Burma

Burma’s transformation from international pariah to political success story is being called into question by widespread and ongoing human rights abuses that Western interests increasingly refuse to acknowledge, humanitarian advocates claim. Burma Campaign UK director Mark Farmaner said that a recent British Foreign Office quarterly report on the human rights situation in the country willfully neglects the severity of such…

Tens of thousands of people from Shan, Karenni, Karen and Mon State joined with over 100 civil society organisations and political parties to issue a petition on International Day of Action for Rivers to demand an immediate moratorium on Burmese Government plans to construct six dams on the Salween River. The petition, organized by Burma Rivers Network (BRN), released today…

The government’s Union Peacemaking Working Committee (UPWC) and the ethnic armed groups’, National Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), agreed during their last meeting to draft a single nationwide ceasefire agreement. After a two-day meeting, held on the 9th and 10th of March, 2014, representatives of UPWC and the NCCT agreed to form a working committee composed of people from both groups…

Mu The village is in a tight spot. Not only is it in Karen National Union-held territory abutting Burmese government-controlled territory, but it is geographically remote as well. Virtually no outside aid made its way in during the long-running civil war that has only compounded the village’s isolation. This situation changed abruptly in August 2012, when a single truck laden…

A new research centre, called the Pyi Duang Su Institute for Peace and Dialogue (PI), opened in Chiang Mai this week with the aim of providing “technical assistance” to stakeholders in the peace process, said PI’s director in an interview with Karen News. Kheun Sai Jaiyen, PI’s director and an editor at the Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N), said…

A Karen environmental group has voiced its concern over a Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) report detailing development plans for southeast Myanmar. The Thailand based Karen Environmental and Social Action Network Group (KESAN) raised the concerns in a document released to the press, saying that the 593-page document ‘Preparatory Survey for the Integrated Regional Development for Ethnic Minorities in the…

Burma’s ethnic groups have established an education network organization to preserve and protect ethnic minority languages in Burma. The organization, the Myanmar Indigenous Network for Education (MINE), was launched on February 21, to coincide with International Mother Language Day. “MINE is an exciting development for us. We have struggled for our language and cultural rights for so long and without…

In a show of unity and strength, representatives from 17-armed resistance groups met in Karen State in January for five days to discuss a nationwide ceasefire agreement for Burma. The ethnic armed groups met at Law Khee Lar in Karen State and hailed the conference as a success. The ethnic armed group, under its working title, the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination…

Despite ceasefires between armed ethnic groups and the government’s military, many people from Burma are continuing to cross the border into Thailand in order to seek health care that is inaccessible or unaffordable in their own country. This has created a population of ‘medical refugees’, a phenomenon that has largely been ignored in the course of current discussions regarding Burma’s…

The United Nations special envoy on human rights in Myanmar, Mr. Tomas Ojea Quintana, met with community-based-organization’s in Mae Sot on Feb 10, as part of a fact-finding mission. A source at the meeting told Karen News that the topics discussed included religious discrimination, political reform and the pro-democracy movement in Burma. Mr. Quintana is preparing a report on Burma…