The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in Burma’s Ethnic Areas
The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in Burma’s Ethnic Areas
By Info Birmanie and Swedish Burma Committee
With a population of over 50 million people, Burma is comprised of eight major ethnic nationalities: Burman, Shan, Karen, Karenni, Mon, Chin, Kachin and Arakan. Burma’s ethnic groups demand equality, autonomy and self-determination, but are systematically denied their rights by the regime. Instead, they are met with human rights violations: forced labor, forced relocation, religious persecution, arbitrary arrest and detention, destruction of thousands of ethnic villages, the driving out of hundreds of thousands of ethnic civilians to neighboring countries, and the forced internal displacement of an estimated one million people.
Worse yet is that Burmese military soldiers are raping the ethnic women and girls with impunity. Women and girls from the Shan, Kachin, Chin, Karen, Mon, Karenni and Arakan states have long suffered under these state-sanctioned sex crimes. Rape incidents in ethnic areas are higher than anywhere else in Burma because they are part of the regime’s strategy to punish the armed resistance groups or used as a tool to repress various peoples in the larger agenda of ethnic cleansing.
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Most Rapes committed by Burma's Rakhine Mogh Soldiers!
Abid Bahar
When rapes are committed by soldiers, it is the uniform to blame. In this case to blame the Burmese army. But is it possible to find out if the rapists are generally from Rakhine Mogh soldiers?
As a researcher on Arakan state, I am curious because, Burma's army has 30 percent of Rakhine Mogh soldiers. Surprisingly Rakhine Moghs are only 4.5% of the total population of Burma.
Why Rakhine Moghs are preferred? They are preferred before any other ethnic group because of their culture of ethnocentrism and ferocity.
It is also possible that most rapists are Rakhine Mogh because Arakan state has the Rohingya genocide in Burma. It is a lawless state, in here anything could trigger an ethnic genocidal tremor. It would be interesting to trace the name/ identity of soldiers who are doing rapes, whether they are from Rakhine Moghs or from Buma ethnic nationality.
Historically speaking, Rakhine Mogh leaders has the history of using other people (Portuguese for example) to hide their successfully committed crimes in looting and the torture of Bengali people in the Bay of Bengal. They also have the culture of self righteousness and to blame the victim as seen in their protest against the BBC report on Rohingyas of Arakan.
An international commission of inquiry should be established to trace the individual perpetrators and be given exemplary punishment.