Myanmar Cracks Down on Ethnic Minorities
 

Myanmar's army has moved reinforcements into ethnic minority areas for the probable renewal of an offensive whose past human rights violations have been far greater than those against urban protesters that riveted world attention last fall, aid and rebel groups say. The groups provide continuing reports of killings of civilians, rapes, forced labor, burning of crops and mass relocations as Myanmar troops attempt to wipe out die-hard guerrillas of the Karen National Union and other ethnic rebel forces.

While urban tensions may have eased since the crackdown on September's pro-democracy demonstrations in Yangon, "nothing has changed" regarding the conflict in the east of the country also known as Burma, says Htoo Kli, who helps Karen refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border. The Thailand Burma Border Consortium, the key aid agency along the frontier for more than two decades, says that in 2007 another 76,000 Karen were forced to flee their homes and at least 167 villages were destroyed. Corroborated by high-resolution commercial satellite imagery, more the 3,000 villages have been laid waste to by the army in recent years while those displaced in eastern Myanmar number at least half a million, the agency says.

Diversity and Democracy in Burma

 
The diverse ethnic groups of Burma have lived in their own respective territory for thousands of years. After Independence 8 Constitutional States, Burma Proper, Shan State, Kachin State, Chin State, Karen State, Karenni (or Kayah State) Arakan State and Mon State had been recognised, and each was named according to the majority population of the state e.g. the Burmans were the majority in Burma Proper and were never the majority in the Shan State; the Shans were the majority in the Shan State. It is incorrect to label the Burmans as the majority and all the others as minorities of Burma, especially when "majority and minorities" are the terms used for control and power of one group over the others. The military sought to make the Burmans the majority in all the eight states  hence they adopted the policy of ethnic cleansing and other human rights violations against the non-Burman nationalities. Independence from the British and the formation of the Union of Burma meant to the non-Burman nationalities that they were now equal partners and had to work for the common good of all members. But to the Burman nationalist politicians, Independence meant Power and Control over the others.  Bogyoke Aung San on the other hand, realised that the only way the Union could work was to create a genuine democracy, and by abiding to the principles of  ̏the Panglong Agreement̋. The nationalist politicians disapproved and this led to the assassination of  Bogyoke Aung San and his fellow executive members.