Burma accused in report on displaced persons

March 18 (Irrawaddy) - Burma has one of the world’s highest number of internally displaced people, according to a UN study released on Friday.

The study, undertaken for the UN by the Norwegian Refugee Council, says Burma has at least 526,000 internally displaced people, or IDPs.

Burma is categorized in the report as a country where the authorities react with indifference to the protection of displaced people and provision for their basic needs. Displaced people in Burma were subject to sexual violence and forced recruitment to the army, says the Council in its 2004 Global IDP Project report.

“The Global IDP Project hopes to contribute to raising awareness of the plight of one of the world’s most vulnerable groups,” said Elisabeth K. Rasmusson, head of the project, which was set up in 1999 at the request of the United Nations.

The report says that most governments of countries with large numbers of IDPs failed to prevent displacement and protect the rights of displaced people.

The Council estimated that 25 million people had been displaced in at least 49 countries, forced from their homes by armed conflicts and human rights violations, although the number of IDPs in the Asia-Pacific dropped last year to 3.3 million, Burma and Indonesia were singled out as countries where the problem persisted.

The “root cause” of the problem in Burma was to be found in the attacks on civilian populations by the Burma Army, said a member of the Free Burma Rangers, a relief mission to assist displaced ethnic minorities in Burma, on Friday.

The group has been working clandestinely in Burma since 1997. It estimates that at least 700,000 members of ethnic minorities in Shan, Karen and Karenni States have been displaced and more than 300,000 in Chin and Arakan States. Since last November, 13,000 people alone have been displaced by Burma Army actions in northern Karen State, according to the Free Burma Rangers.