All that ended in June 2011, when the regime broke the seventeen-year ceasefire and launched a major offensive against the Kachin. At least 60,000 Kachin civilians were displaced from their villages, fleeing to temporary camps around the KIO headquarters close to the border with China. Horrific stories of rape, forced labour, torture and killings emerged. Several churches were attacked, priests and pastors beaten, and in at least one case soldiers opened fire on a worshipping congregation. Several reports alleging the use of some form of chemical weapon began to appear, and while these are so far unverified, they are consistent with similar reports over the years from other ethnic states. The KIO’s Vice Chief of Staff, General Gun Maw, compared it to ‘a foreign invasion’.1
Just over six months after the new offensive began, I travelled back to Kachin State, now a war zone, to visit the camps for the displaced people. The conditions were dire – overcrowded urban camps, set up in old warehouses and factories, were full of people sleeping on thin mats on cold concrete floors, with minimal rations. Aid from the international community was almost non-existent – a few aid agencies were providing some support, and the United Nations had brought one small convoy of trucks with basic supplies for no more than 800 families, but the people were primarily reliant on their own Kachin community for help. An impressive group of young Kachin activists established an umbrella organisation, Relief Action Network for IDP and Refugee (RANIR), to coordinate humanitarian efforts, primarily around Laiza, and another organisation known as Wunpawng Ninghtoi, meaning ‘Light for the People’, was set up to help internally displaced people in camps further south, around Mai Ja Yang.
Of the twenty internally displaced people I met, almost 70 per cent told stories of direct killings of civilians. A twelve-year-old boy described how his mother was shot dead as she tried to gather her possessions and lock up her house; a woman with her eight-year-old son recalled how her husband had been shot dead in his paddy field; a woman with three children told me that her husband’s arms and legs had been chopped off before he was shot by Burma Army soldiers. Another woman recalled how she had hidden from the soldiers under a bed for two entire days, without food or water. She was pregnant at the time. She could hear bullets fly over her, and a Burma Army officer telling his troops, ‘If you see someone, kill them.’ I met a man who had been shot but had survived. He showed me the bullet. Another man told me: ‘My grandfather fought in the Second World War, and he said even the Japanese were not as cruel as the Burma Army.’
Few foreign journalists or activists have visited Kachin areas, particularly those controlled by the KIO, and as a result the Kachin feel their plight is unknown. ‘We have been crying for a long time for someone like you to help us,’ one Kachin pastor told me on my first visit, during the ceasefire. ‘We felt we had been forgotten. We felt alone.’
Annexed by the British in 1885, the Kachin Hills were self-governing until the 1930s.2 The Kachin are a predominantly Christian people, converted at the turn of the twentieth century by American Baptist missionaries. They number perhaps one million, and fall into six sub-groups – Jinghpaw, Lisu, Maru, Lashi, Atsi and Rawang.3 Dr Ola Hanson, the first missionary, transcribed the dominant language, Jinghpaw, into written form. According to a UN Development Programme report in 2005,4 Kachin State has a population of 1.3 million, approximately 2.5 per cent of Burma’s population, but only 500,000 are Kachins (the remaining population may be Burmans, Shans and other ethnic peoples). A further 175,000 Kachins live in northern Shan State and 32,000 in Mandalay Division, while 120,000 Kachins inhabit a semi-autonomous zone across the border in China. Several thousand are in India and some have fled as refugees to Europe and the United States.
Like the Karens, Chins and other ethnic groups in Burma, the Kachins fought bravely alongside the Allies, and particularly the Americans led by ‘Vinegar’ Joe Stilwell, against the Japanese in the Second World War. Prior to independence they participated in the Panglong Conference and signed the Panglong Agreement, but in the 1950s some Kachins began to agitate for genuine autonomy. In 1961 Prime Minister U Nu, a devout Buddhist, proposed making Buddhism the state religion, and the overwhelmingly Christian Kachin population rebelled. On 5 February 1961 Zau Seng founded the KIO, and when General Ne Win seized power in a coup the following year, suspending the constitution and abandoning the principles of federalism and equal rights set out in the Panglong Agreement, armed struggle ensued for thirty-two years.
