Burma must halt offensive against minority rebels: UN rights experts

17 may 2006 (AFP) - Six United Nations human rights experts on Tuesday said that military-ruled Burma must halt an offensive against ethnic minority rebels because of its brutal impact on thousands of civilians.

"We call on the Government of Burma to take urgent measures to end the counter-insurgency military operations targeting civilians in Northern Karen and Eastern Pegu areas, which have led to the forcible eviction and displacement of thousands of ethnic minority villagers", the UN experts said in a statement.

They pointed to allegations that the Asian nation's military was acting with "excessive force".

Houses had been demolished and now-destitute residents were being barred from getting regular food and health care, they said.

"Other reports from various sources corroborate very serious allegations of unlawful killings, torture, rape and forced labor," they added.

The military and ethnic Karen rebels have been locked in fierce combat since February, in a campaign that rights groups say has forced some 11,000 villagers from their homes.

The UN experts said that both sides in the conflict had an obligation to protect civilians.

But they reserved their strongest criticism for the government, saying that its "strategy of targeting civilians in the course of its military operations represents a wilful abrogation of its responsibility under international humanitarian and human rights law".

The six were: Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN's overall Burma watchdog; minority rights monitor Gay McDougall; Manfred Nowak, who probes allegations of torture; and Miloon Kothari, Jean Ziegler and Paul Hunt who report respectively on housing, food and health rights.