Food Security and militarisation in Burma
Individual Documents
| Title: | | Starving them out: Food shortages and exploitative abuse in Papun District |
| Date of publication: | | 15 October 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | "As the 2009 rainy season draws to a close, displaced villagers in northern Papun District's Lu Thaw
Township face little prospect of harvesting sufficient paddy to support them over the next year. After four
straight agricultural cycles disrupted by Burma Army patrols, which continue to shoot villagers on sight
and enforce travel and trade restrictions designed to limit sale of food to villagers in hiding, villagers in
northern Papun face food shortages more severe than anything to hit the area since the Burma Army
began attempts to consolidate control of the region in 1997. Consequently, the international donor
community should immediately provide emergency support to aid groups that can access IDP areas in Lu
Thaw Township. In southern Papun, meanwhile, villagers report ongoing abuses and increased activity
by the SPDC and DKBA in Dwe Loh and Bu Thoh townships. In these areas, villagers report abuses
including movement restrictions, forced labour, looting, increased placement of landmines in civilian
areas, summary executions and other forms of arbitrary abuse. This report documents abuses occurring
between May and October 2009..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2009-F18) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (861 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2009/khrg09f18.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 24 October 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Patrols, movement restrictions and forced labour in Toungoo District |
| Date of publication: | | 28 September 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | "This report documents the situation for villagers in Toungoo District, both in areas under SPDC control and in areas contested by the KNLA and home to villagers actively evading SDPC control. For villagers in the former, movement restrictions, forced labour and demands for material support continue unabated, and continue to undermine their attempts to address basic needs. Villagers in hiding, meanwhile, report that the threat of Burma Army patrols, though slightly reduced, remains sufficient to disrupt farming and undermine food security. This report includes incidents occurring from January to August 2009..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F16) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (850 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2009/khrg09f16.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 28 October 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Livelihood consequences of SPDC restrictions and patrols in Nyaunglebin District |
| Date of publication: | | 22 September 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | "This report presents information on abuses in Nyaunglebin District for the period of April to July 2009. Though Nyaunglebin saw a reduction in SPDC activities during the first six months of 2009, patrols resumed in July. Since then, IDP villagers attempting to evade SPDC control report that they have subsequently been unable to regularly access farm fields or gardens, exacerbating cycles of food shortages set in motion by the northern Karen State offensive which began in 2006. Other villagers, from the only nominally controlled villages in the Nyaunglebin's eastern hills to SPDC-administered relocation sites in the west, meanwhile, report abuses including forced labour, conscription into government militia, travel restrictions and the torture of two village leaders for alleged contact with the KNLA..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F15) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (821 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2009/khrg09f15.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 28 October 2009 |
|
| Title: | | SPDC and DKBA order documents: August 2008 to June 2009 |
| Date of publication: | | 27 August 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | "This report includes translated copies of 75 order documents issued by Burma Army and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army officers to village heads in Karen State between August 2008 and June 2009. These documents serve as supplementary evidence of ongoing exploitative local governance in rural Burma. The report thus supports the continuing testimonies of villagers regarding the regular demands for labour, money, food and other supplies to which their communities are subject by local military forces. The order documents collected here include demands for attendance at meetings; the provision of money and alcohol; the production and delivery of thatch shingles and bamboo poles; forced labour as messengers and porters for the military; forced labour on road repair; the provision of information on individuals and households; registration of villagers in State-controlled 'NGOs'; and restrictions on travel and the use of muskets. In almost all cases, such demands are uncompensated and backed by an implicit threat of violence or other punishment for non-compliance. Almost all demands articulated in the orders presented in this report involve some element of forced labour in their implementation..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Orders Reports (KHRG #2009-04 ) |
| Format/size: | | pfd (1.2 MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2009/khrg0904.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 15 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Abuse, Poverty and Migration: Investigating migrants' motivations to leave home in Burma |
| Date of publication: | | 10 July 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | "International reporting of the large-scale migration of those leaving Burma in search of work abroad has highlighted the perils for migrant during travel and in host countries. However, there has been a lack of research in the root causes of this migration. Identifying the root causes of migration has important implications for the assistance and protection of these migrants. Drawing on over 150 interviews with villagers in rural Burma and those from Burma who have sought employment abroad, this report identifies the exploitative abuse underpinning poverty and livelihoods vulnerability in Burma which, in turn, are major factors motivating individuals to leave home and seek work abroad..."
