Discrimination against the Karen

expand all
collapse all

Websites/Multiple Documents

Description: 4 issues a year on landmines, forced relocation, Burma army attacks, IDP health, education and many other issues affecting Internally Displaced Karen People.
Source/publisher: Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP)
Date of entry/update: 2009-03-31
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Reports from 2000 to 2004
Source/publisher: Mergui-Tavoy District Information Department, Karen National Union
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The purpose of the Karen Emergency Relief Fund Inc. is to provide humanitarian assistance, including food, shelter, medical and health supplies, and to provide educational and self-help projects for the Karen people. The Relief Fund recognizes that the Karens are an indigenous, ethnic minority group of about 11 million people who have lived in the mountainous region along the border of Burma and Thailand for many centuries. Due to the ongoing strife in Burma, it is estimated that there are more than 300,000 displaced Karens who have fled into the jungle and are living in huts and makeshift camps in the border area. Those who have escaped into Thailand have not been given official refugee status, consequently they receive no direct assistance from the United Nations or from the Red Cross. Alongside impoverished Karen organizations the Karen Emergency Relief Fund maintains an office in Mae Sot, Thailand. In 2000 K.E.R.F established a therapy program for the victims of rape and torture which is directed by a skilled and innovative psychotherapist. No other agency was addressing the consequences of these widespread and vicious crimes. The Karen Emergency Relief Fund Inc. is recognized by the IRS as a non-profit, tax deductible organization, and has no paid employees. All funds raised are distributed to the Karens or to organizations acting on their behalf. The Board of Directors of the Karen Emergency Relief Fund Inc. is comprised of physicians, clergypersons and business professionals from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The organization was created on July 20, 1997. "
Source/publisher: Karen Emergency Relief Fund
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Several thousand photographs from 1993 covering different ethnic groups as well as a smaller number of videos.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-24
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Reports from 2006 to 2010
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) Regional & Thematic Reports
Date of entry/update: 2012-06-25
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: Karen
more
Description: "The Karen Teacher Working Group (KTWG) was organized in 1997 in response to the needs of Karen teachers working in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border and in the Karen-controlled areas of Karen State, Burma. We are a local Karen non-governmental organization (NGO) with no parent organization and our structure reflects our commitment to maximizing community participation in and ownership of all our programs. The KTWG currently has 68 full-time members. Our members come from the communities in which we are involved. We provide culturally-based and situationally relevant programs in Karen to ensure that local needs find local solutions. Our main goal is to equip teachers with skills which enable them to respond to the everchanging needs of our youth and our People. We advocate active student-centered classrooms which encourage problem solving, creativity and critical thinking. These are the skills that will enable us to build our future."
Source/publisher: Karen Teacher Working Group (KTWG)
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Aims, statements, history etc. Last updated 1998
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
expand all
collapse all

Individual Documents

Description: "This Short Update describes events that occurred in Htaw Ta Htoo (Htantabin) Township, Taw Oo (Toungoo) District during the period between September and November 2023, including house burning, indiscriminate shelling and air strikes. In September 2023, tensions were heightened between the State Administration Council (SAC) and local armed resistance groups in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, Htaw Ta Htoo Township, after People’s Defence Force (PDF) and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) extrajudicially killed an SAC soldier who had been sent to the area as a spy. After this killing, the SAC burned down at least 27 villagers’ houses in five different villages, shelled mortars into villages, and conducted air strikes in the area, causing three casualties. The shelling injured one villager, damaged five villagers’ houses and one shop, as well as plantations, and killed one cow. The air strikes injured two villagers and damaged a villager’s house.[1] House burning in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract From the second week of August 2023, combined forces of the People’s Defence Force (PDF)[2] and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)[3] increased their military activities in every village in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, Htaw Ta Htoo (Htantabin) Township, Taw Oo (Toungoo) District. As reported by local villagers, Maung[4] Kyaw Htun, a soldier from State Administration Council (SAC)[5] Infantry Battalion (IB)[6] #39, was ordered by his leader to return to his parents’ village, A--- village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, to investigate the military activities of the KNLA and PDF there while posing as a civilian. Soldiers from the KNLA and PDF knew about this situation. On September 12th 2023, the KNLA and PDF arrested Maung Kyaw Htun whilst he was at his father’s house, took him to a place outside the village, and killed him. Maung Kyaw Htun’s family members went to SAC IB #39 army camp immediately after finding out he was killed and informed the SAC about what had happened. On September 13th 2023, at 6 am, SAC combined forces, including IB #39 which is based in Lay Maing village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, went with five military trucks and two artillery trucks to A--- village, B--- village, and C--- village, in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. At around 10 am on September 14th 2023, these SAC combined forces burned down four houses in B--- village. The owners of those houses are Saw[7] D---, Saw E---, Saw F--- and Saw G---. Also on this day, these SAC combined forces burned down seven houses in C--- village. The owners of those houses are Ko[8] H---, Ko I---, Ko J---, Ko K---, a daughter of Ko K---, Daw[9] L---, and Daw M---. After the SAC troops burned down villagers’ houses in these two villages, they stayed in B--- village for three days. On the third day, September 16th, at 6 am, the SAC troops retreated from the village and returned to their army camp. On the afternoon of September 16th 2023, KNLA and PDF soldiers burned down Maung Kyaw Htun’s father’s house. This contributed to increasingly heightened tensions between local armed resistance groups and SAC troops in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. On October 20th 2023, SAC combined forces, including IB #39, went to N--- village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, where they burned down three villagers’ houses. The owners of those houses are Saw O---, Saw P--- and Saw Q---. On November 12th 2023 at 1:30 pm, the combined forces of the KNLA and PDF attacked these SAC troops using tripwire bombs in a place between A--- village and N--- village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, after which fighting broke out. On the evening of November 12th 2023, the SAC troops burned down nine houses in B--- village, as well as four houses in A--- village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. Villagers whose houses were burned down in B--- village are Saw R---, Saw S---, Saw T---, Saw U---, Maung V---, Naw[10] W---, Naw X---, Saw Y--- and Saw Z---. Villagers whose houses were burned down in A--- village are Aa---, Ko Ab---, Ko Ac--- and Ko Ad---. The SAC combined forces that are based in Lay Maing village, including IB #39, often fired mortar shells into villages and surrounding areas where they thought the KNLA and PDF soldiers might stay, regardless of whether fighting had occurred or not. During the reporting period, the SAC also conducted air strikes in this area. Indiscriminate shelling into Day Loh Mu Nu village tract On October 19th 2023, at around 1 pm, the SAC combined forces, including IB #39 that is based in Lay Maing village, indiscriminately fired rounds of mortars into villages in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract, Htaw Ta Htoo Township, Taw Oo District. These villages include A---, B---, C---, N---, Ae---, Af---, Ag---, and Ah--- villages. One of the mortar shells landed in a shop owned by U[11] Ai--- in C--- village. The mortar shell exploded, damaging the shop. On November 17th 2023, the SAC troops indiscriminately fired mortar shells into villages in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. One of the mortar shells landed in a farm near Ae--- village. It exploded and its shrapnel killed a cow owned by Saw Aj---. On November 19th 2023, the SAC troops again indiscriminately fired rounds of mortar into villages in Day Loh Mu Nu area. One of the mortar shells landed in a villager’s house in N--- village. It exploded and damaged the roof of the house owned by Ak---. Shrapnel from the mortar shells also hit other three houses nearby, damaging them. On November 27th 2023, the SAC troops indiscriminately fired rounds of mortar into villages in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. One of the mortar shells landed in a rubber plantation owned by a villager near Af--- village. It exploded and damaged the rubber plantation. There were no casualties [caused by the shelling] in this village. Also on November 27th 2023, at 9:04 pm, the SAC combined forces based in Lay Maing army camp and Kon Nit Maing (Seven Miles) army camp, indiscriminately fired rounds of mortars into Ag--- village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. The mortar shells exploded in a rubber plantation owned by a villager, damaging it. Shrapnel from the mortar explosion hit a house owned by a 34-year-old female villager, Naw Al---. She was also hit by the mortar shrapnel, sustaining injuries to her elbow. Air strikes in Day Loh Mu Nu village tract On November 27th 2023, at 3:17 pm, the SAC conducted an air strike in Ah--- village, Day Loh Mu Nu village tract. The air strike injured two villagers, one of whom was seriously injured. A villager’s house was also damaged by the air strike. Further background reading on the situation on house burning, indiscriminate shelling and air strikes in Taw Oo District, Southeast Burma, be found in the following KHRG reports: “Taw Oo District Situation Update: Fighting, shelling, and house burning in Thandaung Town, and air strikes in Htaw Ta Htoo Township (January to July 2023)”, January 2024 Striking Fear: Impacts of State Administration Council (SAC) shelling on villagers’ lives in Southeast Burma (January to October 2023), December 2023. “Taw Oo District Incident Report: Killings, property destruction, and indiscriminate shelling by the SAC in Daw Hpa Hkoh Township (July 2023)”, November 2023. “Taw Oo District Short Update: Air strikes, displacement and property damage in Daw Hpa Hkoh Township, July 2023”, August 2023. Burning Karen State: Retaliatory burning of houses and property against rural civilian communities of Southeast Burma (2021 and 2022), March 2023. Footnotes: [1] The present document is based on information received in November and December 2023. It was provided by a community member in Taw Oo District who has been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions on the ground. The names of the victims, their photos and the exact locations are censored for security reasons. The parts in square brackets are explanations added by KHRG. [2] The People’s Defence Force (PDF) is an armed resistance established independently as local civilian militias operating across the country. Following the February 1st 2021 military coup and the ongoing brutal violence enacted by the junta, the majority of these groups began working with the National Unity Government (NUG), a body claiming to be the legitimate government of Burma (Myanmar), which then formalised the PDF on May 5th 2021 as a precursor to a federal army. [3] The Karen National Liberation Army is the armed (KNLA) wing of the Karen National Union (KNU). [4] ‘Maung’ is a Burmese male honorific title used before a person’s name. [5] The State Administration Council (SAC) is the executive governing body created in the aftermath of the February 1st 2021 military coup. It was established by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on February 2nd 2021, and is composed of eight military officers and eight civilians. The chairperson serves as the de facto head of government of Burma/Myanmar and leads the Military Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the government. Min Aung Hlaing assumed the role of SAC chairperson following the coup. [6] An Infantry Battalion (IB) comprises 500 soldiers. However, most Infantry Battalions in the Tatmadaw are under-strength with less than 200 soldiers. Yet up to date information regarding the size of battalions is hard to come by, particularly following the signing of the NCA. They are primarily used for garrison duty but are sometimes used in offensive operations. [7] ‘Saw’ is a S’gaw Karen male honorific title used before a person’s name. [8] ‘Ko’ is a Burmese title meaning older brother. It can be used for relatives as well as non-relatives. [9] ‘Daw’ is a Burmese female honorific title used before a person’s name. [10] ‘Naw’ is a S’gaw Karen female honorific title used before a person’s name. [11] ‘U’ is a Burmese male honorific title used before a person’s name..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
2024-03-05
Date of entry/update: 2024-03-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.9 MB
more
Description: "This Short Update describes events that occurred in Kaw T’Ree (Kawkareik) Township, Dooplaya District, in November 2023. On November 2nd 2023, combined troops of Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and Kaw Thoo Lei Army (KTLA) attacked State Administration Council (SAC) Infantry Battalion (IB) #32 army camp near A--- village, Maw Hkee village tract, Kaw T’Ree Township, by drone, and fighting broke out. Following this, SAC troops heavily shelled into A--- village and surrounding villagers’ plantations during the whole day. In fear, villagers from A--- village fled to B--- area, an internally displaced people (IDP) site. Moreover, the SAC shelling into A--- village created fear for villagers in neighbouring villages to live and work in their village.[1] SAC shelling after fighting in Kaw T’Ree Township On November 2nd 2023, in the morning, at 7:20 am, Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)[2] Battalion #201, combined with Kaw Thoo Lei Army (KTLA)[3] troops, dropped three shells by drone into State Administration Council (SAC)[4] Infantry Battalion (IB)[5] #32 army camp near A--- village, Maw Hkee village tract[6], Kaw T’Ree Township, Dooplaya District. SAC IB#32 Battalion Commender's name is Kyaw Zin Oo. Following the shelling, fighting broke out, and stopped at 10:40 am. Though the fighting stopped, the SAC soldiers shelled [rounds of] 120mm, 81mm, and 60mm mortar shells and [fired rounds from an] RPG7 [rocket-propelled grenade launcher] into A--- village and nearby plantations for the whole remaining day. As a result, some shells landed on corn fields and pea plantations, creating fear for villagers to go and harvest rice and peas from the plantations, though it was time to harvest crops. [Due to the shelling, several buildings such as a church, a school and a house were damaged, but no villagers were injured.] As reported by a local villager to KHRG, villagers from A--- village did not dare to live in their village, so they sought shelter in B--- area [an IDP site located at the Thai-Burma border]. Villagers from [nearby villages such as] C--- village and D--- village, in Maw Hkee village tract, were also living in fear. As a result of this incident, villagers feel that they must be wary when moving around their villages, working in plantations, or going to school, for example. They also feel trapped because of this fear of moving around. Further background reading on the situation of indiscriminate shelling and displacement in Southeast Burma can be found in the following KHRG reports: “Dooplaya District Situation Update: Indiscriminate shelling of villages causing displacement and livelihood difficulties (March to May 2023)”, January 2024. “Dooplaya District Short Update: Killing, house burning, shelling, and displacement, from January to February 2023”, December 2023. “Dooplaya District Incident Report: A villager was killed by SAC shelling in Noh T’Kaw (Kyainseikgyi) Township, June 2023”, December 2023. “Dooplaya District Incident Report: Threat, forced labour, indiscriminate shelling and looting in Kaw T’Ree Township, March 15th 2023”, June 2023. “Dooplaya District Short Update: Indiscriminate shelling and a landmine explosion in Noh T’Kaw Township, June to September 2022”, April 2023. Footnotes: [1] The present document is based on information received in November 2023. It was provided by a community member in Dooplaya District who has been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions on the ground. The names of the victims, their photos and the exact locations are censored for security reasons. The parts in square brackets are explanations added by KHRG. [2] The Karen National Liberation Army is the armed (KNLA) wing of the Karen National Union (KNU). [3] The Kaw Thoo Lei Army (KTLA) was founded on July 17th 2022 by Brigadier-General Nerdah Bo Mya. Nerdah Bo Mya, former Commander-In-Chief of the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), was dismissed by the KNU in 2022. KTLA operates in two districts in Southeast Burma, in KNU-controlled areas, namely Mergui-Tavoy and Dooplaya districts. In Dooplaya District, they operate in alliance with resistance armed groups. KTLA battalions in Mergui-Tavoy District are in conflict with both SAC and KNLA troops. [4] The State Administration Council (SAC) is the executive governing body created in the aftermath of the February 1st 2021 military coup. It was established by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on February 2nd 2021, and is composed of eight military officers and eight civilians. The chairperson serves as the de facto head of government of Myanmar and leads the Military Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the government. Min Aung Hlaing assumed the role of SAC chairperson following the coup. [5] An Infantry Battalion (IB) comprises 500 soldiers. However, most Infantry Battalions in the Tatmadaw are understrength with less than 200 soldiers. Yet up to date information regarding the size of battalions is hard to come by, particularly following the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). They are primarily used for garrison duty but are sometimes used in offensive operations. [6] A village tract is an administrative unit of between five and 20 villages in a local area, often centred on a large village..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
2024-02-26
Date of entry/update: 2024-02-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 536.44 KB 190.42 KB 152.74 KB
more
