Kachin Day

Today is Kachin State Day, the 60th anniversary of the founding of Kachin State. Today was supposed to a festive and happy celebration, but the Kachin National Organization has accused the junta of stealing their culture, usurping their influence, and whitewashing history. The story here.

Ethnic Ceasefire Groups Told to Sign Statement against Suu Kyi

***The 19 ONLINE PETITIONS/PLEDGES FOR BURMA HERE.***
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The Irrawaddy's Thursday article on the junta's forcing ethnic ceasefire groups to denounce Aung San Suu Kyi. This comes on the heels of a statement made by Suu Kyi released via UN Special Envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari on November 8. In it, Suu Kyi said that it was imperative to consider ethnic perspectives in any discourse relating to national reconciliation. On November 10, twelve ethnic groups welcomed Suu Kyi's statement and called for a tripartite dialogue amongst the junta, political opposition forces, and ethnic minorities. The junta's move is an attempt to counter renewed internal support for the imprisoned Nobel Peace Laureate.

The junta has again relied on its age old policy of divide and conquer by manipulating ceasefire groups for its own aims. Again, it is surprising to note that while the SPDC refuses to engage in talks with registered political parties, such as the NLD, it has no qualms negotiating with armed insurgent groups. This demonstrates that the junta is much more responsive to violent threats than legally recognized, registered political forces. Incidentally, a news story on 80,000 IDPs in Karenni State HERE.
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The Burmese government has coerced several ethnic ceasefire groups and other ethnic parties to sign a written statement saying Aung Suu San Kyi has no leadership role among ethnic nationalities, according to reliable sources.

State-run newspapers have recently run statements from several ethnic groups' which are critical of Suu Kyi. Observers say the statements are an effort to drive a wedge between pro-democracy groups and ethnic groups.

The United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Defense Army (KDA), the Kokant Army and the Shan State Army (North) met with government officials in Lashio in northern Shan State. Military officials called the leaders to sign a statement that was already written by unknown parties, sources close to the ceasefire groups told The Irrawaddy on Thursday.

“Three days ago, the junta’s Minister of Culture, Brig-Gen Khin Aung Myint, arrived to Lashio. On November 12, officials of the North-East Regional Command told leaders of ceasefire groups to come to Lashio by November 13. Wa’s deputy chairman was among them. The leaders of four ceasefire groups met with minister Khin Aung Myint and the regional commander on November 14,” said the source.

“The military officials brought anti-Daw Aung San Suu Kyi statements, already written, to the meeting. Leaders of the groups were told to sign the statements,” the source said.

Two ceasefire groups, the UWSA and Kokant, did not sign the statements during the meeting, and the SSA told authorities that it would reply to their request by November 15. UWSA is said to have an estimated 20,000 troops which is the biggest ceasefire group.

Meanwhile, the state-run-press has published the statements of other ethnic groups.

The statements in The New Light of Myanmar said they welcomed the meeting between Suu Kyi and the liaison officer, ex-Maj-Gen Aung Kyi. The statements said Suu Kyi does not represent ethnic groups, referring to her statement on November 8, which was conveyed by UN envoy Ishmael Gambari.

In the statement, Suu Kyi said, “In this time of vital need for democratic solidarity and national unity, it is my duty to give constant and serious considerations to the interests and opinions of as broad a range of political organizations and forces as possible, in particular those of our ethnic nationality races.”

Nyan Win, a spokesperson of the Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, denied the allegations in junta newspapers that Suu Kyi claimed to represent ethnic groups.

“This kind of allegation is delaying ongoing dialogue and the national reconciliation process,” said Nyan Win.

On November 10, twelve ethnic parties based inside Burma issued statements that welcomed Suu Kyi’s November 8 statement and called for tripartite dialogue.

“We welcome dialogue between the ruling, pro- democracy forces led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and representatives of ethnic nationalities,” said the statement.

The exiled ethnic umbrella group, Ethnic Nationalities Council, also welcomed Suu Kyi's November 9 statement.

What's It like to live like a Refugee or IDP?

