Deadmen Walking
Humanitarian groups accuse Burmese government soldiers of committing war crimes against ‘convict porters’ used in frontline conditions
A joint report by the New York based Human Rights Watch and the Thai Burma border based Karen Human Rights Group – “Dead Men Walking: Convict Porters on the Front Lines in Eastern Burma” was released today in Bangkok at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.
The joint report documents the “abuses including, summary executions, torture, and the use of convicts as ‘human shields’.”
The joint reports say the testimonies taken in 2010 and 2011 from 58 escaped convict porters raise, “serious incidents of human rights abuses occurring as standard practice, including use of porters used to sweep for landmines, deprivation of adequate food and medical assistance to porters and the systematic extortion of civilians at every level of Burma’s police, judicial and prison infrastructure.”