Description: "This Incident Report describes events that occurred in Waw Ray (Win Yay) Township, Dooplaya District in April 2022, including the rape and killing of two adolescent sisters. Four local male villagers, including an uncle of the victims, were involved in this incident. Excerpt Part 3 – Complete Description of the Incident On April 24th 2022, Naw S---, 12 years old, and Naw R---, 9 years old, disappeared after going out to find [wild] vegetables in the [nearby] plantations. They are the daughters of U A--- and Naw W---, living in Lay Hpoh village, Kwee K’Saw Kyee village tract, Waw Ray (Win Yay) Township, Dooplaya District. After realising that the two girls had disappeared, their family, relatives and other villagers looked for them around the village and nearby plantations. Finally, the bodies of the two girls were found on April 25th 2022 between 9 am and 10 am, one mile away from the village. Following that, family and villagers informed the local village leaders, the Karen National Police Force (KNPF) and local Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) Company #2 about the incident so that they would examine and investigate the case. The two girls were found dead, with extensive wounds and bruises all over their bodies. Their hands and feet were bound. A community member who saw the corpses explained: “When they were found, they were lying on the ground. Their hands were bound and a piece of cloth was tied around their eyes. But their clothes were on them. […] They had injury marks on their bodies. Naw S---’s head was smashed flat from her ear to her eye on the left side. […] She had injuries on her back like she was dragged on the ground. Naw R--- also had injuries on the left side of her head. Both of her legs seemed to be broken as they were all twisted. There were bruises all over their [both girls’] body and groin. Both of them had their anus torn.” Local authorities also found some semen in the female organs [vagina] of both victims. The local authorities who examined the bodies were the village security officers, the village head, the KNPF, the KNLA and health workers from Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW) and Burma Medical Association (BMA). The local authorities and villagers believe that the victims were raped, tortured and killed. According to a local health worker, we [those investigating] did not have any examination materials at the local level. She explained, “I did not have any technologies to use for checking the body. I just went to check whether the bodies of the children had any signs related to sexual violence or not. I just used materials to protect myself such as gloves and a mask. There were no other materials that we used for checking.” However, the clothes of the victims were taken by the KNPF for the investigation [no further information was provided regarding that investigation]. According to the local villagers who provided information [including the victims’ family], initially, the KNPF and KNLA could not identify any perpetrator. However, they questioned some villagers who seemed to have a suspicious connection to this incident. Among them, Saw Hpa Eh Tee, an uncle [brother of the mother] of the victims, was questioned by the KNPF because he also disappeared on the day that the incident happened. However, the KNPF released him after a few days of questioning. He was released because there was no evidence. The KNPF and KNLA continued to investigate more clues and evidence with the help of local security. Meanwhile, the parents also visited a shaman [AL1][TB2]in the area to help find out more clues. During one visit to a shaman on April 30th 2022 in Payathonesu Town [Waw Ray Township], the spirit of their daughters entered the body of the shaman and said that “the person who killed us is Uncle Saw Maung Chit Soe” [not an actual uncle of the victims; uncle is used here merely as a familiar term]. Another shaman also said that the perpetrators’ houses are not far from the victims’ house, and that [one of] the perpetrators has dark skin and is aged around 30 to 40 years old. With these clues, the KNPF assigned some village security officers to continue trying to identify suspects, and also to monitor the situation of any suspected villagers. During the investigation, the security guards became suspicious of Saw Maung Chit Soe due to some of his words and activities. According to the victims’ parents, Saw Maung Chit Soe’s actions were suspicious because he was friendly to the victims’ family before the incident happened (he used to visit their home often), but after the incident happened, he did not visit the victims’ family anymore. When the victim’s parents visited him, he would not face them. He had some marks on his face like it was scratched by someone. And he would put on Th’Na Hka [traditional make up applied in the form of a paste made from ground bark] on his face, as though to cover up the scratch marks. According to the neighbour, he never applied Th’Na Hka to his face before. The village security officers reported the situation to the KNPF who later ordered the village security officers to bring any suspected villagers to the KNPF office in Thay K’Teh village in order to conduct an in-person investigation. On May 24th 2022, the village security officers sent Saw Maung Chit Soe, together with two other suspected villagers, Saw Soe Win Than and Saw Eh Doh Htoo, to be investigated by the KNPF. The uncle [AL3][TB4][Saw Hpa Eh Tee] was sent on May 26th 2022. Eventually, the perpetrators confessed to the KNPF and KNLA that they committed this abuse. [According to the confessions,] at first, the uncle Saw Hpa Eh Tee and a Lay Naw villager, Saw Eh Doh Htoo, convinced the children [two girls] to follow them to the incident place [a plantation near the river]. They had already been watching for when the two children would leave home to find vegetables in the plantations. They [the two perpetrators] went ahead of them [the girls] and waited at the stream. When the two girls arrived at the plantation, the perpetrators approached and convinced them to follow them further for fishing and finding vegetables. When they arrived at the stream, four perpetrators met up and brought the children to the incident place. When they arrived at the incident place, the perpetrators tore the sarongs off of the girls, which they then tore up in order to tie up the girls. Only three of the men (not the girls’ uncle [Saw Hpa Eh Tee]) raped the girls. However, he [Saw Hpa Eh Tee] remained just beside the girls while they were raped. The three perpetrators (not Saw Hpa Eh Tee) were drunk. According to the confession, the perpetrators had been planning this for weeks and they made it happen when they got the chance. The case is currently [at the time of the initial interviews] being handled by the township KNPF and local Karen National Union (KNU) authorities. According to the victims’ family, the case will be processed further according to KNU law. The victims’ family is concerned about retaliation from the perpetrators and the perpetrators’ families if the perpetrators are not arrested and punished or if they are only sentenced for a few years. [In many rape cases, even if found guilty, the perpetrators are only required to provide financial compensation to the survivor and/or family.] The family, especially the mother and father of the two girls, are still experiencing trauma and mental health issues due to this violent abuse inflicted upon their daughters. The mother could not sleep or eat properly since the incident happened. She is always in bed. She has not been going around in the village or outside as she used to do. They are in need of counselling. They have spent almost 1,000,000 kyats [USD 476.19] to follow the case, including travel costs, so they are also experiencing financial hardship now. Follow up: On September 28th 2022, the KNU Dooplaya District Court determined the punishment for each of the perpetrators. Saw Eh Doh Htoo was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and hard labour, Saw Soe Win Than was sentenced to 17 years imprisonment and hard labour, whereas the two other were given the death sentence. [KHRG did not receive further information about whether the latter two were put to death, but according to KNU policy, punishment is implemented 40 days after the sentencing.]..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
2023-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.16 MB
more
Description: "SAC Chairman Min Aung Hlaing visited Karen State and had a meeting with SAC members at Hpa An on May 31st 2021. In that meeting, he mentioned the possibility of resuming the Hatgyi Hydropwer Dam project. Human Rights Group (KHRG) and the Karen Rivers Watch (KRW) stand alongside local communities in strong opposition to General Min Aung Hlaing’s recent announcement that the State Administrative Council (SAC) intends to push ahead with the construction of the Hatgyi hydropower mega-dam on the Salween River. This would be catastrophic for ethnic and Indigenous communities in the Salween River Basin. The Hatgyi dam is a planned 1,360 megawatt dam on the Salween River in Karen areas. More than 10 million people rely on the Salween River and the Hatgyi dam will have severe negative impacts on ecosystems in the area, along with people’s livelihoods, wellbeing, and cultural integrity. Human rights violations have already been linked to the planned project site, including forced labor, rape, and forced displacement of over 5,000 people. Much of this displacement is due to conflict between ethnic Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Myanmar military around the dam area. Conflict has broken out around the proposed site several times from 2014 - 2018. The dam has been met with strong opposition from communities, environmental organisations, and civil society. Local communities launched a powerful campaign against dams on the Salween River, which eventually led to the Hatgyi dam construction being put on hiatus, until now. Since the recent military coup, there has been intensified conflicts in ethnic areas across the country. In Karen territories alone, military airstrikes and ground artillery attacks have killed and injured dozens of people and displaced around 70,000. The SAC regime is looking to extract economic revenue from natural resources to fund their military activities and so are pushing ahead with mega-dam investment along the Salween River. This will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis in Karen State caused by the ongoing SAC military offensives. Due to the instability that followed the coup, people across the country are facing a multitude of hardships. Therefore, it is unacceptable that the SAC is trying to push for the hydropower dam project to generate more revenue to fund its military while civilians have no economic and physical security. It is more important than ever to demand the protection of the Salween River which is of great importance for ecology, indigenous culture, and livelihoods. Therefore, we make the following urgent demands: (1) The SAC military also known as Tatmadaw must immediately withdraw from Karen territories. They are committing atrocities against civilians whilst they invade Karen territories in order to establish military bases, and push ahead with investment projects such as dams, threatening and destroying local communities and the natural environment. (2) All planned controversial infrastructure development projects must be cancelled including the construction of mega-dams on rivers all across Myanmar, and including planned mega-dams and infrastructure projects along the Salween River. This is because rivers and lakes are an essential lifeline for our local people to live in peace. (3) The international community must oppose and sanction any and all sources of economic revenue going to the Myanmar military regime, including hydropower projects, and other investment projects. (4) All concerned actors, including state-owned and private companies that are commissioned to construct, or are otherwise investing in, the development and implementation of the Hatgyi hydropower dam project, must stop all plans and cooperation with regard to the construction of the dam. Contact persons: Saw Tha Phoe (KRW) - +95 978 263 9714 Saw Nanda Hsue (KHRG) - +66 811 297 564..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
2021-06-11
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 103.17 KB 92.54 KB
more
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
Language:
more
Sub-title: Naw Betty Han of Frontier and Mar Naw of the Myanmar Times spent Wednesday night in detention in Kayin state
Description: "The Border Guard Force (BGF) in Kayin state released two journalists on Thursday and said it would punish the soldiers who detained them. Frontier Myanmar reporter Naw Betty Han and Myanmar Times photographer Mar Naw were detained in the border town of Myawaddy on Wednesday evening. Frontier said in a statement Thursday afternoon that it had not heard from its reporter and was concerned for her safety. Local BGF commander colonel Saw Chit Thu later told Myanmar Now the pair had been released and would be brought to Kayin’s capital Hpa-An. Their captors would be punished with up to 30 days in detention, he added. Naw Betty Han sent a text message to a Frontier colleague on Wednesday afternoon informing them she had been detained. She has previously reported on the business interests of the Kayin BGF, a Tatmadaw-backed group. Soldiers from the group stopped the journalists at the No. 1 border gate in Myawaddy and made the arrests after finding notes about casinos in Naw Betty Han’s notebook, Saw Chit Thu said. He has ordered an investigation into their detention, he added. Frontier said in a follow-up statement on Thursday evening that Naw Betty Han “has been released and is safe”. Reached by Myanmar Now, Mar Naw said he had been released but was not sure if the BGF would bring him to Hpa-An..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2020-03-05
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description: "The burnt bones of an ethnic Karen community activist who disappeared in Thailand more than five years ago were found underwater in a national park, investigators said Tuesday, confirming his death for the first time. Rights groups say 30 human rights activists have disappeared or been murdered in Thailand since 2001, and the country is considered one of the deadliest in Asia for environmental defenders. Known as Billy, ethnic Karen leader Por Cha Lee Rakcharoen was stopped by local authorities at a checkpoint in April 2014 while travelling to meet Karen villagers who had accused officials of destroying their homes in Kaeng Krachan national park. Officials later said he was questioned for illegally gathering honey but released. Divers found his remains in a lake in the same park in April this year, and identified the bones using DNA from his mother. "We can assume Billy is dead, as these bones were removed from his body," Mr Korawat Panprapakorn, deputy director general of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), told reporters. One bone was found in an oil drum while others were scattered around the lake..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" via AFP
2019-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Topic: Compensation for abuse, Killing, Violent abuse
Topic: Compensation for abuse, Killing, Violent abuse
Description: "The incident happened on April 5th 2019 outside of W--- village, Win Yay Township, Dooplaya District, in a mixed control area. Around 3:30 AM, two Tatmadaw deserters from LIB #339 and LIB #275, Nyein Chan and Myint Wai, reached a local motorbike workshop located 15 minutes away from the village. When the owner refused to give them a motorbike, one of the soldiers shot him with his service rifle. The brother of the owner, who lived nearby, was also shot when he arrived at the scene. Then, the two deserters entered his house and shot a woman and children who were sleeping inside. They also shot the family members who tried to run away. In total, 7 persons were killed and one was injured. All the victims were from two local Muslim families. One of the family members, U F--- managed to escape. He ran to the village and reported the case to the village administrator, U H---, who immediately called the KNPF in Hpah Prah. When the KNPF reached the crime scene at around 3:50 AM, the perpetrators were already gone. They were later arrested by the KNPF, one at a KNLA checkpoint in Lut Shan and the other one outside W--- village, and handed over to the Tatmadaw. The Myanmar police from Three Pagodas Pass first banned the family from burying the dead bodies, presumably for investigation purposes. KNLA Battalion #16 ultimately allowed the family to proceed with the burials, as these should take place as soon as possible according to Islamic belief. The two deserters remain in military custody awaiting trial. Tatmadaw soldiers based in the area told KHRG that they are likely to face death penalty. However, local people do not know how the Tatmadaw is processing the case. Crimes committed by military personnel are handled by Myanmar’s military justice system. Proceedings of military courts are not public, which makes it difficult to obtain reliable information about pending cases.[2] Local people only found out about the killings in the next morning. Some of them were scared because they felt threatened by this incident. U H--- said that Tatmadaw soldiers from Strategic Operations Command’s (SOC) W--- military camp patrol every night around the village, which causes security concerns among civilians. He also said that weak leadership and management in the area contributed to this incident. He recommended to put an end to the mixed control system to fix these shortcomings, and advocated for the demilitarisation of the area: “We are minorities. We should only have one ruling system. The Tatmadaw should not stay next to the village anymore. We cannot predict whether this kind of incident will happen again. If something happens, it will be dangerous for us because the Tatmadaw established their camp close to the students [children have to travel in front of the camp to go to school] and to our religious land. This can cause additional concerns whenever innocent villagers are killed.” Operations Commander Soe Moe Kyaw from W--- SOC offered to give 5,000,000 kyats (USD 3267.17) to the victims’ family members in compensation, but U H--- said that they refused and asked for 10,000,000 kyats (USD 6534.35) per dead victim. As a result, no compensation was provided to the families for their deceased relatives. Daw P---, a woman who was injured during the incident, was admitted to hospital at her own expenses. She has now been discharged. A local interfaith organisation helped her with 1,000,000 kyats (USD 653.44). Commander Soe Moe Kyaw also gave her 1,000,000 kyats in compensation for her injury...."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-06-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description: ''This Short Update describes a skirmish that took place between the Tatmadaw and the KNLA in February 2019. It took place after three incidents of Tatmadaw soldiers firing artillery shells indiscriminately into civilian villages. The local communities have fled into the forest, and are afraid to return to their homes and plantations. In the first week of February, the Tatmadaw transported soldiers and rations to bases in Lu Thaw Township. On February 1st, 60 Tatmadaw soldiers from LIB #593 were sent to military camps in Sha Law Kyoh area, Hkay Poo village tract. They are still present in the area. On February 4th, at 6 PM, Tatmadaw soldiers transported food rations to their camp in the Sho Kyoh Daw Hkoh area, Saw Muh Plaw village tract. At 7:30 PM, KNLA soldiers led by Bo Pa Leh and a local home guard from Company #1 ambushed two military trucks transporting rations. The KNU prohibits Tatmadaw soldiers from entering into areas under their control without receiving prior permission. This incident was one of a series of skirmishes that occurred between the Tatmadaw and the KNLA in early February in Hpapun District. On February 5th, 2019, Tatmadaw soldiers transported food rations to their temporary army camp in Shoh Hpoh Kyoh area and transported food rations and 216 soldiers to their army bases in Wah Klay Tuh area. The increase in military activities is worrying local communities in Lu Thaw Township, who fear that the increase in troop rotations and food rations could indicate a return to violent conflict. These skirmishes occurred just a few weeks after the Tatmadaw fired artillery shells into civilian villages in Lu Thaw Township...''