_Thailand-based interviewees explained to KHRG how exploitative abuses increased poverty, livelihoods vulnerability and food insecurity for themselves and their communities in Burma. These issues were in turn cited as central push factors compelling them to leave their homes and search for work abroad. In some cases, interviewees explained that the harmful effects of exploitative abuse were compounded by environmental and economic factors such as flood and drought and limited access to decent wage labour.[17]
While the individuals interviewed by KHRG in Thailand would normally be classified as 'economic migrants', the factors which they cited as motivating their choice to migrate make it clear that SPDC abuse made it difficult for them to survive in their home areas. Hence, these people decided to become migrants not simply because they were lured to Thailand by economic incentives, but because they found it impossible to survive at home in Burma. Clearly, the distinction between push and pull factors is blurred in the case of Burmese migrants.
The concept of pull factors for migrants is further complicated because migrants are not merely seeking better jobs abroad, but are instead pulled to places like Thailand and Malaysia in order to access protection. For refugees and IDPs, protection is a service that is often provided by government bodies, UN agencies and international NGOs. For refugees in particular, protection is often primarily understood to mean legal protection against refoulement - defined as the expulsion of a person to a place where they would face persecution. Beyond legal protection against refoulement, aid agencies have implemented specific forms of rights-based assistance, such as gender-based violence programmes, as part of their protection mandates.
However, for migrants from Burma the act of leaving home is overwhelmingly a self-initiated protection strategy through which individuals can ensure their and their families' basic survival in the face of persistent exploitative and other abuse in their home areas. This broader understanding of protection goes beyond legal protection against refoulement and the top-down delivery of rights-based assistance by aid agencies. It involves actions taken by individuals on their own accord to lessen or avoid abuse and its harmful effects at home.[18]
KHRG has chosen to use the term self-initiated protection strategy, rather than a more generic concept like 'survival strategy', in order to highlight the political agency of those who choose such migration. By seeing this protection in political terms, one can better understand both the abusive underpinnings of migration from Burma as well as the relevance of such migration to the protection mandates of governments, UN agencies and international NGOs currently providing support to conventional refugee populations. Understanding protection in this way presents opportunities for external support for the many self-initiated protection strategies (including efforts to secure employment without exploitation, support dependent family members, enrol children in school and avoid arrest, extortion and deportation) which migrant workers regularly use._ |
| Language: | | English, Burmese |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Regional & Thematic Reports (KHRG #2009-03) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (English Version: 2.6 MB), (Burmese Version: 383 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2009/khrg0903.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 11 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Food crisis: The cumulative impact of abuse in rural Burma |
| Date of publication: | | 29 April 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | Systematic militarisation and widespread exploitation of the civilian population by military forces have created poverty, malnutrition and a severe food crisis in Karen State and other parts of rural Burma. This crisis requires urgent attention by the international community - with intervention shaped by the concerns of villagers themselves. This briefer outlines the human rights abuses which have caused the food crisis; the combined impacts of these abuses upon civilian communities; the ways in which villagers have responded to and resisted abuse; and the actions that can be taken by the international community to alleviate the current crisis and to prevent future cycles of abuse and malnutrition in rural Burma. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (1.74K), html |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2009/khrg0902.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 12 August 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Networks of Noncompliance: Grassroots resistance and sovereignty in militarised Burma |
| Date of publication: | | 10 November 2008 |
| Description/subject: | | "...This paper examines state repression and state-society conflict in Burma through the lens of rural and urban resistance strategies. It finds very well developed 'networks of noncompliance' through which civilians evade and undermine state control over their lives, and that SPDC's brutal tactics represent not control, but a lack of control. Using concrete examples, the paper argues that outside agencies ignore this state-society struggle over sovereignty at their peril: by ignoring the interplay of intervention with local politics and militarisation, claiming a 'humanitarian neutrality' which is impossible in practice, and portraying civilians as helpless pawns, those who intervene and those who document the situation risk undermining the very civilians they wish to help, while facilitating further state repression. It calls for greater honesty and awareness in interventions, combined with greater outside engagement with villagers in their resistance strategies. Only days after this paper was first presented at the Yale University Agrarian Studies Colloquium, some of its cautions about the naïveté of claiming humanitarian neutrality in Burma's politicised and militarised context were tragically realised, when Cyclone Nargis devastated parts of the country and international aid agencies were forced to confront firsthand the SPDC's raw disdain for its own civilian population. Some gave in and chanelled aid through the Burmese military, much of which never reached the target populations...".....Paper for Agrarian Studies Colloquium, April 25, 2008 by
Kevin Malseed,
Advisor, Karen Human Rights Group
Program Fellow in Agrarian Studies, Yale University |
| Author/creator: | | Kevin Malseed |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Right Group (KHRG Articles & Papers) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (426 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2008/khrg08w3.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 25 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Attacks, killings and the food crisis in Toungoo District |
| Date of publication: | | 01 August 2008 |
