Chins in dire straits: CSW

by Salai Pi Pi
Thursday, 03 December 2009 21:32

New Delhi (Mizzima) - People in western Burma’s Chin state are in dire straits, facing chronic food shortage even as they suffer rights violation by the Burmese military regime, the London-based human rights organization, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), said.

In a press release on Wednesday, the CSW said the situation in Chin state, in the throes of an ongoing food crisis caused by rat infestation, has worsened because of the widespread human rights violation committed by Burma’s military junta.

Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader of CSW, said, “The plight of the Chin people of Burma is desperate. They are facing severe poverty, drastically compounded by a chronic food shortage and lack of health care, as well as cultural genocide, religious persecution, rape and forced labour.”

The CSW called on the international community including the world largest democracy, India, to provide political and humanitarian aid to the people in Burma, particularly in Chin state, to address the country’s political problems and humanitarian crisis.

“It is time for the international community, including India, to act decisively to provide political and humanitarian support to the people of Burma, including the Chin,” said Rogers urging that “the world’s largest democracy, must stop siding with one of the world’s most oppressive regimes.”

The CSW’s call came following a fact-finding mission to the Indo-Burma border by a delegation of CSW members and the London-based Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) in November.

Since the end of 2006, Chin State, which borders India’s North Eastern State of Mizoram, has been facing chronic food shortage after the flowering of bamboo, a natural phenomenon which occurs every 50 years. The bamboo flowers attract rats, which eat them and multiply and then destroy rice fields, rice supplies and almost all means of survival for the local population.

Though there is no official figure from the Burmese government, Canada-based Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO) in a recent report estimated that at least 100,000 local people in over 200 villages of Chin state are severely affected by rat infestation.

Baroness Cox, Chief Executive of HART, at a recent consultation meeting, titled ‘South and Southeast Asian parliamentarians’ solidarity for the struggle of democracy in Burma’ in New Delhi, said the condition in Chin sate is dire and called on India to participate in international cross-border aid programmes to assist the people in the most affected area of Chin state, who urgently need help.

“Because of bamboo flowering, the people are really affected in remote areas particularly in southern parts of Chin state. The aid really needs to reach those areas,” said Baroness Cox, adding that the issue of providing cross border aid from India into Chin state should also be discussed in the Indian parliament.

“I think the India government might be a little sympathetic to give relief aid to Chin, if this issue is discussed in the parliament [of India],” Cox added.

CSW said, a delegation of HART was told by a Chin relief team during the trip to the India-Burma border that the local United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has distributed international funds in the form of loans, instead of providing food aid, in at least 17 villages in Paletwa Township, in Southern Chin state.

“Villagers claim they have been told they must repay twice the amount they are given, either in cash or in rice bags,” CSW said in its press release.

However, Mizzima could not independently confirm the information with the UNDP office in Rangoon, as calls went unanswered.

The CSW reiterated its call to the international community to impose a universal arms embargo against the Burmese military regime and urged the UN Security Council to set up a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity in Burma.

The group also urged the ruling junta to release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.