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U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2004 - Myanmar

The Myanmarese government's human rights record continued to worsen in 2003, generating an additional three thousand refugees per month and as many internally displaced persons, mostly members of ethnic minorities in eastern Myanmar. In Yangon, a government sponsored attack on supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy – the country's largest pro-democracy party – resulted in the deaths of dozens and injuries and arrest of hundreds, including Noble Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. At the year's end, close to 600,000 refugees were living in neighboring countries. This is in addition to two million individuals labeled illegal migrants, an unknown percentage of whom are legitimate refugees fleeing persecution.

Over 400,000 people are estimated to be refugees from eastern Myanmar in Thailand while an additional 170,000 have fled western Myanmar to India and Bangladesh including 120,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, 10,000 to Malaysia and 50,000 Chin to India. An unknown number of Kachin are believed to be living in China. (For background, see "Myanmarese Refugees in Thailand: No Freedom, No Choices.")

Eastern Myanmar

Persecution of members of ethnic minorities continued in Shan, Karen, Karenni and Mon State as well as in Tavoy, including forced relocation and land confiscation, internment at relocation sites, forced labor, extortion, arbitrary arrest, torture, rape, and summary executions. On average, one thousand Shan, Myanmar's largest ethnic minority, entered Thailand per month, fleeing forced relocation, persecution and various forms of extortion.

During ceasefire talks between the Karen National Union and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) at year's end, the Myanmarese army moved 15 new battalions into Karen and Karenni areas, displacing an additional 5,000 members of ethnic minorities and forcing an unknown number of Karenni into relocation sites. The army continued to designate free fire zones in ethnic areas with orders to shoot any individuals on site found in these areas.

According to local and international rights groups, including Refugees International, the government used rape against women from five ethnic groups as part of a wider pattern of abuses to terrorize ethnic populations. The Karen Women's Organization documented over 100 cases of rape against Karen women alone, several of which took place during ceasefire talks this New Year.

Western Myanmar

Discrimination against Myanmar's Rohingya people continued by the SPDC and Buddhist Rakhine counterparts, an ethnic minority living in Arakan State. Violence between Muslim communities and Buddhist Rakhine increased, resulting in the displacement of thousands of Rohingya. An estimated 6,000 Rohingya entered Bangladesh fleeing religious persecution and ethnic discrimination during 2003. The 1982 citizenship law denied ethnic Rohingya citizenship, taking away their right to own land and limiting travel outside their townships, access to education, commerce, and jobs. The government, sometimes with the support of non-Muslim locals, confiscated their land and destroyed their Mosques. Rohingya were subjected to forced labor and other human rights violations including arbitrary arrest, extortion and targeted taxes, torture, rape and summary execution.

Some 50,000 ethnic Chin refugees were in India's northeastern Mizoram State or seeking protection from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi. UNHCR has no presence in Mizoram. Chin refugees reported the government's increased use of forced labor, extortion, land confiscation, arbitrary arrest, torture, rape, and extra judicial executions. The Myanmarese military targeted the Christian Chin by destroying their churches, forcing them to build Buddhist pagodas, and requiring forced labor on Christian holidays.

Internal Displacement

There were an estimated one million internally displaced persons, the majority in eastern Myanmar's ethnic Karen, Karenni, and Shan areas. Less than half lived in government-run relocation centers where the military exercised complete control over the populations, compelling them to do forced labor and forbidding them to leave without permission. Those caught outside the centers could be arrested, tortured, or shot on site. The relocation centers also lacked food and medicines. An estimated 300,000 internally displaced chose not to live in these centers, but rather, lived in hiding or on the run, moving as many as a dozen times a year to avoid being caught and punished by the military. Thirty percent of the children in these areas had never seen a school and under-five child-mortality is about 30 percent. Neither Thailand nor Myanmar allowed humanitarian organizations to provide emergency aid to these populations.