Thadar Del Village in Phapun District Burnt Down by Army

Image by TZA via Flickr

scribd.com

Thadar Del village in Phapun district burnt down by army

Report by Nan Htoo San

Saturday, 24 July 2010 11:38 - Last Updated Saturday, 24 July 2010 21:59

The Burmese Army in an inhuman act burnt down Thadar Del village in Lu Thaw Township,
Phapun district. The village was set on fire by a column of the army at 2:30 pm on July 23
afternoon, a local said.

"Troops arrived at the Thadar Del village and set on fire the whole village at 2:30 pm. Before entering the village, they fired mortar shells into the village. Villagers escaped the shelling," a villager said.

Burmese Army soldiers and battalions under KNU Brigade 5 had running gun battles around the village area on July 23. After the clash, junta’s forces fired mortar shells into Thadar Del village. Because of the shelling, villagers fled from the village, Maj. Saw Kaleldo of KNU Brigade 5 said.

"We exchanged gunfire with junta’s forces yesterday. Then they fired mortar shells into Thadar
Del village. Villagers fled and nobody was left in the village. The army column came to the
village and burnt it down," Maj. Saw Kaledo told KIC.

The military column, which set fire to the village, is yet to be identified as to which battalion it
belongs to. Locals believe the column could belong to a battalion under the junta’s Military
Operation Command (MOC) 21 because these forces were patrolling the area.

Junta forces have patrolled the area in an unusually special military operation this month. A medical in-charge in this area said that burning down the village could be part of the special military operation.

Villagers are now heading for the jungle. It's learnt that the backpack health worker’s team (BPHWT) is preparing to provide medicines to the villagers fighting for survival in the jungle during the rainy season.

Thadar Del village is near the Burmese Army military camp and also on the patrol route of the
military column. The military column was in the village till last information received this evening.

Thadar Del village had about 50 houses with 500 people. Thadar Del village is located 40 miles north of Phapun town. The village is in the controlled area of KNU as well as in the patrol area of Burmese Army battalions under MOC 21.

Three Thadar Del villagers were killed by junta forces without reason in the paddy field near the
village in 2006.

EBO Funds to Target Migrants and IDPs

Image by m.gifford via Flickr

By SAW YAN NAING

Friday, December 4, 2009

---

The Euro-Burma Office (EBO) will focus funding on Burmese migrant workers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in ethnic areas where armed conflicts are active, according to the organization's Executive Director, Harn Yawnghwe.

The decision came after the meeting between the Brussels-based EBO and Burmese opposition, civil society groups and ethnic groups in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand from Dec. 1 to 2.

Yawnghwe said his organization wants to strengthen civil society groups assisting migrant workers and IDPs because such people are in need.

Any group wanting to assist migrant workers or IDPs in armed conflict zones in eastern Burma can submit proposals to the EU donors.

“Euro Burma want to set up committees to assist these groups and want to give funds to them. Those who are interested are asked to submit proposals,” said Dr. Thiha Maung, who attended the meeting and is the director of the National Health and Education Committee's (NHEC) health program.

It is likely that the EBO will secure some funding for exile-based aid groups as funding for cross-border activities is unstable and many Western government donors are not willingly providing further cross-border aid to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in exile, he added.

Founded in 1997, the Brussels-based EBO helps the Burmese democracy movement prepare for transition to democracy and keeps the international community informed about the situation in Burma.

Transparency and accountability of funding among border-based NGOs were also discussed at the meeting.

“International donor countries such as Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia are hoping for change in Burma in 2010 and want to focus aid directly inside Burma if the situation improves after 2010 election,” Thiha Maung said.

Harn Yawnghwe also said the EBO will provide financial supports to opposition parties or ethnic groups that will contest in the general elections in 2010 if they need support. This should not be misconstrued as EBO support for the Burmese regime 2008's constitution and planned 2010 elections, he said.

The aim of supporting those groups is to let them strive for democracy and ethnic rights within any political space that might be opened up by the Burmese regime, he added.

Observers said international donors indicated they want to focus humanitarian assistance directly inside Burma after they identified problems with cross-border aid.

However, observers said both internally-based aid and cross-border aid are needed since both reach different target populations, whether deep inside Burma or on the Thai-Burmese border.

Due to international donors reducing their funding and distancing themselves from cross-border aid projects, Mae Sot-based Mae Tao Clinic is concerned about funding, which has been cut and reduced.

