Burma has experienced a long history of migration and conflict among the ethnic groups along its elastic frontiers, which were fixed only during British imperial rule from the 1820s to 1948. Under British control, diverse peoples far from Rangoon were brought under at least nominal central administration. Yet many areas remained effectively self-ruled, with only a thin veneer of imperial oversight. During World War II, while many Burman joined Japanese forces, many minority ethnic groups remained loyal to Britain. This reflected a genuine desire for independence on the part of both groups; Burmans struggling to be free of British colonial rule, and ethnic minorities wishing to escape Burman domination. Burma became independent in 1948 only after extensive negotiations led by Burma's national hero, General Aung San, (father of Aung San Suu Kyi) who convinced most ethnic minority groups to join the new Union. The Panglong Agreement of 1947 outlined minority rights and specifically gave the Shan and Karenni peoples the option to secede from the union a decade after independence. Yet these constitutional guarantees were never fully respected. Almost immediately upon independence, Burma was thrown into a series of brutal ethnic wars that have continued with varying intensity to this day.

 The principal demands of Burma's ethnic minorities are to gain genuine autonomy for their home areas and to achieve a significant voice in the affairs of the country as a whole. There are few demanding total independence as their ultimate goal. Since the 1988 coup, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) (renamed the State Peace and Development Council [SPDC] in November 1997), has negotiated cease-fires with most armed ethnic opposition groups and waged fierce assaults against others. Muslim Rohingya people in southwestern Burma were targeted in 1991, and over 250,000 fled to neighboring Bangladesh. A new wave of attacks was reported in late 2000.

At least 140,000 more Karen, Karenni, and Mon people from eastern Burma are refugees in Thailand following intense Burmese army offensives since 1984. Many Shan people have been forced to flee army assaults as well. In several areas, there are massive numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), mostly villagers who have fled their homes to escape conscription as military porters or other abuses. The suffering of Burma's estimated 600,000 IDPs is often far worse than that of refugees in neighboring countries, who receive at least some outside aid, since the regime does not recognize the existence of internal refugees.
[3]

The Karen, Mon and Tavoy peoples are the principal victims of systematic human rights abuses such as forced relocation, forced labor, pillage, rape and torture by SPDC troops securing the gas pipeline areas.
In particular, the Karen people are a particular focus of the military’s war, and to a considerable degree, continue to bear the brunt of Tatmadaw attacks.
[4]
In many areas, uneasy truces prevail. Among the earlier cease-fires concluded were those with ethnic Wa and Kokang armies, which until 1987 served under the Burmese Communist Party. The Burmese army's agreements with these groups permit opium cultivation and the right to trade without interference. The result has been a sharp increase in heroin production and smuggling from Burma and a concurrent worldwide rise in heroin use and addiction. These groups are now also engaged in large-scale illicit manufacture of methamphetamines. Some other ethnic opposition organizations, particularly the Kachin Independence Organization and the Karen National Union, have taken strong stands against drug production and trafficking. The present junta has exploited divisions within and among ethnic groups to bolster its rule. [5]
In 2000, the relocation of thousands of Wa farmers into traditional Shan areas raised tensions and initiated fighting among these groups. The United Nationalities League for Democracy, an umbrella group for non-Burman political parties formed after the 1988 democracy movement, was revived in January 2001 by exiled politicians. A draft constitution was ratified and executive members were elected. These parties won a combined 65 seats in the 1990 elections and have a strong claim to political legitimacy. The National Democratic Front (NDF), another coalition of ethnic groups, is also striving to promote common positions among ethnic minorities.

