Reports By Year > 2006

Below are a set of links to all reports published by KHRG matching your search criteria and compiled from information received from KHRG's field researchers. If you wish to search for a particular report, please use our main search page.

Our News Bulletins are available via email, subscribe to the KHRG newsletter list by entering your email address on the KHRG homepage. Topics covered in News Bulletins will generally be documented in more detail in future KHRG reports.

There were 35 reports in 2006. These are listed below.

REPORT TITLE	DATE
Forced Labour, Extortion, and Festivities: The SPDC and DKBA burden on villagers in Pa'an District  [Field report]	Dec 22nd, 2006
In Pa'an District of central Karen State, Burmese authorities impose strict controls on the movements and activities of all villagers while also taking their land, money and livestock, using them as forced labour, and forcing them to join state paramilitary organisations. Muslims are being forcibly evicted from their villages into relocation camps to make way for new SPDC army camps. Simultaneously the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) acts on behalf of the SPDC in many areas, extending the regime's control in return for impunity to exploit and extort from the civilian population. The double burden of forced labour, extortion, restrictions and forced conscription imposed by two sets of authorities takes a heavy toll on the villagers, yet in a cruel irony they are also being forced to give money and unpaid child labour to prepare New Year festivities where the DKBA plays host to foreigners and Rangoon movie stars.
Oppression by proxy in Thaton District  [Field report]	Dec 21st, 2006
With the onset of the cold season the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) has been able to push ahead with military attacks against villages and displaced communities in the northern districts of Karen State. In Thaton District and other areas further south, however, the military is more firmly in control, fewer displaced communities are able to remain in hiding, and SPDC rule is facilitated by the presence of its ally the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). By increasingly relying on DKBA forces to administer Thaton, the SPDC has been able to free up soldiers and resources which can then be deployed elsewhere. To force the civilian population into submission, the DKBA has scoured villages throughout Thaton - detaining, interrogating and torturing villagers and conscripting them to serve as army porters. Commensurate with its increased control over the civilian population, DKBA soldiers have subjected villagers to regular extortion, arbitrary and excessive 'taxation', forced labour, land confiscation and restrictions on movement, trade and education which all serve to support ongoing military rule in Thaton. By systematising control over local villagers, the SPDC and DKBA have been able to implement 'development' projects that financially benefit and further entrench the military hierarchy. Amongst such initiatives, the construction in Thaton District of the United Nations-supported Asian Highway, connecting Burma with neighbouring countries, has involved uncompensated land confiscation and forced labour.
Dignity in the Shadow of Oppression: The abuse and agency of Karen women under militarisation  [Regional or Thematic report]	Nov 22nd, 2006
While Burma’s successive regimes have for decades pursued aggressive military operations to take control of Karen areas, there has been far too little international attention paid to the atrocities committed against villagers living therein. The increased media coverage and political interest of recent years has tended towards oversimplified accounts where civilians are depicted as passive victims suffering from the unintended side-effects of the military junta’s ‘anti-insurgency’ campaigns. In this light, external representations of Karen women have fallen back on stereotypes of women in armed conflict which depict nothing but their helplessness and vulnerability. Such portrayals neglect the voices of these women and deny them access to the many fora where their lives are discussed and debated. As a consequence, foreign attempts to engage with the situation of Karen women risk adopting strategies completely at odds with the desires of the very individuals they are seeking to help. Alternatively, recognition of Karen women living under militarisation as not only victims of abuse, but also agents of change, allows for the inclusion of their voices in external decision making fora and the development of more appropriate policies of support. This perspective requires that Karen women not be seen as passive recipients of abuse. Rather, these women are actively resisting the militarisation of their homelands and the abuses committed against them. By implementing their own strategies to avoid and mitigate abuse, Karen women are fighting to keep their dignity despite the systematic military oppression under which they live. These responses are in turn serving to challenge and change traditional gender roles within Karen society. By recognising the agency of these women, their voices may find receptive ears willing to support the strategies they already employ in resisting maltreatment and exploitation. The aim of this report is therefore not solely to increase awareness of the abuse of women in Karen areas but, more importantly, to call attention to their right to speak for themselves and determine how best to respond to such abuse.
