Rights report highlights Burma ethnic abuses | Bangkok Post: news

Burma's army raped, tortured and killed civilians in ethnic minority conflict zones last year, Human Rights Watch said Sunday, despite the government's recent political reforms.

Soldiers from the United Wa State Army patrol the streets of Nandeng in the Wa region of Myanmar in 2009. Myanmar's army raped, tortured and killed civilians in ethnic minority conflict zones last year, Human Rights Watch has said.

Bloody battles have raged since June in Kachin State in the far north, marring the progress of a new regime that has surprised observers with a series of positive reforms in the isolated nation, also known as Burma.