Any prospect for a democratic, prosperous, and peaceful Burma are dim without a just and amicable settlement of the country's ethnic conflicts. The regime's proposed new constitution does little to acknowledge ethnic groups' grievances. Burma's democratic opposition has urged serious efforts to address these issues. Ethnic reconciliation and cooperation will be a major challenge for any future democratic Burmese government.
[6]
The Karen, are one of the largest ethnic groups in Burma. they are a fiercely independent group of approximately 3 million people; the Karen speak a separate language from most Burmese, use their own ancient writing system and have traditionally opposed the military junta. Traditionally, most Karens farm the nutrient-rich soils of southern Burma and eastern Thailand.
Two decades of sporadic government campaigns have already driven hundreds of thousands of Karen and other refugees into neighboring Thailand, where at least 150,000 now live in official camps and an estimated 1.5 million dwell illegally.
[7]
The group's political wing, the Karen National Union, (KNU), continues to challenge the Burmese government through its large guerilla army, the Karen National Liberation Army, which has spent the past 50 years fighting for democratic self-government and autonomy. Most of the fighters are based in temporary jungle camps along the Thai-Burma border.

In late January 1995 the Karen National Union suffered a major military defeat when Mannerplaw (its headquarters near the Thai-Burmese border since 1974) was captured by the Burmese army. In subsequent days, KNU leaders fled to Thailand in a move that appeared to mark the end of the KNU's forty-seven year struggle against the Burmese State. As Mannerplaw (which means "Field of Victory") was reduced to ashes, so too were the hopes of those who believed in Kawthoolei — the Karen Free State proclaimed by KNU President Saw Baw U Gyi in June 1949. The world's longest-running insurgency had seemingly run its course.
[8]The Karen people have suffered numerous injustices under the military dictatorship. Much of their land is planted with mines and thousands have been uprooted from their villages, forced to live in makeshift camps deep in the jungle. Most are too afraid to return home for fear of the Burmese military. Others have fled the fighting between Karen forces and Burmese troops and live in refugee camps on the Thai border. [9]
Burmese forces have burned down more than 200 civilian villages in Karen state, destroyed crops and placed land mines along key jungle passages to prevent refugees from returning to their home villages. Dozens of people have died, and at least 20,000 have been displaced over the past eight to ten months. [10]
"What is now going on in Burma are crimes against humanity," said Sunai Phasuk, the chief Burmese consultant for the New York-based Human Rights Watch.


The Salween or Nu River, crosses Burma, China and Thailand, and is one of the great rivers of Southeast Asia, is now subject to this program of ‘development.’ [11] [12] [13]
The Salween River Project involves the building of thirteen major dams on the Salween, which threatens to drown enormous areas of forest lands, which are rich in bio-diversity, and force the eviction of Burma’s major ethnic peoples, including the Karenni, Shan and Karen. This reflects a pattern which has been observed elsewhere in the world, where dam projects are used by the State as a weapon against targeted ethnic groups.
 [14] [15] [16] [17]
The governments of the countries that lie along the Salween River: Burma, Thailand and China have been pushing forward with plans to dam this free-flowing river. The objective is to exploit the hydropower potential of the entire river basin, as well as to divert the river water to Thailand. [18]

More than 100,000 members of the Karen, Shan and Karenni are living in this area. They will be expelled. Due to this mega project, the survival of the Yintalai, a small ethnic group of about 1,000 people, is highly threatened since their entire habitat will be destroyed. Ninty-six villages along the Salween have already been forcibly evacuated and destroyed. [18]
These dams will be built by the Chinese state owned construction company Sinohydro in cooperation with the Thai state energy office EGAT. Sinohydro also plays a major part in the construction of the controversial Merowe dam in Sudan.
 In a recent March 2006 report from the Karenni Development Research Group, the Karenni people speak of upwards of 30,000 people being displaced from their hereditary lands for the Salween Project and the loss of 28 towns and villages. [19]
At present, Thailand and Burma have agreed to build at least four dams along the
Salween River in Burma, at Tasang in Shan State and Hatgyi, Weigyi, and Dagwin in
Karen State.
The Mobye Dam was Burma’s first hydropower project. This dam was constructed with Japanese funding in the early 1960s. Mobye dam is located on the Lawpita Falls in the Balu Chuang River which lies in Karenni State. [20] In total, twelve thousand, five hundred Karenni people permanently lost their homes and fields to the dam reservoir, which covered about 207 square kilometers. This process of land clearance was enforced with incredible brutality. Those living near the power plants were forced to leave at gunpoint and their fields were planted with land mines, tactics that were regularly used in the Vietnam War during US “counter-insurgency” operations there.
Since 1960, largely in efforts to control the Lawpita area, the Burmese military
have increased its presence in Karenni State to over twenty-four permanent battalions resulting in a
constant terrorization of the population by the marauding soldiers. Forced labour and
portering, harassment, extortion and random killings are common as well as sexual
violence specifically targeting ethnic women including military gang rape. [21]

