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Burma practices a dismaying variety of human rights abuses. The army compels people to become human minesweepers, sends men into forced labor, and turns children into soldiers. Rape as a weapon of war has been well documented. In a report called "License to Rape," the Shan Human Rights Foundation and the Shan Women's Action Network documented 625 rapes in Shan state alone between 1996 and 2001. Some victims were as young as five. The report claims that army officers carried out 83 percent of rapes in front of their troops, and that 61 percent were gang rapes. A quarter of the victims were killed after they had been raped, then their mutilated bodies were displayed.

The Burma Army has a terror squad known as the Sa Sa Sa, which specializes in beheading villagers and displaying their heads as a warning to others. In one incident, soldiers attacked a group of young people playing volleyball in their village. They took one young man, cut off his head, stuck a cheroot in his mouth, and put the head on a pole at the entrance to the village. In other incidents, babies have been ground to death in rice pounders.

A 15-year-old Shan boy told me that one day his father was in his rice paddy when the Burma Army arrived. The soldiers shot him on the spot. The boy waited until the soldiers left, then he brought his father's body back for burial. Two weeks later, the military struck again. This time, they burned down the village, killed the boy's mother and most other villagers, and forced the boy to carry their gear.

Carrying heavy loads over long distances, with no food and water, the boy collapsed after three days; soldiers then beat him unconscious. When he awoke, he escaped and journeyed for two weeks through the jungle, surviving on tree bark and banana pulp.

There are an estimated 70,000 child soldiers in the Burma Army, making up 20 percent of the troops. Kyow's story was typical. At the age of 11, he stood at a bus stop in Rangoon, on his way to visit an aunt. Before the bus arrived, an army truck pulled up beside him. Soldiers jumped out and forced him into the vehicle.

"My choice was to join the army or go to jail," he said. He has never seen his parents since.

After three years in the Burma Army, he decided to escape. The officers had regularly fed the troops anti-Karen propaganda, telling them they would suffer terrible torture at the hands of the Karen if captured by them. Kyow believed the propaganda and knew he stood a strong chance of being captured. But he no longer cared.

"I did not want to live," he said. He ran away and was indeed captured by the Karen—who treated him very well.

"With the Karen, I feel safe, free, and loved," said Kyow, now 14. "With the Burma Army, life was like hell."

Amid this suffering springs incredible faith and hope. A Karen known only as Pastor Simon, for example, gave up his position as a seminary professor and theologian when he fled to the camps in Thailand. But once there, he put his time to good use. Seeing the needs of young people for education, he started a Bible school, which today offers bachelor's degrees in divinity recognized by the Baptist World Alliance. Pastor Simon composes meditations that speak of his people's suffering—and hope:

They call us a displaced people,
But praise God; we are not misplaced.
They say they see no hope for our
future,
But praise God; our future is as bright
as the promises of God.
They say they see the life of our
people is a misery,
But praise God; our life is a mystery.
For what they say is what they see,
And what they see is temporal.
But ours is the eternal.
All because we put ourselves
In the hands of the God we trust.

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March 2004, Vol. 48, No. 3