Burma genocide claims contested

Burmese ambassador makes attack on Lord Alton
By Simon Caldwell
BURMA'S AMBASSADOR to Britain has furiously rejected claims that his country is conducting a campaign of genocide against some of its ethnic minorities.
Lord Alton of Liverpool received an angry letter from Dr Kyaw Win after returning from Washington DC where he had been last month to plead the case of the largely Christian Karen, Shan and Karenni peoples of Burma to the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
The Catholic peer told the US Congress that the Burmese military had killed 30,000 Karen and displaced 300,000 in the five years from 1993 to 1998 alone in its efforts to crush a 50-year struggle for autonomy. He said people had been enslaved, villages destroyed and that rape and torture were widespread.
He cited evidence from the United Nations, Amnesty International, the Jubilee Campaign, the Karen Human Rights Group, Images Asia, Earthrights International and the Human Rights Documentation Unit of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (the government in exile) to support his case.
He claimed Burma was guilty of genocide under international law and urged the US to initiate the prosecution of the regime. He ended his speech by paying tribute to James Mawdsley, the Catholic who was jailed in Burma for 17 years for protesting against the junta's disdain for human rights and democracy.
Lord Alton said: "James Mawdsley is calling on the world to formally acknowledge that the Burmese military regime is guilty of genocide against the Karen and other minorities, to sever economic relations with Burma and to withdraw all diplomatic recognition of the illegitimate Burmese regime which refuses to hand over power to the National League for democracy despite their election victory in 1990."
As a result of his speech, Congress summoned America's Burmese Ambassador to answer the charges on Capitol Hill.
Then last week. Dr Win wrote to Lord Alton to "completely reject" the allegations made to the US Government. The ambassador claimed they would be seen by many ''as a blatant attempt to resurrect what are in effect vestiges of colonialism".
Dr Win said: "1 am quite sure that these allegations are untrue and have been made with extremely strong political motivations to aggravate any existing discord among our ethnic nationalities with different religious affiliations to save a faltering separatist movement that some elements in Britain created, funded and supported since some 50 years ago."
Dr Win also said his government had become victim of a propaganda war based on half truths, exaggerations and outright fabrications that were identical to statements made by residual armed insurgents and drugtrafficking breakaway groups.
Meanwhile, the Jubilee Campaign, a Christian human rights group, has stepped up its campaign to "support James Mawdsley", urging people to take up the causes for which he was imprisoned.
It has prepared action sheets and campaign packs and is organising vigils, poster and postcard campaigns as well as raising a petition against Premier Oil, which has invested in Burma.