The number of outpatients coming to the clinic has grown by about 20 percent per year, however.

The clinic, which treats Burmese migrants, refugees and Burmese people who cross the border for medical treat, is struggling with a “major funding crisis.” It faces a predicted shortfall of about US $750,000 in 2010, amounting to 25 percent of its operating budget, according to Dr Cynthia Maung writing on the clinic's Web site on Oct. 27.

Other border-based NGO aid groups are also struggling with the funding crisis, which has resulted in anomalous situations across the border. Schoolteachers in Mon State being provided for by funding from donors such as the NHEC, for example, have been working without salaries since June.

In Sri Lanka, anger over fate of ethnic Tamils held in camps - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

Many languishing in camps months after war's end

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA -- Six months after Sri Lanka's decades-old civil war ended with a final assault, about 200,000 people remain trapped in overcrowded government-run camps that were once safe havens for those fleeing the conflict.

Facing pressure from the Obama administration and the European Union, the Sri Lankan government last month launched a campaign to resettle tens of thousands of the minority Tamil detainees. But interviews in the country's war-ravaged north reveal that many civilians have merely been shuffled from the large camps to smaller transit ones and are being held against their will. Others have been released, only to be taken from their homes days later with no indication of where they have gone.

After the army defeated the Tamil rebels in May, top government officials paraded their success on the streets of Colombo, the capital, and the country's leaders made noble promises about ensuring national harmony. Now analysts say the real test of Sri Lanka's success in building a stable, post-conflict society lies in the fate of these scores of thousands of detainees.

Human rights groups say the government is lying about its resettlement efforts; authorities concede they are using the camps as a tool to uncover any remaining Tamil militants but deny they are deliberately stalling civilians' return home.

"We thought this war was over. But for Tamils, it's like going from the frying pan and into the fire," said Devander Kumar, whose brother was released, only to be taken away by police without explanation, one of 30 men in this seaside city who have disappeared soon after their homecoming. "Do we Tamils have to prove every second of the day that we are not terrorists?"

Tamil leaders worry that if civilians end up languishing in the camps indefinitely, the situation will only breed more resentments and risk spawning another generation of rebels. But the government says it needs more time to de-mine vast stretches of land in the north, as well as to repair infrastructure damaged by war. Authorities also say they continue to root out rebels who have blended into the civilian population.

"History will prove us right," said Basil Rajapaksa, who is leading the resettlement process. Rajapaksa is a U.S. citizen and an adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brother.

"We need the transit camps to weed out any underground rebels. The Tamil people have had a lot of hardship," he said. "So the last thing we want is to sacrifice their security for the sake of risking even one more sleeper cell or one more attack."

After a fierce military offensive in May, the government declared victory over the rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a well-funded militia that for 26 years fought for a separate homeland in northern Sri Lanka. The United States and other governments have labeled the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization. The group pioneered the use of suicide bombings and is said to have orchestrated bombings that killed a Sri Lankan president, six cabinet ministers and, in 1991, former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The U.S. State Department has called for an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by both sides during the war's final days. After the fighting stopped, the president commissioned patriotic pop songs extolling the virtues of a prosperous Sri Lanka united under one flag. In the new Sri Lanka, he said, the Sinhalese Buddhist majority would embrace its Tamil compatriots, who are mostly Hindu and make up 15 percent of the nation's 20 million people.

But there is growing frustration among Tamils over the camps, ringed by razor-wire fencing and patrolled by armed guards. There is also anger over the unexplained arrests of military-age men.

On a recent day at a camp set up inside a school here, soldiers held back a group of weeping women who rushed to the gates to greet family members they had not seen in more than a year because they had gotten separated during the fighting.

"The most worrying part of the transit camps is that nobody is allowed to even meet them inside, not even religious leaders or desperate relatives," said V. Kalaichelvan, head of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies in Trincomalee. "It's like a wound on the psyche of the already damaged Tamil community."

Mano Ganesan, a Tamil member of Parliament, has filed a lawsuit against the government to allow him and other Tamil leaders to visit both the transit and the relief camps.

"Tamils feel like inmates in their own country. . . . The irony is that the root causes of this conflict are being ignored yet again. That can only mean more Tigers in the future," Ganesan said.

