Shan Women’s Action Network reports that the Burmese Military Regime is still giving license to its soldiers to commit rape to women and children of Shan State.

In March 2006, an SPDC colonel who visited Murng Kerng, Central Shan State was reported to have told soldiers at the command post of infantry battalion 243: “Do anything you like, whether it be stealing, robbing, raping or dealing in drugs.  The only thing is to be careful it doesn’t come out on one of the foreign radios”.  

Whilst world attention has been on the Karen’s plight since the first half of 2006, few people are aware that at the same time the regime’s troops are conducting very similar offensives of systematic violence against women and children in Central Shan State.

Details of this sexual offensive first reached the outside world on April 10 when BBC interviewed a community worker from the central Shan township of Murng Kerng who reported that several units of SPDC soldiers had been marauding through hill villages since the start of the year raping women at each village.

Shan Herald Agency for News reported in May that on orders to flush out the Shan resistance in Murng Kerng SPDC soldiers belonging to infantry battalions 514, 515, 518 and 64 went from village to village demanding that headmen to provide them with 5 to 7 “comfort women”.  One mute woman was seized in this way by the soldiers, beaten to death and her body left outside her village.

Shan Women’s Action Network subsequently interviewed several sources from Murng Kerng, who confirmed the earlier reports, providing further details of rape cases by SPDC troops in their areas. “One unit of about ten soldiers from LIB 515 went from village to village around where I live – altogether about 10 Palaung villages.  At each village they ordered the headman to provide women as “guides” for the troops and then gang-raped them along the way. If the headmen refused they were fined 200,000 kyat”. Another source described how the same unit had visited a Palaung village and demanded comfort women.  When the father of one of the women protested, he was beaten to death.

Since 2002 until today, at least 254* women and girls in Shan State have been raped by SPDC troops from 42 battalions. This year between January and April alone, at least 29 women in six Palaung villages in Shan State reported sexual violence, including gang-rape, sexual slavery and torture to death, committed by SPDC officers and soldiers. Women and girls were seized by patrolling troops and kept for sexual abuse for up to five nights. In one village, women were gang-raped in front of their husbands, who had been tied up.

The Palaung Women’s Organization reported that: _

On 9 October 2006 at 2.00 pm six soldiers of Burma’s military regime gang raped three Palaung women outside Wan Pan village, Ho Pong village tract, Loi Lem district in Southern Shan State. The three women were Daw Nan Man, age (52), Ma Aye Sein, (32), and Ma Aye Kyaing, age (14). All three women were rice cultivators. The soldiers, from Battalion 9 stationed at Murng Naung base, located at Wan Pan village, were Thet Pine, Thet Lwin Oo, Myo Thein, La Min Htwe, Kyaw Soe and Win Ko.

Daw Nan Man and Ma Aye Kyaing escaped from the soldiers after incurring serious injuries. However, the soldiers left Ma Aye Sein, whose injuries were too severe to move, lying in the bush where the gang rape had taken place. Ma Aye Sein’s skull had been cracked open, there were 4 stab wounds under her left breast and three ribs were broken. Ma Aye Sein died on 13 October at Lwe Lin Hospital from her injuries, which were complicated by delays in getting her to hospital.

Wan Pan Villagers went and reported the gang rapes to the commanders of Battalion No 9. To date, none of the six rapists have been prosecuted.

SPDC soldiers and troops are still frequently raping Shan and other ethnic women in conflict areas with impunity. Rape is still being used as a tool to demoralize and destroy ethnic communities, and serves as a continuation of civil warfare off the battlefield.

Moreover, because of the steadily increasing military battalions in the conflict areas of Shan State, local villagers are in greater risk of violence perpetrated by the soldiers, including sexual violence.

In the meantime, whilst rape and brutalisation by the SPDC against women and children of Shan State is still going on, the Burmese Military Regime has even taken the opportunity to deny and refute “fabrications” that their soldiers had committed any kind of systematic human rights abuses against women.

Quotes

¨       “These inhuman actions must stop immediately and only genuine political reform in Burma will protect these women from various forms of sexual violence. PWO calls on the international community to increase pressure on the military regime to implement a nationwide ceasefire withdrawal of troops stationed in ethnic areas and begin tripartite dialogue. Special envoy to Burma, Prof Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, highlighted the role of sexual violence in Burma in his latest report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, welcoming the United Nation’s Security Council’s decision to include Burma on its agenda. This case is undeniable evidence that urgent action is required by the UNSC under its Resolution 1325.” PWO

¨       “Soldiers perpetrated these abuses in a context of deteriorating respect for women. The hierarchical model of a society run by an all-male military which the SPDC is trying to create cannot function properly if the respect for women ingrained in all of Burma’s cultures is retained; as civilians, women must be dehumanised and placed below the military.. Soldiers exploit not only socio-cultural power disparities between men and women but also between the military and the villagers. The structures of militarisation thus compound those of gender to create an environment supportive of rape.” KHRG

¨       “We must understand that females are the first gurus that our children have, and a guru or teacher that teaches us about true love that is unconditional is the best teacher that we can have. This does not mean that women must sit back. What it means is, is that we must integrate the love again into our hearts and integrate our maleness in a balanced rather than an aggressive way. Unconditional love is the energy of freedom. Freedom is merely freedom from fear, freedom from control through fear.” - Mother Mary.

Footnote

* Some women are reluctant to report cases of rape for fear of stigmatization.

For more information

“Women demand an immediate end to war crimes in Burma” _ www.womenofburma.org