Karen (Kayin) State

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Description: "The internal conflict in Myanmar refers to a series of ongoing insurgencies within Myanmar that began shortly after the country, then known as Burma, became independent from the United Kingdom in 1948. The conflict has been labeled as the world?s longest running civil war....."Main fronts: Kachin State... Kayah State... Kayin State... Rakhine State... Shan State..."
Source/publisher: Wikipedia
Date of entry/update: 2018-01-02
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The term ?Karen? actually refers to a number of ethnic groups with Tibetan-Central Asian origins who speak 12 related but mutually unintelligible languages (?Karenic languages?) that are part of the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan family. Around 85 per cent of Karen belong either to the S?ghaw language branch, and are mostly Christian and animist living in the hills, or the Pwo section and are mostly Buddhists. The vast majority of Karen are Buddhists (probably over two-thirds), although large numbers converted to Christianity during British rule and are thought to constitute about 30 per cent among the Karen. The group encompasses a great variety of ethnic groups, such as the Karenni, Padaung (also known by some as ?long-necks? because of the brass coils worn by women that appear to result in the elongation of their necks), Bghai, Brek, etc. There are no reliable population figures available regarding their total numbers in Burma: a US State Department estimate for 2007 suggests there may be over 3.2 million living in the eastern border region of the country, especially in Karen State, Tenasserim Division, eastern Pegu Division, Mon State and the Irrawaddy Division..."
Source/publisher: Minority Rights Group
Date of entry/update: 2014-08-21
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "It is saddening to see that it had resorted to armed conflict during a time of political change and that the Karen National Union (KNU) will be looking to seek solutions through dialogue, said the ethnic armed group's chief General Saw Mu Tu Say Poe on May 10, April 2021 via a statement. The statement and the signature of the KNU chief has been confirmed by other top level officers of the KNU. "Yes. It is his opinion for the peace of the union," said a top-brass member of the KNU. The statement urges the rest that are involved to follow the policies as indicated in the National Ceasefire Act (NCA). It also says that the KNU is a group that had, for years, working toward through taking up arms to achieve equality and betterment for the Karen people and that through political dialogues aimed at regional development and peace that it was able to sign on to the NCA. KNU, together with other ethnic armed groups, signed the NCA on October 15, 2015. There have been multiple battles between the Tatmadaw (military) and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), specifically the KNLA's Division 5. The KNLA is an armed organisation under the KNU and battles against the military had sent many locals in those areas to flee into Thailand..."
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
2021-05-10
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Burma military airstrikes continue, and schools and homes are being destroyed as Burma soldiers shoot villagers in northern Karen State, with over 25,000 people in hiding. One villager, Saw Paw Chit, 40 yrs, was shot to death on 29 April by Burma Army soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 407, Military Operations Command (MOC) 8, commanded by Maung Kyaw Sein Lin, in Ku Chi Village, south of Papun. Deadly airstrikes using rockets, bombs and strafing cannon began in Karen State on 27 March 2021 and continued to 1 April and then started again on 27 April to now, 3 May 2021. We walked to the hiding places of the villagers who fled the first strike and met Naw Mu Wah Paw carrying her son in the jungle. He had been wounded by shrapnel to his face and neck on 27 March as he sat on his father’s lap when the first rockets and bombs came. His father was killed and his mother carried him to our medics, who treated him and removed most of the shrapnel. His mother told the story: “The airstrikes came in at night. There were rockets and bombs. I was outside the house and my son was sitting on my husband’s lap inside the house. There was a huge explosion and I ran to the house as bombs fell. My husband was covered in blood and staggered down the stairs holding our son. He handed our son to me and then fell down and died. Now I am hiding in the jungle here with his father, mother and sister. I miss my husband so much and the airstrikes keep coming to now,” said Naw Mu Wah Paw. We prayed with her husband’s parents as his sister wept silently under a tarp. Map includes some Burma Army airstrikes, artillery strikes and troop movements from 27 March to 3 May..."
