| Ethnic Minorities Fleeing Burma |
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| Sunday, 28 October 2007 | |
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From the October 24, 2007 Wikipedia entry on the Burma Unrest:- -- Rights groups report that hundreds of ethnic minority tribespeople are fleeing Burma into the border state of Mizoram, India to escape the military regime. They claim that they are being forced to join pro-government rallies, in some cases at gunpoint, and if they refuse they face fines of up to 10,000 kyats ($7); while others have been arrested including Christian pastors. Many of the exodus are from the Christian minority ethnic Chin people who say they have been persecuted by the junta for being Christians and non-ethnic Burmese. Although they were initially welcomed in Mizoram after the 1988 military crackdown they now face threats of a pushback, as the Mizos, (who are ethnic cousins of Chins), are now strongly opposing "unrestricted migration from the Chin State" for fear that they may one day be outnumbered by them.
Meanwhile India has been accused of allowing its strategic and business interests to prevail in Burma, and for failing to put pressure on the generals. |
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