Minorités en Birmanie

Student Film
Produced/Directed: Jim Petersen & Nick Scott
Music: Raul Emilio Reyes & Rudi Schmidt
Narration: Nang Seng

Filmed Secretly over a month and a half along the Thai/Burmese border; Kaw Thoo Lei: A Land Without Evil is the story of the longest running civil war in modern history and a young Karen refugee named Eh Htee.

Having escaped Burma and oppression by its ruthless military regime, Eh Htee is now faced with the challenge of growing up and studying in Mae La, a refugee camp in Thailand holding over 37,000 Karen and minority refugees. The film follows Eh Htees study for his final exams up until his return into Burma to find the family he hasn't seen for six years.

Kaw Thoo Lei: A Land Without Evil documents the story of the Karen through the eyes of Eh Htee and the characters the film meets as it takes the audience on a tour around an area that has become the backdrop for civil war and mass genocide. Eh Htee becomes a guide to the story of the Karen, a group of people that have been surrounded by war and suffering for over 60 years.

A reportage about Karen people and Reability, a non profit italian association.

ça cause l'italian !

On December 6, 2010 in Dooplaya District, Karen State, Burma over 200 people fled from the Burma army with nothing more than what they could carry on their backs.

Led to safety by Free Burma Rangers relief teams, they took up temporary residence at what has become a new internally displaced person site. Partners Relief and Development and Free Burma Rangers were able to provide them with supplies including over 2400 kilos of rice, mats, blankets, clothes and tarps within 5 days of their arrival.

For more than 60 years, Karen rebels have been fighting a civil war against the government of Myanmar.

As talk persists about repatriation of Burmese refugees living along Thailand’s western border, a refugee leader said he sees no possibility for the safe return of tens of thousands of refugees and displaced persons in the immediate future.

Saw Tun, leader of the Mae La refugee camp outside Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak province, said the current fighting in eastern Burma and the absence of political stability make any talk of refugees’ return to Burma premature....

Read More:
http://karennews.org/2011/06/repatriation-a-crime-to-go-home.html/

http://karennews.org/2011/06/repatriation-raises-many-questions-and-no-answers.html/

As a result of the Burmese Army’s continuing offensive, 470,000 civilians from Eastern Burma have become refugees within their own country.

Karen civilians in Ler Doh Township, Nyuang Linbin District have no freedom of movement and live in constant fear.

This is the story of Saw Ha Htoo, He makes a meagre living as a Farmer and longs for a peaceful life…

There are persistent rumours that a dam site is being prepared for construction in Southern Burma. The site, on the Tenasserim River, is causing concern among villagers in the area who claim that a Thai company has been surveying the area and plans to build a hydro-power dam on the river that means villagers will be evicted and their farms destroyed...

A lire cet article http://karennews.org/2011/07/villagers-claim-dam-will-ruin-lives.html/

Burma has now become one of the least developed countries in the world since the military came to power.
It is estimated that at least 2 million Burmese cannot afford to live in their own country and are now economic refugees in neighbouring Thailand...

There at more than 15,000 Burmese refugees living in Mae La Oon Refugee Camp in northern Thailand. Due to the rising global food prices, food rations have been decreased during the past year. 22 year old Hsa Gay Poh and 3 of his friends created this video during a 1-week 'Tell Your Own Story Project" in order to explain the situation. It is the first video they have made. It was recorded and edited on an iPad2.

To learn more about food supply for Burmese Refugees in Thailand, contact the Thai Burma Border Consortium at www.TBBC.org

To learn more about the video project, visit www.TellYourOwnStoryProject.org

Depuis quelques mois, un vent de liberté souffle sur la Birmanie. Mais cette liberté n’est pas partagée par tous. À commencer par les Kachins, une minorité ethnique implantée près de la frontière chinoise, qui fait l’objet d’une dure répression. Notre reporter Cyril Payen est allé à leur rencontre.


Par Cyril PAYEN
La guerre en pays Kachin est une guerre à huis clos. Cette région aux confins du Triangle d'Or, dans l'extrême nord de la Birmanie, est interdite aux étrangers. Pour s'y rendre, il faut donc traverser le sud de la Chine et franchir clandestinement la frontière avec le soutien des réseaux de la rébellion.

