Burma's attacks on Karen villagers 'must be stopped' Burma's attacks on Karen villagers 'must be stopped' DANIEL LOVERING BURMA'S military continues to kill, rape and conscript impoverished ethnic Karen villagers as it drives thousands from their homes in its campaign against insurgents, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. The New York-based group urged the junta to allow humanitarian agencies unfettered access to villagers who have been forced to flee by troops pursuing rebels through the jungles of eastern Karen State, which borders Thailand. Karen guerrillas have been fighting for independence from Burma, also known as Myanmar, for more than five decades. They began peace talks with the junta in 2003 and reached a provisional truce, but sporadic fighting has continued. Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, said: "The government still allows the Burmese army to kill and drive people out of their villages with complete impunity." Members of the international community, who have condemned Burma's lack of democracy and the junta's detention of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, should also focus on the plight of the displaced Karen, he added. Independent sources have suggested there were as many as 650,000 displaced people in eastern Burma in late 2004, according to Human Rights Watch. Some 157,000 of those were displaced and at least 240 villages destroyed, relocated or abandoned in the region since 2002, the group said, citing a recent survey. Recent military offensives have pushed thousands more into the countryside and many of the displaced villagers are trying to hide in war zones. The report includes accounts by an unidentified Karen mother who said she was forced to flee her village after Burmese troops shot and killed her daughter, a Karen man who witnessed troops looting and destroying his village and another who said soldiers raped two women in his village. "Burmese soldiers came into Tho Mer Kee village and burned down all the houses," one Karen woman was quoted as saying. "They killed all our pigs, goats and chickens - and then shot the buffaloes for fun." Many of the interviewed Karen villagers said they had fled their homes to avoid attacks by Burmese forces and to escape forced labour or conscription, according to Human Rights Watch. Despite official denials, "the army continues to conscript local villagers, including children, to work either as army porters or as unpaid labourers", Mr Adams said. Human Rights Watch also criticised Thailand, India and China for giving support to the Burmese junta, saying that this was undermining other countries' efforts to promote democracy. Mr Adams said the junta was "able to withstand that pressure" because of support from the three countries. Mr Adams was particularly critical of Thailand's policy under Thaksin Shinawatra, who became its prime minister in 2000. He claimed that Mr Thaksin - whose family controls a telecommunications conglomerate that does business with Burma - and members of his government have business interests there which they weigh against human rights concerns. He also lambasted India, which enjoys increasingly close political and economic relations with Burma, a country it once ostracised. http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=636362005 ~