More than 30,000 Myanmar refugees rdesettle

June 25, Associated Press
More than 30,000 Myanmar refugees rdesettle

More than 30,000 Myanmar refugees living in camps in Thailand have been
sent to third countries in what the United Nations said Wednesday had
become the world's largest refugee resettlement operation.

Most of the refugees are Karen ethnic minority people who had been
sheltered in nine refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said 30,144 refugees have left
Thailand to start new lives abroad since the resettlement operation began
in January 2005. A UNHCR statement described it as the world's largest
refugee resettlement operation.
But the camps remain home to 123,500 refugees and asylum-seekers.

"Some of the refugees have been here for nearly two decades. Some were
born in refugee camps, grew up there and are now raising their own
families in refugee camps," UNHCR regional representative Raymond Hall
said Wednesday. "For them resettlement offers a way out of the camps and
the opportunity for a fresh start in life."

The United Nations and human rights groups say that over the years the
Myanmar military has burned villages, killed civilians and committed other
atrocities against the Karen, who have long fought for autonomy from the
central government.

Some activists have charged that Myanmar's ruling junta is waging a
genocidal campaign against the Karen and other rebellious ethnic groups.

Hall said prospects for the refugees to return to Myanmar or settle
permanently in Thailand were dim.

Nearly 21,500 of the resettled refugees have gone to the United States,
while Australia has received 3,400 and Canada 2,600.

Other resettlement countries are Britain, Finland, Ireland, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.

Myanmar refugees are now leaving Thailand for resettlement at an average
rate of more than 300 a week, the UNHCR said.

Refugees

June 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Cyclone refugees flee to Thailand – Htet Yarzar

Around 100 refugees from Bogalay, Labutta and surrounding villages have
fled to the Thai border town of Mae Sot after losing their homes and
livelihoods in the cyclone.

One of the refugees said he had lost his home and family when the cyclone
hit Burma last month.

"We were left with nothing to eat. All our cattle and buffalo were killed,
and all our rice grain was destroyed. That's why we decided to come out
here," he said.

"My house was blown away by the wind during the cyclone. My wife and I had
to swim underwater to save ourselves and our four-year-old son, who I was
carrying in my arms,” he went on.

“But soon my wife was carried away by the tide and I couldn't save her. My
son couldn't make it either – he died in my arms."

Manh Manh, the director of the Backpack Health Worker Team, said a group
had been formed to provide assistance to the new arrivals.

The Emergency Aid Team (Burma) is made up of a number of organisations
including the National Health and Education Committee, the Karen Youth
Organisation, the Burmese Women’s Union and Dr Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao
clinic.

"The group has so far provided 1000 baht and a month’s ration of rice to
each of the refugees and is currently holding discussions on how to keep
providing them assistance in the longer term," Manh Manh said.

Amnest Intl. Speaks Up For the Karen

June 4, Associated Press
Human rights group accuses Myanmar military of killing, torturing ethnic
Karen civilians

While Myanmar's ruling military fails its people suffering after a
devastating cyclone, it is committing crimes against humanity in a brutal
campaign against ethnic Karen civilians, an international human rights
group said Wednesday.

The London-based Amnesty International said the Karen in eastern Myanmar
are being killed, tortured and forced to work for the military while their
villages are burned and their crops destroyed.

An estimated 147,800 Karen peopleremain refugees in their own land because
the junta forcibly relocated them from their villages to camps, in efforts
to stamp out a decades-old rebellion by a segment of the Karen community
seeking autonomy from the central government.

"These violations constitute crimes against humanity ... involving a
widespread and systematic violation of international human rights and
humanitarian law," an Amnesty report said.

The government has repeatedly denied similar allegations in the past,
saying it was only engaged in security operations in Karen State aimed at
wiping out "terrorists."

Amnesty said the continuing campaign is the fourth turbulent episode in
the country's recent history.

The others include a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests last
September, a recent referendum on a constitution designed to perpetuate
military rule and "a humanitarian and human rights disaster in the wake of
Cyclone Nargis," it said.

The international community has sharply criticized the junta for barring
foreign aid workers from areas worst hit by the cyclone and itself
providing little help to survivors.

Amnesty said that unlike in earlier campaigns against the Karen National
Union, the key rebel group, the current one that began 2 1/2 years ago has
"civilians as the primary targets."

The group said it documented cases of more than 25 Karen civilians killed
by the military in Karen State in the two years since July 2005.

One farmer working in his field in Dweh Loh township was beaten and shot
by soldiers after he told them the location of a rebel camp. Another
farmer told of a civilian detainee being stabbed in the chest and then
dropped down a mountain slope "just like an animal."

"If they found us they would kill us, because for the Burmese army the
Karen and the Karen National Union are one," a 35-year-old villager in
Thandaung township told Amnesty. Myanmar is also known as Burma.

Arbitrary arrests, sudden disappearances, forced labor and portering for
the military continue to be widespread, Amnesty said. A woman from
Tantabin township said she and other porters were forced to act as human
minesweepers, and that some stepped on mines.

To purportedly separate civilians from the armed rebels, villagers have
been forcibly relocated from their homes into camps where men, women and
children are also forced to work for the military.

Often the villages they left behind were torched.

Ethnic organisations appeal for border aid

June 3, Mizzima News
Ethnic organisations appeal for border aid – Nan Kham Kaew

Shan, Karen and Karenni groups have appealed to the international
community to urgently grant much-needed funding for food provision to over
140,000 refugees living along the Burma-Thailand border.

The organisations said that the refugees, who have been living on the
border for up to 20 years, would face difficulties due to cuts in
assistance from the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, due to take effect
in August.

The annual budget for food provision in camps along the border has been
cut to US$ 6.8 million because of the decrease in the value of the US
dollar, and the hike in world food prices will exacerbate the shortfall.

The groups said the TBBC funding crisis has sparked new fears and
uncertainty among the refugees.

“Refugees are not allowed to go in and out of the camps freely to work
outside so they are reliant on food assistance to survive, such as the
rice, cooking oil, salt and chili given by TBBC,” said Aung Nge, a
spokesperson from a Karenni refugee camp.

“It will be very concerning for our refugees if the existing donors stop
or reduce their funding to TBBC.”

The TBBC has previously received financial assistance from the
Netherlands, Ireland, Poland, the USA, the UK, Canada and Spain.

According to the consortium, so far this year it has received funding from
the Netherlands, Ireland and Poland.

Aung Nge told DVB that refugees would continue to need outside support as
it is impossible for them to return home while the civil war continues and
the military regime remains in power.

“It would be best if we could go back to our homes and carry on with our
lives as we are not officially recognised as refugees by the Thai
government – we are only considered to be temporarily displaced persons,”
he said.

“Unfortunately, we can’t go home because our lives are not secure under
military rule.”