Since 1990, four UN reports have documented the systematic violation of human rights by the Burmese army.

In the war against the ethnic minorities, the army has implemented a 'four cuts policy'.

Designed to cut the four main links between the civilians and the fighters (food, finance, intelligence and recruits), this strategy destroys civilian life over large areas which are declared military zones.

Inside these areas, people are forcibly relocated into fenced strategic hamlets. Villages and crops are looted and burned, ethnic minorities are tortured, shot on sight, and often taken away for forced labour either on construction projects or as army porters.

These practices are carried to greater extremes if the army meets any resistance. Army reprisals have included the bombing of villages and mass slaughter of innocent civilians. It is estimated that civilian fatalities average around 10,000 people a year.

In 1992, 270,000 Muslims fled abroad from army brutality. Most have now been repatriated, but have to live in overcrowded townships close to the Bangladesh border. Muslim land and property in Arakan has been handed over to Burman Buddhists, often army families.

The forcible relocation policy has been used against ethnic Burmans as well. After 1988, whole areas of central Rangoon were cleared of inhabitants to remove possible support for demonstrators.

The same thing has happened where people have been living on potentially valuable real estate, or where land is required for construction projects. Around one million people have been moved for 'urban redevelopment' since the SLORC came to power.

One of the most widespread abuses of human rights is forcible conscription as slave labour. Since 1992, an estimated two million people have been forced to work building roads, railways, airports, army installations, gas pipelines and a range of tourist facilities.

Workers, including pregnant women, children and the elderly, are unpaid and are required to provide their own tools and food. Most of the work is done by hand and beatings and accidents resulting in serious injury or death are commonplace.

The worst forced labour is for the army. Civilians have been snatched off the street and transported to the front-line. Most porters are seized from ethnic-minority villages to be treated as human mules. In war zones, they are pushed into the front line to act as human shields and to clear minefields.

A civil servant from an area controlled by the Karen National Union told Pilger: 'I had malaria but still they made me work on the railway. I was so sick I kept falling down as I worked. I saw one old man accidentally drop his load. As he tried to retrieve it, the soldiers shot him in the head. I could see the water turn red with his blood, then the river carried him away. No one escapes them. The SLORC officials or the army go from village to village. They take even a child, as long as he is strong enough, without asking the permission of the parent.'

All these human rights abuses are documented in United Nations reports and in reports by human rights organisations such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. There is a wealth of photographic and video evidence, as well as the testimony of thousands who have suffered.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1994 reported, as it does year on year, that the following violations are 'commonplace':

'Torture, summary and arbitrary executions, forced labour, abuse of women, politically motivated arrests and detention, forced replacement, important restrictions on the freedom of expression and association and association and oppression of ethnic and religious minorities.'

When challenged by the UN, the SLORC regime flatly denies that such abuses take place and claims that the United Nations is manipulated by insurgents.