Articles from this category from BurmaNet News)

By 1993, 18.2 million men, women, and children across the world had left their homelands to escape persecution and violence. An average of 10,000 refugees a day were forced to flee the year before, as new upheavals forced out new victims. At least another 24 million were displaced within their own countries. Yet despite these staggering numbers and the backlash they have provoked in overburdened countries of asylum, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees believes there is a solution to the international refugee crisis.

an edited version of a report by the People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma, which was published by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in October 1999.

YANGON, 25 March 2012 (IRIN) - A UN convoy of urgently needed humanitarian assistance has reached conflict-affected areas of Myanmar’s northern Kachin State.

"This is a major step forward and follows sustained advocacy on the part of the UN with both the government and Kachin Independence Organization [KIO],” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Ashok Nigam told IRIN in Yangon.

The convoy (four trucks and two UN vehicles) arrived in the KIO-controlled township of Sadang from the government-controlled town of Myitkyina on 24 March.

A photojournalist put aside his camera to comfort a young Karen woman at the birth of her son in a jungle hideout...

"It was a makeshift village on the Thai side of the Moei River bordering Burma and Thailand, about 60 miles north of the Thai border town of Mae Sot. Around 100 Karen lived there, so-called “internally displaced persons,” refugees from the excesses committed by the Burmese army and the equally feared troops of the regime-backed Democratic Karen Buddhist Army...

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher during May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Saw Th---, a 37-year-old farmer and village elder, who described his experiences living in Tatmadaw-controlled relocation sites for over two years and in a village in a mixed-administration area, in which various Tatmadaw battalions and non-state armed groups operated.

The Thai government's latest resolution to control the growing migrant worker population lacks
resolve.

The Thai government is promising a "total solution" to the country's migrant worker population. But if
history is any guide, the new resolution looks just like the latest rendition of previously flawed policies. For
years Burmese migrants have fueled border industries with cheap labor, but with a recession looming the
Thai government is once again trying to tackle a problem that has caused previous administrations to
stumble.

The last two years have seen a profound deterioration in the human rights situation throughout the central Shan State in Myanmar. Hundreds of Shan civilians caught in the midst of counter-insurgency activities have been killed or tortured by the Burmese army. These abuses, occurring in a country which is closed to independent monitors, are largely unknown to the outside world. Denial of access for human rights monitors and journalists means that the full scale of the tragedy can not be accurately calculated. Therefore the information presented below represents only a part of the story.

This report focuses . . . human rights violations against members of ethnic minority groups. These abuses, including extrajudicial executions; ill-treatment in the context of forced portering and labour; and intimidation during forcible relocations occur both in the context of counter-insurgency operations, and in areas where cease-fires hold. The State Law and Order Restoration Council SLORC, Myanmar's military government) continues to commit human rights violations in ethnic minority areas with complete impunity.

This document from Department of land Resources, Government of India presents a comparative Statement of National Policy for Resettlement & Rehabilitation of Project Affected Families (NPRR‐2003) & National Rehabilitation Policy (NRP‐2006)

The main objective of this paper is to describe the magnitude of displacement, the rehabilitation policy and the impact with special reference to tribal people in Orissa. The paper, divided into four sections, discusses the tribal displacement briefly in section one. The second section provides a bird’s eye view of dam-induced displacements in Orissa. Experiences related to four major dams of Orissa have been discussed in section three. Concluding observations have been presented in the last section.