Faith under Fire: Burma attacks citizens amid 'cease-fire' December 8, WorldNetDaily Faith under Fire: Burma attacks citizens amid 'cease-fire' Thousands of members of an ethnic group in eastern Burma with a strong Christian population are hiding in the jungle after their villages were attacked by army battalions carrying out a government plan described by human-rights watchers as systematic genocide of minorities. Two recent reports sent to WorldNetDaily by an aide worker in Thailand, near the Burma border, indicate Rangoon's military regime is continuing to drive members of the Karen minority from their homes. While officially the government has agreed to a cease-fire with Karen resistance fighters seeking independence, the Burmese Army has maintained attacks on ethnic villages during the dry season, according to reports. A crying villager said, according to the source, "I was very happy about my leaders making a cease-fire and believed in it. I made a large farm and now I have lost everything." Villagers in east Burma are seeking refuge in mountains after the latest attacks by the country's military regime The source said, "Burmese battalions are on the attack at the extreme ends of the Karen State north and south of our location here in Thailand. Right now, at least 800 villagers in the south and over 3,000 villagers in the north are running and hiding in the jungle. "The full extent of this crisis is unknown, as many villagers are still on the run," he continued. "We have received innumerable pleas for help." The Karen and another group, the Karenni, estimated together to number 14 million, live largely in simple farming villages in south and east Burma. According to the Religious Liberty Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship, a coalition of national church organizations, "The military junta's atrocities, aimed at eliminating the Karen and Karenni people, include using human minesweepers, random killings, looting and destroying entire villages and farmlands, widespread rape, imprisonment of Christian leaders and compulsory labor in relocation camps." On Nov. 30, two Burma Army battalions attacked 10 villages and displaced about 3,000 villagers in Toungoo District, Northern Karen State, the Thailand source said. Villages have established crisis response teams for such attacks, but one team member said he is powerless to assist his people in their suffering and can only pray. Another member said, "To compare my people to something would be comparing them to animals in the jungle. If I compare their lives to a dog in a town, the food for the dog is more than for the people in the jungle. I do not want to see them living like that any more." The team member said he has prayed for the refugees, and some are turning in desperation to God. "I told them that when we see clouds in the sky, the rain will often come, but after the rain the sky is clear and the sun will come out again." In earlier attacks, according to a Nov. 18 report, four Burma Army battalions and one troop targeted villagers in Hsaw Htee Township who already had been displaced from their homes, driving more than 800 people into the jungle. "The Burma Army is now occupying the high ground near the abandoned villages and continues to burn rice barns as well as to eat the livestock the villagers had to abandon," the report said. "Food, shelter, health and security are their biggest problems right now." The report noted that amid rainy weather, "The children and other internally displaced persons had no plastic sheeting and insufficient shelter so they got wet ... . The villagers were suffering from malaria, diarrhea, hepatitis and other illnesses ... ." The source said, "Last month a runner brought us a video-taped interview with villagers who had just been overrun by an infantry battalion backed by two more battalions. Similarly, this was a village showing signs of progress … it had just had a school and clinic built … a fact which may have made it the object of attack. An old man and his wife calmly recounted how their village was burned to the ground, friends beaten to death and their young granddaughter raped to death by the attacking battalion. Both said they had been 'on the run' since their childhood." 'Country of particular concern' The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent panel that reports to the president and secretary of state, nominated Burma, also known as Myanmar, as a "country of particular concern," potentially subject to sanctions for egregious, ongoing persecution. A recent report by the panel said: "Repression by the military regime in Burma is widespread and continues systematically to include severe violations of religious freedom and other abuses. The government exercises strict control over many religious activities, imposes restrictions on certain religious practices, and, in some areas of the country, forcefully promotes Buddhism over other religions." The Religious Liberty Commission said the army "forcibly conscripts young men leaving Sunday worship services, as well as children and teenage girls who are often raped" and "soldiers repeatedly show their contempt for Christianity by disrupting worship services and forcing congregations to dismantle their church sanctuary, using the materials to rebuild Buddhist monasteries." The military regime, which came to power in 1988, began negotiating with the resistance Karen National Union and agreed to an informal cease-fire, but Burmese Army attacks have continued, the British group Christian Solidarity Worldwide affirms. In military attacks in July and September on several Karen and Karenni villages, two schools, clinics and many homes were burned down, forcing villagers to flee to the mountains. Many eventually died while on the run from the combined effects of severe malnutrition, disease and fatigue. Christian Solidarity Worldwide said more than 350,000 internally displaced people are estimated to live within the Karenni and Karen regions and more than 100,000 Karens are in refugee camps across the border in Thailand. The Thailand Burma Border Consortium's October report, Internal Displacement and Vulnerability in Eastern Burma, estimated the number of internally displaced people to be at least 526,000. The Thailand source said people who want to help can send checks [100 percent goes toward relief aid, as overhead costs already are covered] to Strategic Outreach International, Holiday Crisis Fund, P.O. Box 1166, Dillon, Colorado, 80435. ~