Burma army

Burma’s military is engaging in systemic torture against civilians in its ongoing war in Kachin State, now in its third year, and committing “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” a leading human rights watchdog has claimed in a report released today. The 71-page report entitled, Ending Wartime Torture in Northern Myanmar, by Fortify Rights, documents the torture and abuse of…

Naw Bway Paw looks out of her windowless thatched bamboo home in Hlaing Bwe Township, Karen State, and remembers the day in 1996 when the Burma Army came and took her land. Naw Bway Paw in a video interview with Karen News describes how she lost her ancestral home and lands. “One day a soldier arrived at my home in…

President U Thein Sein decision to sign the Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence a week before the global summit in London on sexual violence in conflict has been labeled a “PR Exercise” by a British based human rights advocacy organisation. Burma Campaign UK called on the Burma government to “immediately publish concrete actions it will take,” having signed…

Duwa Jee, a Kachin freelance writer, outlines in his commentary why the current peace process has to take into account the past 60 years of civil war that ravaged the ethnic people of Burma. The ethnic nationalities of Burma/Myanmar is of the view that the ethnic armed resistance forces are desirous of ending the more than 60-year long civil war…

UN Secretary General states that impunity by Burma’s authorities regarding human rights violations could risk serious international consequences. In an April 25 speech to the Partnership Group on Burma in New York, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, said that if Burma’s authorities tolerated impunity for human rights violations it risked “negative pressures within the international community and among different…

In a media statement released on April 23, the ethnic alliance the United Nationalities Federal Council (Union Of Burma), condemned the government for the use of systematic military force against ethnic armies. The UNFC said in its statement that the Burma Army has run “a massive military offensives, since early April in the Kachin State and Northern Shan State, against…

Reports of rape and the murder of two civilians have emerged following a Burma Army offensive in parts of Kachin State and Shan State, that has also led to more than three thousand civilians displaced in the attacks. The frontline humanitarian organisation, Free Burma Rangers, allege that on April 10, Burma Army soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) raped a…

Human rights organisations and ethnic political groups have called for an international investigation into systematic sexual abuses committed by the Burma Army, noting that reports of rape continue to emerge three years after reformist President Thein Sein’s administration took power. The Kachin National Oganisation, a political party from Kachin State, called for an international investigation and alleged it had documented…

Burma Army soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 515 have allegedly stabbed and robbed a villager in Shan State on the 23rd of March. Shan Human Rights Foundation said that the victim, a 46 year-old villager, was handing out invitation letters for his son’s ordination ceremony when two Burma Army soldiers held him at knife point and badly beat him. “The…

The Burma Army attacked the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) positions on Thursday 10 April. The 10-hour Burma Army offensive took place in the La Gat Yang and Man Win areas on the Kachin-Shan border. A report released by a humanitarian organization, the Burma Free Rangers, documents that, “Burma Army soldiers from Military Operation Command (MOC) 16, Division 88, and Light…