How many karen in burma

When the British colonized Burma in , these groups all became part of Burma. With the arrival of the British colonists to Burma, the Karen people hoped to escape oppressive rule under the Burmese. Tensions between the two groups reached a high point during World War II when the Karen sided with the British allies and the Burmese fought with the Japanese. Burma achieved independence from the British in , but the Karen people were not granted rights to their own land, and the Burmese once again became the dominant ethnic group.

The military regime established in continues to oppress the Karen and other ethnic groups in Burma today. Burmese soldiers terrorize Karen villages every dry season by burning their villages, killing or torturing civilians, and raping women and girls. Due to the annual threats to their lives and villages, many Karen must flee across the border to refugee camps in neighboring Thailand.

Site Design by Saint Paul Media. Newsletter Subscription. Skip to content Programs Events Support Donate. Donate Today You can provide New Americans with a strong start to a new life by making a donation to the Institute. Give Now. Newsletter Subscription Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in touch. Karen guerrillas have attacked an army staging post in southeastern Burma.

The leader of the Karen National Union, General Bo Mya, says that his people will seek a share of the benefits from a planned natural gas pipeline that is to be built through its territory to Thailand. Mya plans to initiate talks with the French and American companies that are due to build the pipeline.

Human rights workers allege that thousands of Mon and Karen villagers have been relocated in order to make way for the pipeline. Further, tens of thousands of people in southeast Burma have reportedly been forcibly conscripted in order to build a railway line to support the pipeline project. General Bo Mya is stepping down after more than 21 years as commander-in-chief and president of the Karen National Union.

Mya's decision follows recent setbacks for the KNU, including the loss of its major strongholds on the Thai-Burmese border. A government attack near Myawadi in southeast Burma resulted in the deaths of four Karen villagers and led approximately others to flee to Thailand.

More than refugees fled to another camp further inside Thai territory. Relief workers assert that the campaign of terror against the refugees is meant to drive them back into government-controlled areas in Burma and to deprive the KNU of its civilian base. The Karen National Union has set a deadline of May 5 for a resumption of offensive operations, arguing that peace overtures to the military government had failed.

Thai military forces, using helicopter gunships, launched a cross-border attack against a DKBA camp. No information was available on casualties. Thailand has also sent more than reinforcements to protect over 70, Karen refugees located in camps along the Thai-Burma border. Karen guerrillas have attacked a government army base in southeastern Thailand. The Burmese government has launched another military offensive against the Karen.

More than troops attacked a Karen base near Myawadi which is close to the Thai-Burma border. Forty-seven Karen guerrillas have surrendered to Burmese military authorities after they were ordered to assassinate U Thuzana, the leader of a rival Karen faction.

The Karen National Union began a week-long congress that is expected to purge the organization's old guard and pave the way for peace talks with the government. General Bo Mya will likely be replaced by Shwe Hser who is regarded as a pragmatist. Thailand has called on the Myanmar authorities to ensure the safety of Karen refugees as the Karens have not concluded a ceasefire agreement with the government.

Earlier this week, more than 80 Karen families fled to refugee camps at the border near to Mae Hong Son, a Thai town kilometers northwest of the Thai capital.

The talks are the result of last December's preliminary negotiations. A Burmese opposition group asserts that villagers in southeastern Burma have been tortured and forced out of their homes after an attack on a field office of Total, the French oil company. Eleven Karen villagers were taken from their homes by junta troops on February 12 and tortured for allegedly having contact with the attackers, allegedly guerrillas of the Karen National Union.

Representatives from the KNU traveled to Myawaddy, a Myanmar border town kilometers east of Yangon, to meet with military officials in a bid to end hostilities. The six-member delegation, led by General Mahn Sha, deputy secretary of the Karen National Union, is expected to strike a ceasefire deal to end 46 years of insurgency warfare following two rounds of talks that began late last year. The National Council of the Union of Burma, the self-declared "federal parliament" of the opposition, meets near the Thai border at the headquarters of the Karens.

A land-mine explosion derails a train traveling from Mandalay to Rangoon, killing nine people and seriously injuring seven. Two Thai non-governmental organizations NGOS report that summary executions and other human rights abuses have occurred in the building of a natural gas pipeline from Burma's Yadana field to Thailand. Rebel groups have attacked the pipeline route three times in the past 14 months.

A Burmese dissident group says that the Karen National Union KNU will hold a second round of ceasefire talks with the ruling military junta in the south of the country next week. The governments of Thailand and Burma sign an agreement to exploit the offshore Yetagun gas field in the Gulf of Martaban of the Andaman Sea and export the natural gas to Thailand.

The agreement was criticized by opponents of Burma's ruling junta who argue that the deal will benefit the military and hurt ethnic minority groups based in areas through which the gas pipeline will pass. Sources indicate that in the past four months alone, Burmese troops have forced more than , villagers from their homes which are located in areas along the Thai border.

Many Karens reside in these areas. The forced relocations of the villagers have increased the number of persons in Thai refugee camps. This is the fourth round of truce talks. A senior military official says Burma plans to disarm all ethnic minority groups after drafting a new constitution. Karen rebels assert that they will have to strike back using urban guerrilla tactics if the regime pushes them to the wall.

The KNU says the targets will be military installations and factories in Rangoon and other towns and cities. However, the KNU states it will take strict measures to avoid civilian injuries. Reports indicate that the Burmese military government is demanding the unconditional surrender of the Karens instead of continuing with negotiations for a ceasefire.