Chit Myaing, who served as a senior member of Ne Win’s regime, believes U Nu’s decision to declare Buddhism the state religion was a mistake. ‘I personally believe that was not really necessary,’ he told Burma Debate. ‘I am a Buddhist and even though I was in the military, I was very much involved with religious affairs.’ But, he argues, ‘We did not require a state religion … I was in Kachin State for one year as brigade commander. I never had any problem with the Kachins. When U Nu, as Prime Minister, was about to declare Buddhism as the State religion, the army appealed to him not to do that, but he said he had no way of turning back because that was his commitment made during the elections.’5
During the three decades of conflict with the Tatmadaw, the Kachin people were subjected to the regime’s notorious ‘Four Cuts’ policy, aimed at trying to end access to food, funding, recruits and intelligence for the KIO and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The KIO claimed that by 1994, one-third of the Kachin population was internally displaced, while the Burma Ethnic Research Group estimates that there were 64,000 Kachin IDPs in 1994, with at least 100,000 having been displaced since the 1960s.6 According to the KIO, 658 villages were destroyed between 1961 and 1993, while the Tatmadaw’s intense campaign in April 1991, known as ‘Operation Scupper’ and ‘Operation One Hundred Outposts’ resulted in the forcible relocation of twenty-eight villages.7 From 20 March to 25 May 1991, 324 villages in Kutkai District were destroyed.8 Perhaps as many as 100,000 civilians are believed to have died during the thirty-two years of war.9 ‘Both sides, the regime and us, lost, but the people were the worst losers,’ says KIO’s Deputy Foreign Affairs spokesman James Lum Dau.
On several occasions in the 1970s and again in 1980–1981, the KIO attempted to negotiate a peace agreement with the regime, but to no avail. However, in 1989 Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, head of the regime’s military intelligence and Secretary-1, initiated a process of piecemeal ceasefire deals with different armed groups. Typical of its divide-and-rule strategy, the regime refused to negotiate a nationwide ceasefire, but instead entered into individual agreements with particular groups. By 1995, ceasefire deals had been reached with twenty-five armed groups. The KIO entered into talks in 1992, and by 1994 an agreement had been reached, mediated by the General Secretary of the Kachin Baptist Convention, Reverend Saboi Jum, his brother, an influential businessman called Khun Myat, and a former Burmese ambassador, an ethnic Kachin, U La Wom.10 The KIO’s respected chairman, Brang Seng, died the same year.
The KIO were the only ceasefire group to have a written agreement – all the other groups simply had ‘an understanding’, according to a regime spokesman.11 The KIO’s agreement, which is not public, was believed to include the following points: to make a nationwide ceasefire; to announce a general amnesty; to have a tripartite dialogue; to conduct development activities in Kachin State; and that the KIO will maintain its arms until its demands are reflected in a new constitution.12 The first three points were not enacted by the regime, and a new constitution was introduced which falls far short of the KIO’s demands. Development was perhaps the only point that has been turned into action – with dire environmental consequences, to which we will return later in this chapter. Under the ceasefire terms, the KIO – and its 6,000-strong KIA – were given control of a 15,000-square-mile (39,000-square-kilometre) territory, and a population of 300,000,13 although its territory consists of pockets of land, mostly in rural areas, unconnected to each other, and a long stretch of land along the border with China. Most of the urban areas in Kachin St
ate remained under SPDC control.14 The KIO expanded its interests in jade and logging.15
These benefits, however, presented a false facade. Although the KIO had some space to organise, the Kachin could develop civil society, and people were not being killed in large numbers, one only had to scratch the surface to know everything was far from well in Kachin State, even during the ceasefire.
