CSW calls on UN to intensify efforts for change in Burma

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is urging the UN Secretary-General to “intensify” efforts to facilitate meaningful dialogue between Burma’s military regime, the democracy movement and ethnic nationalities.

The call follows a fact-finding visit to the Thai-Burmese border, during which CSW obtained evidence of continuing human rights violations in Burma.

CSW is now appealing to the international community to increase pressure on the military regime.

During the three-week visit, CSW visited refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) in Karen State, and heard first-hand testimonies from victims of forced labour and forced relocation.

One man told CSW how his leg had been blown off when he stepped on a landmine laid outside his home by troops from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), an armed militia working with the Burma Army. The DKBA had also burned down his home. He then walked for two days through the jungle, on crutches, to an IDP camp on the Thai-Burmese border.

He told CSW: “I really want all the people of Burma to have peace and freedom. If there is no peace and freedom, I cannot go home.”

CSW’s East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers led the delegation.

He said the team had uncovered more evidence of the military regime's "brutal suppression of its people and callous disregard for human dignity and human life".

"Over the past two decades, CSW has visited the Thai-Burmese border many times, and each time the stories we have heard have been painfully consistent," he said. "The regime is guilty of every possible human rights violation, amounting to crimes against humanity, and it is time to bring the generals to account."

He called on the international community to step up efforts to halt "the policies of oppression, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity", and bring the junta into a meaningful dialogue with the democracy movement and the ethnic nationalities.

"No credibility should be given to the regime’s planned elections in 2010, which will simply be rigged in the same way the referendum on a new constitution was blatantly rigged last year," he continued. "Instead, pressure should be intensified on the regime to pave the way for a fully inclusive, free and fair democratic process”.