Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Yangon (Fides Service) - “Burmese ethnic minority refugees camped on the border with Thailand are living a serious humanitarian crisis” says London based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) organisation which keeps check on violation of human rights and anti-Christian persecution. A CSW delegation visited the area and spoke with Karen, Karenni and Shan people in refugee camps in the border region of Thailand. These peoples are persecuted by the regime, they suffer hardship and hunger, they are without homes or medical assistance and are forced to take refuge in the forest. The Myanmar army continues to comb the area and destroy villages, on the ground that these ethnic groups break the law, according to CSW.
After visiting camps in Thailand and Myanmar the CSW delegation reported that at least 5,000 Karen have been forced to abandon their homes, at least one million people are internally displaced and since 1996 army troops have destroyed more than 2,500 Karen, Karenni and Shan villages.
Christian Solidarity calls on the European Union and ASEAN countries (Association South East Asian Nations) to put suitable sanctions on regime of Yangon, which recently made a promise, not kept, to release 4,000 prisoners. Observers say the regime is even more rigid after the removal in October of Premier Khin Myunt who handed over to General Than Shwe.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide says there are at least 1,400 political prisoners detained in Myanmar prisons. For this reason the National Democracy League opposition party refused to take part in a national convention organised by the government to draft a new Constitution. The military junta, or “Council of State for Peace and Development”, defeated in 1990 elections by the League, invalidated the vote. The leader of the League, Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, is still under house arrest.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 15/12/2004 righe 34 parole 355)
