Two recent reports by the NGO Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) appear to confirm earlier reports that the Burmese army has indiscriminately killed civilians and committed human rights abuses during recent fighting in the Kokang area of northern Burma (Myanmar).
By Mark Inkey Mar 10, 2015 12:40PM UTC
Two recent reports by the NGO Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) appear to confirm earlier reports that the Burmese army has indiscriminately killed civilians and committed human rights abuses during recent fighting in the Kokang area of northern Burma (Myanmar).
Fighting between the Burmese army and the ethnic armed group the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in the Kokang self-administered zone in Northern Shan State has been ongoing since February 9.
Most people who live in the Kokang area are ethnic Chinese and many do not speak Burmese. For these people it makes more sense to seek refuge across the border in China rather than travel towards central Burma. It is estimated that over 60,000 refugees have now crossed into China.
At this time of year many migrant workers from central Burma come to the Kokang area to help with the sugarcane harvest. After the outbreak of fighting thousands of these people fled, many travelling via Lashio.
Reports have emerged that over 100 civilians, aged between 10 and 80 years old, were indiscriminately killed by the Burmese army in the town of Laukkai between February 14 and 17 as they tried to leave their homes to avoid fighting or returned to their homes to collect possessions.
The government claimed that the people killed by the army in Laukkai were not civilians, but were Kokang rebels in civilian clothes. Government reports said only two civilians were killed and six injured in Laukkai from February 15 to 17.
An officer from the Kokang Democracy and Solidarity Party told Democratic Voice of Burma that he had heard that over 100 civilians had been killed in Laukkai. “Nobody knows whether the gunfire came from one side or the other,” he said.
But U Tun Myat Lin, the general secretary of MNDAA, told Shan Herald Agency News (S.H.A.N.) that the killings had to be the work of the Burmese army because Laukkai was full of government soldiers and they had a Regional Operations Command (ROC) centre there, whereas all the MNDAA forces were forced to stay in the hills and could not even approach the town due to the heavy army presence there.
The first SHRF report on the Kokang conflict released on February 27 accused Burmese army soldiers of looting from villagers in Shan and Ta’ang (also known as Palaung) villages near Laukkai.
Soldiers also reportedly burnt down sugar cane fields that were ready to harvest to prevent Kokang soldiers from hiding in them.
In its report of March 4 SHRF documented specific examples of army violence against civilians, including the injury of two women aged 76 and 47 whose car was shot at as they were being driven to China on February 13. After the shooting as they were crossing into China they reported seeing the bodies of four young men in the in civilian clothes lying by the road in the Jin Xiang Cheng area.
Meanwhile, state media is reporting this week that eight army soldiers were killed in weekend fighting in the area.