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-02-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: A fifteen-year-old girl, Naw M---, was raped by her brother-in-law Saw H---.The incident took place on Monday, 12 March 2018 at 11 PM in Poe Yay village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township. This incident happened at night, when everyone was sleeping. Saw H--- approached his sister-in-law and took off all of her clothes while she was sleeping. She woke up with a jolt and realized that she had no more clothes on her and that there was a person on top of her. When she started shouting, Saw H--- put his hands over her mouth. She could not shout or even move because her brother-in-law was much stronger than her. The perpetrator is over 30 years old. He was drunk when he raped Naw M---. He had a reputation for having a bad character and acting inappropriately towards his wife and his sister-in-law. Naw M---’s sister did not hear or witness the rape. She was sleeping at the time. The next morning, Naw M--- told her sister that she was raped. Her sister confronted her Saw H--- about this, but he denied any wrongdoing. Instead, he threw a shot glass at her.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
1970-01-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 667.11 KB
more
Description: ''In May 2018, a soldier from the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) had a dispute with local community members in Daw Ka Kloh village, Noh Taw Plah village tract, Noh T’Kaw Township. Five local villagers cut down a tree close to the field of DKBA Deputy Company Commander Saw Kee, based in Noh Moh Wah army camp. The commander of this battalion was Pa Nyein. Saw Kee was upset because he thought the tree belonged to him. He said that the five villagers did not respect him, and took advantage of his absence to cut down the tree. He behaved in an aggressive way to the local people, and threw their electric saw on the ground...''
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2018-12-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 467.13 KB
more
Description: ''On 28 November 2018, Saw K---, the village head of T---, was on his way back from Hkaw Taw Poo [Myaing Gyi Ngu]. He was travelling with two local teachers returning from the funeral of U Thuzana. They were travelling by boat on the Pweh Loh Kloh river between Myaing Gyi Ngu and T--- village. On that day, BGF #1014 had set up an informal checkpoint at the end of the Htee Lah Beh Hta Bridge. According to local people, it was not a regular checkpoint. This particular BGF checkpoint did not allow people to cross the river after 5 PM. On 28 November 2018, Saw K--- crossed the Pweh Loh Kloh river with a few travellers. According to local witnesses, they arrived at the check point at 5:58 PM, after which the village head got off the boat and made himself known to BGF #1014. Then, the platoon commander Hpo Dah ordered a soldier, Kyeh Nee, to beat the village head. Following that order, the soldier beat Saw K--- with a bamboo stick without any explanation. Saw K--- was the only one beaten by the soldier. The local people travelling with him saw him faint after his head was hit twice. The soldier proceeded to beat his body, which left him with very serious injuries...''
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2018-12-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 535.62 KB
more
Description: This incident happened on 7 February 2018 in K---Village, Ka Ma Maung Town, Hpapun district [K---Village, Htee Tha Daw Hta village tract, Bu Tho Township, Hpapun district]. ''In 2013, a KNU/KNLA-Peace Council[2] soldier, Saw Nyun Htun, confiscated 4.68 acres of land belonging to a local villager who had fled to Thailand. When the villager returned to his home in 2018, he reported the land confiscation to the Karen National Union. When he found out about this, Saw Nyun Htun threatened him. Saw Y--- lived in K---Village, but his family fled to Thailand when the conflict in the area escalated after the creation of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (“DKBA”)[3] in 1994. They registered as refugees in Mae La Ma Luang camp in Thailand. The DKBA took advantage of this situation to confiscate all their lands. Both the DKBA and the KNU/KNLA-PC confiscated land belonging to families that had fled the violence in the area. After the signing of the preliminary ceasefire between the KNU and the Myanmar government in 2012 and the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, the situation in Karen State became more stable. Saw Y--- decided to return to his village after more than 20 years of living in a refugee camp. He is now 47 years old and has seven children. All of them have returned with him...''
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2018-12-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 515.88 KB
more
Description: ''On 17 January 2019, Tatmadaw soldiers trespassed into KNU controlled areas, which resulted in a skirmish with KNLA units in Hsoh Poh Kyoh, Ler Muh Plaw village tract. At 1:35 PM, the KNLA also opened fire on Tatmadaw trucks circulating near Htee Pweh and Kuh Day villages, Hpla Hkoh village tract. [Radio Free Asia reported that another skirmish took place in Baw Hser Hkoh, Ler Muh Plaw village tract on the same day, in the context of road construction activities by the Tatmadaw. The fighting resulted in the death of a Tatmadaw soldier.][2] Later that day, the Tatmadaw sent a bulldozer from Htaw Muh Pleh Meh military camp to Wa Klay Too village, Ler Muh Plaw village tract, and to Saw Muh Plaw village tract. [This confirms that the Tatmadaw is resuming road construction activities in the area. In 2018, these activities had resulted in several skirmishes with the KNLA, leading to the displacement of 3,088 civilians in the period between March and May.[3] The road project was ultimately halted on 17 May 2018 following a meeting between the KNU chairman and the Tatmadaw chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing...''
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 174.85 KB
more
Description: ''This Situation Update describes events that occurred in Lu Thaw Township, Hpapun District, between March and May 2018.[1] Tatmadaw soldiers entered areas under KNU control in Lu Thaw Township with the intention of building a road. This led to skirmishes with the KNLA. The Tatmadaw occupied and fired mortars in several villages, which caused the displacement of 3,088 persons. This situation threatened the livelihood of local people, as well as their access to education, food and healthcare...''
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 97.03 KB
more
Description: ''The Burma Army 44th Division, Battalion 2, under the command of Ko Ko Win, launched attacks against the Karen of Papun District, Karen State on 30 and 31 August and 1 September, displacing over 200 Karen people from Kan Nyi Now Village in Dwe Lo Township, Papun (Muthraw) District, Karen State, Burma. In the initial attack on 30 August, the Burma Army fired five rounds of 81 mm mortar into the village and hundreds of rounds of rifle and machine-gun fire. On 31 August they patrolled further out from the village, firing into the jungle. On 1 September, the Karen responded to halt the advance of the Burma Army and fighting continues as of this report. So far in the current attack, one Karen soldier has been wounded and the villagers are in hiding as the attacks continue. At the same time Burma Army troops of Battalion 1, commanded by Min Min Htun, also of the 44th Division, are attacking in the No Hta and Hte Mae K’La area. Casualties are unknown at this time...''
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
2018-09-01
Date of entry/update: 2018-12-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "Following the Burma Army’s attacks against Karen villagers on Aug. 30, 31, and Sept. 1, the military spent the first half of September building up troops in southern Butho Township, Karen State. The Burma Army’s continued occupation, troop reinforcement and aggressive actions against civilians, in clear violation of the National Ceasefire Agreement, is preventing displaced villagers still in hiding from receiving aid. On those dates, Light Infantry Division (LID) 44 troops from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 2 advanced into Ka Yie Naw Village firing mortars and small arms weapons, causing 340 villagers to flee; these families remain displaced more than two weeks later..."
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
2018-09-18
Date of entry/update: 2018-12-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "Villagers in Karen areas of southeast Myanmar continue to face widespread land confiscation at the hands of a multiplicity of actors. Much of this can be attributed to the rapid expansion of domestic and international commercial interest and investment in southeast Myanmar since the January 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar government. KHRG first documented this in a 2013 report entitled ?Losing Ground?, which documented cases of land confiscation between January 2011 and November 2012. This report, ?With only our voices, what can we do??, is a follow up to that analysis and highlights continued issue areas while identifying newly documented trends. The present analysis assesses land confiscation according to a number of different factors, including: land use type; geographic distribution across KHRG?s seven research areas; perpetrators involved; whether or not compensation and/or consultation occurred; and the effects that confiscation had on local villagers. This report also seeks to highlight local responses to land confiscation, emphasising the agency that individuals and communities in southeast Myanmar already possess and the obstacles that they face when attempting to protect their own human rights. By focusing on local perspectives and giving priority to villagers? voices, this report aims to provide local, national, and international actors with a resource that will allow them to base policy and programmatic decisions that will impact communities in southeast Myanmar more closely on the experiences and concerns of the people living there."..... Toungoo (Taw Oo) District... Hpa-an District... Dooplaya District... Hpapun (Mutraw) District... Mergui-Tavoy District... Thaton (Doo Tha Htoo) District... Nyaunglebin (Kler Lwee Htoo) District...
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Karen and Burmese
Format : pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size: 5 MB 5.54 MB 2.81 MB 2.75 MB 2.67 MB 613.66 KB 949.09 KB
more
Description: "This report is based on field interviews with local villagers and leaders of Karen armed groups, as well as media coverage of the recent conflict. It describes events that led to recent armed conflict between the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) and the combined force of the Burmese Army (BA) and Border Guard Force (BGF) in Karen State. Next, the report gives a detailed account of clashes that occurred along the Salween River in Hpa-an and Hpapun (Mutraw) districts. It also describes the current situation faced by more than 2,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), many of whom are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. It relates accounts of forced labor, looting of homes, confiscation of property, and increased militarization. Finally, it discusses how the recent fighting appears to be part of a calculated military strategy by the BA/BGF to control territory in Karen State, possibly motivated by plans to construct the Hatgyi Dam on the Salween River. KRW?s primary goal in releasing this report is to raise awareness about the current situation in Karen State. Restricted access to the conflict areas has made reporting on the situation difficult. Confusing and conflicting reports by the media are common, and the Burmese Army even detained and killed a journalist who was reporting on the conflict. Many of the IDPs interviewed for this report refused to answer questions, out of fear for their safety and the safety of their families. Currently, there is a crucial need for up-to-date and accurate information, and to bring the human rights violations and need for humanitarian aid to the attention of the international community. We also aim to highlight the human cost of the recent fighting in Karen State, and to situate recent events in the context of the broader, decades-long conflict in the region. In order to ensure the protection of civilians in Karen State, KRW makes the following recommendations:.."
Source/publisher: Karen Rivers Watch
2014-11-07
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.21 MB
more
Description: Conclusion: "...This memorandum describes a Myanmar military counterinsurgency offensive that involved the widespread targeting of civilians in northern Kayin State and eastern Bago Division. Myanmar Army soldiers fired mortars at villages, opened fire on fleeing villagers, destroyed homes, laid landmines in civilian locations, forced villagers to work and porter, and captured and executed civilians. The impact on the population was massive. Tens of thousands of individuals were displaced during the campaign and many were killed. In Thandaung Township—the area which was the focus of the Clinic?s investigation—nearly every village was affected by the Offensive and almost all of the villagers residing in black areas were forced to flee. Evidence collected by the Clinic during the investigation demonstrates that the actions of Myanmar Army personnel during the Offensive constitute crimes under international criminal law. These crimes include the war crimes of attacking civilians, displacing civilians, destroying or seizing the enemy?s property, pillage, murder, execution without due process, torture, and outrages upon personal dignity, and the crimes against humanity of forcible transfer of a population, murder, enslavement, torture, and other inhumane acts. The Clinic has also collected evidence relevant to the war crime of rape, as well as the crimes against humanity of rape and persecution. More research and analysis is necessary to determine whether these crimes could be included in a criminal case associated with the Offensive..."
Source/publisher: International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School
2014-11-05
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 850.42 KB
more
Description: Summary: "This report provides an update of atrocities committed by the Burma Army against civilians since it broke its 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) one year ago. It highlights the particular suffering of women during the conflict, who have been forced to be porters, used as sex slaves, gang-raped and killed. Since the start of the conflict, there has been a huge deployment of Burmese troops into Kachin State and northern Shan State. Currently about 150 battalions are being used to crush the KIA, tripling the number of Burmese troops in the area. These troops have deliberately targeted civilians for abuse, causing villagers to flee in terror, leaving large swathes of countryside depopulated. There is strong evidence that Burmese troops have used rape systematically as a weapon of war. In the past year, KWAT has documented the rape or sexual assault of at least 43 women and girls, of whom 21 were killed. The rapes have been widespread, occurred in thirteen townships, by ten different battalions. Women have been openly kept as sex slaves by military officers, and gang-raped in church. There has been complete impunity for these crimes. When the husband of a Kachin woman abducted by the Burmese military tried to press charges, the Naypyidaw Supreme Court dismissed the case without even hearing his evidence. The continued abuse against civilians has swelled the numbers of internally displaced persons in Kachin State to over 75,000, most of whom are sheltering in makeshift camps along the China border, where little international aid has reached them. KWAT is calling on the international community to denounce the ongoing human rights abuses, and maintain pressure on the Burmese government to immediately implement a nationwide ceasefire, pull back Burma Army troops from ethnic areas and start dialogue with the United Nationalities Federal Council towards a process of genuine political reform."
Source/publisher: Kachin Women?s Association Thailand (KWAT)
2012-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-06-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.45 MB
more
Description: BURMA ARMY ATROCITIES PAVE THE WAY FOR SALWEEN DAMS IN KAREN STATE... "As Thailand proceeds with plans to join Burma?s military regime in building a series of dams on the Salween River to gain ?cheap” electricity, this report reveals the atrocities being inflicted on the people of Northern Karen State to pave the way for two of the planned dams. The Upper Salween (Wei Gyi) Dam and Lower Salween (Dar Gwin) Dam are planned to be built on the river where it forms the border between Thailand?s Mae Hong Son province and Burma?s Karen State. Together they will produce about 5,300 MW of electricity. It is estimated that the reservoir for the Upper Dam will stretch for 380 kilometers inside Karen and Karenni States of Burma. Both dams are located at the eastern edge of Papun district in Karen State. Once a Karen liberated area, during the last decade Papun has been the site of repeated military offensives and anti-insurgency campaigns by the regime?s troops to crush the Karen resistance. Before 1992, there were only ten Burma Army garrisons in Papun district. Today there are fifty-four garrisons, including twelve along the Salween river bank, fortified with heavy artillery. The military campaigns have decimated the local population. 210 villages have been destroyed, and villagers forcibly relocated to 31 relocation sites, where movement has been strictly controlled, and villagers are subject to forced labour and other human rights abuses. Tens of thousands of villagers have fled to Thailand as refugees; others live in hiding in the jungle, where they live in constant fear of being found and tortured or killed. In 1992, there were estimated to be about 107,000 people in Papun district. Now this has been halved to about 54,000, of whom about 35,000, or 60%, are internally displaced in the jungles. The rest have fled to Thailand or other parts of Burma. Out of 85 original villages in the mountainous area of Eastern Papun directly adjoining the planned dam sites, only a quarter remain. Most of the communities who had farmed and traded along the Salween River have fled to Thailand, and many farms in the fertile tributary valleys have been lying fallow for over a decade. Over 5,000 villagers remain hiding in the jungle, facing severe food shortages and health problems. Roads to the planned dam sites have been built using forced labour, and landmines have been planted alongside the roads. There has been no consultation with local communities about the dam plans. If the dams are built, the floodwaters will permanently displace many of the communities currently in hiding or living as refugees in Thailand. The increased military security for the dam sites will also inevitably mean further abuses against local populations. The Salween dams fit into the ongoing strategy of the Burmese military regime to use ?development” projects to gain funding and collusion from neighbouring countries to subjugate ethnic resistance movements, and exploit the natural resources in the ethnic areas. Karen Rivers Watch makes the following recommendations:..."