***The 14 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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There are more than 1 million refugees from Burma living in Thailand, India, and Bangladesh, but at least 2 million internally displaced peoples (IDPs), mainly ethnic minorities, who are fleeing from the attacking Burma Army. IDPs are basically refugees in their own countries. As they remain on territory under sovereign national jurisdiction, they are not given refugee status and are not protected by international law. They do not have the same access to basic humanitarian aid that is available to recognized refugees, so their situation is all that much more dire. In the jungle, they not only have to avoid soldiers, but landmines, tropical diseases, hunger, and the elements as well.

The most important concern that IDPs have is basic survival. Here are the everyday worries of IDPs (and refugees):

* Will I be safe?
* What will I eat?
* How do I find water?
* Can I get medical care?
* Where will I live?

Medicins San Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has an interactive refugee camp that gives further insight into the hardships and situations that refugees and IDPs face on a daily basis. It is not Burma-specific, but does touch on general challenges that is representative of the refugee/IDP experience. Scroll down to the bottom of this page, and towards the bottom, click on "interactive guide"

A backgrounder on the global refugee/IDP situation HERE.

You can help refugees and IDPs from Burma by DONATING:
- DONATE to Partners Relief and Development's 5 Alive Program. $50 can help keep a family of 5 IDPs alive for one month. Read more HERE.

- DONATE: The Mae Tao Clinic (MTC), founded and directed by Dr. Cynthia Maung, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers, and other individuals who cross the border from Burma to Thailand. People of all ethnicities and religions are welcome at the Clinic. Its origins go back to the student pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988 and the brutal repression by the Burmese regime of that movement. The fleeing students who needed medical attention were attended in a small house in Mae Sot.

You can help the clinic continue its work by either DONATINGor VOLUNTEERING.

"My father was a soldier"

***The 14 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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Today, I met with two political activists from different ceasefire areas in Burma.
One taught in a missionary school in Shan State. He was telling me about Burma's poor educational system and the burdens of tax and forced labor. In his area, each agrarian family had to pay a year agricultural tax of 10,000 kyat or about $7.50. ($1 = 1,325 kyat). That's a huge chunk of change for a country whose per capita GDP-according to the UN-is $217, making it one of the world's 20 poorest countries. The USA Today report HERE.

(According to one of my Burmese contacts, the way that the junta got Burmese citizens to turn out en-masse for the nationwide pro-government rallies proceeding the crackdown was to threaten them with penalties of 50,000 kyat ($38.50). BBC reported on ethnic Chins who fled Burma because they couldn't afford paying the 10,000 kyat fines for not attending the rallies. Those who have refused to attend have been jailed. The report HERE).

In addition to these exorbitant taxes and fines, villagers from this particular area in Shan State had to forferit 10% of their harvests to the Burma Army. Also, they occasionally have to serve as forced labor for road construction projects and Burma Army camp maintenance.

He also told me of his father. His father joined the Kachin Independence Army, the military arm of the Kachin Independence Organization, in the early 60's and fought the Burma Army for 10-11 years. After the KIO signed a ceasefire in 1993, the KIA splintered into smaller factions.

The other activist, who I had met on a previous occasion, came from Mon State, a territory that the insurgent New Mon State Party brought under ceasefire in 1995. When I asked him what he thought of the current negotiations, he said, "It's not real. We have 50 years of experience [in dealing with the junta]. They just like to tell the world that they're talking with Aung San Suu Kyi. When our leaders went to negotiate with the government [more than 40 years ago], they were arrested [After the SLORC came to power]. We lost our [15] leaders that way. After we signed the ceasefire, they didn't let us take part in the National Convention. We know them well. We need the international community to act, especially China and ASEAN.

I asked him how he and other activists maintained hope for a peaceful and democratic Burma. He replied, "That's all we do all day, everyday, is talk about how to keep hope."

Burma: No Turning Back / State of Fear

***The 14 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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Frontline World has recently posted "Burma: No Turning Back", an eyewitness account of a Western journalist who was present for the brutal crackdown that followed last month's protests. It is eyewitness video testimony of what the situation is. Please forward it widely, and feel free to link to it. Here's the URL:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/2007/10/burma_no_turnin.html

PBS also has an in depth documentary online titled "Burma: State of Fear".
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/index.html

More FRONTLINE/World Burma Coverage

Burma: Voices of Dissent
Reporter Anuj Chopra was in Burma just before the protests turned into the largest demonstration against the ruling military regime in two decades. Read his eyewitness report and watch a short interview clip with a dissident inside the country.

