Engaging With Myanmar Army Will Validate War Crimes
ASIA--PACIFIC, 4 Nov 2013
The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia recently announced military cooperation with Myanmar’s army, a military that has been responsible for decades of human rights violations against the people of Myanmar, especially the country’s minorities, including the Kachin people.
In June 2011, the Myanmar army began attacking Kachin Independence Army (KIA) outposts, breaking a 17-year ceasefire. Last Christmas, the Myanmar military launched the largest offensive in 65 years of civil war, using helicopters and aircraft for the first time to launch air strikes against the KIA. More than 200 Kachin villages were razed and at least 100,000 civilians have been displaced, seeking shelter in makeshift camps with little access to humanitarian assistance as the government continues to block aid to camps in KIA territory. There are still clashes between the Myanmar army and the KIA, even as both sides sit down for ceasefire negotiations.
Alongside the army’s attacks on Kachin villages, soldiers have perpetrated horrific human rights violations against our people, amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes. My organisation, the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, has documented 64 cases of rape committed by Myanmar soldiers since war broke out in June 2011.
One of these cases is that of Labya Tawng Ra, a 26-year-old mother of a young girl. On Nov 20, 2011, Myanmar troops opened fire on Hkin Buk Hka Pra village. Labya and the rest of the village fled and hid in the Lum Bum Valley. On Dec 10, Myanmar soldiers attacked again, this time targeting the makeshift shelters the villagers had set up in the valley. The villagers scattered and Labya and her daughter were separated from the rest of their family. Army troops took over the villagers’ shelters in the valley and detained the women and children, including Labya. Their cries could be heard far away.
Nearly a year later, in October last year, soldiers at the Mai Hkawng outpost told villagers that Labya was dead. After searching for 12 days, her father eventually found her half-buried body, injured and naked.
Women in Kachin State continue to live with the fear that this could happen to them. They are afraid of being raped by Myanmar soldiers, on top of the fear of all the other horrible human rights abuses committed against their communities. Attacks on civilians, forced labour, disappearances, abductions, arbitrary killings and land confiscation are all being committed with impunity in Kachin State.
The Kachin are just one ethnic group in Myanmar. The military has committed equally awful human rights violations against the Shan, Karen, Chin and many more of our ethnic brothers and sisters. Since 2002, the Shan Women’s Action Network has received reports of more than 300 cases of rape committed by Myanmar soldiers. Even after ceasefire agreements were signed between the government and the Shan State Army South and Shan State Army North, at least 10 cases of rape were documented last year.
We were appalled to hear that the governments of the US, the UK and Australia, who have for so long supported our struggle for equality and rights, are now planning to cooperate with the very army that has perpetuated our suffering. Last week, the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand joined 133 ethnic civil society organisations in writing an open letter to these governments expressing our deep concern about their engagement with the Myanmar army.
Military cooperation with Myanmar must first and foremost address the army’s crimes against the people of Kachin State, and throughout the country. These human rights violations must be stopped immediately. Training junior officers and soldiers about human rights is not enough. The orders to attack civilians, burn villages and rape women are coming from the very top of the armed forces; therefore, change must come from the very top as well. Military cooperation must only take place once these crimes have stopped, and an independent judiciary is able to investigate cases and hold fair trials.
The 2008 constitution protects members of the armed forces from prosecution for the crimes they commit. It also enshrines inequality for Myanmar’s ethnic nationalities and does not allow for civilian control over the military. With this constitution and many repressive laws that remain on the books, there is no hope for our country to achieve lasting peace and national reconciliation.
The US, the UK and Australia might give the rationale for their military engagement as assisting the Myanmar army to become more democratic and modern, changing its abusive behaviour to a more civilised one and stopping human rights abuses. However, for us as the minority ethnic nationalities of Myanmar, military engagement without first addressing human rights violations, impunity and lack of ethnic rights will undermine our ethnic nationalities’ demands for national reconciliation and self-determination, and threaten the security, lives and future of our people.
The leaders of the US, the UK and Australia must think about what will truly benefit us, the ethnic groups of Myanmar, as they prepare to engage with our oppressors. They must also think about the reputations of their respective armies in engaging with a military that has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes against its own people.
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Seng Zin is the advocacy team leader of the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, an organisation that promotes women’s rights and participation in politics, peace and national reconciliation processes, and provides health education and services.
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