Source/publisher: Karen Rivers Watch
2004-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher in May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Naw Sa---, a 26-year-old villager who described human rights and humanitarian conditions in her village, in a mixed administration area under effective Tatmadaw control. Naw Sa--- cited the following human rights concerns: forced relocation and displacement; demands for provision of food; shelling of civilian areas, resulting in civilian injuries; arrest and detention of villagers; physical violence against detained villagers; forced labour, including sentry duty; and movement restrictions. She also explained the challenges to accessing medical care and adequate education for children faced by members of her community; and described how villagers returned to work covertly on their agricultural projects in order to protect their livelihoods, after they were ordered by the Tatmadaw to abandon their village."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-08-05
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in August 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Papun District in January 2011 and human rights consequences for local communities. It contains updated information concerning Tatmadaw military activities and details the following human rights abuses: coordinated attacks on villages by Tatmadaw and Border Guard troops and the firing of mortars and small arms in civilian areas, resulting in displacement of the civilian population and the closure of two schools; the use of landmines by the Tatmadaw and non-state armed groups; and forced portering for the Tatmadaw and Tatmadaw Border Guards. The report also mentions government plans for a logging venture and the construction of a dam. Moreover, it documents villagers? responses to human rights concerns, including strategic displacement to avoid attacks and forced labour entailing physical security risks to civilians; advance preparation for strategic displacement in the event of Tatmadaw attacks; and seeking the protection of non-state armed groups against Tatmadaw attacks and other human rights threats."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-10-06
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 254.27 KB
more
Description: "The ongoing ceasefire negotiations between the Government of Myanmar and the Karen National Union present an important opportunity for bringing lasting peace and improved human rights conditions to local people in eastern Burma. If the ceasefire can end fighting between the two parties, it should end human rights abuses associated with armed conflict. Human rights abuses, however, do not stem only from armed conflict but also from ingrained abusive practices and lack of accountability for perpetrators. In the absence of armed conflict, abuses related to extracting labour, money and resources from villagers and consolidating state control can be expected to continue or even worsen, particularly where there is a correlative increase in industrial, business or development initiatives undertaken without opportunities for genuine local input. Given these concerns, this commentary concludes by presenting recommendations for using the ceasefire negotiations to define monitoring processes that can offer new options for communities already attempting to protect their human rights. Analysis for this commentary was developed in workshops held with staff at KHRG?s administrative office in Thailand and with villagers working with KHRG to document human rights abuses in Mon and Karen states and Bago and Tennaserim divisions"
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-01-26
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The following incident report was written by a villager trained by KHRG to document human rights abuses, and details an incident that occurred in May 2011 during which Tatmadaw soldiers from LIB #216 arrested four villagers in Bilin Township, including two village headwomen, and forced them to accompany troops on active patrol. The two village headwomen told the villager who wrote this report that the Tatmadaw soldiers did not provide them with water nor allow them to return to their own village at night, forcing them to sleep in a monastery with the soldiers. One of the women said that the Tatmadaw soldiers told her that they were afraid they were going to be shot at by KNLA soldiers at the time she was forced to accompany them. The following morning, the four villagers successfully negotiated with the Tatmadaw commanding officers to secure their release and received 8,000 kyat (US $ 10.39) split unevenly between the four of them as compensation."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during November 2011 in Lu Pleh Township, Pa?an District by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The villager interviewed Naw G---, a 40-year-old Buddhist hillfield farmer who described an incident in which her son-in-law, Saw A---, 36, was shot and killed by patrolling Tatmadaw soldiers from IB #230. Naw G--- explained that Saw A--- was cooking with KNLA soldiers in Naw G---?s house, when Tatmadaw soldiers entered P--- village. According to Naw G---, the soldiers fired at Saw A--- as he fled the house and the bullets hit the left side of his head, killing him instantly. A separate report of this incident written by the villager who conducted this interview, including 23 photos taken by the same villager, is available here. An interview with Naw G---?s son who was also present during the attack is available here."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "On October 12th 2011, soldiers from Tatmadaw Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #603 and Infantry Battalion (IB) #92 shelled and then attacked on foot W--- village in the Htee Tha Saw area of Than Daung Township following a clash with Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers approximately 45 minutes on foot from W--- village. According to Saw F---, a resident of W--- village who fled and hid in the forest during the attack, Tatmadaw soldiers fired approximately 50 mortar rounds into W--- and nearby civilian areas and then entered W---, where soldiers fired small arms deliberately at villagers? houses, the Roman Catholic church and religious and cultural items; killed villagers? animals; and looted or damaged villagers? property including food stores, clothing, roofing materials and money. This report is based on information provided by two villagers trained by KHRG to monitor human rights abuses,[1] including two situation reports, one incident report, an audio interview with Saw F---, and 82 photographs and three video clips taken in the W--- village area one week after the attack occurred."...The pdf file does not correspond with the html link.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during October 2011 in Than Daung Township, Toungoo District by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The villager interviewed Saw F---, a 55-year-old resident of W--- village who fled his village and hid in the forest during a joint attack by soldiers from Tatmadaw Infantry Battalion (IB) #92 and Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #603. According to Saw F---, on October 12th 2011, following a clash with Karen National Liberation (KNLA) soldiers at a location 45 minutes on foot from W---, Tatmadaw soldiers fired approximately 50 mortar rounds into W--- and nearby civilian areas and then entered W---, where soldiers fired small arms deliberately at villagers? houses, the Roman Catholic church and religious and cultural items; killed villagers? animals; and looted or damaged villagers? property including food stores, clothing, roofing materials and money. Saw F--- also reported that W--- villagers have had to provide forced labour delivering bamboo poles to Tatmadaw camps on multiple occasions in the past year; that the W--- school has been forced to close twice due to Tatmadaw accusations that villagers are communicating with non-state armed groups; and that villagers face obstacles in accessing healthcare due to their distance from the nearest health facility and the cost of travel. A full account of the attack on W---, including photo documentation and excerpts of this interview, is available in the bulletin "Tatmadaw soldiers shell village, attack church and civilian property in Toungoo District," published by KHRG on November 25th 2011."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 587.08 KB
more
Description: Dec 1st, 2011 The following report was written by a villager trained by KHRG to document human rights abuses, and details an incident that occurred on October 29th 2011 in P--- village, during which soldiers from Tatmadaw IB #230 fired small arms at three civilians as they fled their house in P--- village, and two KNLA soldiers who had been cooking food in the house. Saw A---, a 36-year-old married farmer who had returned to P--- to help his wife?s family harvest paddy, was shot in the head and killed as the group ran away from the house The villager who wrote this report visited P--- village two weeks after the incident occurred to document the incident: the villager took the 32 photographs included in this report; spoke with Saw A---?s brother-in-law and mother-in-law, who were the other two civilians who fled the IB #230 soldiers and witnessed Saw A---?s death; and spoke with another P--- resident who heard the gunfire and witnessed the soldiers entering the house after the group fled. The full transcript of a recorded audio interview with Saw A---?s brother-in-law is available in the bulletin "Pa?an Interview: Saw C---, November 2011" published by KHRG on December 1st 2011.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-12-01
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during October 2011 in Lu Pleh Township, Pa?an District by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The villager interviewed Saw C---, a 23-year-old unmarried hill field farmer, who described an incident in which his brother-in-law, Saw A---, 36, was shot and killed by patrolling Tatmadaw soldiers from IB 230 in the Kler Day area of Lu Pleh Township, Pa?an District. Saw C--- explained that he, his mother Naw G---, two KNLA soldiers who were cooking in the house at the time, and his brother-in-law Saw A--- fled their house when Tatmadaw soldiers entered P--- village and that, as they fled, the soldiers fired at them. According to Saw C---, one of the bullets hit Saw A--- on the right side of his head, killing him immediately. A separate report of this incident written by the villager who conducted this interview, which includes 23 photos taken by the same villager, is available in the bulletin "Incident report: Villager shot and killed in Pa?an District, October 2011" published by KHRG on December 1st 2011."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-12-01
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in November 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Toungoo District during the period between July and October 2011. It details incidents of violence against civilians, including: shooting and killing by Tatmadaw LIB #540 of two villagers hunting monkeys in an area adjacent to a Tatmadaw camp; arbitrary detentions of eight civilians, of whom only three have been released by LIB #539 and IB #73; and the beating of a village head following a KNLA attack against Tatmadaw troops. The villager also cites examples of a range of abuses affecting villagers? livelihoods, including: forced labour repairing a road and producing and delivering bamboo poles to a Tatmadaw camp; theft and damage of villagers? possessions by patrolling Tatmadaw troops, including destruction of villagers? durian and dogfruit trees; the imposition of movement restrictions preventing villagers from sleeping in their field huts, backed by an explicit threat of violence against villagers violating the ban; de facto movement restrictions on villagers due to Tatmadaw activity; and arbitrary demands for payment by Tatmadaw troops. This report also raises concerns about the health situation in Tantabin Township following the 2011 monsoon, including an outbreak of cholera that interfered with the harvest of cardamom, durian and paddy crops, and may have adverse consequences on villagers? food and financial security during the coming year. The report also notes that some villagers access health services from the KNU Health Department and other relief groups in response to constraints on access to health care in areas of Tantabin Township outside consolidated Tatmadaw control."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in November 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District between August and October 2011. The report describes the an incident of forced labour in which villagers were forced to clear undergrowth from a palm oil plantation at IB #60 military headquarters, as well as arbitrary demands for villagers to provide money, firewood, wooden logs and food to Tatmadaw troops. The villager who wrote this report notes that governmental administrative reforms at the village tract level have resulted in increased demands for payment from civilian officials at a time when flooding in flat areas of paddy cultivation adjacent to the Sittaung River at the end of the 2011 monsoon has substantially impacted villagers? food security. The villager also raises local communities? concerns regarding the proposed construction of a dam on the Theh Loh River; and requirements that civilians provide guarantees that non-state armed groups will not attack Tatmadaw troops, which villagers fear will lead to reprisals from Tatmadaw soldiers if fighting does occur. This report also documents several ways in which villagers in Ler Doh Township have responded to abuses, including the formation of Mu Kha Poe village security groups to monitor Tatmadaw troop activity and warn other community members of incoming Tatmadaw patrols and attacks;; and cooperation with other villagers and with local community-based aid groups to secure food support, communication equipment, education materials and medical treatment."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 866.17 KB
more
Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in November 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Nyaunglebin District, during the period between September and October 2011. It details an incident that occurred in October 2011, in which a villager was shot and injured while working in his betelnut field; the villager who wrote this report noted that some villagers living in these areas respond to the threat of violence by fleeing approaching Tatmadaw patrols. Following the shooting, Tatmadaw troops imposed movement restrictions that prevented villagers from traveling to or staying in their agricultural workplaces in the area where the shooting occurred. This report includes additional information about the use of villagers to provide forced labour at Tatmadaw camps, specifically to perform sentry duty along roads, and also raises villagers? concerns about food security after unseasonable rain prevented villagers in some areas from burning brush on their hill fields preparatory to planting and paddy crops in other areas were destroyed by insects and by flooding during the monsoon."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-01-17
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in November 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Dweh Loh Township, Papun District, between December 2010 and September 2011. This report provides additional information about the summary execution of Saw K---, previously reported by KHRG in October 2011 in the bulletin ?Villager executed in Papun District”, and also documents the arbitrary arrest of civilians who were subsequently forced to porter for Tatmadaw troops. It also describes de facto movement restrictions caused by the indiscriminate firing of heavy weapons and machine guns into travel routes and agricultural areas surrounding villages as a security precaution during Tatmadaw resupply operations. The report details the ways in which villagers in areas beyond government control engage in covert trade with villagers living in areas under government control and employ early-warning systems to flee Tatmadaw patrols."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-12-12
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 260.38 KB
more
Description: "This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted in February 2011 by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The villager interviewed Naw L---, a female village head from Bilin Township, Thaton District. Naw L--- described being interrogated and threatened at meetings with local Tatmadaw officers, including at times when she was pregnant. She described the killing of her son-in-law by then-DKBA Brigade #333 soldiers, and the defection of a Tatmadaw soldier to the KNLA, after which Tatmadaw soldiers arbitrarily arrested and tortured villagers and ordered Naw L--- to provide a firearm to replace the one taken by the defecting soldier. She also described how Tatmadaw soldiers forced H--- villagers to banish persons suspected of being KNLA soldiers and burn down their houses. Naw L--- explained that villagers face ongoing demands for forced labour, including forced portering of military rations, messenger and guide duty, for Tatmadaw, Border Guard and KNLA troops, but that she and her villagers employ a multitude of strategies to resist or mitigate abuse, including partial-compliance with forced labour demands; cultivating relationships with different, and oppositional, armed groups; lying about non-state armed groups? soldiers and their operations; and successfully raising complaints to commanding officers about abuses perpetrated by their inferiors."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 283.77 KB
more
Description: "...Human rights abuses faced by ethnic communities across rural eastern Burma have continued since November 2010, and are consistent with patterns KHRG has documented since 1992. Drawing from a dataset of 1,270 oral testimonies, sets of images and documentation written and collected over the last year by villagers trained to monitor human rights conditions in their own communities, this report presents information on 17 categories of abuse and quantifies their occurrence across KHRG research areas. By placing recent testimony from villagers in the context of twenty years of abusive practices, this report should make clear that developments since the 2010 elections have neither expanded villagers? options for claiming their human rights, nor addressed the root causes of abuse in rural eastern Burma. External assessments of developments in Burma that ignore local perspectives on continuing human rights abuse thus exclude the input of the most knowledgeable and engaged stakeholders ? who also stand to lose the most from inaccurate conclusions drawn without their participation. The testimony presented in the report should thus function as a critique of any attempt to assess changes in Burma that ignores local perspectives, and a call to heed the concerns of rural people who are gauging, on a day-to-day basis, the way past, present and continuing abuse impacts the future for communities in eastern Burma..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-12-15
Date of entry/update: 2011-12-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size: 1.7 MB 1.53 MB 2.28 MB 865.85 KB
more
Description: In February 1999 Amnesty International delegates interviewed dozens of Karen refugees in Thailand who had fled mostly from Papun, Hpa?an, and Nyaunglebin Districts in the Kayin State in late 1998 and early 1999. They cited several reasons for leaving their homes. Some had previously been forced out of their villages by the tatmadaw, or Myanmar army, and had been hiding in the forest. Conditions there were poor, as it was almost impossible for them to farm. They also feared being shot on sight by the military because they occupied "black areas", where the insurgents were allegedly active. Many others fled directly from their home villages in the face of village burnings, constant demands for forced labour, looting of food and supplies, and extrajudicial killings at the hands of the military. All of these people were farmers who typically grew small plots of rice on a semi-subsistence level.
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (ASA 16/12/99)
1999-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "A new book by the Karen Human Rights Group and edited by Claudio O. Delang, is now available at several online booksellers. The book reproduces three of KHRG?s 1999 reports to show the human rights situation in 3 Karen regions, each of them under a different degree of SPDC control. Together, they show that while tactics vary in nature and brutality between different regions, the end result in all three areas is the disintegration of village life. The reports are tied together by an introduction and summary background of Burma, and the book also contains many photos from KHRG?s archive in black and white..." Details of the online sales are on the site.