SPDC forces attack rice harvest to force villagers into 'new towns'  [News Bulletin]	Nov 20th, 2006
It is now rice harvest season, and following the end of the monsoon rains the SPDC has sent more troops into northern Karen areas to force all villagers out of the hills. Having already shelled and burned the villages, their present tactic is to patrol the rice fields to keep the villagers away from harvesting their crops so that the rice will be destroyed, while in some cases their troops trample or uproot the crop themselves. Knowing that this crop is essential to the continued survival of villagers in the region, the SPDC hopes to force them out of the area by destroying it and has ordered its battalions to establish several 'new towns' along the roads where villagers are to be interned, controlled, and exploited for forced labour. Most villagers, however, are more likely to flee toward Thailand than submit to life in these internment camps.
One Year On: Continuing abuses in Toungoo District  [Regional or Thematic report]	Nov 17th, 2006
The SPDC offensive against civilian villagers in northern Karen State has continued unabated through the rainy season as SPDC Army soldiers attempt to consolidate their control over the region and depopulate all areas that lie beyond their direct control. Now that the rainy season is drawing to a close and the rice harvest has begun, the SPDC is laying preparations to once again intensify their attacks against the villagers. The district has been flooded with thousands more soldiers, and many new SPDC Army camps have been built and are now fully stocked with food and weapons. There are presently over 3,700 SPDC Army soldiers in Toungoo District forcibly relocating entire villages, destroying food supplies, and shooting anyone who refuses to comply with their demands. Literally thousands of internally displaced persons are living in hiding in the forest where they are hunted and their food supplies are deliberately destroyed by the soldiers. The tactics being employed by the soldiers are calculated to intentionally bring about the demise of the Karen hiding in the forest, and while they continue to resist these abuses, the villagers are rapidly running out of options as the situation continues to deteriorate.
Papun Update: SPDC attacks on villages continue  [Field report]	Oct 6th, 2006
As the rainy season nears its end, SPDC operations in northern Papun District persist. Civilians living in Lu Thaw township in northern Papun District who fled from military attacks on their villages earlier in the current offensive have been joined by those more recently displaced. So long as military forces remain active in the area of their abandoned homes, these villagers are unable to return to tend their crops, collect possessions and reclaim their land. In these situations of displacement, villagers confront daily food shortages, unhygienic conditions and the constant threat of detection by military forces. With the establishment of new army camps, the likely construction of more roads and a possible large-scale relocation site at Pwah Ghaw, the ability of displaced villagers to maintain their livelihood, evade military forces and retain some measure of control over their land is becoming highly restricted. Nevertheless, the threat of regular abuse and ceaseless demands in military-controlled areas prompt villagers living in hiding to continue to evade capture and military subjugation.
Hunger Wielded as a Weapon in Thaton District  [News Bulletin]	Sep 20th, 2006
In March and April 2006, SPDC and DKBA units deliberately targeted and destroyed dozens of hill fields belonging to villagers from three villages in Bilin township of Thaton District in the southwest of Karen State. Burning the fields too early in the growing cycle severely restricts the proportion of the field that can be planted, which in turn limits the size of the harvest. Both the SPDC and the DKBA know this and the burning of these fields represents a systematic campaign of crop destruction intended to obstruct the villagers' access to food and in effect starve them out of the hills. The villagers already suffer from food shortages, and this latest move by the military will only aggravate the situation. The next paddy harvest due in November will be severely reduced as a result, and these villagers will face even more serious food shortages for the coming year.
SPDC Attacks on Villages in Nyaunglebin and Papun Districts and the Civilian Response  [Field report]	Sep 11th, 2006
Despite the difficulty of sustaining regular military operations under rainy season conditions, the SPDC has continued to press its soldiers to continue the northern Karen State offensive that began in November 2005. Rather than a campaign against armed opposition groups, however, the SPDC has been engaged in hostilities against rural villagers living outside of direct military control in areas of Toungoo, Nyaunglebin and Papun Districts. Soldiers have bombarded villages with high-powered mortars, razed homes and food stores, burned crops and shot fleeing civilians on sight. By attacking in this manner, the SPDC has attempted to force all villagers into military-controlled villages and relocation sites in the plains, along car roads and near army bases. At these sites the military can more easily exploit civilians for the food, labour, finances and supplies needed to support individual military personnel and the wider structures of militarisation. However, the SPDC has so far been unsuccessful in bringing all civilians under their control as villagers have consistently fled to evade advancing troops. In such situations of displacement, villagers have employed their own strategies to resist the militarisation of their lives and retain their dignity in the face of systematic human rights abuses. This report presents information on SPDC military attacks against villages in Nyaunglebin and Papun Districts of northern Karen State as well as the responses and resistance strategies of local villagers during the period of March to June 2006.