On a 10-hour trip by car from the capital to Trincomalee, one encounters frequent checkpoints, abandoned villages and fields of weeds where once rice and cashew were grown. The transit camps appear overcrowded, with families spread out under trees.

"In the last few weeks, there has been a sincere effort to release more people from the detention camps," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect diplomatic efforts. "But we have so far been unable to track where exactly they are going. We are hoping to see evidence soon that they have actually been resettled."

Sri Lankan officials say the government has begun relocating nearly 42,000 people from the camps. The government also says it will dedicate a large amount of development money to the Tamil-dominated north.

But mistrust prevails. In one village, residents said police had taken away several of their neighbors, who they said were innocent. "One of the major problems with the camps is that the government is not telling people when or why they are arresting relatives," said Gordon Weiss, a spokesman for the United Nations in Sri Lanka. "In a country with a long history of disappearances, just snatching people creates an incredible atmosphere of fear. At the same time, the sinister nature of this war was that so many civilians were militarized, which legitimized them as targets by the other side. That is the tragedy of this conflict."

Eastern Burma: another Darfur? - Mizzima

by Mungpi

Friday, 30 October 2009 20:43

New Delhi (Mizzima) –At least 75,000 people became refugees and more than half a million were internally displaced in eastern Burma in the past year, following increased militarisation, which strongly indicates crime against humanity comparable to the situation in Darfur, said a consortium of humanitarian assistance groups. Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an alliance of 12 aid organizations, in a new report titled "Protracted Displacement and Militarisation in Eastern Burma" released on Thursday said, threat to human security has been mounting as Burma’s ruling junta continues militarisation in areas of ethnic minorities. “The process of militarisation has been on in Burma for decades, and this is the continuation of the tactics of controlling the population by moving the Burmese Army into these [ethnic] areas and taking control by moving people to relocation sites,” Sally Thompson, deputy director of the TBBC told Mizzima on Friday. Thompson said, militarisation in ethnic areas have been continuing and is likely to further increase in the run up to the junta’s elections in 2010, as the regime pressurises ethnic armed rebels to transform into the Border Guard Force (BGF). Since 1996, the TBBC said, over 3,500 villages, including 120 communities between August 2008 and July 2009, in eastern Burma have been destroyed and forcibly relocated. The highest rates of recent displacement were reported in northern Karen areas and southern Shan State with almost 60,000 Karen villagers hiding in the mountains of Kyaukgyi, Thandaung and Papun Townships, and a third of these civilians fleeing from artillery attacks or the threat of Burmese Army patrols during the past year, the TBBC said in a statement. In Shan state, a similar situation prevails with nearly 20,000 civilians from 30 Shan villages forcibly relocated by the Burmese Army in retaliation against Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), an ethnic Shan armed rebel group, in operations in Laikha, Mong Kung and Keh Si Townships. In late August, conflict between Burmese Army troops and Kokang rebels in Northern Shan State forced over 30,000 Burmese refugees to flee to China. Thompson said in July, a joint military campaign launched by the Burmese Army and its ally the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), against the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic Karen armed group, forced up to 4,000 people to flee to Thailand. “We expect to see this pattern continuing in the ethnic and border areas as we approach the [2010] elections,” Thompson said. The TBBC, which has been helping Burmese refugees since 1984, is currently providing food and shelter to more than 150,000 Burmese refugees living in nine camps along the Thai-Burma border. With increasing conflicts in Burma and the arrival of more refugees, Thompson said these refugees will have no place to return until Burma has national reconciliation through dialogue. Thompson added that the junta’s planned elections is unlikely to bring stability as it will have no credibility without the release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi and allow their participation. But until there is any significant political change that can ensure the return of refugees and internally displaced people, the international community, particularly neighbouring Thailand should continue providing assistance including shelter and food. The TBBC, which currently is supported by 15 donor countries, also urged the international community to increase their support as with the number of refugees arriving on the Thai-Burma border, and increasing prices, it is facing difficulties in consistently supporting the refugees.

