ASEM has failed: new wave of repression in Burma

The ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) conference of foreign ministers takes place on Whit Monday in Hamburg: the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has charged the ASEM with failure in the Burma question. "The sanctions imposed by the EU against Burma will remain ineffective if at the same time the ASEM states and China constantly fill the war-chests of the military junta with new contracts”, criticised the GfbV Asia correspondent, Ulrich Delius, on Friday. The EU foreign ministers must now force their Asian opposite numbers at the ASEM summit to take consistent action against the Burmese regime in order to put a final end to the new wave of compulsory resettlements, expulsions and brutal terror against ethnic minorities. The ASEM must in particular make sure that all 500,000 refugees and persons in Burma who have been driven out can be cared for by relief organisations without let or hindrance. Attacks by the army on humanitarian aid workers have in recent months caused a dramatic deterioration in the provision of aid. At the ASEM meeting of foreign ministers in Hamburg 43 Asian and European countries will be represented.

Information provided by the GfbV show that since 1996 more than 3000 villages of ethnic minorities have been destroyed or compulsorily resettled. 50,000 members of the Chin people have had in the past year to flee for refuge abroad from the terror of the army”, reported Delius. The number of refugees among the Karen and Shan is even greater. In the first half of 2006 28,000 Karen were compulsorily resettled and 7,700 farm-houses of this minority destroyed. Rape, torture, plundering and forced labour are part of the everyday life of many minorities in the country, which is made up of many nationalities. In the area inhabited by the Karen alone human rights workers have registered 959 cases of rape. In 91 work-camps huge numbers of dissidents and people of different nationalities are being held. In the prisons more than 1,100 members of the opposition are being held for political reasons. Last week a further 62 were arrested. Christian minorities such as the Karen complain of systematic persecution. Muslims too, like the Rohingya, are restricted in their freedom of worship.

In spite of these violations of human rights Thailand on 16th May closed the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) because refugees from Burma were not to be granted entry, criticised Delius. "Thai declarations of solidarity with the Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi are no more than lip-service if victims of this dictatorship are granted no protection.”

Both Thailand and China are investing in Burma to ensure the delivery of raw materials and sources of energy. For the construction of four dams by Chinese and Thai companies hundreds of thousands of people from the ethnic communities of the Shan and Karen along the Salween River have been resettled compulsorily. 300,000 Shan have already been driven away to maker way for the Tasang dam. A further 500,000 Mon, Karen and Shan are immediately affected by the consequences of the mammoth project, for several hundred square kilometres of pasture-land are to be flooded with this dam, which is the largest one planned in South-east Asia. Delius fears that as in the case of other large projects many people from various nationalities and forced workers will be committed to the construction work.

China has increased its interest in the oil and natural gas industry of Burma this spring. In April the construction was announced of a pipe-line for oil and natural gas from the Burmese deep water harbour of Sittwe to Kumming in China.