http://www.shanland.org/shrf/License_to_Rape/license_to_rape.htm. For the printed version, please contact Shan Human Rights Foundation <shrf@cm.ksc.co.th> and Shan Women's Action Network <kenneri@chmai.loxinfo.co.th>.