Genocide continues with Nobel Peace winner in charge

A mural of Aung San Suu Kyi in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2016 says "Support Human Rights, Democracy in Burma" (Wikimedia Commons)

Burma has been under the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for more than two years, but the Burma Army continues its seven-decade war with the nation's ethnic groups.

While global attention is focused on the persecution of Burma's Rohingya Muslims, the campaign against majority Christian ethnic groups hasn't stopped, despite cease-fires, with at least 100,000 displaced in the jungle during the current monsoon season.

Attacks from Aug. 30 through Sept. 1 on a village in Burma's Karen state displaced 200 people, the second major violation of a cease-fire agreement this year after attacks from March to June that displaced more 2,500, according to the humanitarian group Free Burma Rangers, or FBR.

David Eubank, FBR's founder, explained to WND "the military is fully in charge."

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Aung San Suu Kyi meets with President Obama in the White House (White House photo)

"Suu Kyi and her part of the government cannot do anything the military doesn't want done," he said. "The military has final authority."

Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, is the nation's state counsellor, a position similar to prime minister.  Some critics, recognizing her power is limited, nevertheless believe her Nobel Peace Prize should be rescinded. She was awarded the prize in 1991 for "her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights for the people while standing up against military rulers."

"We do pray she will speak out against the attacks and for the people under attack," said Eubank. "She can do that and we hope she does."

A United Nations report by an independent fact-finding panel issued last week calls for top military figures to be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya ethic group and for human rights violations and abuses in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan states.

Humanitarian workers have described the Burma Army's strategy against the various ethnic groups in states on its border as a "slow-motion genocide" designed to subdue them without drawing too much international attention.

The U.N. panel charged, regarding the Rohingya, crimes of mass rape, the murder of children in front of their families and the burning of villages. Two Reuters journalists were jailed earlier this week after reporting the regime's treatment of the Rohingya.

Eubank said the cease-fires "are of the mind not the heart, meaning they are just a tactic" to defeat the ethnic groups, which have been in conflict with the Burmese-majority government since the end of World War II.

A top Karen leader, Gen. Baw Kyaw Hae, told Eubank the Burma Army "only respects force."

"The Burma Army will keep attacking little by little to try to wear us down," the general said, according to Eubank.

"They do not care about us or the cease-fire," he quoted the general saying. "We will do our best to protect our people and slow down the attacks so people can get away but we need help."

WND previously reported the work of Eubank and his multi-ethnic team in Burma. FBR's work has expanded to Syria and Iraq, where his team has worked alongside Kurds under siege from ISIS and displaced Yazidis.

Projecting power

In the northern Kachin state, more than 100,000 have been displaced amid continued fighting, Eubank said. Burma Army attacks also continue in Shan state and in Arakan State, where 700,000 Rohingya have been driven into Bangladesh along with 300,000 previously displaced. An estimated 7,000 Rohingya have been killed and more 3,000 women raped during the attacks.

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In Karen state, which has a long border with Thailand, where millions of refugees have fled over the years of conflict, the Burma Army has broken the cease-fire twice this year, displacing a total of more 2,750 Karen villagers.

Eubank said the Burma Army continues to expand it camps and roads "to further project their power."

He noted that in Chin state, a cease-fire area on the western border with India and Bangladesh is holding, "because the resistance was never strong and the Burma Army dominates already."

"In other cease-fire areas, such as parts of Arakan state, southern Shan state and Mon state, there are sporadic attacks, but mostly the cease-fire is holding there," said Eubank.

"I think this is because the Burma Army is focused first on keeping the Rohingya out in the west and crushing the Kachin and Taang in the north," he said.

The Burma Army is carrying out "stop-start attacks" against the Karen "to steadily weaken them."

"These attacks during the cease-fire slowly drain the resources of the Karen and wear down the resistance," said Eubank.

"Until the Burma government is not controlled by the military and also until the government’s attitudes toward ethics groups changes, the pattern of oppression and attack will remain the same."

FBR is coordinating, by foot, the delivery of food, medical help and tarps for shelter for displaced families in the areas now under attack.

Eubank said it will take about a week to reach some remote areas.

He noted many displaced people in hiding are suffering from the torrential downpours of the rainy season.

"Sickness is greater this time of year, making the displaced people even more vulnerable," he said. "They face lack of shelter in the pouring rain, disease, threat of death if found by the advancing Burma Army, lack of food and the ability to farm, lack of schooling for their children.

"They are living in fear."