Karen News

Villagers in the east of Tavoy, southern Burma claim authorities have ignored their complaints against a Thai company and a Burma government joint venture mining operation that has been polluting their drinking water for a decade. A local villager from the affected area (who did not want to be named for his security) said. “I could no longer use water…

The Border Guard Force based in Myaing Gyi Ngu area has ordered nine villages in Hlaingbwe Township, Karen State to relocate to Myaing Gyi Ngu in mid-August, according sources in the area. Captain Pha Nwee and Saw Htun Hlaing, BGF advisory board members, issued the orders to relocate nine villages to the Myaing Gyi Ngu. The orders affected the following…

I can’t remember how many times the Karen National Union and other ethnic political organisations have been dismissed as losing, or being on the verge of defeat. In February 1950 General Ne Win boasted to international media that victory over the Karen ‘insurgents’ would be completed by May that year. The New York Times duly reported: “Defeat of rebels withdrawing…

Villagers who witnessed two civilians killed last week say Burma Army soldiers on a search and kill mission fired indiscriminately into a jungle hiding site killing the two civilians in Southern Burma, on August 21. A local Karen National Union source from Mergui-Tavoy District (Tenasserim Division) told Karen News that soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 555, led by Commander Zaw…

“I was asked to speak at the 61st Karen Martyrs’ Day commemoration ceremony. Karen people came together to pay homage to their men, women and in some cases children, who had given their lives for their people. Emotions were high. Nearly all Karen people have lost someone they have loved in the struggle against the Burma military regime. At one…

The heavy monsoon rains hammered the north of Thailand in early and middle August, breaking the banks of the Mae Sariang River in Mae Hong Song province and flooding two refugee camps and nearby villages. The floodwaters destroyed 400 houses in the camps, made 2,000 people homeless, destroyed 2,000 sacks of rice and hundreds of bags of other essential foodstuffs.…

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…

The Karen National Union issued a statement claiming more than 80 Border Guard Force soldiers had joined their forces in 1st and 7th Brigade in recent weeks. The BGF was a strategy used by the Burma government to unarm, reduce the number of soldiers in the armed ceasefire groups and bring them under the direct control of the Burma Army.…

Farmers in Pago (Pegu) area have lost their farmlands to floods caused by heavy rain that has devastated the area since mid July. It is estimated that over a thousand acres of farmlands affected by the floodwaters are unable to be worked on. The heavy rain caused the Pago River to overflow its banks with water levels reaching a record…

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a press statement released yesterday said he was encouraged by a meeting on 19 August between President Thein Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the banned national League for Democracy. The meeting between the Ms Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein was the second in recent weeks. It came about…