Myanmar's Hidden AIDS Epidemic
FRONTLINE/World reporter Orlando de Guzman reports on Burma's AIDS crisis. He travels inside the country talking to doctors and health workers, one of whom explains that it is "the lack of freedom, the lack of scientific information, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, these very fundamental rights that have been denied the Burmese people, have made the spread of HIV more likely and more grave."

Burma: Can Sanctions Bring Democracy?
In 2004, FRONTLINE/World reporter Joan Bieder ventured inside Burma, a country which appears to be "moving backward," to report on the impact of U.S. economic sanctions against a military regime that stills holds Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
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Dispatch's horrifying, yet informative report Burma's Secret War is linked HERE and embedded below. In Burma's Secret War, "Dispatches exposes the new surge in violence inflicted on the Burmese people by their own regime. Enslaved by a brutal military dictatorship which wields absolute power, Burma is a secretive state where suppression reigns and dissent is not tolerated.

Journalist Evan Williams, who is banned from entering the country after reporting on Burma for more than 10 years, goes undercover to investigate the mass ethnic cleansing, forced labour and vicious clamping down of political opposition which characterise the dictatorship." HERE is Investigative TV Journalism website Four Corner's synopsis of William's report.

Government troops clash with KNLA

***The 14 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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Below, another example of the junta's desire to extend infrastructure projects into ethnic areas and how the military breaks down unity amongst the different insurgent groups and gets them to fight each other.
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Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma's Oct. 27 article HERE:

Oct 26, 2007 (DVB)–Fights between the Burmese government army and ethnic rebels have been on the increase in Karen and Karenni states as the government tries to clear land for a road-building project.

Karen National Union spokesperson Saw Hla Ngway told DVB that fights have been reported between Burmese troops, backed by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Association, and the Karen National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the KNU.

The KNLA’s Battalion 18 under Brigade 6 has clashed with the government army as it advances into Karen rebel territory to clear land for a major road-building project to take place between Thailand and Burma.

Saw Hla Ngway said that another skirmish took place in the Ywartanshae area on Tuesday between KNU troops and about 400 soldiers from DKBA Battalions 906 and 909, led by Major Chit Thu and Major Nakhanmwe. The number of the casualties is still unknown.

"The fights are going to continue as the government is trying to clear the land by supplying the DKBA with all the weapons and facilities they need," Saw Hla Ngway said.

Seven other clashes have been reported from Karenni state involving insurgent group the Karenni National Progressive Party. The group's secretary (2) Khoo Oo Rah claims the fights resulted in one KNPP death, while six from the SPDC side were killed or injured.

Resistance in the Burmese jungle

***The 14 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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Today's BBC story HERE. Another very informative article-by AP-on Burma's Secret War against Ethnic Minorities HERE.

*This article states that almost 100,000 IDPs fleeing from the Burma Army are hiding in the jungle. Partners Relief and Development, an organization that provides direct relief for IDPs, estimates that at least 2 million villagers are on the run. I have heard of estimates as high as 4 million.
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The leader of a Burmese ethnic army has urged all opponents of the ruling junta to unite in the aftermath of last month's uprising.

"All those battling the regime must co-operate," said Colonel Yawd Serk, of the Shan State Army (SSA).

"If we cannot unite, and if the international community does not come to our help, then nothing will change in Burma for a decade."

Thousands of people are hiding out in Burma's dense jungles.

Colonel Serk, speaking at his fortified hilltop camp in the jungles close to the Thai border, did not sound optimistic.

He said he doubted the military government was serious about dialogue, and accused the United Nations of merely "talking, but doing nothing practical.

"As long as China, Russia and India continue to arm the regime then civilians will suffer."

Common cause

For years the steep green hills of eastern Burma have hidden a vast and chaotic conflict between rival ethnic armies, drug-smuggling militias and the unrestrained brutality of the Burmese military.

Civilians have been systematically targeted by government troops, with some 3000 villages destroyed and, according to the latest estimates, almost 100,000 people currently in hiding.

Half a million have been forced to abandon their homes.

The SSA says it has already begun preliminary talks with Burma's main democratic opposition group, the National League for Democracy, and also with representatives from another ethnic group, the Karen National Union, to try to seek a common negotiating position.