Creator/author: Claudio O. Delang (ed)
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2001-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 338.69 KB
more
Description: Women in Myanmar have been subjected to a wide range of human rights violations, including political imprisonment, torture and rape, forced labour, and forcible relocation, all at the hands of the military authorities. At the same time women have played an active role in the political and economic life of the country. It is the women who manage the family finances and work alongside their male relatives on family farms and in small businesses. Women have been at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement which began in 1988, many of whom were also students or female leaders within opposition political parties. Burman and non-Burman women. List of women in prison.ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move, displaced
Source/publisher: Amnesty International USA (ASA 16/04/00)
2000-05-24
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "At least 2,000 villagers have been displaced by SPDC Army attacks on villages in northern and central Kyauk Kyi Township, Nyaunglebin District. At least four villagers have been killed, while abandoned villages have been burned, including one clinic. More than ten schools have also been abandoned, disrupting students during their exam period. SPDC Army battalions conducted resupply operations at the end of February and KHRG field researchers predict attacks will soon resume."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-B6)
2010-04-09
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Karen
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 306.17 KB 55.62 KB
more
Description: "Two temporary refugee camps established during June 2009 in Tha Song Yang District, Tak Province, Thailand, to provide refuge for villagers that fled increased conflict and exploitative abuse in Pa?an District have now been all but entirely abandoned. The camps were home to more than 2,409 refugees as recently as January 2010; over the last two months, the camp populations have dwindled as small groups have departed one by one. On March 31st and April 1st, the last residents of the Nong Bua and Mae U Su sites left in two large groups, of 24 and 102 families respectively. This report details the circumstances of the refugees? departure, including interviews that indicate refugees left because of a persistent campaign of harassment by soldiers of the Royal Thai Army (RTA), who pressured the refugees to return to Burma in spite of warnings that safe return is not currently possible. The report also details the dangers returned refugees may face, including risks from landmines as well as violent and exploitative abuse by the DKBA and SPDC Army. This section also includes details regarding the death and injury of two young boys that accidentally detonated an unexploded M79 round they found outside the village of Mae La Ah Kee on March 31st 2010. Highlighting the risks returned refugees may face, the boys came from a family that had been forced out of the Mae U Su site by RTA soldiers at the end of the rainy season 2009."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-F3)
2010-04-01
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 521.77 KB 214.07 KB
more
Description: "One 15-year-old student is dead and two other students are injured after an 81 mm mortar fired into an IDP hiding site in Lu Thaw Township, Papun District, landed in a school set up by the villagers. As of February 21st, the site?s 353 residents remained in hiding and are actively seeking to avoid being shot-onsight by SPDC Army troops that remain in their area."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-B5)
2010-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 336.4 KB
more
Description: This field report documents recent human rights abuses committed by SPDC soldiers against Karen villagers in Toungoo District. Villagers in SPDC-controlled areas continue to face heavy forced labour demands that severely constrain their livelihoods; some have had their livelihoods directly targeted in the form of attacks on their cardamom fields. In certain cases individuals have also been subjected to arbitrary detention and physical abuse by SPDC soldiers, typically on suspicion of having had contact with the KNU/KNLA after being caught in violation of stringent movement restrictions. Villagers living in or travelling to areas beyond SPDC control, meanwhile, continue to have their physical security threatened by SPDC patrols that practice a shoot-on-sight policy in such areas. This report covers incidents between January and April 2010.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-F4)
2010-05-13
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Karen
Format : pdf
Size: 493.43 KB
more
Description: This report presents information on the human rights situation in village tracts in central Papun District located near the northern section of the Ka Ma Maung to Papun Road, south of Papun Town in Bu Tho Township. Communities must confront regular threats to their livelihoods and physical security stemming from the strong SPDC and DKBA presence in, and control of the area, as these military units support themselves by extracting significant material and labour resources from the local civilian population. Villagers have reported movement restrictions and various exploitative abuses, including arbitrary taxation, forced portering, forced labour fabricating and delivering materials to military units, forced mine clearance and forced recruitment for military service. Some communities have also reported threats or acts of violent abuse, typically in the context of enforcing forced labour orders or where villagers have been accused of contacting or assisting KNLA forces operating in the area. This is the second of four reports detailing the situation in Papun District?s southern townships that will be released in August 2010. Incidents documented in this report occurred between April 2009 and February 2010.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-C1)
2010-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: This report details a sequence of events in one village in central Papun District in late 2009. The report illustrates how the community responded to exploitative and violent human rights abuses by SPDC Army units deployed near its village in order to avoid or reduce the harmful impact on livelihoods and physical security. It also provides a detailed example of the way local responses are often developed and employed cooperatively, thus affording protection to entire communities. This report draws extensively on interviews with residents of Pi--- village, Dweh Loh Township, who described their experiences to KHRG field researchers, supplemented by illustrations based on these accounts by a Karen artist. This is the third of four field reports documenting the situation in Papun District?s southern townships that will be released in August 2010. The incidents and responses documented below occurred in November 2009.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-F7)
2010-08-27
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The SPDC Army continues to attack civilians and civilian livelihoods nearly two years after the end of the 2005-2008 SPDC Offensive in northern Karen State. In response, civilians have developed and employed various self-protection strategies that have enabled tens of thousands of villagers to survive with dignity and remain close to their homes despite the humanitarian consequences of SPDC Army practices. These protection strategies, however, have become strained, even insufficient, as humanitarian conditions worsen under sustained pressure from the SPDC Army, prompting some individual villagers and entire communities to re-assess local priorities and concerns, and respond with alternative strategies - including uses of weapons or landmines. While this complicates discussions of legal and humanitarian protections for at-risk civilians, uses of weapons by civilians occur amidst increasing constraints on alternative self-protection measures. External actors wishing to promote human rights in conflict areas of eastern Burma should therefore seek a detailed understanding of local priorities and dynamics of abuse, and use this understanding to inform activities that broaden civilians? range of feasible options for self-protection, including beyond uses of arms..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-04)
2010-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.21 MB
more
Description: This report presents information on the human rights situation in village tracts along the southern end of the Ka Ma Maung to Papun road in southern Dweh Loh and Bu Tho townships. SPDC and DKBA units maintain control over strategic points in lowland areas of this part of southern Papun, including relocation sites and vehicle roads, and support their presence by levying a range of exploitative demands on the local civilian population. SPDC and DKBA forces also continue to conduct offensive military operations in upland areas of southern Papun; for villagers living beyond permanent military control, these activities entail exploitative abuses, movement restrictions and, in some cases, violence including military attacks. Communities in both lowland and upland areas employ a variety of strategies to protect themselves and their livelihoods from SPDC and DKBA abuses and the effects of abuse. Strategies documented in this report include negotiation; paying fines in lieu of compliance with demands; discreet semi- or false compliance, or overt non-compliance or refusal to meet demands; strategic displacement to areas beyond consolidated SPDC or DKBA control; and actively monitoring local security conditions to inform decisions about further self-protection responses. This is the last of four reports detailing the situation in Papun District?s southern townships that have been released in August 2010. Incidents described below occurred between September 2009 and April 2010.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-F8)
2010-08-30
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Abstract: "This report includes translated copies of 94 order documents issued by State Peace and Development Council Army and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army officers to village heads in Karen State between January 2009 and June 2010. 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 food; the production and delivery of thatch shingles and bamboo poles; forced labour as messengers and porters for the military; forced labour on bridge repair, the provision of information on individuals and households; and restrictions on trade. In almost all cases, such demands are uncompensated and backed by an implicit or explicit 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.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2010-05)
2010-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2010-09-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Abstract: :Widespread human rights violations have been occurring in ethnic areas of Burma since the late nineteen sixties. This report, based on a 2008/9 field survey, focuses on the government?s use of mass displacement and relocation designed to destabilize the ethnic populations of Karen State. The government first initiated a policy of ethnic relocation in Karen State in 1975 as part of what became known as the four cuts campaign, a policy intended to deprive the ethnic resistance movement of food, money, intelligence and recruits. While noting the existence of such earlier camps, this report specifically examines the lives of people living in sites after a further concerted effort to control the civilian population was initiated in 2006. This report identifies three types of site created by the military regime. The first, roughly translated from Burmese as ?model? villages, are some of the most recent examples and have been created under the guise of development; the second type, initiated in 1979, are primarily security driven and have resulted in highland villages being relocated to the plains; the third, which are also security initiated and mainly located in Taungoo, consists of villages cleared from areas of military infrastructure. Villagers in this latter type, unlike the previous two, have been given no provision for relocation; rather, the population was told to vacate the area with little regard as to where they would go. Relocated villagers, despite the fact that purported contact with resistance forces has all but been eradicated, continue to face severe abuses by Burmese authorities. Forced labour on infrastructure projects and military controlled business is widespread. Villagers are ordered to act as sentries, messengers, porters and minesweepers by the Burma Army. Corruption and illegal taxation is prevalent in all the sites assessed. In addition, the opportunity for making a living has been drastically reduced. Malnutrition, especially in infants, has increased and is exacerbated by army restrictions that prevent villagers from access to food, medicine and education. This report identifies serious issues of concern that continue to affect the ethnic populations of Burma. It highlights the government?s disregard for the rights of its people and its blatant use of the local population as little more than a captive workforce to be used as the military dictates."
Creator/author: Paul Keenan
Source/publisher: Ethnic Nationalities Council
2010-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.56 MB
more
Description: "Under the informal KNU-SPDC ceasefire, the SPDC Army should be scaling down its activities in the hills of Toungoo District, but instead it has increased military operations since December 2004. Using the increased freedom of movement it has gained under the ceasefire, the Army has sent out columns to consolidate control over civilians in the remotest parts of this mountainous district. Using villagers as forced labour to improve military access roads and haul supplies to support remote outposts, the Army is trying to flush out the displaced villagers who have evaded its control thus far. As the Army gains freedom of movement, villagers throughout the District find themselves less free to move, their trade routes, access to food and medicine markets, and even the paths to their fields blocked by SPDC movement restrictions, checkpoints, Army patrols and landmines..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2005-F3)
2005-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2010-07-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "...hese notes list some of the main types of forced labour currently experienced by villagers in most of the main rural Karen areas of Burma, including Karen State, Tenasserim Division, parts of Mon State and Pegu Division, and the Irrawaddy Delta. This list does not include all the types of forced labour, it only tries to give an idea of the main types. For further details on labour conditions and the implementation of this forced labour please see KHRG?s written submission to the ILO Commission of Inquiry dated August 1997. Details and supporting evidence of the situation in each of the areas listed below is available in existing and upcoming KHRG reports. Presently the SPDC is rapidly expanding the concentration of its armed forces in most Karen areas, and the burden of forced labour on all villagers is increasing even more quickly; each Battalion is demanding more and more forced labour of villagers, and the number of these Battalions is also increasing. Several major military offensives have been conducted over the past year, particularly in Dooplaya and Tenasserim, and an offensive is expected soon in Papun District of Karen State. The SPDC has greatly extended its control in Karen areas in the past year, and is continuing on a program to gain complete control over all Karen areas. Forced labour is used both to gain control (as porters, camp labour, etc.) and once control is established (as camp labour, forced labour on roads and other "development", growing cash crops for the military, etc.)..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Right Group (KHRG Articles & Papers)
1998-02-10
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "...While international humanitarian access in Burma has opened up over the past decade and a half, the ongoing debate regarding the appropriate relationship between politics and humanitarian assistance remains unresolved. This debate has become especially limiting in regards to protection measures for internally displaced persons (IDPs) which are increasingly seen to fall within the mandate of humanitarian agencies. Conventional IDP protection frameworks are biased towards a top-down model of politically-averse intervention which marginalizes local initiatives to resist abuse and hinders local control over protection efforts. Yet such local resistance strategies remain the most effective IDP protection measures currently employed in Karen State and other parts of rural Burma. Addressing the protection needs and underlying humanitarian concerns of displaced and potentially displaced people is thus inseparable from engagement with the ?everyday politics? of rural villagers. The present article seeks to challenge conventional notions of IDP protection that prioritize a form of State-centric ?neutrality? and marginalize the ?everyday politics? through which local villagers continue to resist abuse and claim their rights. (This working paper was presented on the panel ?Migration within and out of Burma? as part of the 2008 International Burma Studies Conference in DeKalb, Illinois in October 2008.)..." A working paper by Stephen Hull, Karen Human Rights Group, for presentation on the panel ‘Migration within and out of Burma? as part of the 2008 International Burma Studies Conference DeKalb, Illinois, October 2008
Creator/author: Stephen Hull
Source/publisher: Karen Human Right Group (KHRG Articles & Papers)
2008-10-20
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 79.16 KB
more
Description: "This paper examines repression and state?society conflict in Burma through the lens of rural and urban resistance strategies. It explores networks of noncompliance through which civilians evade and undermine state control over their lives, showing that the military regime?s brutal tactics represent not control, but a lack of control. Outside agencies ignore this state?society struggle over sovereignty at their peril: ignoring the interplay of interventions with local politics and militarisation, and claiming a ?humanitarian neutrality? which is impossible in practice, risks undermining the very civilians interventions are supposed to help, while facilitating further state repression. Greater honesty and awareness in interventions is required, combined with greater solidarity with villagers? resistance strategies."... Keywords: peasant resistance; humanitarian policy; Karen; Kayin; Burma; Myanmar
Creator/author: Kevin Malseed
Source/publisher: "Journal of Peasant Studies" (originally published by Yale Agrarian Studies Colloquium, 2008-04-25 and Karen Human Rights Group, 2008-11-10)
2009-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 203.29 KB
more
Description: "...Just when we think the SLORC already has enough in its inventory of brutality, it amazes us by coming up with even more dirty tricks. Now the regional SLORC commanders have called most of the village heads in Thaton District to a meeting, and informed them that "In the future, for every one of our soldiers who dies we will execute 5 of your villagers." This order appears to have come from Rangoon, and it is a frightening omen of the way SLORC is going. The SLORC?s demands for "compensation" from villagers are ever-increasing. Every time they lose a truck to a Karen landmine, they now systematically demand 50,000 Kyat from each of up to 10 or 12 surrounding villages, and 100,000 from the nearest village. One written order from 42 Infantry Battalion states that the next time a truck explodes, they will demand 1 million Kyat, which must be paid within 7 days or all surrounding villages will be burned down - and from then on, villagers will be forced to ride along on all SLORC trucks. Along with the existing heavy burdens of "porter fees" and food looting, villagers are now forced to pay "taxes" on every farm field and on many of their tools such as woodcutting saws. In many villages, every time they boil their sugarcane into jaggery, the SLORC then either comes and confiscates it or "buys" it from them, then forces them to "buy" it back at a much higher price. Soldiers no longer eat their own rations - they force the villagers to buy them at inflated prices, then loot food back from the villagers..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Right Group Commentary (KHRG)
1994-06-06
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "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..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Orders Reports (KHRG #2009-04 )
2009-08-27
