Myanmar Continues To Abuse Ethnic Rebels

Following independence from Great Britain in 1948 Burma's successive governments have failed to deal with the rights of the ethnic minority populations living in the north of the country in the region that boarders China. Marginalized by the state these groups took up arms in a bid for independence this long running and ongoing conflict continues today.  Even though U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Myanmar and held talks with its leaders the first to do so in more than 50 years those talks focused not on the human rights violations, or the rights of its ethnic minorities but economic and political corporation.  Western media reporting on the visit spun it a similar fashion adding that Myanmar was being given  a chance at reconciliation with the global community.  

Yet that narrative doesn't quite fit with the present reality in northern Myanmar.

  The villagers scattered as machine guns raked the darkness, fleeing from the Burmese troops into the thick of the jungle. When day came they crept from their hiding places to find each other.Nu La could not see his wife until he followed the wail of their two-week-old baby. Her body lay close to her son, between two large rocks, slumped to the right. The slash wound that killed her ran all the way from one side of her chest to the other.
The mother of four was a casualty of a brutal six-month conflict between the Burmese government and ethnic minority rebels from Kachin, a state in northern Burma bordering China. This is a war that has killed and maimed countless civilians and caused 30,000, probably more, to flee, yet has gone almost entirely unnoticed, as the outside world chooses instead to focus on the possibility of a Burmese thaw and rapprochement with the generals.

Because Myanmar has mineral wealth coveted by the West these human rights abuses are easily glossed over all in the pursuit of the greater good. Money.

•Burmese troops attacked villages without warning, injuring and killing civilians.
•Numerous civilians vanished in areas occupied by the military.
• Soldiers pillaged homes and forced villagers to carry away their plunder.
• Troops subjected men to brutal interrogations.
• Chemical agents were used around one village, possibly to push people out of the area.