But most ethnic forces - like the United Wa State Army, whose frontline forts are within shouting distance of the SSA on the neighbouring hilltop - have signed ceasefire deals with the junta.

Despite growing signs of frustration, they may not be so easily persuaded to join any new alliance.

'Separate state'

The SSA is already preparing for the worst.

Burmese rebel soldier: "They killed monks and civilians, that is why we want our separate state"

In a clearing in the jungle, I saw about 300 new recruits - conscripted from villages across Shan State - busy training.

They appeared to be well disciplined and fairly well equipped with automatic weapons and new uniforms.

There are reports that other ethnic armies, including ceasefire groups, are also rearming and recruiting - partly as a result of the recent crackdown, but also because of growing disillusionment with the junta's proposed new constitution and its "roadmap to democracy".

"The Burmese killed my brother," said Sai Leng, aged 28. "The Burmese are our enemy, and we are fighting for independence."

He and his colleagues had all heard about the protests in Rangoon, and the subsequent military crackdown.

"They killed monks and civilians," said Sai Leng. "This is why we want our separate state."

Drugs trade

The rebel soldiers say they are helping civilians flee oppression
Nearby, a smaller group of 30 soldiers was preparing to head back out into the jungle.

They said they expected to be away for three months and their mission was to help civilians fleeing from government offensives.

Colonel Serk said he had 8,000 soldiers under his command and an annual operating budget of approximately £300,000 ($615,000).

He insisted that his army was not involved in the local drug trade - which appears to be flourishing after years of decline - and was vigorously fighting it.

Funding for the SSA came, he said, from taxes on local civilians.

Child victims

The conflict has affected children and left many without parents.

Thousands of civilians now live at the SSA camp, having fled from villages deeper inside Burma over recent years.

The headmaster of the local school said a third of all children there were orphans.

Fourteen-year old Neung sat in a wooden dormitory doing her homework.

She said she had been raped by Burmese troops two years earlier and had fled into the jungle.

She dreamed of becoming an SSA soldier, she said, but a wounded leg meant she would not be able to join up and fight the enemy.

Giving aid to IDPs--Putting Oneself in Harm's Way

***The 13 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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Today, I met with workers from Free Burma Rangers, one of the leading humanitarian organizations providing relief to internally displaced persons inside Burma's armed conflict zones. They smuggle medicines, clothes, cooking utensils, matches, plastic sheeting, and other basic survival equipment to the hundreds of thousands of ethnic peoples displaced by attacks by the Burma Army. They have to travel through the jungles for days to weeks at a time to reach IDPs, all the while avoiding SPDC patrols, landmines, and tropical diseases. They administer medical aid to SPDC attack survivors, malaria and landmine victims, and to those suffering from numerous other illnesses.

The personal risk is great. You can get shot at, blown up by landmines, or stricken by malaria. I heard of 5 of FBR's casualties. One was killed by a landmine. Another was captured, tortured, and then executed. One died from cerebral malaria, and two drowned.

Another IDP medical assistance organization is the Back Pack Health Worker Team. Several of their members have died in the field.

Such brave determination and sacrifice.

You personally can help IDPs by donating to Partners Relief and Development's 5 Alive Program. $50 will keep a family of internally displaced persons alive for one month. Donate HERE. You can download Partners' 5 Alive Brochure HERE. You can also join Partners' listserv off its homepage.
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"I come from a 'black' area"

***The 12 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***
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In a country split by civil war, there are three areas. The "white" areas are those held by the SPDC. "Grey" denotes areas held in contention. And "black" is for insurgent controlled territory.

Today, I met Htu Plway*. He is a stateless person, a person without citizenship. His parents fled Burma in the early 80's. While he was born in Karen State, he doesn't have any identification papers, which makes it all the more dangerous for him to do the kind of work that he does. He is especially at risk whenever he crosses the border going either way.

One of the first things he said to me was "I come from a black area." Coming from a "black" area makes it all the more difficult for one to freely travel, let alone crossing the border.

He told me later in the day that without identification papers and a country to call his own, he's not sure about his future. When I asked him what country he would like to call home. He said "Any".

He was in Mawlamyine, the capital of Mon State, at the height of the protests in late September. He took part for 3 days before the officials there closed the monastery and sent the monks home.

