Word: ethnicity
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...Issuing temporary work permits is a nonstarter in Assam, where the growing population of Bengali-speaking Muslims - the euphemism for which is "demographic shift" - is seen as both a political and an economic threat to the ethnic Assamese majority, who are mostly Hindu. "There is a very substantial geographic belt in which the Assamese are rapidly becoming a minority," says V.R. Raghavan, an adviser at the Delhi Policy Group. "They want to retain their dominant position...
Living under the thumb of a brutal junta, the average Burmese hardly leads an easy life. But the plight of the country's ethnic minorities, many of whom once waged long and bloody insurgencies against the military regime, is even worse. As a new human-rights report released on Jan. 28, as well as the recent stories of destitute refugees who fled Burma attest to, members of Burma's ethnic groups face persistent discrimination by the military regime. They are the targets of unpaid forced labor campaigns, scorched-earth policies that destroy farmland and relocation programs that require entire villages...
...Called Myanmar by its military leaders, Burma derives its name from the Buddhist Burman (or Bamar) people. The country's largest ethnic group, the Burman historically lived in Burma's central and upper plains. But this patchwork country of 55 million is made up of more than 100 unique ethnicities. The isolation enforced by Burma's numerous mountains and hills helped nurture these culturally discrete groups, making it one of the most diverse countries in Southeast Asia, despite its relatively small geographic size. Here are five ethnicities, some of who have unsuccessfully waged long insurgencies against the central government...
...second-largest ethnic group after the Burmans, the Karen have also waged a long rebellion against the Burmese junta seeking either self-determination or even independence, depending on which insurgence group. Both Christian and Buddhist, the Karen have been plagued by internal strife between rival factions over the past couple of decades. A general ceasefire framework with the central government is in place but occasional flashpoints of fighting still occur. Karen villagers, who tend to live in the Irrawaddy Delta and in the border region between Burma and Thailand, have been victims of forced relocation and labor programs...
...self-described "court of last resort," which operates independently of the U.N., was created to oversee large-scale human-rights violations--like those allegedly orchestrated by Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, the court's first defendant. The trial of Lubanga for training child-soldiers during the region's 2002-03 ethnic conflict is also the first test of an international law allowing victims--like the 93 people expected to testify against him--to play a direct role in court. The ICC has 108 member countries. That does not include the U.S., which never ratified the treaty establishing the court...