Myanmar villagers flee conflict raging far from world's eyes
Yangon, January 23, 2007 : Even as fighting raged all around them, Pi Lu never thought she would have to uproot her eight children and flee their small village in eastern Myanmar.
She stayed even after her husband was killed in 2003, when he stepped on a landmine that had been planted in one of their rice paddies.
But over the last year, an offensive by Myanmar's military government to clear out villages in Pi Lu's ethnic Karen homeland escalated to a point where she could bear it no more.
Seven people in her village were killed in the shelling, and their animal herds were slowly decimated by landmines that littered the grazing areas around her village, she said.
"When the children went to sleep by artillery instead of lullabies, it was time to leave," she said.
So like thousands of others in Myanmar's impoverished and battle-scarred Karen state, Pi Lu fled with her family, trekking through the jungle for weeks until they found refuge in a camp hidden in the mountains near the Thai border.
Two of her children are sick with malaria in the camp's dirt-floored clinic, which has no properly trained medical personnel and little equipment other than bandages and antiseptic.
Most of the patients are suffering from malaria, chronic diarrhoea or landmine injuries in a conflict largely forgotten by the rest of the world.
"Along the road, they have no health care so they got many sickness. And so when they arrive here at the same time at our hospital, every bed is full," said a camp medic who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of his safety.
The camp, which didn't exist a year ago, now shelters some 2,500 people. Like Pi Lu, most journeyed by foot for weeks or even months before finding the relative safety of the camp's bamboo huts along a thin stream.
Human Rights Watch estimates that 27,000 Karen have fled since the offensive began nearly one year ago, joining an estimated 100,000 already hiding near the Thai border.
The brutality of Myanmar's offensive against the rebel Karen National Union was one of the main concerns raised in the US-backed resolution at the UN Security Council, which was vetoed Friday by China and Russia.
The Karen are just one of many ethnic groups targeted in the largest attempt to pacify minorities, many of whom have long struggled for self-determination in this country, formerly known as Burma.
The Karen's 57-year struggle for autonomy makes theirs one of the longest-running insurgencies in the world.
"Now the Burmese government has planted landmines on the farms on the routes back to the village, so these people cannot return safely back to their home or farm," said Sunai Phasuk, a Human Rights Watch representative in Thailand.
"They are pushing further and further away into the jungle, and some of them have reported being hunted like animals after they ran away," Sunai said.
And they continue to run.
Myanmar's ruling junta has pushed many villagers from their homes to create a security cordon around their new administrative capital Naypyidaw, where the government began operating nearly one year ago, according to rights groups.
But those who are relocated say the rape of women and forced labour for both sexes is common.
"They forced villagers to clear landmines and to rebuild roads on frontline areas," one Karen aid worker at the camp said.
Government workers on bulldozers also use Karen as human shields against landmines, making villagers walk in front of the bulldozers to clear a path through the jungle, he said.
"The conflicts and military offensives in ethnic areas, in Karen State, Karenni State, Shan State further north, we can confidently call it crimes against humanity already," Sunai said.
Those who have made it to the camp do not know where they will go next but say they cannot stay here.
Myanmar has signed deals with China and Thailand to build hydro-electric dams along this border, and some time soon this camp will be submerged deep beneath the nearby Salween River.
In the meantime, people living in this camp struggle along with little help and little concern from the outside world.
Yangon, January 23, 2007 : Even as fighting raged all around them, Pi Lu never thought she would have to uproot her eight children and flee their small village in eastern Myanmar.
She stayed even after her husband was killed in 2003, when he stepped on a landmine that had been planted in one of their rice paddies.
But over the last year, an offensive by Myanmar's military government to clear out villages in Pi Lu's ethnic Karen homeland escalated to a point where she could bear it no more.
Seven people in her village were killed in the shelling, and their animal herds were slowly decimated by landmines that littered the grazing areas around her village, she said.
"When the children went to sleep by artillery instead of lullabies, it was time to leave," she said.
So like thousands of others in Myanmar's impoverished and battle-scarred Karen state, Pi Lu fled with her family, trekking through the jungle for weeks until they found refuge in a camp hidden in the mountains near the Thai border.
Two of her children are sick with malaria in the camp's dirt-floored clinic, which has no properly trained medical personnel and little equipment other than bandages and antiseptic.
Most of the patients are suffering from malaria, chronic diarrhoea or landmine injuries in a conflict largely forgotten by the rest of the world.
"Along the road, they have no health care so they got many sickness. And so when they arrive here at the same time at our hospital, every bed is full," said a camp medic who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of his safety.
The camp, which didn't exist a year ago, now shelters some 2,500 people. Like Pi Lu, most journeyed by foot for weeks or even months before finding the relative safety of the camp's bamboo huts along a thin stream.
Human Rights Watch estimates that 27,000 Karen have fled since the offensive began nearly one year ago, joining an estimated 100,000 already hiding near the Thai border.
The brutality of Myanmar's offensive against the rebel Karen National Union was one of the main concerns raised in the US-backed resolution at the UN Security Council, which was vetoed Friday by China and Russia.
The Karen are just one of many ethnic groups targeted in the largest attempt to pacify minorities, many of whom have long struggled for self-determination in this country, formerly known as Burma.
The Karen's 57-year struggle for autonomy makes theirs one of the longest-running insurgencies in the world.
"Now the Burmese government has planted landmines on the farms on the routes back to the village, so these people cannot return safely back to their home or farm," said Sunai Phasuk, a Human Rights Watch representative in Thailand.
"They are pushing further and further away into the jungle, and some of them have reported being hunted like animals after they ran away," Sunai said.
And they continue to run.
Myanmar's ruling junta has pushed many villagers from their homes to create a security cordon around their new administrative capital Naypyidaw, where the government began operating nearly one year ago, according to rights groups.
But those who are relocated say the rape of women and forced labour for both sexes is common.
"They forced villagers to clear landmines and to rebuild roads on frontline areas," one Karen aid worker at the camp said.
Government workers on bulldozers also use Karen as human shields against landmines, making villagers walk in front of the bulldozers to clear a path through the jungle, he said.
"The conflicts and military offensives in ethnic areas, in Karen State, Karenni State, Shan State further north, we can confidently call it crimes against humanity already," Sunai said.
Those who have made it to the camp do not know where they will go next but say they cannot stay here.
Myanmar has signed deals with China and Thailand to build hydro-electric dams along this border, and some time soon this camp will be submerged deep beneath the nearby Salween River.
In the meantime, people living in this camp struggle along with little help and little concern from the outside world.
posted by Ven. Pragya Jyoti at 3:41 PM
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