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
2021-05-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The military’s Thaw Le Hta outpost is across the Salween River from Mae Sam Laep, a strategic port on the Thai border that has been used to send aid to IDPs
Description: "The Karen National Union (KNU) announced on Tuesday morning that they had taken over a base belonging to the Myanmar military on the Thai border; hours later, the regime’s forces launched airstrikes against Karen villages in the area. Early on Tuesday morning, Brigade 5 of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)– the armed wing of the KNU– seized and then destroyed the regime base in the Thaw Le Hta area of Karen State’s Mutraw District, known in Burmese as Hpapun. The base is located on the Salween River, opposite the Thai village of Mae Sam Laep in Mae Hong Son province. Around seven Myanmar soldiers were seen fleeing during the raid by Karen forces, the Karen Information Center reported. By around 1pm, the Myanmar army had launched airstrikes in near Dagwe village (Dagwin in Burmese), some 10 miles north of Thaw Le Hta, according to Padoh Mahn Mahn, the KNLA’s Brigade 5 spokesperson. “Bombing the area near villages is very concerning for the residents living there,” Padoh Mahn Mahn told Myanmar Now. There are also reports of Myanmar military airstrikes on the village of Bwa Der, also in Brigade 5. Further details about the air attacks, including those regarding casualties and the numeber of people displaced, were not available at the time of reporting. Mae Sam Laep is a strategic point along the Thai-Myanmar border regarding transportation and humanitarian aid delivery, with a river port from which supplies have been sent to internally displaced people (IDPs) in KNU-controlled areas. In response to the fighting at Thaw Le Hta on Tuesday, Thai authorities evacuated hundreds of Thai villagers from Mae Sam Laep and closed the port. Prior to the fighting on Tuesday, this stretch of the Thai-Myanmar border area along the Salween River had seen heightened military tension/ On April 23, Myanmar troops stationed across the river from another Thai village– Tha Hta Fung– fired “warning shots” above a civilian boat carrying Thai border patrol officers, the Bangkok Post reported. A Thai government official later described the incident as a “misunderstanding.” However, another KNLA Brigade 5 spokesperson, Saw Kler Doh, told the Karen Information Center that Tuesday’s attacks on Thaw Le Hta were carried out in response to regime troops shooting at boats along the Salween River. The offensive against the Thaw Le Hta military outpost marks the second time since the February 1 coup that the KNLA’s Brigade 5 has seized a junta base. On March 27, they took over the army’s stronghold at Thee Mu Hta, killing at least five soldiers and taking at last eight prisoners. The junta responded by launching airstrikes at the end of March at Karen villages in Mutraw District (Brigade 5) and in Brigade 3– in Hteepado, Nyaunglebin District, and Maetamat, Shwegyin Township, located in Bago Region. These air attacks killed an estimated 20 civilians, wounded more than 40, and displaced tens of thousands, according to the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a local relief organisation. Fighting between the KNU’s Brigade 1 and the regime’s armed forces also broke out in Thaton on the morning of April 23. One junta officer was reportedly killed in the fighting, but the number of total casualties could not be confirmed at the time of reporting. FBR estimated that there were 24,000 IDPs in the territories controlled by the KNU’s Brigades 1, 3, and 5 in mid-April. In and near the KNU’s Brigade 6 area– Dooplaya District, in Karen State– locals have reported that the junta’s troops have increased interrogation of and extortion of money from civilians on the roads. Regime soldiers in Dooplaya also violently cracked down on a motorcycle protest on April 24 at Three Pagodas Pass, near the Thai border..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-04-27
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "...Opium poppy cultivation in Thailand fell from 12,112 hectares in 1961 to 281 hectares in 2015. One outlier exists: Chiang Mai Province’s remote southwestern district, Omkoi. Ninety percent of the district is a national forest reserve where human habitation is illegal. However, an ethnic Karen population has lived there since long before the law that outlawed them was created, unconnected to the state by road, with limited or no access to health, education and other services. Omkoi’s Karen increasingly rely on cash-based markets. Their lack of citizenship precludes them from land tenure that might incentivize them to grow alternative crops, and their statelessness precludes them from services and protections. Nor is the Thai state the singular Leviathan that states are often assumed to be; it is a collection of agencies and networks with divergent interests, of whom one of the most powerful, the Royal Forestry Department, has purposely made Omkoi’s population illegible, and has consistently blocked the attempts of other state actors to complexify Omkoi beyond the simplicity of its forest environment. These factors make the state illegitimate to Omkoi’s Karen just as Omkoi’s Karen are illegitimate to the state, and make the cultivation of short-term, high-yield, high-value, imperishable opium a logical economic choice for poor Karen farmers, especially given the historical lack of law enforcement presence. However, that presence is growing, as Omkoi becomes one of the last areas of Thailand to experience the historical extension of lowland Padi state power into an ungoverned, untallied highland..."