In April 2009 I went inside Kachin State, and met a twenty-one-year-old Kachin woman studying at Bible school.16 With quiet, calm dignity, she offered to tell me her story. In December 2008, she had been taking part in an evangelistic programme organised by her Bible school, sharing songs and Christian teachings with fellow Christians among the Kachin. All the participants wore a particular uniform. On 26 December, she attended the events in Myitkyina, and the following day she learned that one of her family members was sick, so she was worried and decided to return to her home village. She took the 3 p.m. train from Myitkyina and as the train approached her village she looked at her watch and it was 6 p.m. The train was not scheduled to stop in her village, but it slowed down, and so she jumped off the train just outside the village. Two soldiers jumped from the next carriage. She describes what happened next:
When I jumped, I felt very dizzy. I couldn’t see around me properly. The two soldiers who also jumped from the train came over to me, and asked what was wrong. They pretended to take care of me. I told them I felt dizzy, and I sat down for a while beside the railway line. The soldiers asked me how I felt. The big soldier started to massage my head. After a few minutes I felt OK. I said: ‘Don’t touch me, I am OK.’ Then I asked the soldiers where my luggage was. I had previously asked the passenger next to me, before jumping, to put my luggage down from the train. But I couldn’t remember where she had put it. The soldiers were very nice and helpful, and they pointed behind the train and said my luggage was there. They tried to touch me again, and I told them not to touch me. The big soldier said: ‘We are patriotic’, and I believed them – I thought they were good people. But it was getting dark, so I decided to go home without my luggage and collect it in the morning.
At that point, the younger soldier grabbed the young woman and the larger soldier pushed her to the ground, beside the railway line. ‘He raped me,’ she said, retaining an extraordinary dignity as she continued her testimony. ‘Then he squeezed my neck, trying to strangle me. I struggled as much as I could. The soldiers said they had a knife and would kill me. Finally, I lost consciousness as a result of being strangled. I do not remember what happened next.’
At 10.30 p.m. she regained consciousness, only to find she was lying in a bush, in the mud. ‘The soldiers must have assumed I was dead, and thrown me into the bush. My skirt and underwear were gone. I was half-naked,’ she recalled.
I didn’t know where I was. I covered my lower part with part of my [evangelistic] campaign uniform, and walked along the railway line. Along the way I met an old man from the village, and asked him for help. ‘I’m in trouble, please help me,’ I said. He thought I was crazy – I was barefoot, half-naked, walking slowly due to the pain of the rape. But he heard the sound of suffering in my voice and had sympathy. He instructed me on how to go home. I walked home alone. A little later I met the local administrative council Secretary, and he took me home the rest of the way. My whole body was muddy.
At this point she realised she had nothing. ‘The soldiers had taken my rings, wallet, watch and registration card. When I got home, I went to wash the mud off. The water was very cold, and I couldn’t clean all the mud away. Some mud was on my head and back, and I couldn’t clean it off. As I was washing, my elder sister came out with a torch and asked: “Who is there?” I said: “It is me. Don’t shine the torch light on me.” Then I went to sleep. My elder sister asked me so many times what had happened, but I felt shy. I just told her I had lost my luggage, and I asked her to go and look for it.’
Early the next morning, her sister went to look for her luggage – and found her underwear, longyi and other clothing spread about. The young Bible school student recalls:
She collected it up, and brought it home. She asked again and again what had happened, but I couldn’t tell. I felt so shy. My elder sister and neighbours kept asking, but I felt angry, upset, frustrated and shy. Finally, I decided to tell my case to the clerk of the local administrative council. On 28 December, I went with my sister to look for the two soldiers. Around 2 p.m., I found them and identified them. My family, and the local authorities, asked one of them if he had raped me, but he denied it. He said as we had accused him, we would be accused of damaging his reputation. But I remembered him – he had a bad tooth, and that helped me recognise him.
As if her ordeal had not been enough, her trauma continued as she decided to seek justice. Having come face to face with her attackers, she was summoned by the local Light Infantry Battalion commander to meet him. The village elder, the church pastor, her two elder sisters and the president of the local administrative council accompanied her. ‘We told him that the soldier had raped me, but he said no, it was not possible, he has a kind attitude,’ she recalled.