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "For those villagers living under the control of SPDC and DKBA forces in Pa?an District, certain forms of forced labour have now become routine. Such ?routine? forced labour includes: cultivation of rainy season and dry season rice crops on fields owned by DKBA officers, maintaining rubber plantations, roadside clearance of forest overgrowth following the rainy season, portering military supplies out to soldiers operating at ?frontline? army camps, collecting, preparing and delivering bamboo and thatch for use in the repair and construction of the region?s many army camps, and temporarily serving as camp-based messengers. Combined, these various forms of forced labour significantly cut into crucial time villagers need for their own agricultural and other livelihoods activities. This report looks at cases of forced labour from July to September 2008 and includes a short video of recent forced labour in Pa?an District..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2008-F15)
2008-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "SPDC abuses against civilians continue in northern Karen State, especially in the Lu Thaw and Dweh Loh townships of Papun District. Abuses have been particularly harsh in Lu Thaw, most of which has been designated a "black area" by the SPDC and so subject to constant attacks by Burma Army forces. Villagers who decide to remain in their home areas are often forced to live in hiding and not only face constant threats of violence by the SPDC, but also a worsening food crisis due to the SPDC?s disruption of planting cycles. This report covers events in Papun District from August 2008 to January 2009..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F2)
2009-02-04
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "Recent reports suggest that, in negotiations with State authorities, the DKBA has been able to ensure its long-term political future in Burma by transforming itself into a ?Border Security Force?, a title that would nominally place the group within the SPDC hierarchy. Consequently, the DKBA?s ongoing restrictions and extortion in T?Nay Hsah and Dta Greh townships of eastern Pa?an District (near the Thai border) may be expected to continue even after the planned 2010 elections. This report examines cases of abuse against villagers by SPDC and DKBA forces in Pa?an District from the end of 2008 to March 2009..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F4)
2009-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report presents information on abuses in eastern Pa?an District, where joint SPDC/DKBA forces continue to subject villagers to exploitative abuse and attempt to consolidate control of territory around recently taken KNLA positions near the Ler Per Her IDP camp. Abuses documented in this report include forced labour, conscription of porters and human minesweepers as well as the summary execution of a village headman. The report also provides an update on the situation for newly arrived refugees in Thailand?s Tha Song Yang District, where at least 4,862 people from the Ler Per Her area have sought refuge; some have been there since June 2nd 2009, others arrived later. This report presents new information for the period of June to August 2009..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Right Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F14)
2009-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "While recent media attention has focused on the joint SPDC/DKBA attacks on the KNLA in Pa?an District and the dramatic exodus of at least 3,000 refugees from the area of Ler Per Her IDP camp into Thailand, the daily grind of exploitative treatment by DKBA forces continues to occur across the region. This report presents a breakdown of DKBA Brigade #999 battalions, some recent cases of exploitative abuse by this unit in Pa?an District and a brief overview of the group?s transformation into a Border Guard Force as part of the SPDC?s planned 2010-election process, in which the DKBA has sought to significantly expand its numbers. Amongst those forcibly recruited for this transformation process was a 17-year-old child soldier injured in the fighting at Ler Per Her, whose testimony is included here..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F11)
2009-06-29
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report includes interviews with two deserters who fled the Burma Army in 2008 and spoke to KHRG about their experiences in February 2009. The interviews cover issues of forced recruitment, child soldiers, corruption and theft within the army, low moral and desertion, and the brutal treatment of both civilians and fellow soldiers by armed forces personnel..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F9)
2009-04-27
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "In the northernmost township of Papun District, Burma Army troops deployed as part of an ongoing offensive in northern Karen State were withdrawn from 13 of 46 army camps in the district between the end of 2008 and the start of 2009. Although this has opened some space for villagers, they report continued patrols, restricted access to farmland and severe food shortages. Elsewhere in the district where SPDC control is more comprehensive, villagers report forced labour and land confiscation for road construction as well as conscription as ?human minesweepers? and into the local government militia. This report presents information on ongoing abuses committed by SPDC forces in Papun District from February to May 2009..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F12)
2009-07-01
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "External accounts of life in rural Burma have long been shaped by narrow stereotypes of helpless victims and intransigent oppressors. However, as KHRG has increasingly documented, such portrayals fail to accurately reflect the dynamics of life under military rule and the (albeit disadvantaged) efforts which regular people employ to resist abuse, renegotiate relations of power and assert control over their lives. As international engagement in Burma increases, a far more nuanced understanding of local-level political processes remains crucial to developing a rights-based approach to aid provision. To that end, the present report provides summaries of three recent incidents in which villagers sought to negotiate a change or reduction in military demands. All three accounts deal with orders issued by DKBA forces in Papun and Thaton districts of Karen State during May and June 2009. In a departure from the usual KHRG reporting-style, these accounts have been supplemented with illustrations based on villagers? descriptions of events provided to KHRG by an independent illustrator..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F13)
2009-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "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..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Field Reports (KHRG #2009-F16)
2009-09-28
Date of entry/update: 2009-10-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 473.59 KB
more
Description: "For two and a half years, a military offensive by the Myanmar army, known as the tatmadaw, has been waged against ethnic Karen civilians in Kayin (Karen) State and Bago (Pegu) Division, involving a widespread and systematic violation of international human rights and humanitarian law. These violations constitute crimes against humanity. Unlike previous counter-insurgency campaigns against the Karen National Union (KNU) and its armed wing (the Karen National Liberation Army, KNLA) for nearly 60 years, the current offensive has civilians as the primary targets. The current operation is the largest in a decade and is unique in that, unlike previous seasonal operations that have generally ended at the start of the yearly rains between May and October, this offensive has continued through two consecutive rainy seasons and shows no signs of stopping as a third season is underway. 2 An estimated 147,800 people are reported to have been, and remain, internally displaced in Kayin State and eastern Bago Division. Many of them have also been subjected to other widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including unlawful killings; torture and other illtreatment; enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests; the imposition of forced labour, including portering; the destruction of homes and whole villages; and the destruction or confiscation of crops and food-stocks and other forms of collective punishment. Civilian Karen villagers told Amnesty International of living in fear for their lives, dignity, and property, after having been subjected to or witnessed torture, extrajudicial executions, forced labour and destruction of homes. Such violations were described as directed at civilians, simply on account of their Karen ethnicity or location in Karen majority areas, or retribution for activities by the KNLA. Amnesty International has documented how these violations of international human rights and humanitarian law have been preceded or accompanied by consistent threats and warnings by the tatmadaw that they would take place, and by statements by Myanmar government officials. The organization is thus concerned that the violations are the result of official State Peace and Development Council (SPDC, the Myanmar government) and tatmadaw policy. Moreover, the tatmadaw apparently enjoys impunity for violations committed against Karen civilians. The prevailing impunity for such crimes, with a lack of avenues for redress for victims, has contributed to Myanmar?s ongoing human rights crisis. Crimes against humanity are certain acts that, committed in times of war or peace, form part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. According to Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, acts—including murder, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, torture, persecution, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts—may constitute crimes against humanity ?when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack …” This definition reflects customary international law binding on all states, regardless of whether or not they are parties to the Statute..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (ASA 16/011/2008)
2008-06-05
Date of entry/update: 2009-03-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "For over fifty years, the dictators of Burma have waged war against their own civilian population. The demonstrations of 2007 by mostly ethnic Burmans in the cities were put down brutally. The war against the ethnic peoples continues. It is a war backed by a military that has 400,000 soldiers and is supported by 50% of the nation?s budget. The Burma Army?s methodology is to conduct largescale offensives like the one described in this report, followed by consolidation of territory gained and expansion of control and then the launching of new attacks. There are more than one million displaced people. During these offensives, the Burma Army attacks and burns villages, rapes, tortures, and kills people, destroys their sources of livelihood, and lays landmines to prevent their return. The people support pro-democracy groups that attempt to resist the attacks and control of the Burma Army. Even under this great oppression, the people have not given up. While in hiding, they help each other set up schools, hold worship services, and organize to best make use of the resources they have. After the Burma Army leaves their village, they return to salvage what they can. This refusal to give up constitutes one of the greatest examples of civil disobedience of our time. This report outlines one offensive conducted by the Burma Army against the Karen people in northern Karen State, eastern Burma. It also provides an insight into other means by which the dictators attempt to control and exploit the population in the ethnic areas and provides an analysis of Burma Army strategy and tactics and how the ethnic resistance counters these. It describes the situation of the internally displaced people (IDPs) and makes recommendations for action. Finally, it tells the story of a people living on the edge of survival who have not given up and need help. Burma Army Ofe nsi ve: northern ka ren state The Burma Army?s most recent offensive in northern Karen State killed over 370 men, women and children and displaced over 30,000 people, most of whom are now in hiding, in two years of attacks that began in February of 2006 and continue through 2008. Over 33 new Burma Army camps were built in the areas of Papun, Nyaunglebin and Toungoo districts in 2006 alone, with over 103 new camps by March 2008. The slow but unrelenting attacks and building of new camps seem to be driven by a plan to dominate, chase out or crush any people in these areas. This was the largest offensive in Karen State since 1997. It began in February 2006, with troops from over fifty battalions attacking through the rainy season, and the construction of 10 new main camps and 42 smaller support camps. The Burma Army is now completing the construction of two new roads that effectively cut the northern Karen State into quarters. The disruption of their food production, burning of their homes and the shoot-on-sight orders of the Burma Army have made staying in their homeland untenable for thousands of people. Of the over 30,000 displaced, over 7,000 have already left their homes for the Thai border. Story: Na w Eh Ywa Paw The dictatorship of Burma has dehumanized the ethnic peoples of Burma, killing, raping and terrorizing the population with impunity. The power of the oppressor is unrestrained. Naw Eh Ywa Paw ("The Flower That Loves God") is a 9-year-old Karen girl who was shot during the offensive by the Burma Army in an attack that killed her father, Saw Maw Keh, and grandmother. This is her story. The attack itself took place on 27 March, 2006, as the people from Ka Ba Hta village were fleeing the advancing Burma Army, which had been sweeping the entire area. The villagers had been hiding in a gully, but, thinking that it would be safer to climb higher, had begun to leave the gully and climb to the top of the ridge. They did not know the Burma Army was waiting for them. Saw Maw Keh was carrying his mother up the steep slope and was in the lead of the group. Behind him was his family, including Naw Eh Ywa Paw. From where the Burma Army was waiting there is a clearing (it is the villagers? own rice field) that is about 40 yards wide and 15 yards deep down to the edge of the jungle above the gully. The Burma Army soldiers were waiting at the top of the ridge and looking down into this clearing towards the gully. Saw Maw Keh carried his mother up the ridge out 9 of the gully and into the clearing. The Burma Army soldiers waited until he and his mother were in the cleared area, about 10-15 yards away from their position behind the logs, and then opened fire. The shock of having a line of troops open fire at point-blank range must have been tremendous. Saw Maw Keh dropped his mother (we are not sure if she was shot off his back or fell). She cried out to him saying, "Don" As he turned to help her they both were shot dead. The others scattered and, as they tried to flee, Naw Eh Ywa Paw was shot through the back, with the bullet exiting near her stomach. We met them 13 days later on our way to their area and treated the wounded girl. Fortunately, the bullet had passed from her back out through her side without hitting any organs. During their escape, the girl?s wounds were treated by another family and due to their care there was no infection. We prayed for the girl and her family and they cried and cried for their father (husband), and grandmother. She eventually recovered and, with her mother, brother and sisters, moved to a new hiding place near their old village in Mon Township, Karen State. The Burma Army is now attacking the place where she and others are hiding, and so she is on the run again. The Burma Army needs to be stopped, and she, her family and the other Karen people need to be able to go home. This is an emergency situation and Naw Eh Ywa Paw and her people under attack need immediate protection, humanitarian assistance, and support for their pro-democracy organizations." (Updated, April 2004)
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
2008-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2009-01-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Much of what is happening in the conflict zones of eastern Burma is difficult to capture with photos, video and reports. It is a slow and insidious strangulation of the population rather than an all-out effort to crush them...
Creator/author: David Eubank
Source/publisher: "Forced Migration Review" No. 30
2008-04-22
Date of entry/update: 2008-11-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese
more
Description: "With a disproportionate emphasis on isolated incidents of particularly emotive violent abuses in rural areas and a concurrent neglect of the many ways villagers have sought to resist such abuse, international journalism and advocacy around Burma has often contributed to portrayals of rural villagers as helpless victims passively terrorised by the Burma Army. By marginalising the agency of rural villagers in this way, such portrayals have perpetuated the exclusion of these individuals from the ongoing political processes which affect them. Citing the personal testimonies of over 110 villagers living in Karen State, this report seeks to challenge such portrayals and provide a forum for these individuals to speak for themselves about the context of abuse in which they live and their own efforts to resist this abuse. By highlighting the resistance strategies and political agency of villagers in rural Karen State, this report argues that the voices of these individuals can, and indeed should, be heard and incorporated into the many ongoing political processes that affect them."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2008-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2008-11-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "...This book presents the voices of ethnic Karen villagers to give an idea of what it is like to be a rural villager in Burma: the brutal and constant shifts of forced labor for the Army, the intimidation tactics, the systematic extortion and looting by Army and State authorities, the constant fear of arbitrary arrest, rape, torture, and summary execution, the forced relocation and burning of hundreds of civilian villages and the systematic uprooting of their crops. Three detailed reports produced by the Karen Human Rights Group in 1999 are used to give the reader a sampling of the life of Karen villagers, both in areas where there is armed resistance to the rule of the SPDC junta and in areas where the junta is fully in control. ..."
Creator/author: Claudio O. Delang, Kevin Heppner
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2000-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-05-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "As the State Peace and Development council continues with its aggressive campaign to expand military control over all areas of Karen State, local villagers confront brutal and systematic abuses perpetrated by the junta?s armed forces. In light of such abuse, external representations of Karen women have fallen back on stereotypes of women in armed conflict which depict nothing but their helplessness and vulnerability. The findings of this report, however, demonstrate that such representations can be both inaccurate and harmful. They miss the many ways in which Karen women are actively responding to abuse and resisting militarisation, and furthermore undermine local women?s attempts to determine for themselves how they, their families and communities are to develop. Such portrayals foster external perceptions and intervention that neglect local concerns and the strategies that these women are already employing to claim their rights. In this report, KHRG examines the patterns of military abuses against Karen women, the many ways these have affected their lives, the manner in which these women have responded to abuse and the ways that this relationship between military abuse and women?s agency has led to changes in the roles of women in Karen society...."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-05)
2006-11-22
Date of entry/update: 2008-03-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Karen
more
Description: Die Armee der SPDC Militärdiktatur ist mittlerweile auf eine Truppenstärke von 500.000 Soldaten angewachsen und jetzt selbst nur noch durch ein System der Angst zu kontrollieren. Fast jeder hat einen Vorgesetzten und die Exekution ist nur einen Schuß entfernt. Der militärische Geheimdienst ist überall und selbst die höheren Ränge werden oft ‘Reinigungen? nach sowietischem Vorbild unterzogen. Karen; Flüchtlinge; Burma Army; Refugees
Source/publisher: Burma Riders
2007-07-15
Date of entry/update: 2007-08-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: German, Deutsch
more
Description: Innerhalb Burmas, dem heutigen Myanmar, leben 2 Millionen Menschen auf der Flucht, Internally Displaced People (IDP) genannt. Auch viele Karen leben in den unzugänglichen Dschungelgebieten nahe der Grenze zu Thailand.
Creator/author: N.a.
Source/publisher: Helfen ohne Grenzen
Date of entry/update: 2007-08-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: German, Deutsch
more
Description: Response by the Office of the (UN) Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar to the report, "Development by Decree: The politics of poverty and control in Karen State" published by the Karen Human Rights Group on 24 April 2007.
