WUNRN
Women's League of Burma
By SAW YAN NAING - November
7, 2011
“I was terrified. I kept screaming,
and then he threatened to punch my baby through my stomach if I didn't stop,”
said a pregnant woman from Kachin State, describing her rape at the hands of a
Burmese government soldier.
“I was so afraid. All I could do was
cry while he brutally raped me,” she said, sobbing.
The woman was speaking to women's
rights researchers who had traveled to war-torn Kachin State to produce a
documentary about sexual violence perpetrated against women in the conflict
zone. She was just one of 18 women known to have been raped by Burmese soldiers
in the state, where the Burmese army is mounting a major offensive against the
Kachin Independence Army.
The documentary, produced by the
Thailand-based Women's League of Burma (WLB) and titled “Bringing
Justice to Women,” makes harrowing viewing.
“If possible, I want legal action
taken against the military government in Burma,” said the woman, not looking
very hopeful that that would ever happen.
Kachin State is not the only place
in Burma where ethnic women are targets of sexual violence. In neighboring Shan
State, rights activists reported that four ethnic Shan women, aged between 12
and 50 years old—including one women who was nine months' pregnant—were raped
by soldiers in July.
The film highlights the ongoing
systematic use of rape as a weapon against ethnic minorities in areas of
renewed military conflict in Kachin, Karen and Shan states, one year after
Burma held its first election in more than two decades.
At a time when Naypyidaw is stepping
up its efforts to win international legitimacy, the film, using interviews with
rape survivors, community members and women’s rights groups, provides
compelling evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity by the
government's army continue unabated under the new military-backed “civilian”
regime.
Moon Nay Li, a spokeswoman for the
Thailand-based Kachin Women's Association Thailand (KWAT), toldThe
Irrawaddy, “In the war zone, women are most vulnerable and their
lives and safety are at risk. Some are raped then killed by the government
army.”
“The situation is getting worse
instead of better, especially in ethnic areas, after the general election in
2010,” she added.
Civilians routinely become victims
of forced labor, torture, rape and murder in Burma's conflict zones. The fact
that such abuses have not stopped despite the supposed transition to democratic
rule means that it is too early to be optimistic about recent political
developments in Burma, according to Moon Nay Li.
With no signs of improvement in the
army's human rights record, the WLB has renewed calls for a UN-led Commission
of Inquiry (CoI) leading to the referral of Than Shwe, the chief of the
ex-military regime, and other former leading generals to the International
Criminal Court (ICC).
One reason the army continues to
commit rampant human rights abuses is that for decades it has acted with
impunity. In fact, Burma's 2008 Constitution guarantees the country's military
leaders immunity from prosecution. Under Articles 443 and 445 of Chapter XIV of
the Constitution, members of the current regime cannot be held accountable for
their wrongdoings in the past.
Article 443 states that “the
preparatory work done by the [regime] before this Constitution comes into
operation, to bring the Constitution into operation, shall be deemed to have
been carried out in accord with this Constitution.”
“No proceeding shall be instituted
against the [ruling military council] or any member thereof or any member of
the Government, in respect to any act done in the execution of their respective
duties,” according to Article 445.
According to Moon Nay Li, the 2008
Constitution, which was written by handpicked representatives of Burma's
various social and ethnic groups, serves only to protect those who have
committed crimes in ethnic regions, and offers no security to ordinary
citizens.
The WLB's documentary therefore
argues that the only way to achieve justice in Burma is by calling on the
government to implement the terms of UN resolutions demanding an end to acts of
sexual violence carried out with impunity by members of the Burmese armed
forces.
The US special envoy to Burma,
Derek Mitchell, who made his third visit to the country in less than two months
last week, has also called for an end to rights abuses in ethnic areas.
Speaking to reporters, he said, “We
heard about the continuing conflict in ethnic areas, a continuation of decades
of conflict in which many thousands of non-combatants have been the victims,
and where serious abuses, including against women and children, continue.”
“We continue to be greatly
concerned about these issues and we have raised these concerns with the
government officials with whom we met,” said Mitchell.
Giving a live speech to a
conference in Canada on May 23-25 this year, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi said, “Rape is used in my country as a weapon against those who only want
to live in peace, especially in areas of the ethnic nationalities. It is used
as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and divide
our country.”