Jonny Rage: Myanmar Military Killed and Raped Several Women, says KWO

A brief article in the LA Times says that several ethinc minority women of the South Asia country Myanmar (near Thailand) are being raped, tortured, killed and enslaved by Myanmar military. The Karen Women's Organization (KWO) says that there are cases of 959 women and girls from Karen state, located in eastern Myamar, from 1981-2006. (Thousands of other cases of abuse involving women were mentioned as well.)

In a KWO press release, the organzation discusses the situation, which is all explained in the KWO's latest report, State of Terror:

The report documents over 4,000 cases of abuse, including rape, murder, torture and forced labour, mainly over the past few years, in over 190 villages by troops from over 40 Burmese Army battalions.

Repeated incidents of gang-rape in 2006 reveal that the patterns of systematic sexual violence exposed by the KWO in their 2004 report Shattering Silences are still continuing.

Harrowing testimony in the report describes women seeing their children killed before their eyes, women used as human minesweepers, and pregnant women suffering miscarriages while carrying heavy loads for the army.

Many of the abuses took place during the ongoing military offensives by the regime in eastern Burma, which have displaced over 25,000 villagers during 2006.

SignOnSanDiego.com, from the Union Triubue, discussed the story in more detail. Here are some examples of the Myamar women being attacked by local military:

In one case, the report said a 20-year-old was raped by four men inside a hut on her farm. “After raping her, they killed her by shooting into her vagina,” the report said. “No action was taken.”

Another woman was raped by soldiers of the 101st Infantry Battalion, who then killed her and cut off her ears to get her earrings, according to the report.

Large numbers of Karen women – some of them pregnant or carrying newborn babies – also have been forced to work as porters and laborers for the Myanmar army, it said.

“If we were tired and could not continue, the soldiers kicked us in the back,” the report quoted 33-year-old Naw Mu Thoo as saying. She said she suffered three miscarriages after being forced to carry heavy loads.

Imagine if our military did the same to us. What if U.S. soldiers started invading our homes, kidnapping us and our families and beating us to death (and that's if we're lucky)? Can you see it? Of course you can't. This is America. We Americans definitely have our issues, but it's still (relatively) the safest, richest place ever. That's why people in the U.S. don't pay close enough attention to places like Myanmar: it's not happening to us. The women in Karen aren't ours. The people in Rwanda don't live here. We only care about problems that effect us. Hopefully, that will one day change, and it won't take a bunch of U.S. soldiers stomping the crap out of us to do it.