The Hat Gyi dam in Karen State, is about 33 km downstream from the Salween-Moei River confluence, and is also beside and part of the Kahilu Wildlife Sanctuary. It is expected to begin in late 2007, and the commercial distribution of power is projected to begin around 2013-2014, the dam will provide electricity to Thailand.

 It is also important to mention that with a larger reservoir the Thai authorities will be more able to easily divert floodwaters from the Salween River into a dam on the Yuam River at Mae Lama Luang, which is already at an advanced stage of planning. Water from the Mae Lama Luang dam can then be diverted through a tunnel into the Bhumipol Dam in central Thailand.
The Tasang Dam is the largest of the series of proposed hydroelectric projects on the Nu/Salween River. It is located in south central Shan State, 40 km north of the Tasang river crossing, and about 130 kilometers from the Thai-Burmese border. The 7,110-megawatt, 228 meter high dam is slated to be the tallest dam in all of Southeast Asia. The reservoir will flood hundreds of square kilometers. Already over 300,000 people have been forcibly relocated from the areas since dam studies commenced in 1996. If built, the Tasang Dam will drive thousands of people from their homes and will involve even more forced relocations by the Burmese military. Increased militarisation has already led to an increase of reports of torture, extrajudicial killing, and other human rights abuses in the Tasang area.
Dagwin (Lower Salween Dam): This site is located on the border south of the Wei Gyi site and to the west of Mae Sariang town in Thailand. The site is also located near the former headquarters of the 1988 student revolutionary group (ABSDF), and a little downstream of the now relocated Mae Khong Kha refugee camp. Since dam studies commenced in 1996, over 300,000 people have been forcibly relocated from the Salween River Basin. [22] [23] 

[24] The Salween dams in total will produce fifteen to twenty thousand megawatts of electricity which will be sold by the Burmese military junta to the Thai military junta, providing further income for both regimes. [25] [26] The Karen pray desperately to stop the construction of these dams, but they are also organizing with other ethnic peoples across the Salween Basin to stop these military plans for control over the water and land resources of the entire region. [27] [28]

Ultimate success, however, will depend on international action to stop these proposals which will affect many thousands of people and the economic and environmental future of the Salween River.
To consolidate strategic military control over the Karen State and over the Salween River Basin, a new capital city has been constructed near the inland city of Pyinmana, and only a few miles from the border of Karen state. [29]
In 2005, it was revealed that this new “secret” capital city had been constructed deep in the jungle.
The SPDC moved the capital city 200 miles north of the former capital Rangoon, which is heavily populated, to isolated Naypyidaw, near the city of Pyinmana. The state bureaucracy is now immune from the major universities of Rangoon, making it more difficult for student uprisings and mass protests to be effective to any degree. The new city, tucked away in the jungles, remains virtually hidden from tourists who visit the country. [30]
A journalist in India who invited to visit Naypyidaw, commented that the new city; "will not fall to an urban upheaval easily. It has no city centre, no confined public space where even a crowd of several thousand people could make a visual - let alone political - impression.
"Naypyidaw... is the ultimate insurance against regime change, a masterpiece of urban planning designed to defeat any putative 'colour revolution' - not by tanks and water cannons, but by geometry and cartography."
[31] Across an expanse of empty jungle land, apartment blocks are being built for bureaucrats who are being forced to move to the new city, which are painted in incongruous pastel shades that evoke nothing so much as a “Milton Keynes” uprooted and transplanted to the jungle.
Inside the "government zone", ministries are several miles apart from each other. Most bizarre of all is the "military zone", said by reporters who were in the city yesterday to be a fortress. The roads have been made extra wide so they can double as military runways. There are anti-aircraft guns and missile silos. It is in the midst of this security that General Than Shwe (the effective ruler of Burma) now resides. "I urge you to exert efforts, hand in hand with the people, to build a peaceful, modern, developed and disciplined democratic nation," the Than Shwe exhorted soldiers in his 2007 army day address, insisting that the country is following a "roadmap to democracy", in the approved sense of the term. [32]  

