Burma is a country where many nationalities live together. Half of the population is Burman, who live in the central plains and valleys, and the rest are from about 15 main ethnic groups, most of whom live in more hilly regions. Historically, Burma was never a single country until the British annexed it in 1886. After independence in 1948, the Burman leaders started making policies favouring the Burmans and making everyone else into second-class citizens. So one by one the non-Burman peoples went into revolution demanding equal rights. By the 1970s, there were more than 12 ethnic groups fighting against the Burmese government. They had their own governments and controlled alot of the territory outside of central Burma.

In 1962, Gen. Ne Win seized power and did two major things: he increased the military attacks against ethnic regions, using the tactic of wiping out ethnic civilians in order to weaken the ethnic forces, and he started the 'Burmese Way to Socialism', which meant the State took over everything and denied everyone of their political and human rights. Burma was once the richest country in Southeast Asia, but by 1988 it was one of the ten poorest in the world. So in 1988 there was an uprising in the towns and cities led by the students and the monks. The Army massacred thousands of people, and formed a new military junta called SLORC, the State Law & Order Restoration Council. A lot of Burmese dissidents fled to the ethnic-controlled areas and formed new groups which allied themselves with the ethnic forces to fight SLORC. SLORC wanted international support and money so it held elections in 1990, but when it lost it refused to accept the result and imprisoned some of the winners. Now SLORC is still in power. Everyone in the country wants to fight them, but they are too strong. Their Armed Forces have doubled in size to over 350,000, and they have Military Intelligence everywhere.

Right now, people in the cities have no freedom and are always afraid of the Army. Military Intelligence is everywhere. They force people to be informers, and many people are arrested for criticizing SLORC. But in the countryside where 90% of the population live as village farmers it is much worse, especially for Karen and other non-Burman villagers. The Army can arrest, torture, rape, or kill them anytime it wants for no reason. They do this all the time, and they also loot all the villagers' food, livestock, and valuables.

They always order the villagers to do forced labour. They force villagers to carry their ammunition and supplies without food or pay, and kill them when they get too sick or weak to work. They use them as human shields and human minesweepers. They force villagers to build their army camps, to cook and clean for them, to collect firewood and do sentry duty. SLORC confiscates their crops, or takes their land and then forces them to grow food for the Army or to sell to other countries. They also force villagers to build roads, railways, hydro dams and other things without food or pay, even on projects to make tourist resorts or prepare projects for foreign companies. Entire villages are forced off their land into labour camps. People can no longer survive or support their families, so hundreds of thousands have fled to other countries to be refugees and millions are displaced inside the country. The Armies of Thailand and India often force the refugees back at gunpoint. But the outside world knows almost nothing about Burma, so they don't do anything about it. Instead, their businessmen give SLORC money which just makes the Army even stronger.

- There are thousands of political prisoners being held throughout the country. No one knows exactly how many, because SLORC denies holding them. Some of them are urban dissidents that international Human Rights groups know about, but most are non-Burman villagers being held in jails and army camps under no charge or under Article 17/1, for suspicion of contact with opposition groups. People can be charged with this for being caught with an anti-SLORC magazine or for no reason at all. Usually, non-Burman villagers suspected of this are silently executed.

- SLORC says "Civilians should not get involved in politics", it is only for the military. There is a law against being together with more than 5 people, and if you have a guest in your house (even a relative) without asking the Army's permission, they will take you as a military porter. Many people are arrested and tortured just for being seen talking to a foreigner.

- There is no free press. The only press is the SLORC press. Foreign publications are banned unless they pass the strict SLORC censorship board. People try to listen to foreign shortwave radio for news.

- Only a few people with SLORC connections are getting very rich, and everyone else is getting much poorer. Inflation is very high, so even people with jobs cannot get enough to eat. SLORC is confiscating 5 times as much rice from farmers this year as last year to support the Army and to export, so farmers have to flee their villages or be arrested. People are starving and there is a very serious rice shortage now. People say the economic situation now is worse than ever before.

- SLORC is trying to wipe out non-Burman cultures. In state-run schools it is forbidden to speak or learn any language or literature other than Burman. Schools teaching children in their mother language and culture are not allowed. SLORC has rewritten the history books for schools to say that the Burmans were first in Burma, that everything good in Burma came from the Burmans and that the non-Burmans have never done anything good.

