Reports By Year > 2002

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.

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There were 9 reports in 2002. These are listed below.

REPORT TITLE	DATE
Photo Set 2002-A  [Photoset]	Dec 19th, 2002
This photo set contains more than 500 photos and their descriptions which document the human rights situation in Karen areas of Burma. These photos were taken and collected by KHRG since the publication of Photo Set 2001-A in September 2001. The photos in this set were taken in Toungoo, Nyaunglebin, Papun, Thaton, Pa'an and Dooplaya Districts.
Suu Kyi's release covers up Dooplaya offensive; forced labour and forced recruitment; persecution of Muslims  [KHRG Commentary]	Sep 26th, 2002
The early May release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest was welcomed around the world with ecstatic phrases like 'new dawn for Burma' and the assumption that political change must be just around the corner. What none of the hundreds of journalists in Rangoon mentioned, however, is that at the very moment of her release SPDC troops were burning civilian villages and massacring Karen villagers in Dooplaya District. A closer look at the chronology shows that the buildup to Suu Kyi's release and the event itself were carefully calculated to provide a smokescreen for a massive increase in human rights abuses in Karen State. The world obliged by closing its eyes to the suffering of the Karen villagers and continued to do so as the offensive proceeded through the months following her release, while Suu Kyi and her NLD party refused to even mention the offensive at all. Meanwhile, SPDC offensives have also been destroying villages in other districts, and forced labour in many areas is worse than ever before. Forced recruitment by SPDC and its allied forces is a growing problem in many regions. The Commentary also raises the systematic persecution of Muslims throughout Burma, and recent SPDC efforts to instigate anti-Muslim riots in order to divert public anger away from its own abuses and corruption.
Operation Than L'Yet: Forced Displacement, Massacres and Forced Labour in Dooplaya District  [Field report]	Sep 25th, 2002
In January 2002 KHRG released Information Update #2002-U2, in which we documented efforts by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military junta to consolidate its hold over Dooplaya district of southern Karen State by imposing new administrative structures, restricting the movement of villagers, and using them as forced labour to build new army camps and infrastructure. The Update reported that the SPDC appeared to feel that the area was already "pacified" enough to do these things. However, even as that Update was being released Light Infantry Division 88 was arriving in Dooplaya, soon to unleash a major military operation on the villages there which is still ongoing.
Consolidation of Control: The SPDC and the DKBA in Pa'an District  [Field report]	Sep 7th, 2002
Since 1997 most of Pa’an District in central Karen State (see Map 1) has been firmly controlled by forces of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), with the assistance of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). Both groups are still fighting the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA, the armed wing of the Karen National Union) in the Dawna Range area, a strip in the far east of the district adjacent to the border with Thailand, but the remainder of the district sees little fighting, with the KNLA only able to mount small scale hit-and-run guerrilla attacks against SPDC and DKBA positions. In consolidating their control, both the SPDC and the DKBA have been increasingly restricting and exploiting the Karen villagers who make up almost the entire population of the district.
Easy Targets: The Persecution of Muslims in Burma  [Regional or Thematic report]	May 31st, 2002
While extensive reporting has been done on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State, very little attention has been paid to the persecution suffered by the thousands of Muslim communities which exist in villages and towns throughout Burma. With no political voice or armed group to stand up for them, Muslim communities are forced to endure the denial of all citizenship rights, restrictions on travel, work, and education, prohibitions on practicing Islam, and the systematic destruction of their mosques. This report looks at the systematic way these communities have been persecuted, impoverished and scapegoated by the military regime and by local populations, which culminated in the anti-Muslim riots and massacres of 2001.
Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts: The SPDC’s Dry Season Offensive Operations  [Field report]	Apr 5th, 2002
The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) began its 2001-2002 dry season offensive operations with a three-pronged push in Papun District and eastern Nyaunglebin District. This has been followed by moves into northern Papun District and along the Salween River where it forms the border with Thailand (see Map 2: Papun District). The main attacks came at the beginning of the rice harvest season, forcing villagers to leave much of their crop in the fields where some was eaten and the rest destroyed by the SPDC soldiers. Most villagers had little left from the previous year’s harvest and these new attacks almost guarantee that they will not have enough rice to see them through to the next harvest at the end of 2002.
Forced Labour Orders Since The Ban  [Orders report]	Feb 8th, 2002
A Compendium of SPDC Order Documents Demanding Forced Labour Since November 2000. Below are the direct translations of 453 order documents and letters received by village leaders in Karen State and Pegu Division of Burma. All but a few of them are demands for forced labour issued by State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military units and local authorities, while the remaining few are letters and notes written by village heads about the forced labour they have been ordered to provide. All of these orders and letters were written and issued after November 1st 2000, which is the date when SPDC Secretary-1 Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt signed an order prohibiting the further use of forced labour by military and civilian authorities.
Dooplaya District: Consolidation of control in central Dooplaya  [Field report]	Jan 31st, 2002
The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is making moves to solidify its control over Dooplaya District which it occupied following an offensive in 1997. Villages which were forcibly relocated in late 1999 have now been allowed to return home and the SPDC now feels that the area is pacified enough that it is setting up new administrative structures to govern the area. The area is officially under the administration of Kya In Seik Gyi township of Karen State, although until 1997 the Karen National Union (KNU) held most of the area east of Kya In Seik Gyi town to the Thai border (see Map 1 of Dooplaya District).
Toungoo District  [Field report]	Jan 30th, 2002
The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) seemed content in 2001 to consolidate its hold over the parts of Toungoo District which it already controls. There was little change in relative control of territory between the SPDC and the Karen National Union (KNU). The ten to fifteen SPDC battalions currently based in the district spend much of their time demanding forced labour, extracting money from the villagers and mounting routine sweeps of the surrounding countryside to flush out the villagers hiding in the mountains. This is in direct contrast to the ongoing offensives by the SPDC taking place in Nyaunglebin, Papun and Thaton Districts to the south. [To locate the places referred to in this report, see Map 1 of Toungoo District and Map 2 of Karen Districts.]
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