...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.

Nyaunglebin District. Feb 93. Karen men, women: Forced relocation to undrained land; Only Karen villages made to move; SLORC's control of rice to control the population; forced labour (incl. portering). Description of the difficult economic conditions. Extortion; ransoming; looting. Translation of an official SLORC Relocation Order; economic oppression..."
_ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move, displaced_

A significant decrease in forced displacement has been documented by community‐based
organisations in South East Myanmar after a series of ceasefire agreements were negotiated earlier this
year. While armed conflict continues in Kachin State and communal violence rages in Rakhine State, field
surveys indicate that that there has been a substantial decrease in hostilities affecting Karen, Karenni,
Shan and Mon communities.
In its annual survey of displacement and poverty released today, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium

...Under military control, rural Burma's subsistence farming village is losing its viability as the basic unit of society. Internally displaced people are usually thought to have fled military battles in and around their villages, but this paradigm doesn't apply to Burma. In the thousands of interviews conducted by the Karen Human Rights Group with villagers who have fled their homes, approximately 95 percent say they have not fled military battles, but rather the systematic destruction of their ability to survive, caused by demands and retaliations inflicted on them by the SPDC military.

Abstract: "With
the
major
economic
system
changes,
many
new
developments
are
observed
in
every
sector
of

Myanmar.
Urban
landscaping
is
an

integral
part
of
modern
urban
construction
and
also
presents
the

The worsening situation of the internally displaced in all northern Karen districts, forced labour and convict porters, rice quotas, the desperate situation of rank-and-file SPDC soldiers, forced repatriation of refugees in Thailand, and the SPDC's persistence in denying that there is any problem whatsoever.

Pa'an, Dooplaya, Toungoo, Papun, & Thaton Districts. Over 250 orders dating from mid-1999 through late September 2000, the vast majority of them from the latter half of that period. Includes restrictions on the movement of villagers, forced relocation, demands for forced labour, extortion of money, food, and materials, threats to villagers and other demands, as well as documents related to rice quotas which farmers are forced to give, education and health.

This document presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity
and Militarization in Burma. The Tribunal’s work will appeal to all readers interested in human rights and social
justice, as well as anyone with a particular interest in Burma. The Asian Human Rights Commission presents this
report in order to stimulate discourse on human rights and democratization in Burma and around the world.

Burmese version

This report is a detailed analysis of the current human rights situation in Nyaunglebin District (known in Karen as Kler Lweh Htoo), which straddles the border of northern Karen State and Pegu Division in Burma. Most of the villagers here are Karen, though there are also many Burmans living in the villages near the Sittaung River. Since late 1998 many Karens and Burmans have been fleeing their villages in the area because of human rights abuses by the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) military junta which currently rules Burma, and this flight is still ongoing.

Up to a million people have fled their homes in eastern Burma in a crisis the world has largely ignored.

Burma's refusal to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, and the boycotting of the constitutional convention this month by the main opposition, has thrust Burma into the spotlight again.

But unseen and largely unremarked is the ongoing harrowing experience of hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Burma, hiding in the jungle or trapped in army-controlled relocation sites. Others are in refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border.