Concern over forced relocation of 60 Kachin villages - Mizzima

by Usa Pichai

Wednesday, 28 October 2009 12:48

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Over 60 villages are in the process of forced relocation from two dam sites in Burma’s northern Kachin State, said the latest report released on Tuesday by a Kachin Environmental group. The Kachin Development Networking Group, (KDNG) a network of civil society groups and development organizations in Kachin State, Burma released a report “Resisting the Flood” on Tuesday. It has monitored developments and the likely impact of the 2,000-megawatt Chibwe Dam on the N’Mai River, work on which has already begun, and the Irrawaddy Myitsone Dam. “Over 60 villages with approximately 15,000 people are in the process of being forcibly relocated without informed consent. This dislocation will cause many secondary social problems including conflicts over jobs and land, and an increase in migration and trafficking to neighbouring countries. Women will be particularly impacted,” the report said. The group also sent an open letter on Tuesday to China Power Investment urging it to immediately stop construction of the Myitsone Dam and other dams in Kachin State “to avoid being complicit in multiple serious human rights abuses associated with the project”. According to a statement from the group, on October 9, residents of Tanghpre village at the planned Myitsone dam site on the confluence at the source of the Irrawaddy handed an open letter directly to Burma’s Northern military commander, objecting to the dam. In August military authorities informed residents that they had less than two months to begin moving out. “We cannot bring our farms with us when we move” said a representative of the Tanghpre Village Housewives Group in a meeting with the commander on October 10. “We do not want to move and we appeal to you to bring our concerns to Naypyidaw for consideration,” the statement noted. On the same day, 300 residents assembled at the confluence for a public prayer ceremony to protect the rivers. Several historical churches will be submerged by the Myitsone Dam project, which will also flood forests in one of the world’s “hottest hotspots” of biodiversity, impact downstream riverine ecosystems that are home to the endangered Irrawaddy Dolphin and affect the delta region, which provides nearly 60 per cent of Burma’s rice. The KDNG noted in the report that the project has no environmental, social or health impact assessments, which have been publicly disclosed, locally-affected residents have not been consulted about the project; their attempts to voice concerns have been ignored. The report also noted that it is well-documented that development projects in Burma are accompanied by increased militarization and human rights abuses, including forced labour and rape. The group mentioned that the location of the dams are insecure because it is in a ceasefire area that is extremely unstable; an outbreak of fighting would put local people, the project, and Chinese personnel at risk, and it faces risks from earthquake because it is located a mere 100 kilometers from a major fault line in an earthquake-prone area. China Power Investment is planning a series of seven dams on the Irrawaddy and its two main tributaries. The majority of the electricity from all the dams will be transmitted to China. On June 21 2009, Burma’s Ambassador to China Thein Lwin and the President of China Power Investment Corporation Mr. Lu Qizhou signed the Memorandum of Agreement between Burma’s Department of Hydropower Implementation and CPI for “the Development, Operation and Transfer of Hydropower Projects in the Maykha, Malikha and Upstream Ayeyawady-Myitsone River Basins.”

IRIN - Harrowing tales of flight from Waziristan

PESHAWAR, 22 October 2009 (IRIN) - Many internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled South Waziristan tell harrowing tales of rockets hitting roads or houses as they tried to leave areas where Taliban militants are fighting government forces.

“I watched my cousin’s home burst into flames after being hit by a bomb. Fortunately he had taken his family away last week,” said Miran Gul, an IDP from a village near Makine in South Waziristan.

Miran Gul said he had to “walk for over 12 hours” to reach the town of Razmak in North Waziristan, from where he got transport to Peshawar.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its latest situation report said: “The IDPs report hardships on their way out of the conflict area as all main roads are blocked and tightly controlled… there is a curfew imposed in all conflict-affected parts of South Waziristan.”

Dawn newspaper reported that 12 members of a family were killed after being hit by a bomb while trying to flee South Waziristan.

Access to the IDPs is a continuing problem, but help is being provided.

Billi Bierling, a spokesperson for OCHA in Pakistan, told IRIN: “Even though access is a problem due to the difficult security situation in the area, the UN agencies and their implementing partners are providing much-needed help to the IDPs. So far the IDPs are staying mainly with host families or in rented accommodation. However, the IDPs who are registered are receiving food and non-food items, such as bedding, kitchen utensils, towels, soap, etc.”

No IDP camps - yet

Citing the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government’s Social Welfare Department, OCHA’s situation report said 106,800 IDPs were now registered in neighbouring Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts in NWFP, with 85,000 in Dera Ismail Khan.

Some 26,300 IDPs have arrived in the two districts since 13 October, whilst 80,500 came to the area between May and August 2009, it said.

