Around 15 schoolchildren and young men have been beaten, and some hospitalised, after Burmese Army soldiers went on a rampage through Mayan village in Kachin State, Burma.
According to Burma Campaign UK sources, the attacks happened after youths in the village prevented soldiers from gang-raping a 17 year old girl.
On the morning of 31st May a young man in the village, Lasaw Naw, was brutally beaten by a group of army soldiers in an unprovoked attack.
Later the same day Wa Sha Ki, a Kachin schoolgirl, was attacked by four Burmese army soldiers on her way home. A knife was held to her throat, and they attempted to rape her, but were disturbed by a group of young people who saw the attack, and released her. She is 17 years old and grade 8 student.
Anger has been growing in the village over attacks and abuses like this, which commanders and local authorities have failed to take action on following complaints. Abuses include land confiscation, forced labor, forcing people to pay illegal tax, and rape and sexual abuses toward women and children. Later in the day, when a group of young men saw the same soldiers who had attempted the rape, they attacked them and beat them.
Battalion commander Lt-Col Ye Yint Twe gathered 30 of his soldiers and ordered them to “kill all Kachin young men in the village.” The soldiers rampaged through the village for three hours, dragging boys and young men from their homes, from public transport, and from a video theatre, and beating them.
More than 15 youths have been severely injured, and 3 persons were hospitalised. One young man was arrested, his feet locked in wooden stocks, and was brutally beaten. He received head injuries.
A 14 year old schoolboy, Sawan La San, was severely beaten by a group of army soldiers in the local train station and left unconscious. He was assaulted without any warning. He suffered four broken ribs, was vomiting blood, and has a brain injury, resulting in a coma. He is reportedly now in Myitkyina hospital.
There are more than 600 households living in Mayan village and most of them are ethnic Kachin. After the brutal assault villagers were threatened by the Lt-Col Ye Yint Twe not to speak of the attacks to anyone. A night curfew was set till 4th June 2009 and villagers were warned anyone on the streets after 7pm would be shot.
Since the incident, a Col. Pyi Win Soe and more than 10 soldiers, often without uniform, have been patrolling the village carrying guns, knives and sticks. The soldiers are from the village-based Burmese Army Artillery Battalion No. 372.
A villager said, “we have been suffered this kind of abuses by the Burmese army soldiers decades after decades since our grandfather generation, but no one can help us. We don’t want army based in our village. They are not here to help us but to abuse and oppress us every day in different ways. They took our land and farms for their business, they steal our cows, they forced us to work, and they forced us to pay illegal tax and they commit sexual violence towards our women and girls. Therefore, unless the military is removed from our village, we will continue suffer”.
Thirty youths from the village have now gone into hiding as they are afraid of arrest, beatings, torture, or being killed.
Last August, a 15 year old school girl was gang raped and killed by Burmese military soldiers in Bamaw district, Kachin state but no action was taken by the regime. Last December, a 21 year old girl in Sarmaw was gang raped by a group of Burmese soldiers and again no action was taken.
“This incident is typical of the kind of things going on in villages and towns across Kachin State,” said Nang Seng, Campaigns Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “Since the ceasefire in 1994 more Burmese troops have come to Kachin state and human rights abuses are part of daily life. This will continue after elections next year, as ethnic people have been given no rights, no level of autonomy, and Burmese Army soldiers will still occupy our villages.”
For more information please contact Nang Seng on 0207 324 4710.