Là, on découvre Laiza. Une ville qui, il y encore un an, était l'un des carrefours du juteux commerce de jade. C’est aujourd'hui une capitale assiégée, où toute une population vit au rythme de la guerre. Les Kachins possèdent l'une des armées ethniques les plus puissantes de Birmanie.

Malgré le processus de démocratisation initié par le pouvoir birman, l’armée a lancé une vaste offensive il y a un an contre les Kachins, mettant subitement fin à dix-sept années de cessez-le-feu. Depuis, le conflit a fait des centaines de morts et des centaines de milliers de déplacés qui ne reçoivent aucune aide humanitaire extérieure.

source + vidéo ----> http://www.france24.com/fr/20120601-reporter-birmanie-Kachin-minorite-ethnique-Laiza

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize laureate and leader of the National League For Democracy, visited Mae La refugee camp on the Thai-Burma Border on Saturday 2 June.
Mae La refugee camp is home to 144,000 people from Burma, 97% are ethnic Karen.
Refugees lined the small laneways between the bamboo huts that Suu Kyi’s convoy passed through on its way to the camp’s hospital. Another 5000 refugees waited to hear her speak in the camp’s football ground.
Under tight security, Suu Kyi’s convoy arrived at the camp at 10.30am to meet with Thai authorities and camp leaders. In the meeting they discussed about the refugee situation and later visited the camp's hospital.

From a vast, squalid mountain of rubbish on the outskirts of Mae Sot, scavengers eke out a meagre living from the garbage. This is the story of Nay Htoo, a young boy who longs for a better life.

Kachins, from Burma's most northerly state, are fighting for autonomy within a federal union of Burma, the right to self-determination and to use their language, Jinghpo. The Kachin conflict, which flared up last year after a 17-year truce, has pushed up to 10,000 people to seek refuge across the border in China. In the rain-sodden N Hkawng Pa camp, families are wondering when the next supplies will arrive

It is early morning in Wa Su Ko village. It is quiet. Mist from the monsoon rains necklace the surrounding mountains. The small village is located east of the Burma town of Tavoy. A small boy dressed in a big, dirty white shirt and yellow shorts is carrying a traditional Karen bamboo fish basket trap. The boy is returning from the nearby river after checking his overnight fishnets. The boy has caught small fishes for his mother that will help feed the family.
The boy’s name is Saw Taw Eh Ah and he takes time to explain his situation.......
Read more: http://karennews.org/2012/07/schools-out-for-taw-eh-ah.html/

Ko Ko, now 13, is a child lost.
Alone, aged 10, he made the long bus trip from his home in Burma, crossing the border by foot into Thailand to find work.
This is his story...

http://karennews.org/

State of Place.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Burmese and ethnic minorities live precarious lives on the Thai/Burma border. They have fled persecution by Burma’s brutal military government, whose soldiers have burned their villages to ground, razed their crops and destroyed their livelihoods. The junta has crushed their communities through a relentless campaign of violence: murdering men, raping women and girls, and orphaning children. Survivors who make the long and dangerous journey through dense jungles, and across mountains and rivers, in their flight from oppression often illegally cross the border into Thailand.
On the porous, shambolic border of Thailand they scrape a living as cheap labor, in sweatshops and in rice fields, on building sites and in grimy brothels.
With no official status or "state of place", their existence is suffused with fear and hardship. At any time they may be captured and deported on the whim of the Thai authorities, and returned in cattle trucks to the evil regime in Burma they have fled.
Yet still they flock here to the Thai-Burmese border, striving to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.
As the Burmese junta adopts a new policy of 'openness' to the rest of the world and is in dialogue with political opponents, there has been no mention of accountability and responsibility for decades of abhorrent and abusive human rights violations.

Jack Picone

The following videos and photos were provided to AlertNet by an aid worker who visited two displacement camps along Myanmar-China border on Dec 26 - 28.

The Karen National Liberation Army has been fighting oppression by the Burmese government for more than 60 years.
It is the world’s longest running civil war. Thousands of Karen people have become soldiers for the KNLA in this bitter struggle for freedom.
This is the story of one such soldier, Kolo.

France 2, "Un Oeil sur la Planète", lundi 25 février 2013.
16 minutes. Un reportage de Séverine Bardon et Vincent Reynau