Naypyidaw is probably modeled upon Brasilia, inaugurated in 1960 as the new capital city of Brazil, which inaugurated the land clearance and deforestation of the entire Amazon Basin. The Brazilian capital has since been granted the title of a world heritage site by UNESCO. [34]
Brazil’s legacy of destruction and plunder of its huge natural resources for the benefit of global capital and supported by extensive military repression was followed by Indonesia after the coup of 1964 and is
now being repeated in Burma today. [35] Naypyidaw will push ‘development’ into the Burmese jungle, consolidating control over Burmese territory, resources and ethnic groups, in particular the Karen. Destruction of Burma’s rainforest, still largely untouched, will now greatly intensify. Extensive logging, through Chinese and Thai intermediaries, is now proceeding rapidly. However, the assault upon the Karen forests has a deeper meaning.
The Burmese army has long sought undermine the role of the forests as a source of refuge for the KNU. A primary goal has been to cut the KNU off from villagers through the Four Cuts (pya ley pya) campaign. Under this counter-insurgency campaign (which aims to cut links to local food, funds, intelligence and recruits), local Karen were forcibly removed from their villages and resettled in army-controlled settlements. Initially focused on the Pegu Yoma forests, the campaign was continued by the Tatmadaw in the border region. In addition to forced resettlement, the Burmese army has press-ganged Karen into service on the front line as porters. Between 1989 and 1993, the SPDC also supported clear-cut logging along the border. Other than providing the junta with revenue, such logging also removed forest in contested areas, thereby eliminating strategic military cover for the KNLA.

Given the importance of the forests to the KNU, the SLORC's decision to grant logging concessions all along the border to Thai firms in early 1989 was a serious blow to the KNU. As much as 18,800 square kilometres were alienated by the SLORC to Thai loggers who invariably enjoyed close links to senior Thai military officers. Many of the Thai logging concessions were located in KNU-controlled territory. However, as the loggers were supported by the Thai military, there was little that the KNU could do to stop their advance into Karen forests without risking completely alienating the Thai state — something that a KNU weakened by military setbacks was not in a position to do. In addition to its political and economic rationale, the SPDC-engineered assault on the border forest also resonates with cultural meaning. An attempt to undermine the military and financial advantages derived by the Karen National Union from the forests, this assault simultaneously attacked the foundations of Karen national identity. As the forests have always been an integral part of Karen identity, their large-scale elimination after 1988 has had cultural as well as political and economic significance.

In colonial times, the link between the Karen and commercial forestry management was further strengthened. Thus, Karen were prominent in the colonial forest service created in 1856. This was especially so in areas such as Tenassarim where the Karen population was large. Barred, as were Burmese, from the senior forest service, Karen youth nevertheless served in the subordinate service as guards and rangers.

The Karen were also central to plantation forestry in Burma from the mid 19th century. Under the taungya forestry system, colonial foresters employed Karen shifting cultivators to plant teak in their hill clearings, or taungya. When the cultivators moved to a new area after a couple of years, the process was repeated. In this manner, timber plantations were left in their wake.

The historical links between the Karen and forest use and management were thus well developed at the time of Burmese independence in 1948. It was not surprising, therefore, that those links would be an integral part of Karen attempts to establish an independent Karen state along the Thai-Burmese border. In the process, forest use and management was associated with security, livelihood and identity issues.