Setting Up the Systems of Repression: The progressive regimentation of civilian life in Dooplaya District  [Regional or Thematic report]	Sep 7th, 2006
While attention has been focused on the SPDC’s violent attacks against villages in northern Karen State, the regime has been implementing a much more systematic campaign of repression in southern Karen State. The SPDC militarily occupied this region nine years ago, and has since been creating its model of society – through extending roads and military control to every corner of the region, establishing and training local controlling authorities, forcing villagers to join SPDC organisations, forced registration of all people and resources, forced double-cropping and other agricultural programmes without the required support, movement restrictions and crippling taxation on trade and mobility, and land reallocation to those complicit with the regime. All of these are part of the process of setting up local control mechanisms to implement the SPDC’s hierarchical vision of society, in which the main purpose of the civilian population is to serve the military and support those in power. In return, local people get nothing except additional work, and violent punishment including torture and killings whenever they are perceived to be uncooperative or disrespectful. Little or nothing is provided for their education or health, while their crops and possessions are systematically looted to keep them poor. Drawing on the SPDC’s own order documents and over a hundred interviews with villagers in the region, this report finds that people in Dooplaya feel worse off than ever before, and that their suffering is not caused by conflict or lack of foreign aid, but by SPDC repression.
Less than Human: Convict Porters in the 2005 - 2006 Northern Karen State Offensive  [Regional or Thematic report]	Aug 22nd, 2006
To support its military attacks on hill villages throughout northern Karen State since November 2005, Burma’s State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) military junta has brought several thousand convicts from prisons across Burma to carry ammunition and supplies and to act as human minesweepers. Many of these men are innocent of any crime, but were imprisoned because they were too poor to bribe police and judges who use their positions to extort money. The corruption continues with their jailers, who send them to the Army as porters if they are unable to pay. The SPDC relies increasingly on convict porters for its major military operations, both as a large-scale and accessible workforce to augment the forced labour of villagers and to legitimise its use of forced labour in the eyes of the international community. However, the use of convict porters in frontline operations is anything but legitimate: treated as property of the soldiers, worked to the point of exhaustion or death, beaten, tortured or murdered whenever they can no longer carry loads, underfed and given no treatment when sick or wounded, their treatment flagrantly violates Burma’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the ILO Forced Labour Convention. Right now SPDC troops in northern Karen State are leaving a trail of porters’ bodies behind them, while hundreds are attempting escape. This report is based on KHRG’s interviews with some of those who have escaped, whose stories reveal a system of endemic corruption and horrific brutality. Yet despite the presence of thousands of convict porters SPDC forces continue to recruit villagers for forced labour whenever possible, indicating that Burma’s ever-expanding Army is using convict labour as a supplement rather than an alternative to the forced labour of villagers.
Toungoo District: The civilian response to human rights violations  [Field report]	Aug 15th, 2006
Attacks on villages in Toungoo and other northern Karen districts by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) since late 2005 have led to extensive displacement and some international attention, but little of this has focused on the continuing lives of the villagers involved. In this report KHRG's Karen researchers in the field describe how these attacks have been affecting local people, and how these people have responded. The SPDC's forced relocation, village destruction, shoot-on-sight orders and blockades on the movement of food and medicines have killed many and created pervasive suffering, but the villagers' continued refusal to submit to SPDC authority has caused the military to fail in its objective of bringing the entire civilian population under direct control. This is a struggle which SPDC forces cannot win, but they may never stop trying.
