Tag Archives: Child Slaves

While We Make Nice, Than Shwe Kidnaps More Children

by in Asia and tagged , , , , , , ,

While rumors fly about the possible release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the political prisoners the junta continues its arrests and secret incarcerations. Murder and rape continue as the secret war on ethnic minorities continues with greater zeal than ever. The junta stepped up its campaign of *kidnapping children for military service. In fact reports have identified 112 children in Pegu Division alone where parents had the courage to report this heinous crime.

Children were literally taken off the streets by soldiers on their way home from schools or anywhere in public with no regard for their families. Insiders tell of threats of death by soldiers to grieving parents and in some cases the parents were murdered to eliminate witnesses. For the parents who’ve held their ground and reported these crimes as well as the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Rangoon City, their fates are still pending. According to a report in the Irrawaddy they could not make contact with officials of the ILO. Knowing how the junta works there is no doubt reporting parents as well as the ILO will soon face harsh penalties for lodging concerns for the whereabouts of their kids.

Enter the United Nations Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict (SCWG) and their feel good report (October) on the junta’s progress in screening children from their ranks. Either the United Nations is totally incompetent or they are sugar coating the reality of the juntas use of kids in the military for nothing could be further than the truth. Likened to nothing more than a photo-op moment or theatrical performance, a hand full of children have been “discovered” in the ranks of the military. They were released to parents with great fanfare while thousands of child soldiers go undetected by the rest of the world. The junta’s façade of morality and reform is nothing more than a great lie.

Child soldiers have defected from all regions within Burma telling of sexual abuse by officers and soldiers. Other kids have identified chemical and biological weaponry they were forced to handle on numerous military actions throughout the ethnic regions. These courageous children told in great detail how the children were kidnapped and forced into the military or their parents would be killed. Some witnessed their parents being butchered alive by troops in order to keep the kids loyal to the junta. Since they are slaves for all intents and purposes of the military they were used to clear out mine fields so as not to expend the lives of Burman soldiers. Like calves to slaughter children have become the grease that lubes the military with cheap labor and suicide missions for they are expendable. I still remember how several generals joked about the abundance of orphaned children after Cyclone Nargis and the bounty of “child recruits”. Young girls were used as sexual favors and in many cases their mutilated bodies were left in the jungles to rot or sold into Thailand’s burgeoning sex slave markets. It was purely disgusting to learn the “cute” boys would be the favor of officers for sexual use while the strong and fit were used to sweep minefields and work in the most hazardous duties within the military. And this is the regime we the free world want to vindicate and qualify as a legitimate government in the 2010 election.

Talk is cheap as the world conducts summits and sends their politicians on “fact finding” missions to “discover” what is actually happening in Burma. With over 500,000 refugees around the world it is obvious to me there are plenty of eye witness accounts these politicians could have listened to. I personally find all these feel good missions useless as the world panders to Than Shwe’s distractions while he buys time for the bogus election. It should be clear that the fate of Burma rests within the people and not from the impotent outside world. The media that is owned by the corporations who continue to sideline sanctions has failed the Burmese people time and time again. Politicians only offer more rhetoric and lip service as Burma continues to live in its personal hell. The fact Than Shwe fudged the figures of oil and gas profits is a clear indicator he has been laundering money for all the foreign corporations who continue to do business in Burma. They in turn report a grossly smaller figure to their respective nations while pocketing billions and possible trillions in laundered profits.

With the new axiom of money over morality the child soldier issues are paltry at best since it stands in the way of the corporate bottom line. China, Korea, USA, England and France enjoy profits from the exploitation of Burma in spite of “sanctions”. The list of corporations invested in Burma read like a who’s who in Than Shwe’s money laundering operation. This also opens up a can of worms about all world wide corporate ventures where they buy off tin horn dictators. How many other countries are laundering profits for these international corporations? I venture to say most of them since continent after continent where these corporate thugs are doing business are engaged in some type of suppression of the indigenous populations. Africa and the America’s are engaged in a secret war against ethnic minorities with blood being spilled as of this writing. We should not forget China’s continued assault on their indigenous populations. And where is the media though all this, making nice with tyranny and spreading lies about the ethnic minorities who are crying for help.

Let Burma be a lesson not learned by so called civilized nations for they are about to taste a new type of tyranny called globalization and the colonization of the planet. In all earnest man can not stop this cycle of greed for this is a part of prophecy and it was meant to be. Nature will have the final say while the intangible aspects of our reality come into focus as this cycle comes to a close and this is inevitable as well. Like they say, it is darkest before the dawn and we’ve entered the darkest period in world history, the new world order.  

* http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17240

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