The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) Stands #WithRefugees

Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) | June 20, 2018

World Refugee Day 2018

Today, World Refugee Day, is a time to stand in solidarity with the 68.5 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) around the world who have been uprooted from their homes and ancestral lands. On is a day, KHRG commemorates the strength, courage and perseverance of families who have been forced to flee. According to the UNHCR, in  the beginning of 2017, there were still around 100,000 refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Thailand along the Thai-Myanmar border of  whom around 83% are Karen, 10% Karenni, 4% Burmese, 1% Mon and 2% of  other ethnicities. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)  estimates there were 635,000 IDPs due to conflict and violence in Myanmar as of December 2017.

Despite the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), there continues to be a heavy military presence and ongoing militarisation of civilian areas resulting in the forcible displacement of local  ethnic communities. Tensions between the Tatmadaw and ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) have erupted into clashes. Most recently, on 4 March 2018, the Tatmadaw deployed troops into Karen State’s Ler Mu  Plaw, Hpapun District resulting in armed clashes and the forcible displacement of over 2,400 villagers. IDPs are currently suffering from food shortages, in climate weather conditions, and serious illnesses with limited access to medicine and healthcare services. Other IDP sites throughout Karen State include sites where people remain displaced since Tatmadaw offences on their home villages as  early as the 1970s, and remain unable to return to their original  homes due to the continued presence of Tatmadaw in their home areas.

Even with the ongoing peace process, IDPs and refugees remain unable  to return to their places of origin in southeast Myanmar. Their main  concerns are their safety, access to land, and how their return is decided. IDPs and refugees currently perceive that their safety cannot be guaranteed if they return. They still fear their safety is threatened due to continued fighting in southeast Myanmar, landmine contamination, ongoing militarisation, political instability, and the risk of abuse by Tatmadaw, Border Guard Forces (BGFs) and some Ethnic  Armed Groups. In order to ensure the safe, voluntary and dignified return of refugees and IDPs to their places of origin, KHRG recommends the following:

•  The Myanmar Government, countries of asylum, UNHCR and other humanitarian actors must ensure that IDP and refugee return is genuinely voluntary, without direct or indirect coercion, safe, sustainable, and with full respect for the dignity of the returnees. It should also be a participatory process in which IDPs, refugees and host communities are involved in monitoring the safety and conditions of their potential voluntary return.
• To ensure a peace process that is stable and long lasting, all armed actors, but especially the Tatmadaw and BGF, should begin to  demilitarise former conflict areas by removing troops and camps, particularly those positioned close to villages and livelihood areas, and immediately cease the confiscation of land in southeast Myanmar  for the purposes of: constructing military facilities, which include camps, barracks, and housing for the families of soldiers; or leasing the confiscated land back to villagers in order to generate income