The report, based on interviews with more than 100 migrants from Burma in neighbouring Thailand, found there was a worsening pattern of rights violations in the isolated south-east Asian nation towards those who are not ethnic Burmese.
The military junta continues to exploit ethnic minority civilians by seizing land, stealing crops and livestock, extorting money and forcing them - including women and children - to work, Amnesty reported.
"Such abuses have been carried out in an effort to break imputed support for ethnic minority armed opposition groups, and the situation has worsened since the authorities instituted a policy requiring the army to be self-sufficient," it said.
Those inteviewed by Amnesty were members of the Mon, Kayin, Kayah, Shan, Rawang, Tavoyan and Bama ethnic groups, and followed the Buddhist, Muslim or Christian faiths. They were employed mostly in the fishing, manufacturing, agricultural, construction and domestic service industries.
The report found that men, women and children were used widely as forced labourers for carrying supplies, construction and farming in violation of an International Labour Organisation convention signed by Burma in 1955.
"In the last decade, hundreds of thousands of workers [...] have been forced to migrate to neighbouring countries as a result of the widespread denial of their economic and political rights," said the deputy director of Amnesty's Asia-Pacific programme, Natalie Hill. "The forced labour, mass evictions, land and food confiscation by the military are a flagrant contravention of human rights as well as international and domestic law."
The military has ruled Burma since 1962. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 82% of the seats in Burma's last general election in 1990, but it has never been allowed to take office. The Nobel peace laureate herself has been kept in detention or under house arrest for almost 10 of the last 16 years.
The Amnesty report also said some civilians who had been forced to carry rice or other supplies for the military were beaten or killed if they were unable to keep up with the work.
Travel restrictions had hampered the efforts of United Nations and other international workers to help the country's population, particularly in border areas where ethnic minority villagers live, the rights' group said.
Amnesty demanded that Burma's ruling military immediately halt forced labour and end the evictions of civilians and seizure of personal property without taking into account the needs of civilians.
.jpg?w=600)
