Report: Myanmar Troops Widen Offensive

BANGKOK, Thailand - Myanmar troops, who have driven an estimated 15,000 Karen villagers from their homes, are throwing more battalions into a widening offensive against the ethnic minority, a Karen group said Thursday.

The Karen Human Rights Group said 4,000 to 5,000 troops were poised to destroy hundreds of villages in the Papun hills of eastern Myanmar, which would lead to another mass displacement of civilians.

"This is not an offensive against Karen resistance forces, and there has been very little combat," the activist group said in a statement Tuesday. "These are attacks against undefended villages with the objective of flushing villagers out of the hills to bring them under direct military control so they can be used to support the (army) with food and forced labor."

Myanmar's ruling military has acknowledged its army is waging an offensive, calling the action necessary to suppress bombings and other attacks by anti-government guerrillas from the Karen National Union, which has been fighting for autonomy for nearly six decades.

The Karen rose up shortly after Myanmar, then known as Burma, gained independence from Great Britain after World War II, claiming that the Burman majority were out to suppress the ethnic peoples. The military took over the country in 1962 and has since then been unable to end the bloodshed.

The junta, which rarely comments on military activities, was apparently responding to growing international criticism that the offensive has uprooted thousands of ethnic Karen civilians and is causing a humanitarian crisis due to their lack of shelter and food.

Sharp criticism has been voiced in recent days by U.N. officials, U.S. Congressmen and members of the British Parliament.

The Myanmar regime routinely denies committing human rights abuses against the ethnic minorities and has declined to respond to numerous queries by reporters on the current offensive.

The offensive, which began last November, has been concentrated in the Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts of Karen State, but the group said operations were now spreading into Papun district where more than 1,000 people have already been displaced.

"The only combat which has occurred is when Karen Army forces try to keep (junta) troops away from killing displaced villagers in their hiding places," the statement said.

Attacks in the district, the statement said, began to escalate last month.

"Several villages have already been burned, rice supplies systematically destroyed, and villagers shot on sight," it said.

The campaign in Karen State has forced more than 2,500 refugees to flee to or across the border with neighboring Thailand.

A number interviewed last week by The Associated Press inside Myanmar confirmed earlier reports of executions, looting and torching of villages by the Myanmar troops.

The offensive is the largest since 1997 against the Karen, the biggest of a half dozen insurgency groups fighting the central government.

Former junta member Gen. Khin Nyunt had negotiated cease-fires with 17 ethnic insurgent groups and was working on a peace deal with the Karen National Union when he was ousted by rival generals in 2004.