So we then went to the township police station, and submitted a case. But while we were there, I felt uncomfortable. My neck swelled up and I vomited. The soldiers denied putting a knife in my mouth, but that is what they had done. I went to hospital for medical checks, and then went home. My family did not have enough money for medical treatment, but [again] I went to hospital for further checks. The next day, [local Tatmadaw officials] ordered us to meet them at the [military] base, and although my health was not good, I obeyed his order. He told me that this case should be kept quiet. He said because I am a student, I face many stresses in my theological education and so this case should be resolved in a proper way. He gave 100,000 kyats for the costs of medical checks. He said he had given instructions to other officers to solve the case as quickly as possible.
Even then, however, her trial was not over. While one officer tried to hush up the case and buy her off with money, another officer, a major, summoned her to the base and forced her to identify her attackers from a line-up of soldiers. ‘I pointed at the right one. But then he ordered the soldiers to change uniform. They changed clothes three times. First they wore their rank and insignia, then they changed into the uniform of a private soldier, and then they changed into civilian clothing. Each time, I was still able to point out the right person, but then I lost consciousness. I remember nothing more.’
A week later, a village elder was ordered to go to the base, where he was confronted with a barrage of irrelevant questions designed to annoy and harass. A few days after that, while the young woman was in hospital, a captain came to question her. He summoned her again for questioning six days later. She recalls:
He asked me so many questions including how many chapters are there in the Bible! On 22 January, he questioned me from midnight until 2 a.m. He was smoking a cigarette the whole time and he asked so many questions. He would light a cigarette, and sit silently smoking it until it was finished, and would then ask another question. Most questions were unrelated to the case. At 2 a.m. he asked me if I was hungry, but I could not eat anything that night. I was sick and very uncomfortable. The next day the questioning continued. I was sick again.
Yet another captain was appointed to lead the investigation – which was clearly a sham and an excuse for prevaricating. To add insult to injury, he summoned the young woman for another identity parade – only this time, she could not see the soldiers. Instead, he ordered the soldiers to sing a military song, and asked her to identify the rapist by listening to his singing voice. ‘I told him I am a student, I have no money, no time, I cannot come for questioning very often. Then he said the case was finished.’
The grotesqueness of the charade which she had to endure, on top of the trauma of rape, is astounding. ‘I have been through three different military courts and investigations, and until today there has been no action, no compensation, no sympathy. All I rece
ived is 100,000 kyats for medical care, and a rice bag and cooking oil sent to my family by the district head of strategy. My family has not used the rice or oil. I spent over a month in hospital. The military are protecting the soldier who raped me. I have heard that he has raped so many girls, but no action has ever been taken against him,’ she concludes. ‘Every woman should be careful. My experience should be an example for other girls. I want justice to be done.’
Hers is by no means an isolated case in Kachin State. On 27 July 2008 a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl was gang-raped, severely mutilated and murdered. Nhkum Hkawn Din was attacked near Nam Sai village in Bhamo District, on her way to bring rice to her brother who was working in a paddy field. At 9 p.m. she was reported missing, and three days later her naked body was found, just two hundred metres from an army checkpoint. Her clothes, slippers and rice basket were also found. A local witness claimed to have seen Tatmadaw soldiers follow Nhkum Hkawn Din, and after her body was found other witnesses testified that they had seen soldiers leaving the area after the time she had disappeared. According to her family, her skull had been completely crushed, her eyes gouged out, her throat cut, she had been stabbed several times and all her facial features had been ‘obliterated’. The local authorities refused to take any action.17
In February 2007 four Kachin girls were gang-raped by Tatmadaw soldiers in Putao Township. However, when they reported the case and it gained international attention, the girls were jailed – and the perpetrators went free. Eventually, the girls were released and escaped to Thailand. I met two of them in a secret location one year after their ordeal. Unsurprisingly, they were totally traumatised. Unable to make eye contact, they kept their heads bowed as they sat, wept and struggled to tell some of their story. It was too much to ask them to relive each moment, and so I simply reassured them that they didn’t need to, and told them that I was there to help in any way I could. But inside my mind I wrestled with anger and frustration at the tormenting question: how could any regime, as a matter of policy, tear apart the lives of young women, not only physically but mentally and emotionally, in this way?
Burma- a Nation at the Crossroads Page 14