| Description/subject: | | "SPDC troops have continued to target internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Toungoo District. Civilians continue be killed or injured by the attacks while many of the survivors flee their homes and take shelter in forest hiding sites. Some who have moved into SPDC forced relocation sites continue to secretly return to their villages to cultivate their crops, constantly risking punishment or execution by troops patrolling the areas. The SPDC's repeated disruption of regular planting cycles has created a food crisis in Toungoo, further endangering the IDPs living there. This report examines the abuses in Toungoo District from April to June 2008..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2008-F9) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (880 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2008/khrg08f9.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 01 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Villagers risk arrest and execution to harvest their crops |
| Date of publication: | | 04 December 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | "The months of November and December which follow the annual cessation of the rainy season mark the traditional harvest time for the agrarian communities of Karen State when villagers must venture out into their fields in order to reap their ripe paddy crops. Across large areas of Toungoo District, however, where the SPDC lacks a consolidated hold on the civilian population, this time of year has become especially perilous as the Army enforces sweeping movement restrictions backed up by a shoot on sight policy in order to eradicate the entire civilian presence in areas outside its control and restrict the population to military-controlled villages and relocation sites where they can be more easily exploited for labour, money, food and other supplies. Displaced communities in hiding thus risk potential arrest and execution by venturing out into the relatively open area of their hill side agricultural fields where they are more easily spotted by SPDC troops who regularly patrol the area. Yet, because of the Army's persistent attacks against covert farm fields, food stores and displaced communities in hiding these villagers confront a severe food shortage which has increased pressure on them to tend to their covert fields despite the risks. As a consequence some villagers have already lost their lives; having been shot by SPDC soldiers while attempting to tend their crops and address their community's rising food insecurity..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Report (KHRG #2007-F11) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (817 MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2007/khrg07f11.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 07 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | State agencies, armed groups and the proliferation of oppression in Thaton District |
| Date of publication: | | 24 September 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | "Throughout SPDC-controlled areas of Karen State the regime has been developing civilian agencies as extensions of military authority. On top of this, the junta has continued to strengthen the more traditional forms of militarisation and, at least in Thaton District, has firmly backed the expansion of DKBA military operations to control the civilian population and eradicate KNLA forces which continue to actively patrol the area. The people of Thaton District thus face a myriad of State agencies and armed groups which have overburdened them with demands for labour, money and supplies. While engaging with these groups, addressing the demands placed on them and attending to their own livelihoods, local villagers have sought to manage a delicate balance of seemingly impossible weights..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Report (KHRG #2007-F7) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (1 MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2007/khrg07f7.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 08 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Landmines, Killings and Food Destruction: Civilian life in Toungoo District |
| Date of publication: | | 09 August 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | "The attacks against civilians continue as the SPDC increases its military build-up in Toungoo District. Enforcing widespread restrictions on movement backed up by a shoot-on-sight policy, the SPDC has executed at least 38 villagers in Toungoo since January 2007. On top of this, local villagers face the ever present danger of landmines, many of which were manufactured in China, which the Army has deployed around homes, churches and forest paths. Combined with the destruction of covert agricultural hill fields and rice supplies, these attacks seek to undermine food security and make life unbearable in areas outside of consolidated military control. However, as those living under SPDC rule have found, the constant stream of military demands for labour, money and other supplies undermine livelihoods, village economies and community efforts to address health, education and social needs. Civilians in Toungoo must therefore choose between a situation of impoverishment and subjugation under SPDC rule, evasion in forested hiding sites with the constant threat of military attack, or a relatively stable yet uprooted life in refugee camps away from their homeland. This report documents just some of the human rights abuses perpetrated by SPDC forces against villagers in Toungoo District up to July 2007..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Report (KHRG #2007-F6) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (1.24 MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2007/khrg07f6.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 08 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | The Compounding Consequences of DKBA Oppression: Abuse, poverty and food insecurity in Thaton District |
| Date of publication: | | 09 July 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | "As the principal means of establishing control over the people of Thaton District, the SPDC has supported a more aggressive DKBA role in the area. With the junta's political, military and financial backing the DKBA has sought to expand its numbers, strengthen its position vis-à-vis the civilian population and eradicate the remaining KNU/KNLA presence in the region. To those ends, the DKBA has used forced labour, looting, extortion, land confiscation and movement restrictions and embarked on a hostile campaign of forced recruitment from amongst the local population. These abuses have eroded village livelihoods, leading to low harvest yields and wholly failed crops; problems which compound over time and progressively deepen poverty and malnourishment. With the onset of the rainy season and the 2007 cultivation period, villagers in Thaton District are faced with depleting provisions. This food insecurity will require that many harvest their 2007 crop as early as October while still unripe. The low yield of an early harvest, lost time spent on forced labour and the harmful fallout of further extortion and other abuses will all combine to ensure once again that villagers in Thaton District confront food shortages and increasing poverty..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Report (KHRG #2007-F5) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (527 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2007/khrg07f5.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 08 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Provoking Displacement in Toungoo District: Forced labour, restrictions and attacks |