Source/publisher: United Nations Information Centre, Yangon
2007-04-25
Date of entry/update: 2007-05-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 9.73 KB
more
Description: "In pursuit of domestic submission and international recognition of its legitimacy the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) currently ruling Burma pronounces daily on the manifold military-implemented development programmes initiated across the country which, it argues, are both supported by and beneficial to local communities. Villagers in Karen State, however, consistently reject such claims. Rather, these individuals describe a systematic programme of military expansionism with which the junta aims to establish control over all aspects of civilian life. In the name of development, the regime?s agenda in Karen State has involved multifarious infrastructure and regimentation projects that restrict travel and trade and facilitate increased extortion of funds, food, supplies and labour from the civilian population, thereby exacerbating poverty, malnutrition and the overall humanitarian crisis. Given the detrimental consequences of the SPDC?s development agenda, villagers in Karen areas have resisted military efforts to control their lives and livelihoods under the rubric of development. In this way these villagers have worked to claim their right to determine for themselves the direction in which they wish their communities to develop. Drawing on over 90 interviews with local villagers in Karen State, SPDC order documents, official SPDC press statements, international media sources, reports by international aid agencies and academic studies this report finds that rather than prosperity, the SPDC?s ?development? agenda has instead brought increased military control over civilian lives, undermined villagers? rights and delivered deleterious humanitarian outcomes contradictory to the very rhetoric the junta has used to justify its actions."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG 2007-01)
2007-04-24
Date of entry/update: 2007-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.97 MB
more
Description: "This gallery presents 1,000 photos taken by KHRG researchers in the field throughout 2006 and the first days of 2007, divided into thematic sections including a major section documenting the SPDC?s attacks on northern Karen villages throughout the year and the response of villagers living there."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2007-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2007-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "In late February 2007, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) reached an agreement regarding the implementation of a new mechanism intended to allow individuals to submit complaints of forced labour without fear of retaliation. External observers have reported that this agreement represents a positive step towards effectively addressing forced labour in Burma. However, as this commentary points out, the potential usefulness and effectiveness of the new mechanism is suspect. By outlining some of the ways in which the SPDC actively obstructs villagers from accessing such mechanisms and the inability of the ILO to ensure protection for civilians from retaliation, this commentary warns that the results of this agreement will likely misrepresent the true scale of forced labour in Burma. It further calls for the ILO to publicly acknowledge these limitations, so that the SPDC is unable to use the lack of complaints to deny the existence of forced labour."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Commentaries (KHRG #2007-C1)
2007-04-10
Date of entry/update: 2007-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "(Bangkok, April 26th 2007) ? On Wednesday April 25th 2007, the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar released a statement in response to KHRG?s recently released report Development by Decree: The politics of poverty and control in Karen State. KHRG welcomes the UN?s response and appreciates the Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator?s acknowledgement that it agrees with the report?s findings on the problems confronting the delivery of humanitarian aid in Burma. KHRG is encouraged about the possibility for greater openness and discussion regarding the methods used by aid agencies in the implementation of their programmes. However, a number of points in the UN?s media statement need clarification..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Commentaries (KHRG)
2007-04-26
Date of entry/update: 2007-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The SPDC offensive against civilian villagers in northern Karen State has continued unabated through the rainy season as SPDC Army soldiers attempt to consolidate their control over the region and depopulate all areas that lie beyond their direct control. Now that the rainy season is drawing to a close and the rice harvest has begun, the SPDC is laying preparations to once again intensify their attacks against the villagers. The district has been flooded with thousands more soldiers, and many new SPDC Army camps have been built and are now fully stocked with food and weapons. There are presently over 3,700 SPDC Army soldiers in Toungoo District forcibly relocating entire villages, destroying food supplies, and shooting anyone who refuses to comply with their demands. Literally thousands of internally displaced persons are living in hiding in the forest where they are hunted and their food supplies are deliberately destroyed by the soldiers. The tactics being employed by the soldiers are calculated to intentionally bring about the demise of the Karen hiding in the forest, and while they continue to resist these abuses, the villagers are rapidly running out of options as the situation continues to deteriorate..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-06)
2006-11-17
Date of entry/update: 2007-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Executive Summary: "This report describes how human rights and environmental abuses continue to be a serious problem in eastern Pegu division, Burma ? specifi cally, in Shwegyin township of Nyaunglebin District. The heavy militarization of the region, the indiscriminate granting of mining and logging concessions, and the construction of the Kyauk Naga Dam have led to forced labor, land confi scation, extortion, forced relocation, and the destruction of the natural environment. The human consequences of these practices, many of which violate customary and conventional international law, have been social unrest, increased fi nancial hardship, and great personal suffering for the victims of human rights abuses. By contrast, the SPDC and its business partners have benefi ted greatly from this exploitation. The businessmen, through their contacts, have been able to rapidly expand their operations to exploit the township?s gold and timber resources. The SPDC, for its part, is getting rich off the fees and labor exacted from the villagers. Its dam project will forever change the geography of the area, at great personal cost to the villagers, but it will give the regime more electricity and water to irrigate its agro-business projects. Karen villagers in the area previously panned for gold and sold it to supplement their incomes from their fi elds and plantations. They have also long been involved in small-scale logging of the forests. In 1997, the SPDC and businessmen began to industrialize the exploitation of gold deposits and forests in the area. Businessmen from central Burma eventually arrived and in collusion with the Burmese Army gained mining concessions and began to force people off of their land. Villagers in the area continue to lose their land, and with it their ability to provide for themselves. The Army abuses local villagers, confi scates their land, and continues to extort their money. Commodity prices continue to rise, compounding the diffi culties of daily survival. Large numbers of migrant workers have moved into the area to work the mining concessions and log the forests. This has created a complicated tension between the Karen and these migrants. While the migrant workers are merely trying to earn enough money to feed their families, they are doing so on the Karen?s ancestral land and through the exploitation of local resources. Most of the migrant workers are Burman, which increases ethnic tensions in an area where Burmans often represent the SPDC and the Army and are already seen as sneaky and oppressive by the local Karen. These forms of exploitation increased since the announcement of the construction of the Kyauk Naga Dam in 2000, which is expected to be completed in late 2006. The SPDC has enabled the mining and logging companies to extract as much as they can before the area upstream of the dam is fl ooded. This situation has intensifi ed and increased human rights violations against villagers in the area. The militarization of the region, as elsewhere, has resulted in forced labor, extortion of money, goods, and building materials, and forced relocation by the Army. In addition to these direct human rights violations, the mining and dam construction have also resulted in grave environmental degradation of the area. The mining process has resulted in toxic runoff that has damaged or destroyed fi elds and plantations downstream. The dam, once completed, will submerge fi elds, plantations, villages, and forests. In addition, the dam will be used to irrigate rubber plantations jointly owned by the SPDC and private business interests. The Burmese Army has also made moves to secure the area in the mountains to the east of the Shwegyin River. This has led to relocations and the forced displacement of thousands of Karen villagers living in the mountains. Once the Army has secured the area, the mining and logging companies will surely follow..."
Source/publisher: EarthRights International (ERI)
2007-02-20
Date of entry/update: 2007-03-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "With most of southern Karen State?s Dooplaya district under SPDC control since 1997, villagers face increasing regimentation, restrictions and exploitation by the SPDC and its armed allies that make life virtually unsustainable. The main aspects of this regimentation were already described in detail by KHRG in the report Setting Up the Systems of Repression: The progressive regimentation of civilian life in Dooplaya District (KHRG #2006-04, September 2006). This report follows the same themes, updating the situation by drawing on KHRG?s continued interviewing and reporting in the field since September 2006. Forced agricultural programmes, forced labour, and forced recruitment to SPDC-run organisations and administrative structures are combining with systematic state-run extortion, looting, and confiscation of land and crops to artificially create poverty and hunger, forcing many villagers to send family members to Thailand to work illegally for the family?s survival. While some UN agencies claim that these are simple matters of poverty that have nothing to do with state repression, villagers are increasingly taking matters into their own hands by finding daring and creative ways to evade or refuse the demands placed on them by the SPDC and other authorities and undermine the power of these groups over their lives..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2007-02-23
Date of entry/update: 2007-02-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Executive Summary: "The Burmese army launched a large scale offensive in the districts of Toungoo, Nyaung Lay Bin and Muthraw in northern Karen State in November 2005 targeting the civilian Karen population. This offensive has been ongoing for over a year and it continues today. Villages are being shelled with mortars, looted and burnt to the ground. Crops and food supplies are being destroyed. Burmese soldiers are ordered to shoot on sight, regardless of whether it is a combatant or a defenseless civilian. As a result more than 27,000 people have been forced from their homes, either hiding in the jungle or trying to find refuge in Thailand. The Burmese army continues to increase its military presence in these areas and carry out attacks against villagers. In addition to the increased number of military attacks and militarisation of these districts, which has been ongoing for a number of years, in particular since the Karen National Union (KNU) and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) agreed to a verbal ceasefire in January 2004, there has also been a rise in human rights abuses perpetrated by the army. These include: force labour and portering demands, land confiscation, rape and other gender based violence, looting and destruction of property, arbitrary taxation, restriction of movement, torture and extra-judicial killings. Despite the fact that this offensive has been underway for over a year now there is not a clear singular reason behind the attacks. However, a number of contributing factors have emerged: the move to the new capital Pyinmana and the establishment of a five kilometre security zone around it, the acquisition of land for national development projects, and the need to secure transportation routes to and from these sites. Additionally, the three districts targeted are considered the ‘heartland? of Karen resistance to Burmese oppression. Despite the armed struggle though the KNU and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) against the regime, it is the people, the civilian villagers, that pose the biggest threat to local and regional SPDC power these days. The non-violent resistance strategies, such as defying orders from the military and fleeing into the jungle rather than being controlled, employed by the villagers make them active participants in the struggle for peace and justice in Burma, not passive victims. Nonetheless, the reasons behind the offensive do not detract from the fact that the Burmese army is attacking the civilian Karen population without any form of provocation. In addition to purposely attacking villagers the Burmese army is also undermining the grassroots people?s ability to survive. The villagers in the offensive area, who are mainly farmers, were beginning to harvest their crops when the offensive began last November. As villagers had to flee to safety in the jungle, their crops either rotted in the fields or were eaten by animals, leading to food shortages. This acute food shortage will be further exacerbated next year. As the offensive continued over the past twelve months more villagers had to flee the Burmese troops. This meant that they could not prepare for next years crop. Consequently in November and December 2006 there will be no crop to harvest and food scarcity will continue next year, regardless of the political situation. Most of the 27,000 people who have been displaced have very little, if any, food. Their diets are supplemented with food that they can find from the jungle. Due to the severe landmine contamination of the areas, it is extremely dangerous to search for food. In addition to food scarcity internally displaced persons (IDPs) face serious Executive Summary Executive Summary 9 Burma Issues health issues, especially during the wet season. Malaria is prevalent, as are skin diseases, dysentery and malnutrition. It is the children and the elderly who suffer the most under the given conditions. Heavily pregnant women also face additional hardships as they have to flee the same as other villagers, walking for days and giving birth while on the run. Villagers, as a result of military attacks, are more likely to be injured by a landmine or through soldier violence, for example being shot or stabbed. Access to medical services is virtually non-existent, and what is available is gravely insufficient. As a result people often die from preventable and curable diseases and treatable injuries. The regime prevents all non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies inside Burma giving humanitarian aid to the villagers affected by the offensive. The junta prohibits organisations traveling to these areas and documenting human rights violations and the humanitarian crisis. It is virtually impossible to bypass these regulations, as the region is very mountainous and all transportation routes, apart from walking, are controlled by the SPDC. Some community-based organizations that work cross-border from Thailand manage to bring some assistance to the IDPs, but it is only a tiny amount of what is needed. The SPDC deems the activities of these groups illegal and if the Burmese army catches workers they will simply disappear – never to be heard of or seen again. While the majority of IDPs choose to stay in hiding near their villages as a form of non-violent resistance, others decide to travel to Thailand to seek refuge in the camps along the Thai-Burma border. So far this year Thai authorities have allowed approximately 3,000 people to cross the border and enter a refugee camp near Mae Sariang, Thailand. However, the Thai authorities have not consistently kept the border open and have frequently refused IDPs entrance to the kingdom, reasoning that they are not fleeing fighting, but are merely capitalising on the resettlement opportunities that are being opened up to the refugees in the camp. As a result of the border?s sporadic closure, approximately 1,400 IDPs (a figure that is continually rising) are living in a makeshift camp along the Salween River, on the Burmese side of the border. This temporary IDP settlement receives aid from organisations working along the Thai-Burma border, at the discretion of the Thai authorities, but there are numerous protection issues associated with the camp. There is a Burmese army base that is only an hour?s walk away, making the IDPs vulnerable to a potential attack. This is the worst offensive that the junta has conducted since it joined ASEAN in 1997. However, the offensive is not an isolated event, but rather the continuation of a campaign by the military junta to control the population of Burma. Despite the fact that this offensive has been underway for over a year, the international community is yet to find a solution that will persuade the SPDC to stop their attacks on civilians. Throughout the numerous military campaigns thousands of lives have been lost – all valuable and irreplaceable."