At the second round of talks in February this year, the member KNU delegation tabled a point proposal. While the members of the government's negotiating panel accepted the majority of the KNU's general demands, they categorically rejected five controversial issues. These included the declaration of a nationwide ceasefire by the government, the holding of a bilateral discussion on the political rights of the ethnic minorities within 30 days after the truce, and the holding of a tripartite dialogue between SLORC, KNU and other ethnic groups , and the National League for Democracy NLD.

SLORC representatives reportedly insisted that they were a temporary administrative body and were in no position to discuss any political questions on ethnic rights and self-determination. During the third round of negotiations in late July, the military told the Karen delegates that while the ethnic group will be allowed to retain its arms up to a certain period, it would have to eventually abandon its armed struggle and "return to the legal fold". The fact that the Burmese junta attempted to impose this condition of surrender only on the KNU, and not on some 15 other armed ethnic groups that had earlier agreed to a ceasefire with Rangoon, has heightened the Karens' belief that SLORC wants to use force to wipe out the Karen, historically its most stubborn enemy.

His surrender not only helped strengthen the government's military power but also allowed the Burmese army to concentrate their efforts on the remaining KNU strongholds Ibid.

Thai police and rebel sources indicate that Burmese troops clashed with KNU forces near the Thai border. More than 2, civilians were forced from their homes in following clashes near the Salween River between the army and the DKBA. A report by Karen Rivers Watch accused the army of conducting a coordinated campaign to gain control of territory near the Salween River, where a controversial hydropower dam is being developed.

The KHRG reported that while freedom of movement had increased in the period since the preliminary ceasefire, there was still continuing militarization in Karen State, which can lead to forced labour, forced recruitment, sexual assault, torture, killing and an increased risk of being injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance. They also reported that although human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings by armed actors had decreased since the NCA was signed, villagers still live in fear of such incidents.

Land confiscation by armed actors had continued, while former land confiscation cases remained unaddressed. Sign up to Minority rights Group International's newsletter to stay up to date with the latest news and publications. Since August, MRG has been assisting Afghan minority activists and staff from our partner organizations as their lives and their work came under threat with the return of the Taliban.

We need your help. For the last three years, we at MRG have run projects promoting freedom of religion and belief across Asia. In Afghanistan we have fostered strong partnerships with amazing local organizations representing ethnic and religious minorities. They were doing outstanding work, educating minority community members about their rights, collecting evidence of discrimination and human rights abuses, and carrying out advocacy.

Not all have been able to flee. Many had no option but to go into hiding. Some did not have a valid passport. Activists can no longer carry out the work they had embarked on. They can no longer draw a salary, which means they cannot feed their families.

With a season of failed crops and a cold winter ahead, the future is bleak for too many. We refuse to leave Afghanistan behind. We are asking you today to stand by us as we stand by them.

We will also use your donations to support our Afghan partners to pay their staff until they can regroup and make new plans, to use their networks to gather and send out information when it is safe to do so, and to seek passports and travel options for those who are most vulnerable and who have no option but to flee to safety.

Azadeh worked for a global organization offering family planning services. Standing for everything the Taliban systematically reject, Azadeh had no option but to flee to Pakistan. MRG is working with our partners in Pakistan to support many brave Afghans who have escaped Afghanistan because of their humanitarian or human rights work or their faith. They are now in various secure locations established by our local partners on the ground in Pakistan. Although they are safer in Pakistan than Afghanistan, Hazara Shia and other religious minorities are also persecuted there.

We need your help, to support those who put their lives on the line for basic human rights principles we all believe in: equality, mutual respect, and freedom of belief and expression. The situation on the ground changes daily as more people arrive and some leave. Aluminium mining in Baphlimali, India, has caused environment devastation and has wrecked the lifestyle of thousands of Adivasis. For centuries, Adivasi communities like the Paraja, Jhodia, Penga and Kondh have been living amidst the Baphlimali foothills.

For generations they have lived in harmony with nature. They lived through rain fed subsistence agriculture of millet, cereals, pulses, rice and collection of non-timber forest produce, e. With widespread mining activities and linked deforestation, they have lost access to forest products and to the much needed pasture land in the vicinity of their villages.

Your help will mean that MRG can support communities like these to help decision makers listen better to get priorities right for local people and help them to protect their environment and restore what has been damaged.

The above picture is of a tribal woman forcibly displaced from her home and land by District Forest Officers in the district of Ganjam, Odisha. Her cashew plantation burned in the name of protection of forests. Please note that the picture is to illustrate the story and is not from Baphlimali. Esther is a member of the indigenous Ogiek community living in the Mau Forest in Kenya. Her family lives in one of the most isolated and inaccessible parts of the forest, with no roads, no health facilities and no government social infrastructure.

The Ogiek were evicted from some forest areas, which have since been logged. The Ogiek consider it essential to preserve their forest home; others are content to use it to make money in the short term.

Esther has a year-old daughter living with a physical disability who has never attended basic school, as it is over 12 kilometres away. Young children living in these areas face challenges such as long distances to school, fears of assault by wild animals and dangers from people they may encounter on the journey. Because the Ogiek have no legally recognised land rights, despite hundreds of years of residence in this forest, the government is refusing to provide social services or public facilities in the area.