SPDC military begins pincer movement, adds new camps in Papun district  [News Bulletin]	Aug 9th, 2006
Two large multi-battalion columns operating under SPDC Military Operations Command #15 have begun a pincer movement to force all villagers out of the hills west of the Yunzalin River (Bway Loh Kloh) in northern Papun district of Karen State. Tactical Operations Command #2 has pushed north from Naw Yo Hta and has now set up a new base at Baw Kaw Plaw, just north of Kay Pu; while Tactical Operations Command #3 has approached the same area from the north, coming down from Bu Sah Kee and establishing themselves at a new camp at Si Day. This pincer movement and the establishment of these two new Army camps ensure that the hill villagers in the northern tip of Papun district will remain displaced for the coming months and will lose their entire rice harvest, creating serious concerns about their food security and survival over the coming year.
KHRG's 300th Report: Cause for Celebration?  [KHRG Commentary]	Aug 1st, 2006
On July 29th the Karen Human Rights Group released our 300th report. Though this is a milestone for the organisation, we see this as cause for reflection rather than celebration, on how the situation and our work have evolved in the 14 years since our formation in 1992.
Forced Labour, Extortion and Abuses in Papun District  [Field report]	Jul 29th, 2006
As the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) continues its Karen State offensive into the rainy season, villagers living in Lu Thaw township in northern Papun District have come under increasing pressure as a consequence of the military encroachment onto their land. KHRG field researchers have documented attacks on villages, destruction of crops and targeted killings in the area. Villagers residing in Dweh Loh and Bu Tho townships further south, outside the area of the systematic offensive against villages, confront a different pattern of abuse involving constant demands for labour, money, food and building supplies. These villagers are confronted with a situation of heightened insecurity as a consequence of the persistent demands of SPDC and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) forces.
Forced Relocation, Restrictions and Abuses in Nyaunglebin District  [Field report]	Jul 10th, 2006
This report presents information on ongoing abuses in Nyaunglebin (Kler Lweh Htoo) District, Karen State committed by SPDC forces during the period of March to May 2006. Attacks on hill villagers have continued as SPDC units seek to depopulate the hills and force all villagers to relocate to military-controlled villages in the plains and along roadways. However, those villagers living in SPDC-controlled areas are subject as well to continued abuses including arbitrary arrest and detention, extortion, restricted movement and forced labour.
The Ongoing Oppression of Thaton District: Forced Labour, Extortion, and Food Insecurity  [Field report]	Jul 7th, 2006
Thaton District suffers some of the heaviest SPDC control of all seven of the Karen districts. Most of the villagers in this region already live under direct SPDC control. In other districts further north where their control is not so extensive, the SPDC is mounting a massive offensive against civilian villagers with the intent of making the situation in those areas more closely resemble that which is already present in Thaton District. Villagers in Thaton District are systematically exploited for forced labour and extortion by all of the numerous armed groups operating in the district. The SPDC and the DKBA stand out as the worst offenders: every year villagers are ordered to serve as porters for the military, repair the roads which now cross the district, and supply vast quantities of bamboo and roofing thatch to the SPDC and the DKBA which is then sold for profit, none of which ever filters back down to the villagers. The villagers are struggling under the relentless demands. Many are no longer able to acquire enough to eat. Yet even under such extreme totalitarian control, troops continue to be moved into the district, further tightening the noose around the necks of the villagers.
New SPDC military moves force more villagers to flee  [News Bulletin]	Jul 4th, 2006
The SPDC is continuing its attacks on Karen hill villages throughout northern Karen State, trying to entirely depopulate the northern hills. SPDC columns have regrouped and resupplied and are now launching attacks against undefended villages in hill regions not previously reached by the offensive. Unlike attacks thus far, several Military Operations Commands and a Light Infantry Division are now coordinating their attacks across several districts. If successful, this offensive threatens to completely annihilate the unique way of life and culture of the hill Karen, a distinct group within the Karen population, by either forcing them into relocation sites where they cannot practice their culture and livelihood, or simply killing them off and destroying all remnants of their existence.
Convict Porters: Falsely charged, brutally abused, and unable to go home  [News Bulletin]	Jun 22nd, 2006
As the SPDC offensive in northern Karen regions continues, dozens of forced labour porters are escaping from SPDC columns every week. Most of them are convicts taken from prisons far away in northern Burma. They tell of imprisonment on bogus charges, constant extortion by authorities, extreme brutality at the hands of the Army and the murder of their fellow porters. The lucky few who escape end up in the care of the Karen National Union, who must feed them and care for their wounds with no outside aid. Worse yet, they are trapped far from home: the road home for them is blocked by the Burmese and Thai armies, and almost no one in the outside world is willing to give help or advocate for 'convicts' regardless of how unjustly they were imprisoned or how brutally they have been treated.
