Some 84,000 Karen people from across the world have signed a petition that is to be handed over to world leaders, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling on them to immediately stop the Burmese regime attacking Karen civilians and commiting human rights abuses against them.
Endorsed by 30 Karen organizations from 15 countries, the first ever worldwide Karen petition will be sent to many world leaders and organizations, including Ban’s office, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The petition will also be delivered to the governments of Japan, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Canada among others.
“This is an unprecedented appeal to the United Nations from ordinary villagers in Burma who are facing appalling human rights abuses,” said Zipporah Sein, the general-secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU), an armed Karen resistance group that has been fighting for autonomy for more than six decades.
“The Burmese army has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity for so long,” she said. “We call on the UN secretary-general to use his power to put pressure on the Burmese regime to stop their military operations and human rights violations in Karen State and other Karen areas.
“We urge Ban Ki-moon to work with concerned governments around the world to secure a nationwide ceasefire, leading to meaningful and inclusive dialogue to achieve genuine national reconciliation and the establishment of a federal Burma that guarantee ethnic equality and human rights,” comcluded the KNU general-secretary.
All signatories of the petition have been affected by Burmese government forces. Many were subjected to abuses including forced labor, looting, extortion, destruction of homes, villages, crops and fields, forced relocation, extrajudicial killings, beatings, torture and the systematic rape of women and children by the Burmese army for decades, according to a statement released by the KNU on Monday.
More than 3,600 villages have been destroyed in eastern Burma in the past 15 years, an average of four every week, according to KNU records.
The KNU statement said that in 2010, in the months leading up to the general election in Burma, 18 civilians in KNU-controlled areas were killed, 38 civilians were tortured and beaten, 52 civilians were arrested without reason, 2,336 civilians were used as forced labor, 198 homes, schools and churches were destroyed, 146 fields and orchards were destroyed and more than 3,000 civilians were forced to flee and hide in the jungle
It also said that November's general election did not represent any kind of progress toward democratization, national reconciliation or peace and stability in Burma, and will not solve the fundamental problems, which are a lack of ethnic equality and human rights.
The statement went on to say that the constitution that the elections brought in was only designed to enshrine military rule without granting any ethnic rights or protection, and that it “is a serious threat to ethnic minorities in Burma.”
One day after the election, a serious clash between the Burmese army and a splinter group of Karen rebels, Democratic Karen Buddhist Army Brigade 5, broke out at the Thai-Burmese border that caused more than 20,000 Burmese refugee to flee to Thai soil. The conflict is continuing and there are still some 10,000 Karen refugees stranded on the border.
Last week, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, criticized the Burmese junta over its human rights violations. He said that Burma “is burdening other countries in the region, with an influx of refugees fleeing a host of abuses from forced labor and land confiscation to arbitrary detention and sexual violence.”
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