By Zin Linn
Human Rights Watch (Asia Division) held a press conference concerning a new report –‘Untold Miseries: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State’ – at Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok today. Phil Robertson (Deputy Director, Asia Division, HRW) and Matthew F. Smith, (Consultant, Asia Division, HRW) presented the findings of the report at the press panel and they also answered the questions made by the journalists and a few other participants.
The 83-page report, ‘Untold Miseries’, describes how the Burmese army has attacked Kachin villages, razed homes, pillaged properties, and forced the displacement of tens of thousands of people. Soldiers have threatened and tortured civilians during interrogations and raped women. Burma Army has been utilizing antipersonnel mines until now. It conscripted forced laborers, including children as young as 14, on the front lines.
According Human Rights Watch, its team travelled twice to Kachin State’s warzone in 2011. The team had visited nine camps for internally displaced persons and areas in China’s Yunnan province where refugees have fled. HRW has continued to monitor the situation there. The report is based on more than 100 interviews with displaced persons, refugees, and victims of abuses, as well as Kachin rebels, Burmese army deserters, and relief workers, HRW said.
Human Rights Watch said that the Burmese government and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) need to take efficient measures to prevent abuses by their forces, ensure humanitarian access, and permit an independent international mechanism to investigate abuses by all sides.
In its report released today, Human Rights Watch said that during warfare in Burma’s northern Kachin State the Burmese government has committed serious abuses and blocked humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of displaced civilians since June 2011. Some 75,000 ethnic Kachin displaced persons and refugees are in trouble for shortage of food, medicine, and shelter, Human Rights Watch said.
The Burmese army has largely blocked international relief efforts to the majority of displaced people in the conflict zone. The KIA has also been involved in abuses, including using child soldiers and antipersonnel landmines. The long-lasting armed conflict in Kachin state continues to loom large as vagueness made by the Burma Army and the government in Naypidaw. An end to the armed conflicts plus alleged rights abuses committed by Burmese soldiers has become a key demand of Western democracies which have imposed sanctions on the Burmese government.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Burmese government ought to invite the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up an office in Burma with a standard protection, promotion, and technical assistance authorization.
Human Rights Watch criticizes Burma’s newly shaped National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) which has not played an effective role to scrutinize human rights violations in Kachin State. In February 2012, the commission’s chairman, Win Mra, said that the commission would not look into allegations of abuses in the country’s ethnic armed conflict areas due to the government’s efforts to negotiate ceasefires.
HRW has also made a recommendation to the parliament of Burma which needed to pass legislation that would bring Burma’s NHRC in line with the Paris Principles on national human rights institutions in order to establish it as an independent and effective institution.
“The Burmese army is committing unchecked abuses in Kachin State while the government blocks humanitarian aid to those most in need,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Both the army and Kachin rebels need to act to prevent a bad situation for civilians from getting even worse.”
“Concerned governments should urgently support an independent international mechanism to investigate abuses by all sides to the conflict in Kachin State and in other ethnic areas,” Pearson said.
“An objective investigation into abuses in Burma’s ethnic areas won’t happen unless the UN is involved, and such an effort can help deter future abuses.”
HRW also urges the governments of Australia, China, Russia, United States, European Union, Japan and ASEAN Member States to call on the Burmese government and ethnic armed groups to end violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during military operations.
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