Without Respite: Renewed Attacks on Villages and Internal Displacement in Toungoo District  [Regional or Thematic report]	Jun 13th, 2006
With the annual monsoon rains now falling over Karen State, the SPDC’s military offensive against civilian villagers in northern Karen State would normally be drawing to a close. However, quite the opposite is happening. The resumption of SPDC Army attacks on villages and the increased patrols in Toungoo District shows that the offensive is far from over. Thousands more landmines have been reportedly deployed across Toungoo District to isolate certain parts of the district and restrict villagers’ movements. An analysis of SPDC Army troop movements and tactics suggests that the offensive is now set to expand eastward across the Day Loh River where it can be expected that SPDC units will soon commence shelling and destroying villages. In addition to this, the situation in the southeast of the district has become dire as the villagers are now caught between two advancing columns and have nowhere left to flee. It is likely that dozens more villages will be destroyed and thousands more villagers will be displaced in the coming months.
Offensive columns shell and burn villages, round up villagers in northern Papun and Toungoo districts  [News Bulletin]	Jun 7th, 2006
Since KHRG's last bulletin on June 1, SPDC troops in northern Papun district continue to escalate their attacks, shooting villagers, burning villages and destroying ricefields. Undefended villages in far northern Papun district are now being shelled with powerful 120mm mortars. Three battalions from Toungoo district have rounded up hundreds of villagers as porters and are detaining their families in schools in case they're needed; this column is now heading south with its porters, apparently intending to trap displaced villagers in a pincer between themselves and the troops coming north from Papun district. A similar trapping movement is being performed along the Bilin river, as 8 battalions come from two directions to wipe out every village in their path. Up to 4,000 villagers in Papun district's far north have been displaced in the past week, and 1,500 to 2,000 more along the Bilin River.
SPDC troops commence full offensive in Papun district  [News Bulletin]	Jun 1st, 2006
Two weeks ago (in Bulletin 2006-B4) KHRG noted the arrival of new SPDC battalions in Papun district of northeastern Karen State and warned that the SPDC offensive against Karen villagers was about to expand into this district. These attacks have now begun. Over the past week, three SPDC columns from three separate bases have fanned out over the northern half of the district and have begun burning villages and food supplies and hunting villagers. More troops are expected to arrive soon to form a fourth column. The columns are avoiding Karen resistance forces to attack civilian villagers. Villagers are already fleeing, carrying what they can through the rains, and several thousand could be displaced over the next week. Now more than ever, decisive international action is urgently required.
Toungoo District: Update on the Dam on the Day Loh River  [News Bulletin]	May 30th, 2006
Over the past ten years the SPDC has undertaken numerous 'development projects' across Karen State, consistently claiming that these are purely for the good of the people. Such projects however are anything but, invariably bringing with them an increase in human rights violations in the area surrounding the development site. Villages are typically forcibly relocated and their inhabitants are used as forced labour. One such project is a hydroelectricity power plant that is to be built on the Day Loh River in Toungoo District. In 2005, KHRG examined the activities of 2,000 SPDC Army troops who moved into the region to secure the area surrounding the dam site. This report serves as an update of the dam situation, incorporating information which may be possible evidence of the complicity of foreign corporations, and explores the possibility that the imminent construction of this project and others like it are part of the motivation behind the current offensive underway in northern Karen State.