There was no violence, but had he been arrested, he would have been in a precarious situation. Without any papers, he could've languished in jail for a long time. He knows how lucky he is.

I was surprised to see that for someone who works in a constant state of physical insecurity, how well-informed he was about the varying responses to Burma from the international community.

Through our conversation, I could also sense his frustration and disappointment of not only the weakness of the UN's response, but also the failure of the different opposition groups in uniting together and their recent inaction in the recent protests. He told me that when he approached one of the ceasefire groups, they told him, "If you get into trouble, don't come to us for help."

(Many of the ceasefire groups choose a tentative peace over bloodshed, as they know they are no match for the Burma Army's artillery. Some benefit from trade concessions granted under the ceasefires, and would rather stick to the status quo than restart their civil war. The truth is that ceasefires help the junta future entrench themselves in insurgent held areas. It never ceases to amaze me that the junta will only respond to the power of the gun. While it is willing to negotiate with armed insurgents, it fails to seek dialogue with the democratically-elected government.)

I didn't want to probe too much, as I just met him. But I'm sure I'll have a lot to learn from his experiences. Perhaps a bit is lost in translation, as my Thai is not that good. But one thing is for sure, that I am constantly humbled by working with and for these human rights and environmental activists. It just amazes me that they keep fighting even though they are fighting against almost impossible odds. Hope keeps them afloat.

* I changed his name to protect his identity

Ethnic Groups Lack Unity, Stay Out of Protests

***The 10 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.***

The majority of armed ethnic insurgent groups have refrained from taking part in recent protests, not because they did not support the demonstrators, but because the various factions lack cohesion and are not united under a common standard and for decades have fought amongst themselves. Some, like the Karen National Liberation Army, continue the armed struggle for the independence that was promised them under the conditions of the 1947 Panglong Agreement, while others have signed ceasefires with the junta. With the signing of ceasefires, some insurgent groups such as the United Wa State Army, the New Mon State Party, and the Kachin Independence Organization have all have successfully negotiated for trade concessions, many of which include opium, whose production in Burma, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has increased by 46% this year alone (story HERE). Much of the global trade in hard drugs comes from Burma--It is the world's second largest producer of heroin and Southeast Asia's #1 supplier of methanphetamines.

These unlawful trade deals, which constitute insurgent armies' primary source of funding, and the absence of a unified front amongst ethnic groups gives the Tatmadaw more political and military leverage and actually enables the military to further encroach on insurgent controlled territories. And public dissatisfaction with the ceasefires has eroded the support base of insurgents. Rather than fighting militarily or politically, some groups are complicitly facilitating the black market trade which keeps the junta afloat.

As a side note, it should be acknowledged, that while the junta has been more than willing to negotiate with illegal armed insurgents, to date, it has refused to hold unconditional talks with legal political entities, like the NLD. Perhaps it is because the military's rulers do not see political parties which subscribe to nonviolent means of civil disobedience as a threat. However, when confronted by opposition groups that resort to violent methods, they are more keen on having discussions.

Aung San Suu Kyi speaking on behalf of nonviolence below (linked HERE):



In her book Living Silence, Christina Fink notes that ethnic groups have traditionally been marginalized because of Burman feelings of superiority and because under the British, minorities were given different administrative and political systems than the Burmans. Moreover, many of the ethnic Kachin and Karens converted to Christianity and Catholicism, so do not identify with the needs and wants of the Burman Buddhist majority.

The demands of the minorities were never satisfactorily addressed even before independence, as the caretaker government feared the British would renege on their promises of grantly independence, they hastily drew up a Constitution without the participation of all nationalities.

And as some ethnic groups fought with the British against the Burma Independence during World War II, and were subject to disproportionate revenge and human rights abuses at the hands of the BIA, a high level of mistrust and suspicion still exists today.

Irrawaddy's article "Lack of Unity Kept Ethnic Groups Out of the Showdown" HERE.

Read more on the junta's secret war against ethnic minorities HERE.

Burma's Secret War against Ethnic Minorities

from AP

While international attention has focused on the protests for democracy in Myanmar's cities, a hidden war has decimated generations of the country's powerless ethnic minorities, who have faced brutality for decades.

