Human Rights Violations in Burma

FORCED RELOCATION OF POPULATION

During January and February 1990, at least 500,000 Burmese from all of the country's major towns and cities were forced to leave their homes and land and were moved to settlements on the edges of the urban areas. In some cities, particularly in Rangoon, people's former homes were destroyed. In other cases the emptied houses were taken as homes for the military. Rarely were people compensated for the loss of their property. Most of the new "satellite towns" are in reclaimed rice paddies. They lack fresh water, shade, sanitation, transportation, health care, electricity, markets, and schools. People are obliged to live in shacks. Because they cannot get to their former jobs, many are entirely impoverished. Hundreds have died from the dislocation, particularly from malaria, hepatitis, dysentery, and malnutrition. The new "towns" resemble concentration camps. "It's an absolute horror story," said a senior diplomat in Rangoon. Many foreign countries have condemned this act. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of the US, a consistent champion of the Burmese, has compared it to Nazi treatment of Jews and the Pol Pot regime's treatment of Cambodians in the 1970s. The Burmese regime has defended its actions as "urban beautification." It claims that the people it moved had been living in ugly slums--lazy, shiftless folks. SLORC placed a banner above the gates of one "new city" outside Rangoon saying, "No Progress Without Discipline." In truth, however, the people displaced were often middle class and likely to vote for the prodemocracy opposition candidates in the multiparty elections which occurred a few months after the relocations. Apparently SLORC intended to reduce votes for the opposition by literally obliterating its strongholds. "It's a Burmese form of gerrymandering," a diplomat in Rangoon said. "They don't move the boundaries; they move the people." SLORC has been practicing yet another form of forced relocation. It has been forcing ethnic minority civilians in regions of insurgency to move into government-controlled areas. This keeps them from supporting guerrilla forces. Dozens of villages have been moved in this way into compounds which are guarded by the army and which also resemble concentration camps. Because farmers are thus kept from their fields, especially in mountain regions, the displaced have no way to pursue a livelihood and face starvation.