| WASHINGTON
- June 25 - A newly released report, License to Rape, documents the rape of 625
girls and women in Burma’s Shan state, including against girls as young
as five and perpetrated almost entirely by military officers from 52 different
battalions. The report, compiled and published by the Shan Human Rights Foundation
and Shan Women’s Action Network from interviews with refugees in Thailand,
opens a small window into the methods of Burma’s pariah military junta,
and represents figures “far lower than reality.”
Republican United States
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairwoman of the International Operations
and Human Rights Subcommittee in the International Relations Committee, said in
a statement yesterday (Monday), “girls and women of Burma are raped, tortured,
beaten, and killed as part of a systematic campaign by the Burmese army to subjugate
its people.” Ros-Lehtinen added that the newly released report “provides
a microcosm of the ongoing efforts by the Burmese army to thwart resistance and
opposition by sanctioning and condoning the use of rape as a weapon of war against
its civilian population.”
The report documents how
83% of the rapes have been carried out by military officers, usually in front
of their own troops. Victims are severely beaten, tortured and mutilated; 25%
were killed after the rapes, with many left dead in public areas to terrorize
villagers. The rapes have taken place in the process of massive relocation programs,
at military checkpoints, and in villagers’ homes. 61% were gang rapes, and
numerous women were raped inside military bases. In many cases, women were held
captive and raped repeatedly for up to four months as “comfort women”.
The report uses the legal precedents set during international criminal tribunals
for Rwanda and Bosnia to illustrate a strong case that Burma’s regime continues
to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in Shan state, home to only 8
of Burma’s 50 million people.
One interview describes
a young Burmese woman who left her house for a short time only to come back and
find her five year old sister “tied up and crying, with her sexual organs
bloody…” from being raped. In another case, a young woman was raped
and beaten unconscious, only to wake up and find her pregnant sister lying dead
next to her. In yet another case, two young girls girl were ordered from a middle
school meeting and were raped at gunpoint by a military commander for four days
and four nights
Betsy Apple, author of the
1998 study of Burma’s military dictatorship School for Rape, says there
is clear evidence that the regime is using rape as a weapon of war: “As
rape has been used in Rwanda and Yugoslavia to terrorize villagers, Burma’s
military regime is using rape as a weapon of war. This time, however, CNN is not
investigating.”
Aung Din, a former political
prisoner in Burma and director of policy at the Free Burma Coalition, citing the
300,000 Shan that have been forcibly relocated, called the rapes “Just one
part of an ongoing campaign of terror against Burma’s people by the ruling
military junta.”
The report comes just after
the birthday of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose release
from house arrest last month gained world attention and fueled speculation that
the regime has relaxed its campaigns of terror against Burma’s people. However,
the new report provides fresh evidence that abuses by the regime continue unabated
in areas outside the capital city of Rangoon.
###
|