"We have hands the same as them": Struggles for local sovereignty and livelihoods by internally displaced Karen villagers in Burma  [Article or paper]	May 29th, 2006
This paper challenges the common view that Karen displacement is ‘conflict-induced’, that villagers are helpless bystanders who flee their homes to escape a context of armed conflict. It examines the nature and dynamics of Karen internal displacement through perspectives expressed by villagers themselves, and finds it to be an ongoing and fluid process of villagers evading state control while attempting to retain access to their land and livelihoods, rather than a spatial displacement from zones of armed conflict. The primary cause of displacement is not armed conflict, but state efforts to consolidate territorial sovereignty over civilians who are used to local-level sovereignty and ‘non-state’ identities. Villagers respond with survival strategies which in themselves constitute resistance to state control of their land, livelihoods, and lives – causing the state to view and treat them as the enemy. The paper argues that this is why the recent ceasefire did not bring an end to Karen displacement, and that it also cannot be resolved through the ‘return’, ‘reintegration’ and state-directed aid espoused by the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and by some international actors, which would only represent victory for the state in this conflict. Instead, it advocates recognising and supporting villagers’ efforts to resist state control and retain local sovereignty over their lands and livelihoods. (This paper was presented at the “Land, Poverty, Social Justice and Development” conference in The Hague, The Netherlands in January 2006. It updates and refines the ideas presented in the earlier KHRG working paper “Sovereignty, Survival and Resistance: Contending Perspectives on Karen internal displacement in Burma”)
Covering up Genocide: Gambari's Betrayal  [KHRG Commentary]	May 26th, 2006
Just as the international outcry against the SPDC attacks on Karen civilians reached a peak, UN Under-secretary general Ibrahim Gambari visited Rangoon on May 18-20. But instead of demanding an end to the attacks, Gambari focused the discussions on releasing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and on SPDC opportunities to receive more foreign aid. Since his visit he has embarked on a public relations campaign, claiming the SPDC is "turning a new page" and whipping up media frenzy by suggesting they might release Daw Suu, despite receiving no promise of this. This Commentary argues that the main purpose of his visit was to divert attention away from the Karen offensive so the UN could once again evade its obligation to act when genocide is occurring. Unfortunately it has worked: the Karen situation is once again little more than a media footnote, while all eyes turn to Suu Kyi. Even if she is released the killing of Karen villagers will go on, but will anyone pay attention?
Villagers displaced as SPDC offensive expands into Papun district  [News Bulletin]	May 16th, 2006
In recent months thousands of SPDC troops have been sweeping through the hills of Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts of northern Karen State, burning villages and food supplies and shooting villagers with the aim of forcing all hill villagers to move to areas where they can be controlled by the military. In the past few weeks this campaign has been expanded into Papun district, where it has already displaced over 1,000 villagers. On May 11th seven new SPDC battalions arrived in the district, so there are now 27 battalions with 4,000-5,000 troops poised to launch a major offensive against villagers in Papun district which could lead to the destruction of hundreds of villages and the displacement of thousands more people. Unlike previous years, all of these offensives appear set to continue right through the coming rainy season.
SPDC operations in Kler Lweh Htoo (Nyaunglebin) district  [Field report]	Apr 30th, 2006
Since November 2005 the SPDC military has been sending more troops into Nyaunglebin District of northeastern Karen State in an attempt to force villagers out of the hills and gain total control of the area. Heavily armed patrol columns have been burning villages, destroying crops and shooting villagers, both adults and children, on sight. The SPDC columns are avoiding resistance forces, focusing their attacks instead on undefended villages because it is the villagers they are after. Even in plains areas already strongly controlled by SPDC forces, villages are being burned and their occupants herded into relocation sites, while Army units steal their food supplies and torture their village elders as a means of intimidation. These activities have increased even more since February 2006, with researchers in the area reporting that these are the worst SPDC attacks against villagers since 1997.
Civilians as Targets  [KHRG Commentary]	Apr 30th, 2006
This Commentary takes a closer look at the SPDC's ongoing offensive against civilian villages in northern Karen State which has already displaced over 16,000 villagers and shows no sign of abating. Going beyond the images of burned villages and people hiding in the forest, it discusses the offensive's motivating factors, its tactics, why the SPDC is specifically targeting the villagers and how the villagers see their position.
Abuses in SPDC-controlled areas of Papun district  [Field report]	Apr 29th, 2006
This report speaks of the routine abuses being suffered by villagers supposedly 'living in peace' under SPDC control. Instead, villagers here tell of SPDC soldiers poisoning their livestock, confiscating their land for Army camps, burning their homes and relocating their villages for their own convenience. Forced labour is constant, and arbitrary detention with torture is a routine occurrence. Stories from the hundreds of convict porters being brought into the district also tell of the brutality and corruption they have suffered at the hands of the Burmese justice system and the military.