“At present, the IDPs are accommodated with host families and no camps are set up, neither in Dera Ismail Khan nor Tank districts. However, the authorities might consider camps in the future, as more civilians leave the areas of conflict,” OCHA said.

Bierling said the aid community was expecting the current number of IDPs “to increase to 250,000 if military operations continue”.

Meanwhile, NWFP Relief Commissioner Shakeel Qadar Khan told IRIN: “Provision has been made for the IDPs to get Rs 5,000 [US$60] a month.”

Winter approaching

One of the main concerns of IDPs is how long they may be displaced for. “Winter is approaching fast. It will be hard to move back if roads close due to snow,” said Miran Gul. He is also concerned about what could become of their homes if “no one [is there] to clear away the snow on roofs”.

The fighting is reported by people who have come out of the area as being “fierce”, and people are concerned about relatives still trapped there.

“My brother is still based near Wana [principal town of Waziristan] with our parents, who refused to leave the family home. Contact is difficult, because telephone services are bad, and I worry constantly about them,” said Azam Khan, now in Peshawar.

Envoy's Advice on Darfur Draws Criticism

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 6, 2009

NEW YORK, Aug. 5 -- The Obama administration's Sudan envoy is facing growing resistance to a suggestion he made recently to civilians displaced from Darfur that they should start planning to go back to their villages. Darfurian civilians and U.N. relief agencies say it is still too dangerous to return to the region where a six-year-long conflict has led to the deaths of more than 300,000 people.

In the latest sign of tension, Sheik al-Tahir, a leader at Kalma, one of Darfur's largest camps for displaced people, said Tuesday that homeless civilians would protest retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration's strategy for resolving the conflict and his assertion in June that genocide in Darfur has ended. Tahir and other camp leaders have accused Gration of taking the side of the Sudanese government, which has been seeking to dismantle the camps.

Gration denied this week that he is seeking to send Darfur's displaced into harm's way, saying he was simply urging Darfurians and the United Nations to begin preparations for return.

"I am not pushing for anybody to go back right now, because I don't think the situation is secure enough," he said in an interview Tuesday. "I don't want to get into a position where people are trying to return because there is peace and some modicum of security, and then we haven't done the planning to ensure they can move back."

The latest round of violence in Darfur began in February 2003, when two rebel movements took up arms against the Islamic government in Khartoum. In response, the government, backed by local Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed, launched a bloody counterinsurgency operation that the Bush and Obama administrations have termed genocidal.

A recent State Department analysis showed that more than 3,300 villages have been severely damaged or destroyed in the violence. Most of the survivors have either fled to neighboring Chad or crammed into a network of camps in Darfur.

Gration's effort to prod the displaced communities into preparing for a return has been complicated by the loyalty many still profess to an exiled rebel leader, Abdul Wahid al-Nur, who lives in Paris and has refused for years to participate in talks with the Khartoum government.

Gration met recently with leaders of the Kalma camp, which houses more than 100,000 displaced Darfurians. He told them that the violence was easing in Darfur and that he was confident he could negotiate a political settlement by the end of the year, according to notes of the encounter by a U.N. relief coordination team in Darfur known as the Inter-Agency Management Group.

Gration also urged camp leaders to select envoys to represent their interests at ongoing U.S.-backed talks in Doha, Qatar, suggesting that Wahid's boycott would deny them a voice in the process. Your "future is in his hands, and his hands are in Paris," Gration said, according to the briefing notes. "You need someone who is working for you."

Some of the camp leaders, according to the account, said they were unhappy with Gration's assertion that genocide was no longer occurring in Darfur, insisting that government forces and allied militias continue to commit atrocities against residents of Kalma. They said that they would never return to their villages unless the Janjaweed were disarmed.

The U.N. interagency group also expressed concern about Gration's assurance that "peace will prevail in Darfur by the end of the year, and returns have to happen," and described the conditions in Darfur as too dangerous to ensure civilians' safe return. It voiced concern that Gration was linking the fate of Darfurian civilians to political goals.

The U.N. group concluded that there are not enough funds or resources to deliver assistance to the villages people had fled or even to oversee the administrative work of ensuring that those who return are doing so voluntarily.

"In addition," the briefing note states, "it is important to keep in mind that a large part of the IDPS [internally displaced people] might opt for staying in their new settlements over a return to their place of origin."