- Many Karens in SLORC-controlled parts of Burma give their children Burmese names, because they know the child will be given no opportunities for higher education or a good job if he or she has a Karen name. Many Karens and others in these regions grow up unable to even speak or read their mother language, and believing that their people are not as good as Burmans.

- When SLORC attacks non-Burman ethnic villages, the first buildings they destroy are the village-run schools and Christian churches.

- As part of their Burmanization program, SLORC is trying to force Christians in many areas to become Buddhists. In Chin and Kachin areas, the SLORC often tears down crosses, forces Christian villagers to build pagodas, and turns church compounds into army camps.

- In Karen areas, SLORC troops often shoot young Karens for no reason, just for the sake of reducing the number of Karens in Burma as an ethnic-cleansing program. Burmese soldiers are given cash rewards by SLORC for marrying non-Burman girls, especially Shans. If the girl is related to Shan royalty, the reward gets higher. Many girls are forced to marry at gunpoint or after being raped. The children are then brought up as Burmans.

In non-Burman areas SLORC often burns crops and food supplies because it claims some of the food will go to opposition groups, and they often arrest anyone who tries to take medicine into these areas. As a result, in many areas up to 50% of children die before age 5 due to malnutrition and treatable diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery or malaria. Many children are left as orphans because their parents die young of disease or their parents are taken away for forced labour and beaten to death.

Most SLORC soldiers are forced conscripts from villages. SLORC usually conscripts boys aged 14-17 and only gives them a few months' training. Then they are sent far from their home regions. Their officers steal most of their pay, they never get leave to go home, their letters are censored, and they are forced to fight and forced to abuse villagers or else they will be tortured themselves. If they run away, they know their families will be arrested, and if they are caught they are executed.

- Domestic NGOs are not allowed in Burma. SLORC says it has NGOs, but they are known as "GONGO"s (Government-Organized NGOs); most of them are run by SLORC members or their relatives, for international public relations and to get money from foreign groups which can be diverted to SLORC members.

- Some international NGOs have tried to set up in SLORC-controlled parts of Burma but without success. Everything they do has to be approved by SLORC and if they criticize SLORC they will be thrown out of the country. For example, in 1995 the ICRC left Burma because they found it impossible to work with SLORC.

- Some foreign aid groups and small human rights groups have been able to operate through areas controlled by ethnic opposition groups along the borders, but this is very difficult because the neighbouring countries are all friendly with SLORC so they must be very careful.

- Opposition groups can collect information about human rights and notify the world, but too often the world treats this as "rebel propaganda".

- Sometimes information is sneaked out by people living under SLORC, but this is hard to get because it is very dangerous and the person doing it can be executed for it.

- It is getting very difficult for ethnic people or representatives of opposition groups to travel to the outside world to tell their story, because to do this they have to travel through neighbouring countries which are working very closely with SLORC. These countries now stop them from going overseas or from coming back.

- More pressure is needed on foreign governments, the UN, and UN agencies to start taking real action against SLORC. Worst of all, agencies like UNDP and UNICEF keep giving lots of money to SLORC without properly monitoring what happens to the money, and the UNHCR is cooperating with the Bangladeshi and Thai governments to force refugees back to Burma against their will.

- Aid money, especially from World Bank, the development banks and IMF, should not be allowed to SLORC until there are real reforms. This money will be used for forced labour projects.

- Pressure is needed to make foreign companies leave Burma and stop financing SLORC.

- More material support is needed to support refugees and internally displaced people. This aid can be sent across the border from neighbouring countries, not through SLORC.

- Support is needed for programs to help people in Burma, especially non-Burmans, to document their situation and deliver their message to the world.

- There have been some overseas scholarship and other aid programs, but more of these are needed, especially for non-Burman students. Most of these programs accept only '1988' Burmese students, which is unfair. The Karens and other groups have been deprived of education opportunities for 50 years, not just 8 years like the 1988 students.

- Everyone who knows about Burma needs to try to spread information anywhere they can. If enough people in the world know about Burma, maybe people will start to care and act about it.