Interview with an SPDC child soldier  [Field report]	Apr 26th, 2006
The SPDC claims that there are no child soldiers in its army and has appointed a Committee to spread this story, while independent outside reports reveal the Burma Army as having more child soldiers than any other army or country in the world. Boys as young as 11 are deliberately targeted by recruiters who trick or beat them into joining, record their ages as 18, and buy and sell them like cattle. They are treated brutally in training, and in the field they are forced to loot villages to survive. This report lets a 15 year old deserter tell his own story, which reveals that the past five years have not brought any improvement in the SPDC's record on recruitment or treatment of child soldiers.
KHRG Photo Gallery: 2005  [Photoset]	Apr 6th, 2006
Continuing from Photo Set 2005-A released in May 2005, this gallery presents over 300 photos taken by KHRG researchers in the field throughout 2005 and the first days of 2006, divided into 12 thematic sections including two special sections documenting SPDC attacks on villages in Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts.
Recent Attacks on Villages in Southeastern Toungoo District Send Thousands Fleeing into the Forests and to Thailand  [News Bulletin]	Mar 16th, 2006
Since November 2005, the SPDC has been mounting military-style assaults on civilian villages in Toungoo District, causing thousands of villagers to flee into the surrounding forests or to head for refugee camps in Thailand. To illustrate this, this bulletin pays special attention to the attack on Hee Daw Khaw village on November 26th 2005, and its subsequent destruction on November 28th 2005.
Attempted rapes and other abuses in northern Karen districts  [News Bulletin]	Mar 15th, 2006
This bulletin documents the resumption of full-scale forced labour in the villages of central Toungoo District and increases in extortion and forced labour imposed on villagers in Dweh Loh township of Papun District. The continued impunity of SPDC soldiers to commit violent abuses is reflected in the stories of attempted rapes which have occurred in both districts.
Pa'an District: Land confiscation, forced labour and extortion undermining villagers' livelihoods  [Field report]	Feb 11th, 2006
Villagers in northern Pa'an District of central Karen State say their livelihoods are under serious threat due to exploitation by SPDC military authorities and by their Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) allies who rule as an SPDC proxy army in much of the region. Villages in the vicinity of the DKBA headquarters are forced to give much of their time and resources to support the headquarters complex, while villages directly under SPDC control face rape, arbitrary detention and threats to keep them compliant with SPDC demands. The SPDC plans to expand Dta Greh (a.k.a. Pain Kyone) village into a town in order to strengthen its administrative control over the area, and is confiscating about half of the village's productive land without compensation to build infrastructure which includes offices, army camps and a hydroelectric power dam - destroying the livelihoods of close to 100 farming families. Local villagers, who are already struggling to survive under the weight of existing demands, fear further forced labour and extortion as the project continues.
SPDC road construction plans creating problems for civilians  [News Bulletin]	Jan 27th, 2006
In November 2005 a large number of the SPDC's garrison troops in eastern Papun District were replaced by offensive troops, a possible indication of more aggressive military action to bring the region under control. In December, SPDC forces in the area began work on three new roads to the Salween River, possibly to secure the region for construction of the planned Salween River dams. The SPDC officer in charge told local village heads that he doesn't care how many of their fields are taken or destroyed to make way for the roads. Local villagers also fear they will be used as human shields in front of road construction equipment, and as forced labour to maintain the roads and support the troops coming in to secure them. Meanwhile, displaced villagers who have been evading SPDC control in the region hurried to finish and hide their harvest, for fear that the road construction and increased militarisation will make it difficult for them to remain near their fields.
Surviving in Shadow: Widespread Militarization and the Systematic Use of Forced Labour in the Campaign for Control of Thaton District  [Regional or Thematic report]	Jan 17th, 2006
With much of Thaton District now under SPDC control, the villagers living there are regularly called upon to fulfil the unrelenting array of demands for forced labour, building materials, food, and money. The SPDC and the DKBA alike are using the unpaid and forced labour of villagers in the numerous road construction projects that span the district. Dozens of military camps have been built along these roads, further militarizing the region and bringing with it even greater oppression and an increase in the demands and burdens upon the lives of the civilians. Such frequent demands, combined with widespread movement restrictions has limited the amount of food that the villagers are able to produce, resulting in problems with food security to the point where many villagers are unable to sufficiently feed their families.
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