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2018-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Women and children lengthen their necks with 22-pound brass rings to 'look like dragons' as part of an ancient tribe in Asia. It is a tradition in the Kayah state in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and makes the Kayan people distinct across ethnic groups in south east Asia. Some women felt they were unattractive without the rings and others felt the pressure to wear them for visiting tourists. The rings were used to protect people from being attacked by tigers and others claim they were a tribute to the group's 'dragon mother'. Rings have also been traditionally seen as symbols of wealth and reserved for favourite daughters, as a more common theory. Padung author Pascal Khoo Thwe told Channel New Asia that 'our mother was a dragon' and 'they have the same sort of neck'. He claims to have grown up with his grandmother wearing 14-inch high sets of rings. Mu Lone, 88, told the Mirror how women felt they 'weren't beautiful without neck-rings' in her time..."
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Source/publisher: "Daily Mail" (UK)
2019-10-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The world’s biggest jade mines are found in the restive Kachin state in Myanmar. BBC Burmese gained rare access to area where mountains have been turned into moonscapes. The industry has been estimated to be valued at a staggering $31bn (£25bn) annually. Hundreds of thousands of people have flocked to the area to scavenger among the rubble left over from the mine – hoping to get find fragments of the stone. It’s a dangerous job and heroin addiction among the miners and scavengers is epidemic..."
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Source/publisher: "BBC"
2019-09-13
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "U Than Nyunt is a 57-year-old Karen refugee and the chief of a small rural village on the riverbanks of Moei. He grew up in a village near Belin in Mon State and was chosen to become the village chief during a time when Burmese military was employing Four Cuts policy. U Than Nyunt eventually couldn?t stand the military abuse anymore and fled to the Thailand-Burma border in 2003. He was again appointed the chief and led his villagers to build a thriving new village on the Burmese side of the border. Five years later, armed conflict forced them to abandon the village and flee across the river to Thailand. The villagers were scattered all over the border but U Than Nyunt was determined to bring them back together. He spent a year locating and collecting the villagers, finally able to bring them back to live in the same village. While U Than Nyunt speaks of their village on the Burmese side with great fondness and sorrow of a lost home, he doesn?t want to go back until there is genuine peace in the country."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "U Soe Myint is a 60-year-old Karen refugee who has struggled his whole life just to survive. Amidst deep-seated poverty, armed conflict and Burma Army abuse, U Soe Myint has had everything but an easy life. He had to work in a farm throughout his childhood, frequently hide from Burmese soldiers in the trees and the jungle in his adulthood, and finally flee to Thailand. U Soe Myint walked to Thailand through the jungle, knowing that he might step on a landmine any moment. For nearly 30 years, he was forced to live away from his wife and three children. While U Soe Myint was at last able to reunite with his family in Mae La refugee camp in 2006, his close family members are now scattered around the world, uncertain if they will ever be able to reunite. This is his story."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Shan Lay is a friendly, compassionate and dedicated young man from the Shan State who has sacrificed everything to fight for the freedom of his people. Growing up in the Shan State with a Karen mother, young Shan Lay was always interested in learning more about his Karen roots. But his mother didn?t speak the language and all he was taught at school was that ?Karen were rebels?. Somewhere deep inside, Shan Lay felt that there was more to the story. He witnessed firsthand the brutality of the government forces: Two of Shan Lay?s family members perished in the 8888 uprising, and when Shan Lay was a teenager, the Burmese military confiscated their family farm. Among other villagers, Shan Lay and his three childhood friends were forced out of their homes and left with nothing. A few years later, Shan Lay and his friends became freedom fighters on the Thailand-Burma border. Today, Shan Lay is the only one of them still alive. Despite the heartache, Shan Lay vows to never give up. Not until the country is free."