THA NOO HTOO AUG -2009

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OFFICE OF THE SUPREME HEADQUARTERS
KAREN NATIONAL UNION
KAWTHOOLEI
Human Rights Situation in Karen State and Other Karen Areas, Burma
(March 12, 2009)
The resistance in self-defense of the Karen people, and the war to suppress it has been going
on since January 1949. The 60 th anniversary of resistance was celebrated on 31 st January this year.
Attempt by the Karen people to settle the country’s problems by political means through dialogue
has not met with success, as the military dictatorship in power, the State Peace and Development
council (SPDC) still clings to the policy of wiping out all resistance forces, democratic as well as
the ethnic, by military means.
The military conflict between the regime and the Karen people led by the Karen National
Union (KNU) is now mainly in the hilly areas of Eastern Karen Land. The regime is still following
the scorch-earth policy, which was started in 1967, in its military operations against the Karen
resistance in the Irrawaddy Delta.
In the 3 years military campaigns, during the period starting from February 2006 to the end
of January 2009, more than 200 Karen villages were destroyed. As a result, about 30,000 more
villagers became homeless. Most of them managed to flee and hide in the jungles, swelling the
number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), which is estimated to have numbered 250,000 in
Eastern Karen Land. Those who could not flee were seized by the regime’s troops and relocated
near the motor roads and military camps for use in forced labor activities.
The widespread and gross human rights violations perpetrated by the regime’s troops in
Karen State and other Karen areas include burning down the villages, destruction of harvests,
plantations and orchards, looting and killing of livestock, such as cattle, pigs and fowls for food,
extortion of cash, looting of valuables, rape of women, torture and killing of suspects, shooting
to death of villagers found in the so-called black areas and forced labor in the transportation of
military supplies, building of military camps, roads and bridges, and the use of villagers as human
mine detectors. In the case of forced labor, the people have to bring their own food supply and
implements to do the work.
Over the years starting from 1982 to the present, intensified scorch-earth military campaigns
and human rights violations by troops of successive military regimes have caused the flight of
more than 130,000 Karen civilians into Thailand for refuge. These refugees are now sheltered in 7
refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. About 20,000 have been resettled in third countries.
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