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Things are getting worse for the world’s indigenous people. It’s no longer a matter of a few companies doing whatever they want to gut a region at the direct expense of a culture, or about some government that’s more than willing to crush down a people so the company can do it without interruption. The problem is that it’s being done more and more and more. It’s developmental genocide on a global scale and it won’t be letting up anytime soon.

And so I echo the Zapatista call for us …

The enslavement, torture, displacement, and genocide of people in Burma continues

From the Asia Tribune: According to the Free Burma Rangers, a relief organisation working in the area, soldiers from Light Infantry Battalions 542 and 544 attacked Ber Ka Lay Ko village, northern Toungoo District in north-western Karen State on 12 May. They reportedly captured, raped and killed a woman.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide revealed in a statement, “Three days later, troops attacked again as villagers worked in their fields. Many were able to flee due to the noise made by the …

Dams on Salween Threaten Indigenous Groups
By Marwaan Macan-Markar, www.ipsnews.net
BANGKOK, Feb 28 (IPS) - Being a village headman means little if you live in a community nestling in the hills close to Thailand’s northern border with Burma. More so, if officials have plans to use your village for a large ‘development’ project.

That is the lesson Nu Chamnayakiriprai continues to learn as he ponders the future of his family and of over 50 others who live in the Me Koh village, in the Mae Hong Son province. The questions that the 49-year-old seeks answers to include where his community will be …

Karen Indigenous Women Directly Targeted in Burmese Regime’s Terror Campaign in Karen State
Press Release, February 12, 2007

State of Terror, a report launched today by the Karen Women’s Organization, provides graphic evidence of the widespread terror tactics being employed by the military regime’s troops against women across Burma’s Karen State.

As the atrocities continue, the KWO appeals for concerted international pressure on the regime to bring about an immediate nationwide ceasefire and withdrawal of Burmese Army Troops from the ethnic states.

“We deeply regret the veto by China and Russia and SouthAfrica’s vote against the UN Security Council Resolution on Burma …

Civil War in Burma, Karen Women in Exile
From: Making Contact
January 24, 2007

Burma is a country run by one of the strictest military juntas in the world. For nearly 60 years, the country has been embroiled in civil war. More than 1 million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities have fled to refugee camps in neighboring Thailand escaping forced labor, rapes, killings and imprisonment. The situation has deteriorated so badly that last September the U.N. Security Counsel added Burma to its formal agenda.

The Karen tribe is the largest ethnic minority in Burma. They continue to …

Karen people forced to flee Burma’s genocide
by Pete Pattisson, The Independent (UK)
January 16, 2007

Karen State: When the Burmese soldiers arrived at his village, Maung Taungy knew what would happen next. Seven villagers were arrested, their feet bound together with rope, and they hung upside down for hours. Exhausted and with their ankles lacerated, the men, suspected of being linked to the Karen resistance army, were then beaten. The soldiers did not stop until they were dead.

“After that,” remembers Maung Taungy, an ethnic-minority Karen from eastern Burma, “we became the virtual slaves of the army. They ordered us to clear the …

Shoot on Sight: The ongoing SPDC offensive against villagers in northern Karen State December 2006

The Burmese army launched a large scale offensive in the districts of Toungoo, Nyaung Lay Bin and Muthraw in northern Karen State in November 2005 targeting the civilian Karen population. This offensive has been ongoing for over a year and it continues today. Villages are being shelled with mortars, looted and burnt to the ground. Crops and food supplies are being destroyed. Burmese soldiers are ordered to shoot on sight, regardless of whether it is a combatant or a defenseless civilian. As a result …