Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general

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Title: Ethnic Groups in Burma: Development, Democracy and Human Rights
Description: "...For a generation Burma languished behind closed doors. Then suddenly, in the summer of 1988, the doors burst open as angry protests were violently put down by the security forces and the chilling scenes made headline news around the world. 'In-depth pieces' reported on the political and civil repression that had been going on for years. But there was little examination then, and there has been little since, of the targeted repression which had been going on, and is continuing, against whole groups of people - Burma's ethnic minority groups. Burma is a country of proud cultural and historic traditions, and it is rich in natural resources. But nearly half a century of conflict has left Burma with a legacy of deep-rooted problems and weakened its ability to cope with a growing host of new ones: economic and social collapse; hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced people; environmental degradation; narcotics; and AIDS. These problems touch on the lives of all Burmese citizens. But it is members of ethnic minority groups who have suffered the most, and who have had even less say over their lives and the destiny of their peoples than the majority 'Burmans'. Many minorities claim that a policy of 'Burmanisation' is manifest. Amidst the upheavals, gross human rights abuses have been committed, including the conscription, over the years, of millions into compulsory labour duties, the ill-treatment or extrajudicial executions of ethnic minority villagers in war-zones, and the forcible relocation of entire communities..."
Creator/author: Martin Smith
Source/publisher: Anti-Slavery International
Date of publication: 1994-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.12 MB
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Title: Nyaunglebin / Toungoo Districts: Re-emergence of Irregular SPDC Army Soldiers and Karen Splinter Groups in Northern Karen State
Description: "The situation observed in Nyaunglebin and Toungoo Districts ... of northern Karen State has for many years been highly volatile. Even now, with the existence of the verbal ceasefire between the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the Karen National Union (KNU), forced labour and extortion is rife and thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) live in hiding in the forests. The ceasefire has done little to help the lot of the villagers living in these areas. The SPDC has taken advantage of their relative freedoms of movement and activity under the ceasefire agreement, leading to recent developments in these two districts which threaten to make life for the villagers living there even harder. ... Since its formation in September 1998, the Dam Byan Byaut Kya (‘Guerrilla Retaliation Units?) have terrorised the villagers of first Nyaunglebin and later also Toungoo District, seeking out and punishing any villagers suspected of having contact with the resistance..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2005-B6)
Date of publication: 2005-10-24
Date of entry/update: 2005-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS, LOCAL CONCEPTIONS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE POLITICS OF COMMUNICATION AMONG THE BURMESE OPPOSITION-IN-EXILE
Description: A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the College of Communication of Ohio University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Lisa B. Brooten March 2003... "...This study examines the impact of new information technologies (NITs) on the Burmese opposition movement-in-exile based in Thailand. The intent of the research is to determine whether NITs, primarily computers and the Internet, are helping to reduce, maintain, or intensify ethnic conflict within the movement. The study explores implications for political mobilization by examining what groups within the movement have access to which technologies, and how these groups understand and use global media and the discourses they produce. The research is a multi-sited ethnography conceived within the epistemological framework of standpoint theory, providing an empirically grounded exploration of the Burmese opposition movement in both its local and global contexts. It employs participant observation, in-depth interviews and discourse analysis to examine the impact of global communications at the local level. The work begins with an historical examination of the development of the modern state in Burma, which provides the context for exploring how militarization, gender and ethnicity have affected the development of nationalisms and conflict defined largely as "ethnic" in nature. This is followed by a discussion of how the history and current state of communications both inside and outside Burma constrain attitudes toward the possible uses of communications technologies and media among the opposition-in-exile. An overview of opposition media investigates the degree to which these media have opened a space for dialogue between groups. Interviews with opposition activists and refugees from Burma demonstrate how the Burmese regime's militaristic values are both perpetuated and countered within the opposition movement itself. The research finds that the introduction of NITs and patterns of foreign funding have reinforced existing hierarchies within the opposition movement. Finally, this study demonstrates how the "local" reinvents the "global" through the use of a global discourse of human rights which acts subtly but powerfully to shape social conventions within the movement. This results in an unstated hierarchy of human rights that perpetuates the inequitable gender and ethnic composition of the opposition political groups and the hierarchy of access and use of technologies among these groups."
