Hundreds of Thousands Still Displaced in Burma: Watchdog

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15258

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By WAI MOE Friday, March 6, 2009

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Burma’s problem of internal displacement continued in 2008 due to ongoing conflict and human rights violations, according to a report released by a Geneva-based watchdog, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), on Thursday.

The IDMC said in its 2008 country report on Burma that the number of displaced persons in the eastern part of the country had increased by an estimated 66,000 people over the past year, bringing the total for the region to at least 451,000.

The group noted that in eastern Burma’s Karen State alone, there are more than 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs). Meanwhile, in Chin State, in western Burma, a new IDP crisis has emerged because of human rights violations and a lack of food security.





According to the report, people in many parts of the country continue to be displaced by forced labor and land confiscation “in the context of state-sponsored development initiatives.” The report added that information about IDPs in some parts of the country was not available.

Since 1996, over 3,200 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed and forcibly relocated or abandoned, the report said.

From the 1980s onwards, several hundred thousand people have been forced to flee their homes and live under difficult conditions in zones of armed conflict, it added.

The report said the internal displacement in eastern Burma reflects the Burmese army’s expansion of its counter-insurgency strategy into new territories after a series of strategic gains.

Internal displacement is also occurring in ceasefire areas, caused by land confiscation and other abuses by the Burmese army, according to the report.

The group said that even in urban areas, large numbers of people have been displaced by government development projects.

A report released last year by the leading human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, also examined the problem of internal displacement in Burma.

The report, Crimes against Humanity in Eastern Myanmar, released in June 2008, details the effects of Burma’s ongoing military offensive in the area.

The report cites “widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law” in eastern Burma as evidence of crimes against humanity in the country.

“The weight of evidence therefore suggests that some of these violations constitute crimes against humanity and that the impunity prevailing in the country for such crimes has contributed to further human rights crises, notably the government crackdown on demonstrators in September 2007,” the report said.

Under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), crimes against humanity are defined as certain illegal acts “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.”

The ICC identifies 11 crimes, including murder, enslavement and “deportation or forcible transfer of population,” as acts that could constitute crimes against humanity.

“Although Myanmar [Burma] is not a party to the Rome Statute, the definition in this Statute of crimes against humanity reflects rules of customary international law binding on all states, regardless of whether or not they are parties to the Statute,” according to the AI report.

On March 4, the ICC issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of committing genocide in Sudan’s western Darfur region. It was the first time in history that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of a current head of state facing charges of crime against humanity.