Source/publisher: Burma Issues
2006-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-01-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 645.99 KB
more
Description: "As the rainy season nears its end, SPDC operations in northern Papun District persist. Civilians living in Lu Thaw township in northern Papun District who fled from military attacks on their villages earlier in the current offensive have been joined by those more recently displaced. So long as military forces remain active in the area of their abandoned homes, these villagers are unable to return to tend their crops, collect possessions and reclaim their land. In these situations of displacement, villagers confront daily food shortages, unhygienic conditions and the constant threat of detection by military forces. With the establishment of new army camps, the likely construction of more roads and a possible large-scale relocation site at Pwah Ghaw, the ability of displaced villagers to maintain their livelihood, evade military forces and retain some measure of control over their land is becoming highly restricted. Nevertheless, the threat of regular abuse and ceaseless demands in military-controlled areas prompt villagers living in hiding to continue to evade capture and military subjugation..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-F10)
2006-10-06
Date of entry/update: 2006-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "While attention has been focused on the SPDC?s violent attacks against villages in northern Karen State, the regime has been implementing a much more systematic campaign of repression in southern Karen State. The SPDC militarily occupied this region nine years ago, and has since been creating its model of society ? through extending roads and military control to every corner of the region, establishing and training local controlling authorities, forcing villagers to join SPDC organisations, forced registration of all people and resources, forced double-cropping and other agricultural programmes without the required support, movement restrictions and crippling taxation on trade and mobility, and land reallocation to those complicit with the regime. All of these are part of the process of setting up local control mechanisms to implement the SPDC?s hierarchical vision of society, in which the main purpose of the civilian population is to serve the military and support those in power. In return, local people get nothing except additional work, and violent punishment including torture and killings whenever they are perceived to be uncooperative or disrespectful. Little or nothing is provided for their education or health, while their crops and possessions are systematically looted to keep them poor. Drawing on the SPDC?s own order documents and over a hundred interviews with villagers in the region, this report finds that people in Dooplaya feel worse off than ever before, and that their suffering is not caused by conflict or lack of foreign aid, but by SPDC repression..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-04)
2006-09-07
Date of entry/update: 2006-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "In March and April 2006, SPDC and DKBA units deliberately targeted and destroyed dozens of hill fields belonging to villagers from three villages in Bilin township of Thaton District in the southwest of Karen State. Burning the fields too early in the growing cycle severely restricts the proportion of the field that can be planted, which in turn limits the size of the harvest. Both the SPDC and the DKBA know this and the burning of these fields represents a systematic campaign of crop destruction intended to obstruct the villagers? access to food and in effect starve them out of the hills. The villagers already suffer from food shortages, and this latest move by the military will only aggravate the situation. The next paddy harvest due in November will be severely reduced as a result, and these villagers will face even more serious food shortages for the coming year..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B11)
2006-09-20
Date of entry/update: 2006-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "KHRG continues to monitor the activities of large SPDC military columns which are systematically destroying villages in Papun, Nyaunglebin and Toungoo districts. We have just received information from a KHRG researcher in the field that in the past week SPDC Military Operations Command #15 has launched its expected pincer operation in northern Papun district, trying to catch Karen villagers between its Tactical Operations Command #2 coming from the south and Tactical Operations Command #3 coming from the north. These two large multi-battalion columns, with several hundred soldiers each, are attempting to force all villagers out of the hills west of the Yunzalin River (Bway Loh Kloh) in northern Papun district of Karen State. Tactical Operations Command #2 has pushed north from Naw Yo Hta and has now set up a new base at Baw Ka Plaw, just north of Kay Pu; while Tactical Operations Command #3 has approached the same area from the north, coming down from Bu Sah Kee and establishing themselves at a new camp at Si Day. This pincer movement and the establishment of these two new Army camps ensure that the hill villagers in the northern tip of Papun district will remain displaced for the coming months and will lose their entire rice harvest, creating serious concerns about their food security and survival over the coming year."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B10)
2006-08-09
Date of entry/update: 2006-08-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The SPDC is continuing its attacks on Karen hill villages throughout northern Karen State, trying to entirely depopulate the northern hills. SPDC columns have regrouped and resupplied and are now launching attacks into hill regions not previously reached by the offensive. If successful, this offensive threatens to completely annihilate the unique way of life and culture of the hill Karen, a distinct group within the Karen population, by either forcing them into relocation sites where they cannot practice their culture and livelihood, or simply killing them off and destroying all remnants of their existence..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2006-07-04
Date of entry/update: 2006-07-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "With the annual monsoon rains now falling over Karen State, the SPDC?s military offensive against civilian villagers in northern Karen State would normally be drawing to a close. However, quite the opposite is happening. The resumption of SPDC Army attacks on villages and the increased patrols in Toungoo District shows that the offensive is far from over. Thousands more landmines have been reportedly deployed across Toungoo District to isolate certain parts of the district and restrict villagers? movements. An analysis of SPDC Army troop movements and tactics suggests that the offensive is now set to expand eastward across the Day Loh River where it can be expected that SPDC units will soon commence shelling and destroying villages. In addition to this, the situation in the southeast of the district has become dire as the villagers are now caught between two advancing columns and have nowhere left to flee. It is likely that dozens more villages will be destroyed and thousands more villagers will be displaced in the coming months. Civilian villagers living in Toungoo District (Taw Oo in Karen), the northernmost of the seven Karen districts in eastern Burma, have been under attack since November last year. In its latest military offensive against the civilian population, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military junta has been targeting Karen villagers living in the hills of northern Karen State in the ongoing attempt to consolidate its control and bring the whole of the population under its rule. Over the past six months, thousands of villagers have been displaced and dozens of villages have been abandoned and/or destroyed. The wet season has now commenced, but the attacks show no sign of slowing down. Unlike in previous years, when offensive activities would cease with the onset of the rains, the SPDC has actually recently intensified its activities against Karen civilians in Toungoo District. The situation for the villagers is now growing increasingly desperate as more and more troops flood into the district to inflict wholesale human rights violations..."... Table of Contents: The Scope of Displacement: Implications for Health and Education; Increased Isolation of Villages in the Region; Examining the Motives behind the Offensive.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-F5)
2006-06-12
Date of entry/update: 2006-06-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "...SPDC troops in northern Papun district continue to escalate their attacks, shooting villagers, burning villages and destroying ricefields. Undefended villages in far northern Papun district are now being shelled with powerful 120mm mortars. Three battalions from Toungoo district have rounded up hundreds of villagers as porters and are detaining their families in schools in case they?re needed; this column is now heading south with its porters, apparently intending to trap displaced villagers in a pincer between themselves and the troops coming north from Papun district. A similar trapping movement is being performed along the Bilin river, as 8 battalions come from two directions to wipe out every village in their path. Up to 4,000 villagers in Papun district?s far north have been displaced in the past week, and 1,500 to 2,000 more along the Bilin River..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B7)
2006-06-07
Date of entry/update: 2006-06-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "In April 2006, State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) Army units in Papun district of northern Karen State began attacking civilian villages, leading to fears that the offensive in neighbouring Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts was likely to expand. On May 16th KHRG reported the arrival of seven new SPDC battalions in Papun district, bringing the number of battalions in the district to at least 27,[1] and predicted an imminent wave of new attacks against villages (see Villagers displaced as SPDC offensive expands into Papun district, 16/5/06). In the past week these troops have begun to move and to attack villages. A KHRG researcher in the district reports that at present three SPDC columns are sweeping in three directions throughout the northern half of the district, burning houses and destroying food supplies. More troops are expected to arrive soon to extend these attacks further, and the offensive is now almost certain to continue through the rainy season..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B6)
2006-06-01
Date of entry/update: 2006-06-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "...Over the past ten years the SPDC has undertaken numerous ?development projects? across Karen State, consistently claiming that these are purely for the good of the people. Such projects however are anything but, invariably bringing with them an increase in human rights violations in the area surrounding the development site. Villages are typically forcibly relocated and their inhabitants are used as forced labour. One such project is a hydroelectricity power plant that is to be built on the Day Loh River in Toungoo District. In 2005, KHRG examined the activities of 2,000 SPDC Army troops who moved into the region to secure the area surrounding the dam site. This report serves as an update of the dam situation, incorporating information which may be possible evidence of the complicity of foreign corporations, and explores the possibility that the imminent construction of this project and others like it are part of the motivation behind the current offensive underway in northern Karen State..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B5)
2006-05-30
Date of entry/update: 2006-05-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: " The ongoing offensives by Burma?s ruling State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) military junta have already been analysed in KHRG?s previous Commentary (#2006-C1), released just one week ago on May 19th. That commentary demonstrated that these attacks are not targeting the armed opposition, but are deliberately aimed at destroying the homes and food supplies of Karen hill villagers and shooting men, women and children on sight in a systematic attempt to wipe them out. International law, particularly the UN Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), defines this as genocide, and it also stands in violation of every international human rights convention and of international humanitarian law as expressed in the Geneva Conventions. However, in the past week it has become clear that the United Nations Secretariat is attempting to cover up this genocide and bring about a normalisation of relations with the SPDC regime, without even insisting that the regime stop its military attacks on civilians. From May 18th to 20th, UN under-secretary general for political affairs Ibrahim Gambari visited Rangoon. Second to Kofi Annan in the UN bureaucracy, he is the most senior UN official to visit Burma in years. The visit came at a time when international outcry against the SPDC?s attacks on Karen villagers was reaching its height, and activists and the US government were demanding that Burma be placed on the agenda of the UN Security Council. On April 28th this year, the Council passed Resolution 1674 noting that the ?deliberate targeting of civilians … and the commission of systematic, flagrant and widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law … may constitute a threat to international peace and security” and expressing its ?readiness to consider such situations and, where necessary, to adopt appropriate steps”. So one would expect Gambari to have spent much of his time insisting that the SPDC immediately cease its genocidal attacks against Karen villagers. He did not. Instead he focused most of his efforts on encouraging the SPDC to release one person ? Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) political party. He expressed ?concern” over the Karen offensive ? UN language for ?we have noticed, but we will not interfere” ? and suggested that the SPDC cease the attacks, but then went on to talk about how the SPDC could go about securing more foreign aid...."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Commentaries (KHRG #2006-C2)
2006-05-26
Date of entry/update: 2006-05-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "In recent months the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) regime ruling Burma has sent large numbers of troops into Papun district of northeastern Karen State to clear the hills of villagers. Unlike the offensives in neighbouring Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts, where troops began burning villages in November 2005, in Papun district the attacks against villages only began to escalate in April 2006. Several villages have already been burned, rice supplies systematically destroyed, and villagers shot on sight. The arrival of at least seven new Battalions in the district on May 11th 2006 suggests that a major new offensive is about to be launched. This offensive is not related to the new SPDC capital at Pyinmana, which lies far to the northwest. It may be partly motivated by SPDC plans to dam the Salween River; but the main motivation appears to be to establish control over the villagers of this hilly region who have always evaded state control. The target of the offensive is therefore not the Karen National Union (KNU), but the villagers themselves, and many of them are already fleeing into the forests..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B4)
2006-05-16
Date of entry/update: 2006-05-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "#2006-F4)documents rapidly increasing repression and attacks on villages and villagers since November 2005 in an attempt to force villagers out of the hills and gain total control of the area. Heavily armed patrol columns have been burning villages, destroying crops and shooting villagers, both adults and children, on sight. The SPDC columns are avoiding resistance forces, focusing their attacks instead on undefended villages because it is the villagers they are after. Even in plains areas already strongly controlled by SPDC forces, villages are being burned and their occupants herded into relocation sites, while Army units steal their food supplies and torture their village elders as a means of intimidation. These activities have increased even more since February 2006, with researchers in the area reporting that these are the worst SPDC attacks against villagers since 1997..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG 2006-F4)
2006-04-30
Date of entry/update: 2006-04-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: This gallery presents over 300 photos taken throughout 2005 and the opening days of 2006 by Karen Human Rights Group researchers in rural southeastern Burma. It follows up on KHRG Photo Set 2005A (May 2005), which gives more information and background on the situation in these regions. This gallery provides less background information - it is more of an update to our past photo sets, providing a compendium of photos from the field. It will soon be followed by a similar gallery for 2006, which will be built progressively online as photos are received...Taken together, the photos presented here try to provide a holistic view of the suffering imposed on villagers in Karen regions, but also to show their resilience and resourcefulness in resisting this suffering despite the immense force deployed against them and the lack of anything but a tiny trickle of outside help. We hope that the viewer will take away an awareness of the scale of human rights abuses being committed and the resulting suffering, but also a recognition of the strength of the villagers and their capacity and right to control their own lives and the political and humanitarian processes which affect them... 1. Destruction and Flight in Hee Daw Khaw village 2. Occupation and Displacement in Ler Wah area 3. Forced Labour 3.1 Convict Porters 4. Detention, Torture and Killings 5. Landmines 6. Extortion and Looting 7. Land Destruction and Confiscation 8. Movement Restrictions 9. Displacement and Campaigns Against Villagers 10. Living with the Army 11. Education and ?Development? Projects 12. Soldiers Appendix 1: KHRG Map of Burma Appendix 2: Map of Karen Districts Appendix 3: Map Room (for more detailed maps)
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-P1)
2006-04-06
Date of entry/update: 2006-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This bulletin documents the resumption of full-scale forced labour in the villages of central Toungoo district and increases in extortion and forced labour imposed on villagers in Dweh Loh township of Papun district. The continued impunity of SPDC soldiers to commit violent abuses is reflected in the stories of attempted rapes which have occurred in both districts."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B2)
2006-03-15
Date of entry/update: 2006-03-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "Since November 2005, the SPDC has been mounting military-style assaults on civilian villages in Toungoo District, causing thousands of villagers to flee into the surrounding forests or to head for refugee camps in Thailand. To illustrate this, this bulletin pays special attention to the attack on Hee Daw Khaw village on November 26th 2005, and its subsequent destruction on November 28th 2005."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2006-B3)
2006-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2006-03-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "Villagers in northern Pa?an District of central Karen State say their livelihoods are under serious threat due to exploitation by SPDC military authorities and by their Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) allies who rule as an SPDC proxy army in much of the region. Villages in the vicinity of the DKBA headquarters are forced to give much of their time and resources to support the headquarters complex, while villages directly under SPDC control face rape, arbitrary detention and threats to keep them compliant with SPDC demands. The SPDC plans to expand Dta Greh (a.k.a. Pain Kyone) village into a town in order to strengthen its administrative control over the area, and is confiscating about half of the village?s productive land without compensation to build infrastructure which includes offices, army camps and a hydroelectric power dam - destroying the livelihoods of close to 100 farming families. Local villagers, who are already struggling to survive under the weight of existing demands, fear further forced labour and extortion as the project continues."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2006-02-11
Date of entry/update: 2006-02-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: " This report examines the situation faced by Karen villagers in Thaton District (known as Doo Tha Htoo in Karen). The district lies in what is officially the northern part of Mon State and also encompasses part of Karen State to the west of the Salween River . Successive Burmese regimes have had strong control over the parts of the district to the west of the Rangoon-Martaban road for many years. They were also able to gain ?defacto? control over the eastern part of the district following the fall of the former Karen National Union (KNU) stronghold at Manerplaw in 1995. The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) is also strong in the district, particularly in the eastern stretches of Pa?an township. Although diminished in recent years, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, is still quite active in the district. The villagers in the district have had to contend with all three of these armed groups. The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and DKBA demand forced labour, taxes, and extortion money from the villagers while also severely restricting their movements. While the demands for some forms of forced labour such as portering have declined over the past few years, the villagers continue to be regularly called upon by both the SPDC and the DKBA to expand the ever-increasing network of roads throughout the district, as well to fulfil the frequent orders to supply staggering quantities of building materials. A number of new SPDC and DKBA controlled commercial ventures have also appeared in the district in recent years, to which the villagers are also forced to ?contribute? their labour. In 2000, the SPDC confiscated 5,000 acres of land for use as an immense sugarcane plantation, while more recently in late 2004, the SPDC again confiscated another 5,000 acres of the villagers? farmland, all of which is to become a huge rubber plantation, co-owed and operated by Rangoon-based company Max Myanmar. In addition, the villagers are punished for any perceived support for the KNLA or KNU. All such systems of control greatly impoverish the villagers, to the extent that now many of them struggle just to survive. Most villagers have few options but to try to live as best they can. SPDC control of the district is too tight for the villagers to live in hiding in the forest and Thailand is too far for most villagers to flee to. The villagers are forced to answer the demands of the SPDC and DKBA, of which there are many, while trying to avoid punishment for any supposed support of the resistance. They have to balance this with trying to find enough time to work in their fields and find enough food to feed their families. This report provides a detailed analysis of the human rights situation in Thaton District from 2000 to the present. It is based on 216 interviews conducted by KHRG researchers with people in SPDC-controlled villages, in hill villages, in hiding in the forest and with those who have fled to Thailand to become refugees. These interviews are supplemented by SPDC and DKBA order documents selected from the hundreds we have obtained from the area, along with field reports, maps, and photographs taken by KHRG field researchers. All of the interviews were conducted between November 1999 and November 2004. A number of field reports dated up until June 2005 have also been included. The report begins with an Introduction and Executive Summary. The detailed analysis that follows has been broken down into ten main sections. The villagers tell most of the story in the main sections through direct quotes taken from recorded interviews. The full text of the interviews and the field reports upon which this report is based are available from KHRG upon approved request."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2006-01-17
Date of entry/update: 2006-01-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "This report combines text and photos to describe events from September to November 2005, when the SPDC violated the ceasefire by sending a large Army column to attack and occupy a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) base in Nyaunglebin District. Just before the rice harvest was to begin, the SPDC Army shelled local villages, captured the base, and began systematically destroying the local villagers? homes, utensils and implements to undermine the ability of villagers to live in the area. The villagers evaded them and moved into the hills east of the river, where they established shelters close by - from which the men could monitor SPDC activities - and further in the hills, where their families could set up food supplies and care for children and the elderly. Meanwhile, KNLA units harassed the SPDC column and prevented it from crossing the Shwegyin River to pursue the villagers. On November 3rd the SPDC withdrew, having failed to bring any villagers under their control. The villagers quickly returned to begin a much-belated rice harvest, which will probably yield less than half the required rice for the coming year..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2005-F8)
2005-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2005-12-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more

Pages