Situation to end 1997

We are Survival, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights.

We’re the only organization that champions tribal peoples around the world. We help them defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.

...Credible information indicates that the Myanmar security forces purposely destroyed the
property of the Rohingyas, scorched their dwellings and entire villages in northern Rakhine
State, not only to drive the population out in droves but also to prevent the fleeing Rohingya
victims from returning to their homes. The destruction by the Tatmadaw of houses, fields,
food-stocks, crops, livestock and even trees, render the possibility of the Rohingya returning
to normal lives and livelihoods in the future in northern Rakhine almost impossible. It also

Myanmar is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the region, and ethnicity is a
complex, contested and politically sensitive issue where ethnic groups have long believed
that the Government manipulates ethnic categories for political purposes.

Myanmar’s
ethnic minorities make up an estimated 30-40% of the population, and ethnic states
occupy some 57% of the total land area along most of the country’s international
borders.

Some docs on IDPs in Burma

Burma has a population of 50 million people, recent estimates place 2 million of those people as Internally Displaced
Persons (IDP). They live precarious and transient lives in the jungles of Burma’s ethnic border areas and in the more urban
central plains. They are denied the stability of having a home and a livelihood and are forced into a constant state of
movement: never having the opportunity to maintain a home, their farms, access to education and medical facilities and
peace of mind...

Historically underdeveloped and divided, Burma today is politically isolated, increasingly militarised, economically mismanaged by its own authorities, and socially and culturally divided along ethnic, religious, and language lines. Following independence from Britain in 1948, parties representing the ethnic minority population have been struggling for greater autonomy from the central Burmese regime.

Photo essay.....
"The country's political reforms have not shielded remote communities from being devastated by ongoing conflicts...Myanmar has undergone political reform over the past few years, led by President Thein Sein, a former military commander who has adopted a more moderate stance concerning the country's political system.

Despite the reforms, however, conflicts involving minority groups have escalated, and Myanmar's Muslim communities, especially the Rohingya in the northwest, have become victims of violence.

In recent months, the Rohingyas have been making headlines again. Who are they?
It was reported1 recently that Myanmar Foreign Minister U Nyan Win had told his ASEAN2
counterparts in Hua Hin, Thailand, prior to the ASEAN Summit, that the SPDC is "willing to
accept the return of refugees from Myanmar if they are listed as Bengali Muslim minorities but
not if they are Rohingyas, because Rohingyas are not Myanmar citizens". What does this
signify? To the uninitiated, what difference does it make if they are Bengalis or Rohingyas? Are

Research submitted by a KHRG field researcher indicates that fighting between DKBA and Tatmadaw troops between April 22nd and April 30th 2011 in Kya In Township has left at least three civilians dead and eight injured.

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.

At least 8,885 villagers in 118 villages in Lu Thaw Township, Papun District have either exhausted their current food supplies or are expecting to do so prior to the October 2011 harvest. The 118 villages are located in nine village tracts, where attacks on civilians by Burma's state army, the Tatmadaw, have triggered wide scale and repeated displacement since 1997.