Burma hunts 2,000 fleeing civilians

BURMESE troops are hunting down 2,000 civilians hiding in the jungle after being driven from their homes in a brutal offensive against the Karen ethnic minority, reports from Burma said yesterday.

The troops were four hours’ walk from the refugees, who had split into groups of 300-400, said a member of the Free Burma Rangers contacted by satellite telephone as he moved with one of the groups.

The rangers, who include Western and ethnic volunteers, provide aid to some of the estimated one million people displaced in Burma by decades of conflict between the military regime and ethnic minorities seeking autonomy.

Recent reports from the rangers say the current offensive has uprooted more than 11,000 Karen civilians in a campaign marked by the burning of villages, destruction of food stocks, killings and torture.

The ruling junta denies any human rights violations, saying it’s taking military action against terrorists.

The fleeing civilians were hiding in remote areas of the Karen State’s Mon Township, about a nine-day walk from the Thai border to which 1,500 other displaced people have already fled, said the volunteer, who demanded anonymity because of the sensitive cross-border operation.

Karen families were carrying whatever essential possessions they could gather up before abandoning their villages. One 60-year-old woman hauled a pack weighing about 60lbs/ (27kg) and stuffed with a cooking pot, some plastic sheets, soap, rice, a torn blanket and utensils, the volunteer said.

The Karen National Union, a Karen guerrilla organisation, says the offensive, which began last November, may be aimed at securing the hinterland east of the country’s new capital of Pyinmana.

The violence of recent years has spawned not only internal refugees but an exodus to neighbouring countries. More than 140,000 Karen and other ethnic minority people live in Thai refugee camps.