Compilation of the information available in the Global IDP
Database of the Norwegian Refugee Council
(as of 13 November, 2003)..."

...‘The population displacement’ is a forgotten problem in Burma. While many people are talking ‘negotiation’ and ‘national reconciliation’, but there is no real solution how to stop the displacement in the country. It is also a serious issue which is necessary to consider.

However, the population displacement always relates to war, and so that it is needed to stop war if we want to stop the population displacement problems

In a nation of 50 million people there are estimates that up to 1 million are Internally Displaced Persons (IDP). Despite the relatively recent use of the phrase internally displaced people in the context of Burma, there is evidence that the practices that lead to this displacement have been in place for a long period of time.

Background:

The situation of internally displaced people (IDPs), in Burma remained critical throughout 2002. The U.S. State Department’s country report for 2002 on Burma estimated that forced relocations had produced hundreds of thousands of refugees, with as many as one million internally displaced persons.

"Throughout 2002 the military continued to forcibly relocate minority villages, especially in areas where ethnic activists and rebels were active, and in areas targeted for the development of international tourism." (Human Rights Watch World Report 2003)

According to the US Committee for Refugees, there are more than 450,000 Burmese refugees and asylum seekers in countries neighboring Burma. Driven out by the ruling military regimes unrelenting policies and practices that violate their human rights, refugees and aylum seekers have fled to Thailand, Bangladesh, India and Malaysia. The human rights abuses committed by the SPDC include forced relocations, rape, forced labor, torture, the confiscation of land and property, arbitrary arrest and lack of personal security.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:-
1. Food Security from a Rights-based Perspective;
2. Local Observations from the States and Divisions
of Eastern Burma:-
2.1 Tenasserim Division
(Committee for Internally Displaced Karen Persons);
2.2 Mon State (Mon Relief and Development Committee);
2.3 Karen State (Karen Human Rights Group)
2.4 Eastern Pegu Division (Karen Office of Relief and Development);
2.5 Karenni State (Karenni Social Welfare Committee);
2.6 Shan State (Shan Human Rights Foundation)...

...In the last four years, the Burmese army based in Mon State has confiscated thousands acres of farmland. The farmers whose land had been confiscated were not given any compensation. They have no opportunity to take legal actions against the army. As a result, many farmers who lost their lands left to Thailand to seek employment. Those who stayed in villages and towns became landless and jobless..." Land confiscation by the Burmese military - description, analysis and case studies.

Unofficial translation (by UNICEF)

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.

KHRG Information Update #2003-U1
June 16, 2003

Final report of the Special Rapporteur, Mr. David Weissbrodt,
submitted in accordance with Sub-Commission decision 2000/103,
Commission resolution 2000/104 and Economic and Social Council
decision 2000/283
Addendum
Summary of Comments Received from U.N. Member States to
Special Rapporteur's Questionnaire..."This Addendum IV summarizes1 the comments received from 22 Member States in
response to the questionnaire prepared by the Special Rapporteur and disseminated pursuant to