Creator/author: Lisa B. Brooten
Source/publisher: Lisa B. Brooten (Ohio University thesis)
Date of publication: 2003-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.17 MB
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Title: Uncounted: political prisoners in burma?s ethnic areas
Description: Contents: 1. Executive Summary; 2. Introduction; 2a. Scope of report; 3. Background; 4. Definitions and Regulations; 4a. What is a political prisoner?; 4b. International and domestic regulations governing treatment; 4c. Conflict zones; 4d. Cease-fire and "Pacified Areas"; 4e. Support and perceived support for armed groups; 5. Politically Motivated Detentions in the Conflict Zones; 5a. Accusations; 5b. Places of detention; 5c. Were charges laid?; 6. Treatment of Detainees and Outcomes of Detention; 6a. Arbitrary detention; 6b. Torture; 6c. Extrajudicial killings; 6d. Disappearances; 7. Political Motivations Behind Detentions; 7a. Weakening/destruction of the People?s Movement; 7b. Power and absolute control; 7c. Eradication of armed forces; 7d. Other motivations; 7e. Secondary Effects; 8. Inclusion in Existing Reporting; 9. The Bigger Picture; 10. Conclusion; 11. Recommendations... 12. Appendixes: a. Summary of cases; b. Ethnic Armed and political groups; c. Relevant international laws and regulations; 13. Glossary; Map of Burma; Map of Locations of Detention... Executive Summary: In Mr Paulo Sergio Pinheiro?s report to the 59th Commission on Human Rights he stated, "Political arrests since July 2002 have followed the pattern of un-rule of law, including arbitrary arrest, prolonged incommunicado detention and interrogation by military intelligence personnel, extraction of confessions of guilt or of information, very often under duress or torture, followed by summary trials, sentencing and imprisonment." This report presents a sample of 46 cases that comply with the description in Pinheiro?s statement but remain unrecognised as political arrests. They are people mostly in Burma?s ethnic areas detained on accusations of supporting non-Burman ethnic nationality opposition groups. The accusations range from offering support through food and accommodation, to knowledge of opposition group movements, to actually being a member of a non-Burman ethnic nationality opposition group..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Issues", Altsean-Burma
Date of publication: 2003-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 798.54 KB
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Title: Expansion of the Guerrilla Retaliation Units and Food Shortages
Description: KHRG Information Update #2003-U1 June 16, 2003 "The situation faced by the villagers of Toungoo District (see Map 1) is worsening as more and more parts of the District are being brought under the control of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) through the increased militarisation of the region. At any one time there are no fewer than a dozen battalions active in the area. Widespread forced labour and extortion continue unabated as in previous years, with all battalions in the District being party to such practices. The imposition of constant forced labour and the extortion of money and food are among the military?s primary occupations in the area. The strategy of the military is not one of open confrontation with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) ? the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU) - but of targeting the civilian population as a means of cutting all lines of support and supply for the resistance movement. There has not been a major offensive in the District since the SPDC launched Operation Aung Tha Pyay in 1995-96; however since that time the Army has been restricting, harassing, and forcibly relocating hill villages to the point where people can no longer live in them. Many of the battalions launch sweeps through the hills in search of villagers hiding there in an effort to drive them out of the hills and into the areas controlled by the SPDC. Fortunately, the areas into which many of them have fled are both rugged and remote, making it difficult for the Army to find them. For those who are discovered, once relocated, they are then exploited as a ready source for portering and other forced labour..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of publication: 2003-06-16
Date of entry/update: 2003-07-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: The Hunting of the SLORC
Description: "The Chinese sage Sun Tsu says in The Art of War that "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting". In its conduct of the civil war SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council, the martial law administration ruling Burma), is currently using Low Intensity Conflict strategies which avoid major military confrontation, but are designed to force a "political" (read "politico-military") settlement on the ethnic opposition and divide them from the political opposition. These strategies are closely tied to SLORC's attempts to acquire constitutional "legitimacy" by means of a National Convention, and are aided by the pressure which Burma's neighbors are putting on the non-burman ethnic groups to sign cease-fires. But no lasting solution to the country's problems will be achieved until the three main actors -- the military, the political opposition and the ethnic opposition -- meet on a basis of equality and with a strong political will to achieve national reconciliation and the restoration of democracy. The politico-military devices described in this paper must therefore be seen as measures by SLORC to retain power, reverse international criticism, especially at the UN General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights, and attract foreign investment and development assistance..."
Creator/author: David Arnott
Source/publisher: Burma Peace Foundation
Date of publication: 1993-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 54.75 KB
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Title: The ICRC in Myanmar
Description: Extract from the ICRC Annual Report 2000: Help for detainees; Assistance for internally displaced people and vulnerable groups; Speading awareness of humanitarian law; Working with Myanmar REd Cross Spociety.
Source/publisher: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Date of publication: 2002-01-22
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: A strategy of subjugation: The Situation in Ler Mu Lah Township, Tenasserim Division
Description: "This report aims to provide an update on the situation in Tenasserim Division, Burma?s southernmost region. It is based primarily on interviews from Ler Mu Lah township in central Tenasserim Division, but also gives an overview of some background and developments in other parts of the Division. At the end of the report two maps are included: Map 1 showing the entire Division, and Map 2 showing the northern part of Tenasserim Division and the southern part of Karen State?s Dooplaya District. Many of the villages mentioned in the report and the interviews can be found on Map 1, while Map 2 includes some of the sites mentioned in relation to flows of refugees and their forced repatriation..." An update on the situation in central Tenasserim Division since the Burmese junta?s mass offensive to capture the area in 1997. Unable to gain complete control of the region because of the rugged jungle, harassment by resistance forces and the staunch non-cooperation of the villagers, the SPDC regime has gradually flooded the area with 36 Battalions which have forced many villages into relocation sites where the villagers are used as forced labour to push more military roads into remote areas. Thousands continue to hide in the forests despite being hunted and having their food supplies destroyed by SPDC patrols. They have little choice, though, because if they flee to the Thai border they encounter the Thai Army 9th Division, which continues to force refugees back into Burma at gunpoint." Additional keywords: Tanintharyi, Burman, Mon, Karen, Tayoyan, road building, free-fire zones, destruction of villages, resistance groups, extortions, internal displacement, refoulement, forced repatriation, killing, torture, shooting, restrictions on movement, beating to death, shortage of food, 9th Division (Thai Army). ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group Regional & Thematic Reports (KHRG #2001-04)
Date of publication: 2001-12-21
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: War, History and Identity (a review of Ashley South
Description: "A new book on the Mon ethnic group makes a much-needed contribution to the study of Mon history and sheds light on some of the complexities of Burma?s ethnic conflicts... Although ethnic conflict is a key issue in modern Burmese politics, few writers and researchers seem to have covered the topic in detail. Ashley South?s latest book, Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma: The Goldensheldrake (Routledge Curzon, 2002), is perhaps the first comprehensive study of Mon history and offers a timely contribution to the issue of Burma?s ongoing ethnic conflicts... South?s detailed and authoritative book is a must for all interested in Mon history and ethnic minority politics, and for those curious about the dynamics of the civil war and conflict that has raged in Burma for more than 50 years..."
Creator/author: Tom Kramer
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 11, No. 3
Date of publication: 2003-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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