The Karen, the Shan and other minority groups who live along the Myanmar-Thai border have been attacked, raped and killed by government soldiers. Their thatched-roofed, bamboo homes have been torched. Men have been seized into forced labor for the army, while women, children and the elderly either hide out in nearby jungles until the soldiers leave or flee over the mountains to crowded, makeshift refugee camps.

Children from the Karen National Union insurgent army at the 51st anniversary celebrations of the army's rebellion.

"Many, many thousands of Karen have died in those 60 years," Karen National Union secretary general Mahn Sha said this week of his people's struggle for autonomy since 1947.

The military junta has denied reports of atrocities and says the ethnic rebels are "terrorists" trying to overthrow the government.

The Southeast Asian nation, formerly known as Burma, has more than 100 subtribes. Myanmar's diverse minority groups make up nearly a third of the country's 54 million population.

About two-thirds of the country belongs to the Burman ethnic majority, which is also known as the Myanmar. The other ethnic groups include the Shan, the Karen, the Chin, the Mon, the Arakan or Rakhine, and the Kachin.

Thousand of refugees, mostly from a Muslim ethnic minority known as Rohingyas, have fled over Myanmar's western border with Bangladesh over the years because of persecution by the military junta and economic hardship. The Kachin in the far north, along the border with China, have clashed with the central government, as have the Chin in the central western region bordering India, and the Mon in the south along the Andaman Sea.

But the military is most aggressive in the eastern states along Myanmar's 1,300-mile border with Thailand, a frontier longer than the Texas-Mexico border.

Mary Callahan, a Myanmar expert at the University of Washington, said the junta has signed 27 cease-fire agreements with rebels, many of them allowing ethnic groups to keep their arms.

The Karen National Union is the only major ethnic rebel group not to have concluded a cease-fire and its separatist struggle is one of the world's longest-running insurgencies.

The Karen struggle is concentrated in Karen and Kayah states in the middle of the Thai border region, but fighting also sometimes flares in Shan state to the north. Mon and Taninthayi states, which border Thailand in the south, have been quiet for more than a decade.

After the junta's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1988, many Burmese fled to the Thai border. The ethnic minorities did not trust them at first, but after years of interaction and intermarriage, some of the students-turned-soldiers settled along the border.

Now minority groups wonder if there will be a new influx of Burmese because they led the recent pro-democracy protests in Yangon and other cities. The Karen have held meetings to express solidarity with the anti-government protesters.

The current protests began on August 19 after the government sharply raised fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in deep-rooted dissatisfaction with 45 years of repressive military rule.

"The people have decided never to stop and never to surrender. They [the government] cannot stop all the people all the time," said Mahn Sha of the Karen National Union.

Myanmar protesters will be welcomed by the ethnic groups, but the question remains how both can use the unrest to their advantage.

"We need to work together with the Mon, other groups, the students, to fight the [junta]. We have a common enemy and common goals," Mahn Sha said.

"It is the beginning of the crack that could bring down the dictators. Even if these protests are crushed, it will still be a big block out of that tower. We all look at this with hope," Dah Say, a Karenni who is a member of the Free Burma Rangers, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The actor Sylvester Stallone, who just finished filming his "Rambo" sequel on the Salween River separating Thailand and Myanmar's Karen state, drew attention to the violence along the border.

He said his movie crew was shocked by the border situation, calling it a "full-scale genocide."

"I witnessed the aftermath -- survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off. We saw many elephants with blown off legs," he told The Associated Press on Monday.

"We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia -- and this was more horrific," he said.
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Dispatch's horrifying, yet informative report Burma's Secret War is linked HERE and embedded below. In Burma's Secret War, "Dispatches exposes the new surge in violence inflicted on the Burmese people by their own regime. Enslaved by a brutal military dictatorship which wields absolute power, Burma is a secretive state where suppression reigns and dissent is not tolerated.

Journalist Evan Williams, who is banned from entering the country after reporting on Burma for more than 10 years, goes undercover to investigate the mass ethnic cleansing, forced labour and vicious clamping down of political opposition which characterise the dictatorship." HERE is Investigative TV Journalism website Four Corner's synopsis of William's report.




Other videos can be seen on the left panel of the blog or at youtube.

If you haven't already, please SIGN THE 9 PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.