| Date of publication: | | 30 May 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | "The first half of 2007 has seen the continued flight of civilians from their homes and land in response to ongoing State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military operations in Toungoo District. While in some cases this displacement is prompted by direct military attacks against their villages, many civilians living in Toungoo District have told KHRG that the primary catalyst for relocation has been the regular demands for labour, money and supplies and the restrictions on movement and trade imposed by SPDC forces. These everyday abuses combine over time to effectively undermine civilian livelihoods, exacerbate poverty and make subsistence untenable. Villagers threatened with such demands and restrictions frequently choose displacement in response - initially to forest hiding sites located nearby and then farther afield to larger Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps or across the border to Thailand-based refugee camps. This report presents accounts of ongoing abuses in Toungoo District committed by SPDC forces during the period of January to May 2007 and their role in motivating local villagers to respond with flight and displacement..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Report (KHRG #2007-F4) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (527 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2007/khrg07f4.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 08 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Oppression by proxy in Thaton District |
| Date of publication: | | 21 December 2006 |
| Description/subject: | | "With the onset of the cold season the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) has been able to push ahead with military attacks against villages and displaced communities in the northern districts of Karen State. In Thaton District and other areas further south, however, the military is more firmly in control, fewer displaced communities are able to remain in hiding, and SPDC rule is facilitated by the presence of its ally the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). By increasingly relying on DKBA forces to administer Thaton, the SPDC has been able to free up soldiers and resources which can then be deployed elsewhere. To force the civilian population into submission, the DKBA has scoured villages throughout Thaton - detaining, interrogating and torturing villagers and conscripting them to serve as army porters. Commensurate with its increased control over the civilian population, DKBA soldiers have subjected villagers to regular extortion, arbitrary and excessive 'taxation', forced labour, land confiscation and restrictions on movement, trade and education which all serve to support ongoing military rule in Thaton. By systematising control over local villagers, the SPDC and DKBA have been able to implement 'development' projects that financially benefit and further entrench the military hierarchy. Amongst such initiatives, the construction in Thaton District of the United Nations-supported Asian Highway, connecting Burma with neighbouring countries, has involved uncompensated land confiscation and forced labour..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Field Report (KHRG #2006-F11) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (619 KB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.khrg.org/khrg2006/khrg06f11.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 08 November 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Starving Them Out: Forced Relocations, Killings and the Systematic Starvation of Villagers in Dooplaya District |
| Date of publication: | | 31 March 2000 |
| Description/subject: | | "This report consists of an Introduction and Executive Summary, followed by a detailed analysis of the situation supported by quotes from interviews and excerpts from SPDC order documents sent to villages in the region. As mentioned above, an Annex to this report containing the full text of the remaining interviews can be seen by following the link from the table of contents or from KHRG upon approved request..."
Forced Relocations, Killings and the Systematic Starvation of Villagers in Dooplaya District |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Rights Group Regional & Thematic Reports (KHRG #2000-02) |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 June 2003 |
|
| Title: | | Voice of the Hungry Nation |
| Date of publication: | | October 1999 |
| Description/subject: | | This document presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity
and Militarization in Burma. The Tribunal’s work will appeal to all readers interested in human rights and social
justice, as well as anyone with a particular interest in Burma. The Asian Human Rights Commission presents this
report in order to stimulate discourse on human rights and democratization in Burma and around the world. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma |
| Format/size: | | English version |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.burmadebate.org/archives/fall99bttm.html#hungry |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 June 2003 |
|
| Title: | | Karen Human Rights Group Commentary #98-C2 |
| Date of publication: | | 24 November 1998 |
| Description/subject: | | "..."Things are getting more difficult every day. Even the Burmese leaders capture each other and put each other in jail. If they can capture and imprison even the people who have authority, then how are the villagers supposed to tolerate them? That’s why the villagers are fleeing from Burma." - Dta La Ku elder (M, 44) from Dooplaya district (Report #98-09)
There is no doubt that life is currently becoming worse for the vast majority of people in Burma, in both urban and rural areas. In urban areas, people are plagued by high inflation, rapidly increasing prices for basic commodities such as rice and basic foodstuffs, the tumbling value of the Kyat, wages which are not enough to feed oneself, corruption by all arms of the military and civil service, and the ever-present fear of arbitrary arrest for the slightest act or statement that betrays opposition to the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) junta..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Karen Human Right Group (KHRG #98-C2) |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 22 November 2009 |
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