This report is based on information submitted to KHRG in September 2012 by a community member from Yangon Region trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. It describes events occurring in Pyay City, Bago Division, on August 3rd 2012 when City Development Committee staff and policemen carried out a nighttime city-sweep to remove homeless families. The authorities used a public rubbish truck to forcibly detain the families and then to transport them to Okshittpin Forest, which is halfway between Pyay City and the border with Rakhine State.

Since late 2011, I have made contacted
with Karen refugee communities in two geographic locations –one on the Thai-Burma border and one in Melbourne, Australia, which has provided me
opportunities to observe and participate in a number of activities
organized by those
displaced
residents. During
my
three-year engagement,
I have
come across
many Karen
refugees
who
have
enthusiastically taken part in the production as well as circulation and consumption of Karen pop
music, especially in the form

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher in May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Saw S---, a 17 year-old student who compared his experiences living in a Tatmadaw-controlled relocation site, and in his own village in a mixed-administration area under effective Tatmadaw control.

This report focuses . . . human rights violations against members of ethnic minority groups. These abuses, including extrajudicial executions; ill-treatment in the context of forced portering and labour; and intimidation during forcible relocations occur both in the context of counter-insurgency operations, and in areas where cease-fires hold. The State Law and Order Restoration Council SLORC, Myanmar's military government) continues to commit human rights violations in ethnic minority areas with complete impunity.

The Thai government's latest resolution to control the growing migrant worker population lacks
resolve.

The Thai government is promising a "total solution" to the country's migrant worker population. But if
history is any guide, the new resolution looks just like the latest rendition of previously flawed policies. For
years Burmese migrants have fueled border industries with cheap labor, but with a recession looming the
Thai government is once again trying to tackle a problem that has caused previous administrations to
stumble.

YANGON, 25 March 2012 (IRIN) - A UN convoy of urgently needed humanitarian assistance has reached conflict-affected areas of Myanmar’s northern Kachin State.

"This is a major step forward and follows sustained advocacy on the part of the UN with both the government and Kachin Independence Organization [KIO],” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Ashok Nigam told IRIN in Yangon.

The convoy (four trucks and two UN vehicles) arrived in the KIO-controlled township of Sadang from the government-controlled town of Myitkyina on 24 March.

The Handbook for Applying the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement was reviewed by UN agencies and NGOs at a meeting
at the UN in April 1999. It was decided that the UN would publish
and disseminate it together with the Manual on Field Practice in
Internal Displacement. The two volumes complement one another
and together provide a sound basis for undertaking protection and
assistance activities on behalf of internally displaced persons.
It is my hope that this Handbook will be widely used by field staff

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher during May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Saw Th---, a 37-year-old farmer and village elder, who described his experiences living in Tatmadaw-controlled relocation sites for over two years and in a village in a mixed-administration area, in which various Tatmadaw battalions and non-state armed groups operated.

A photojournalist put aside his camera to comfort a young Karen woman at the birth of her son in a jungle hideout...

"It was a makeshift village on the Thai side of the Moei River bordering Burma and Thailand, about 60 miles north of the Thai border town of Mae Sot. Around 100 Karen lived there, so-called “internally displaced persons,” refugees from the excesses committed by the Burmese army and the equally feared troops of the regime-backed Democratic Karen Buddhist Army...

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher in May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Naw Ka---, a 50-year-old villager who described the situation prior to and after her community was forcibly relocated by the Tatmadaw in 2007. Naw Ka--- cited the following human rights abuses in her testimony: forced labour, including sentry duty and portering; arrest and detention, including physical violence against detained villagers; forced relocation; and movement restrictions.

Executive Summary: "The people of Karenni State are living ghosts. Their daily survival is an
achievement; however, it also signifies their further descent into poverty and a
spiralling system of repression. Whilst this report documents the deteriorating
situation in Karenni State over the past six years, this is nothing new for the
ethnically diverse population of this geographically small area. They have been
living in a protracted conflict zone for over 50 years with no respite from decades