"The military, mostly high-ranking officers, continued to use rape as a weapon to subdue ethnic minorities between 2003 into 2004", the Women's League of Burma (WLB), an umbrella organisation for groups of different ethnic origin, said in a report, System of Impunity, released on September 9 at the United Nations offices in Bangkok.
In 2002, the Shan Women's Action Network released a report — Licenced to Rape — detailing the gang rapes of at least 600 women and girls in Shan state in northern Burma.
While Burma's ruling military junta, The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) — formerly known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, SLORC — continues to deny rape incidents noted by two Shan groups, another report reveals that things have not changed for women in Burma. Shattering Silences, a report released in April 2004 documented 125 cases of rape and sexual harassment in Karen state.
Women's groups maintain that the SPDC continues to use sexual violence against women as a weapon of war.
Both reports were submitted to the SPDC's delegate to the 60th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in April. Burma's delegate to the UN said that the reports of rape by the military were "false". She said that in Burma "women are treated with respect and have never been subjected to degrading treatment". She also claimed that "action has already been taken against the perpetrators in accordance with the existing laws".
Nang Hseng Noung, a representative from the WLB, said that "out of the total 173 documented incidents [reported in Licence to Rape], in only one case, and I repeat, [in] only one case was the perpetrator punished". The WLB said that the government doesn't take violence against women seriously and fails to act on it.
Rape was declared a crime against humanity by the UN's International Court of Justice in 2001, when three Bosnian Serb men where sentenced to between 12 and 28 years imprisonment by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
Since the Licence to Rape report was released, SWAN has documented 138 more cases of rape and sexual violation in Shan state alone. The Karen Women Organisation says in Shattering Silences that even while the cease-fire talks between the SPDC junta and Karen resistance group occurred, women in Karen state were raped and killed by the military.
In addition, people are being forced to work as porters for the military and forced to leave their homes.
After the 1990 democratic elections, General Ne Win's military government took power in a coup, ousting the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi, now under house arrest.
Since that time people have been suffering from human rights violations and other deprivations. People don't have freedom of expression, activism, or assembly, and suffer from lack of information and inadequate education.
According to the Amnesty International, about 1350 people have been sentenced to jail because of their political views and activity. A number of Buddhist nuns have been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for a peaceful demonstration calling for a lower price of rice, cooking rice as an act of protest and for calling for political dialogue between the military rulers and the NLD.
On May 17, the military junta restarted its national convention process to draft a new constitution claiming this will be the first step in its "road map toward democracy". However, the WLB says that without the inclusion of the NLD and ethnic groups the national convention process is "meaningless".
In its latest report, System of Impunity, the WLB cites claims of gang rape and murder by the military. It alleges that the most recent attack was on a girl of 12 and two other women who were working in a field on July 31 when they were sexually assaulted by soldiers.
WLB spokeswoman Hseng Nong said it was not possible to find out exactly how many rapes had taken place, but said those recorded were just "the tip of the iceberg".
Ying Tzarm & Robyn Marshall
[Ying Tzarm is a Burmese-born activist with the Shan Women's Action Network in Thailand. She is currently doing her internship at Community Radio 4ZZZ in Brisbane.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 15, 2004.
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