development project

Karen villagers alleged Thai company workers of exploiting and marrying local women while they are employed in construction work in southern Burma. A village elder said villagers are outraged at recent false marriages involving three Karen women in Kaw Htee Lor (Tha Byu Chaung) village, east of Tavoy. Villagers say the three women were dumped by the Italian-Thai Development Company…

In recent months the Burma Army has increased its attacks on ethnic people. The Burma Army has been accused of rape, forced labor and firing artillery shells indiscriminately into villages. The ethnic protests against the government’s military offensives have spread to neighboring countries. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, more than 300 people of ethnic nationalities from Burma staged a protest in…

Following a ban placed by the Karen National Union on the Italian-Thai Development Company’s Kanchanaburi-Tavoy road construction, the Burma Army have responded by reinforcing their troop numbers by sending six more battalions to the area. According to an unnamed KNU source based in the area, Burma Army reinforcements started to arrive on October 11. The KNU source estimated that there…

A Burma environmental watchdog has called for the government to stop dam projects on the Salween River as they did to the Myitsone dam project on the Irrawaddy River. Burma River Network, an environmental group monitoring Burma’s rivers says the Myitsone Dam will see the relocation of about 10,000 villagers and if the dam collapses, the whole of Myit Gyi…

The Women League of Burma has called for an end to the civil war and atrocities with other six points of recommendation to the Burma government in their statement released on 21st September to mark the United Nation’s International Day of Peace. The WLB’s statement agrees and respects calls made by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in her open letter…

Burmese and Thai researchers speaking at a conference last week in Bangkok fear that the Dawei Special Industrial Zone planned for southern Burma will have severe negative impacts on thousands of local people as well as the environmental. The 4th International Conference on Human Rights and Human Development held on the 19th of August at Chulalongkorn University featured papers on…

A giant construction project managed by an Italian-Thai company has run into a number of major stumbling blocks in Karen State. Villagers say they have not been compensated for the loss of their land and the Karen National Union has stopped it building a highway to Thailand. The Italian-Thai Development Company has begun negotiations with the Karen National Union to…