"Despite intense international focus on the human rights situation in Burma in 2008, forced displacement, as a result of conflict and human rights violations, was ongoing in the country. Throughout 2008, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military regime remained the main perpetrator in the majority of violations against civilians, particularly those against ethnic minority groups. Further, the SPDC remained unwilling to fulfil their obligations in relation to internally displaced persons (IDPs), flatly rejecting the assertion of the presence of a large number of IDPs in Burma. As a result, during 2008, the junta?s restrictions on humanitarian access continued to obstruct aid workers in Burma, particularly in conflict-affected areas....In addition to the more traditional conflict-induced and development-induced displacement discussed above, internal displacement in Burma is also caused by a combination of coercive and economic factors which lead to the impoverishment and forced migration of local populations. Such practices and policies employed by the SPDC and its allied ceasefire armies include land confiscation, the use of forced labour, arbitrary taxation and extortion, theft and looting, enforced agricultural quotas and procurement policies and restrictions on the freedom of movement.25 As such, the systematic and widespread violation of human rights is one of the leading causes of displacement in Burma today. While many reports published throughout 2008 continued to refer to ?civilians fleeing fighting”, the reality remains that conflict in Burma is typically of a low intensity and what civilians flee from more often than not are the human rights abuses that invariably accompany militarization and not overt fighting as is often implied. This is especially prevalent in areas of ethnic armed conflict. In such contexts, it is misleading to use the term ?fighting”, as this implies that the villagers are fleeing from counter-insurgency measures used by SPDC army units against armed resistance groups and that the conflict has spilled over unintentionally into civilian villages where the villagers are easily labelled as ?collateral damage”. Such assumptions could not be any further from the truth. For the most part, the only real ?fighting” that ever takes place is when SPDC army columns attack undefended civilian villages and opposition forces attempt to intervene to give the villagers a chance to escape. In all such attacks, the villagers cannot be considered ?collateral damage”, but rather the intended targets of them. Actual cases of SPDC army forces seeking out and engaging the resistance are rare..."