May 25, 2004 - (IPS) Burma's military government is keen to convince the world that the new constitution it is drafting is best for the country, but whether it will win approval from women's rights groups is still up in the air.

The junta will not find it easy to sidestep this question, given the cries for justice and accountability that women's rights activists from Burma's ethnic minorities have made due to the rape of hundreds of women by the Burmese military trying to quell unrest by these groups.

According to these women from the Karen and Shan communities, they will scrutinise the new constitution and how its range of provisions protect women's rights. Fundamental among them will be rights that enable women to live free from the fear of being raped by the Burmese army and clauses that support the right of victims to seek justice, they add.

''For peace to be restored in the country, violations against women in the ethnic minority areas have to stop,'' Zipporah Sein, secretary of the Karen Women's Organisation (KWO), told IPS. ''If women feel afraid to go back after the new constitution is drafted, then it is a failure.''

Hseng Noung, of the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), added another reason: ''Peace will never be sustainable if the rape issue is not addressed and the soldiers know they still enjoy the licence to do so.''

Both women talk out of the pain they have witnessed when compiling chilling reports of the systematic manner in which the Burmese military raped Karen and Shan women during its occupation of villages in Karen and Shan regions of Burma.

The KWO's report, 'Shattering Silence,' paints a brutal picture of 125 cases of rape committed by Burmese troops in the Karen state from 1988 to 2004. ''Karen women continue to be killed and raped by SPDC soldiers, forced to work as porters and forced from their homes,'' states the 96-page report that was released in April.

The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is the official name of Rangoon's military regime.

''In at least a third of the cases documented here, the rapes were committed by commanders and higher ranking officers,'' the report reveals, adding further that once they had abused the women, the officers ''passed them onto the lower ranking soldiers who then raped them again''.

Nan Bway Poung was among the victims mentioned in the report. She was raped by 20 SPDC soldiers in June 2002, 'Shattering Silence' reveals. She was 22 years at that time.

''I was raped by the column commander Captain Ye Htut first, then he ordered his soldiers to rape me,'' Nan Bway Poung was quoted as saying in the report. ''Captain Ye Htut also said to his soldiers, 'You must rape that woman; those who refuse to rape will be shot and killed'.''

Since the report came out, Rangoon has questioned the validity of its contents. The junta has also accused the KWO of trying to undermine the efforts to usher in peace in that South-east Asian nation through political reconciliation, of which the current effort to draft a new constitution is a key element.

''We don't agree with the SPDC's view that the report is an attempt to sabotage the reconciliation process,'' said Sein. ''The SPDC is denying the truth.''

Rangoon's attitude hardly surprises SWAN's Hseng Noung, since her organisation faced similar arguments when it released as disturbing a report in May 2002. The SPDC branded the Shan women's group as a ''narco-terrorist organisation''.

SWAN's report, 'Licence to Rape', is a grim account of how the Burmese troops raped and sexually abused the 173, 625 girls and women from the Shan community between 1996 and 2001.

''Rape is a very political issue in Burma and cannot be pushed back as something irrelevant to the moment,'' Hseng Noung explained during an interview. ''Women will not be able to take the current political process seriously if it is ignored.''

On May 17, the Burmese regime began its constitutional-drafting process amid criticism about the way in which this exercise would be conducted and its willingness to press head while keeping pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.

Over 1,000 representatives handpicked by the junta are involved in this political exercise, along with a few representatives from ethnic groups sympathetic to Rangoon. Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democratic (NLD), has boycotted the process.

By the end of the first week, Rangoon had revealed what kind of atmosphere it deems most conducive for this political exercise. The delegates were ordered to adhere to strict rules, including warnings against questioning the steps devised to draft the constitution. Violators were threatened with prison terms lasting up to 20 years.

The constitution due to come out following the current deliberations will be the third in this country since it gained independence from the British. The first constitution was written in 1947, followed by the second one in 1974. The current effort comes after the military regime abolished the second constitution in 1988.

Already, officials of the Burma Lawyers' Council (BLC) have little reason to feel optimistic that the new constitution will enshrine rights that will adequately protect women from abuse.

That is reflected in a number of ways, Bejoy Sen, of the BLC's executive committee, explained during an interview. ''There are very few women participating in the national convention. And the SPDC's structure is very hostile toward women.''

On previous occasions, when pressed on the concerns about women's rights, the regime has responded by saying ''women are not discriminated in Burma and they enjoy full rights,'' added Debbie Stothard of the regional human rights group Alternative ASEAN (Association of South-east Asian Nations) Network on Burma.

Rangoon's attitude toward women was best reflected in the delegation it sent for the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, said Stothard. ''The delegation was headed by a man.''

''If this attitude continues and the SPDC refuses to address the issue of systematic rape by the Burmese military as part of its commitment towards political reform, then what we are witnessing now will be another hollow effort,'' Stothard told IPS. ''The culture of impunity will continue.''

From: http://www.mizzima.com/archives/nf/2004/nf-25-may04IPS30.htm