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Noe Myint is a friendly and kind-hearted 46-year-old Karen man who grew up hiding in the jungle from Burmese military until fleeing to Thailand at the age of 12. Son of a soldier, Noe Myint joined the revolution in 1988 and has spent much of his adult life in the battlefield fighting alongside his school friends and his son. Out of his three children, two are still alive, one of them resettled in Australia and one living in Mae La refugee camp waiting to join her brother and other family in Australia. While their children are registered with the UNHCR, Noe Myint and his wife are not, and thus unable to reunite with their family in Australia. Read more to learn about the life of this soldier who has not only fought for revolution for over 20 years but also looked after a number of orphans who had no one else to turn to. Read more to learn about Noe Myint?s experiences with the UNHCR and resettlement, DKBA?s split from the KNU, Burma Army tactics, and refugee camp attacks. Find out why Noe Myint has great hopes for the future of Karen and how the international community can help the Karen and other ethnic people of Burma in their quest for peace and democracy."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Naw Woo doesn?t know her age exactly but she thinks that she is about 40 years old. She grew up in a small village in the Karen State, helping her parents make a living with hill-side plantations. Conditions were harsh and sometimes the villagers had little more to eat than rice with salt. Other times they had to substitute rice for bamboo shoot or anything else they could find in the jungle. The villagers also regularly fled from Burmese soldiers who came to their village with no warning, demanding porters and torturing and beating anyone who got caught running away from them. Naw Woo and other villagers lived in a constant state of fear, and many villagers lost their lives amidst fighting between Burmese and Karen soldiers. Eventually, Burmese soldiers burnt their whole village to the ground. This is her story of survival and hope."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Daw Hla Shin is a 70-year-old Karen woman from Win Tar Pan village in Bilin, Mon State. She grew up amidst Burmese Army abuse that only worsened after she married a Karen soldier. The villagers lived in constant fear of the Burmese soldiers, enduring torture, killings, and burnt homes and belongings. For Daw Hla Shin, things were even worse; the villagers tried to protect her but they were so afraid of the Burmese military that even her own parents refused to live with her, knowing the Burmese soldiers thought she was a spy for the Karen. She couldn?t even live in the village anymore. She had to stay away in the jungle. The villagers knew about that and they tried to protect her but there was not much they could do. Daw Hla Shin had nowhere to go. Having never attended school or had any connection to the outside world, Daw Hla Shin, nor her younger sister, had any idea that there would be any escape or that Thailand even existed. Both sisters lost their first husbands in battle against the Burma Army. What happened to them and where are they now? Read Daw Hla Shin?s story to find out more."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Mahn Robert Ba Zan is a former Karen freedom fighter and an advisor to the Karen Communities of Minnesota. He served in the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) for more than 30 years, following in the footsteps of his father Mahn Ba Zan, the first commander of the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) and a former President of the Karen National Union (KNU). In 2000, Mahn Robert Ba Zan resettled to the United States of America with his family, changing his revolutionary tactics towards raising awareness and educating the Karen and other ethnics. In this interview, Mahn Robert Ba Zan talks about the ceasefire and car permits, ethnic unity, and how the international community can help the Karen in their quest for genuine peace and freedom."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Executive Summary: "This report outlines the results of the Local Governance Mapping research conducted by UNDP in Kayin State. Based on the perceptions of the people and local governance actors, the mapping has tried to capture some key aspects of the current dynamics of governance at the frontline of state-citizen interaction and focuses in its analysis on participation in public sector planning, access to basic services and accountability in local governance. In consultation with the Kayin State government, it was agreed that the Local Governance Mapping would be conducted in three townships, namely, Hlaingbwe, Kawkareik and Hpa-An between February and June 2014. Three of the more remote and less populated townships (Myawaddy, Hpapun and Thandaung) have for a long time been partially under control of the KNU and have been more unstable than the other four townships in Kayin State during the 65 years of armed conflict. As a result of their remote character, their low population density and the years of conflict, the availability of basic services and their governance situation is most likely to be significantly different from the ones included in this study."
Source/publisher: UNDP Myanmar
2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-02-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.21 MB
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