Dozens of human rights abuses reported in eastern Burma have been confirmed by a series of satellite images released today by American scientists.

The before and after pictures taken with commercial satellites have found evidence of village destruction, forced relocations and an increased military presence at 25 sites in the country’s Karen and Shan states.

The findings, from a team assembled by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), provide strong independent corroboration of reports of abuses of ethnic minorities from refugees and human rights groups.

They appear to confirm suspicions that the Burmese army is involved in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, by which Karen villagers are being forced out of their homes and deterred from tending their crops by mortar fire.

Satellite images have long been used by military intelligence to gather evidence of ethnic cleansing, such as in the former Yugoslavia, but the widespread availability of high-resolution commercial satellite data has recently made it possible for human rights groups to do the same thing.

Previous studies conducted by the AAAS Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project have used commercial pictures to confirm incidents in Darfur and Zimbabwe.

In the latest study, the team mapped the locations of 31 of 70 reported human rights violations by ordering before and after images taken by three commercial satellites — ObbView3, Ikonos and QuickBird.

Comparisons have found evidence consistent with the reports in 25 of the 31 cases that have been fully investigated, the AAAS report said.

“Eighteen of the locations showed evidence consistent with destroyed or damaged villages,” said Lars Bromley, director of the AAAS project.

“We found evidence of expanded military camps in four other locations as well as multiple possibly relocated villages, and we documented growth in one refugee camp on the Thai border. All of this was very consistent with reporting by multiple human rights groups on the ground in Burma.”

In the Papun district of Karen state, Mr Bromley was able to map villages reportedly burnt on and around April 22 this year, and newly acquired pictures from QuickBird revealed multiple burn scars in an otherwise dense forest. There were also signs of an expanded military presence in the area, such as bamboo fencing around a camp.

In the Toungoo district of Karen state, the team confirmed reports of military camp, road and dam construction, and burnt village buildings. Similar violations were confirmed in Dooplaya district of Karen state, and in Shan state.

One particularly striking pair of images from Shan state show a settlement that had 24 buildings in January 2000, almost all of which had been destroyed or severely damaged by February this year.

The project’s achievement has been particularly marked as the dense, fast-growing tropical vegetation of Burma, coupled with the military’s tactics, has made satellite confirmation of ethnic cleansing more difficult to gather than in Darfur and Zimbabwe.

Dr Bromley said: “Physical evidence of reported attacks on civilians sometimes can be subtle compared to the slash-and-burn types of destruction that we saw in Darfur or Zimbabwe. It’s also a lush ecosystem where plants can quickly grow to cover burn marks, and clouds and terrain often block satellite observation.”

Mona Younis, director of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Programme, said: “The imaging initiative is an excellent example of how science and technology can be applied to help expose human rights violations. The Burma project is the latest in a 30-year effort by AAAS that has included documenting atrocities from Guatemala to Kosovo, while also working to promote basic human rights worldwide.”

The project was funded with grants from the Open Society Institute and the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. The images can be seen at the website below, and are also available on Google Earth.

AAAS satellite images

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