Lifting the lid on Burma's persecuted ethnic minorities

Another warning note ahead of elections in Burma has been sounded, with a major report unveiling the plight of the country's oft-persecuted ethnic minority groups.

Most international criticisms of the impending elections centre on the continued detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, one of 2,100 prisoners of conscience in Burma.

But a new report from Amnesty International UK says ethnic minority activists are being arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed prior to this year's elections.

The human rights group spoke to 700 activists from Burma's seven largest ethnic minorities, including Rakhine, Shan, Kachin and Chin, over two years beginning August 2007 in a period including the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

They reported a constant state of surveillance, harassment and discrimination from the country's military junta.

No date has been set for the general elections by the deeply superstitious generals, who infamously relocated the country's capital from Rangoon to the astronomically-favourable jungle hideout of Naypyidaw in 2006.

Among the crimes committed specifically against Burma's ethnic minority groups uncovered by Amnesty is an incident where troops refused to rescue a pregnant woman in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis after discovering she was Karen and a Christian.

In 2007 meanwhile four teenage Kachin girls were caned in public and imprisoned for a year after their gang rape by Burmese soldiers was covered by BBC Burmese. Their only provocation before the attack had been to sing Kachin songs at a karaoke bar.

"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's [Burma's] political opposition," said Amnesty International's Burma expert Benjamin Zawacki.

"The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections.

"Activism in Myanmar is not confined to the central regions and urban centres. Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities."

Amnesty International is calling on the Association of South East Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member, and the region's major power China to expert more pressure on Burma to begin recognising people's rights to freedom of association, assembly and religion.

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