Traditionally, lowland Burmese and Thais viewed the Karen as an integral part of the forest habitat — the former called them "the wild cattle of the hills," whereas the latter classified the Karen as "wild animals." The British preferred the term "noble savages." 
Colonial foresters, meanwhile, acknowledged the Karen's detailed forest knowledge (at the same time as they decried their allegedly destructive methods of shifting cultivation). Indeed, the introduction of the taungya forestry system reflected a British desire to harness that knowledge to the teak-centred forestry management then being introduced in Burma's forests.
The insurgency reinforced the role of the forests in Karen culture. They have served as a source both of refuge and of livelihood for the KNU throughout the struggle. Many senior political and military leaders have lived in the forests for more than 30 years, and a new generation was born in Mannerplaw and other forest strongholds. In as much as these Karen have made the forests their home in exile they have become forest dwellers. Karen refugees have kept alive memories of their previous urban existence.
However, as their fate has been linked to the forests now for nearly fifty years, these Karen have been de-urbanized — in other words, they have become a "forest people."
To the extent that the Karen are today a forest people (dependent on the forests for security, livelihood and cultural integrity); the fall of Mannerplaw and other KNU strongholds to the Burmese army is a catastrophe for the Karen. As many Karen have become refugees in Thailand, much of Kawthoolei has been lost to the advancing Burmese. The territory the Karen called the "Flower Land" has already been changed beyond recognition. A hitherto forested rainforest has already been converted in many areas into an environmentally degraded and treeless territory as a result of indiscriminate logging. 

The SPDC's plans to build a series of dams on the Salween River and its tributaries near and along the border will further alter the landscape. In this process of total war, the Karen have been denied refuge, livelihood and even a cultural referent. [36]The real significance of the strategic location of Naypyidaw, is an indication of the importance that the Burmese military attach to the elimination and destruction of the Karen, who stand in the path of strategic military control of the Salween River Basin.
In spring 2006, a fresh Burman military offensive started the displacement of fifteen thousand Karen, who are now imprisoned between two huge armies, Burmese and Thai. If this new campaign is successful, the Karen will be cleared from their ancient lands, and the vast hydroelectric power and timber resources of the region will be open for exploitation. The local contractors, Burmese and Thai, will have successfully completed their work. [37]

[1] http://www.khrg.org/background_on_burma.html
[2] http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/additional.html
[3] http://burmacampaign.org.uk/aboutburma/ethnicgroups.html
[4] http://www.khrg.org/background_on_burma.html 
[5] http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/boycott/oil/oil.html
[6] http://burmacampaign.org.uk/aboutburma/ethnicgroups.html
[7] http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/karenni_myanmar.html
[8] http://www.mekonginfo.org/mrc_en/doclib.nsf/0/105248AF011EF089C7256604001603D2/$FILE/FULLTEXT.html 
[9] http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/additional.html
[10] http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/karenni_myanmar.html
[11] http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/ecoregions/salween_river.cfm
[12] http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1083  
[13] http://www.irn.org/programs/nu/
[14] http://www.sea-user.org/news-detail.php?news_id=1580
[15] http://www.tibetjustice.org/tringyiphonya/num8.html#lte
[16] http://www.earthrights.org/burmafeature/villagers_in_burma_reject_plans_to_dam_the_salween_river.html
[17] http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/imf/burma/2007/0228stop_damming_salween_river.html
[18] http://www.gfbv.it/2c-stampa/2006/060918en.html
[19] http://www.burmaactionireland.org/environment.html
[20] http://www.sea-user.org/news-detail.php?news_id=1580
[21] http://www.salweenwatch.org/
[22] http://www.sea-user.org/news-detail.php?news_id=1580
        http://www.salweenwatch.org/dam_site.html
[23] http://www.tayzathuria.org.uk/bd/2006/7/30/krw.htm  
[24] http://www.palangthai.org/en/story/53  
[25] http://www.burmaactionireland.org/environment.html
[26] http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/karenni_myanmar.html
[27] http://www.oxfam.org.au/oxfamnews/march_2006/river.html
[28] http://salween-watch2.livejournal.com/#item10446
[29] http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/karenni_myanmar.html
[30] http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/additional.html
[31] http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2007/01/naypyitaw-photo-album.html
[32] http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2398871.ece
[33] http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/karenni_myanmar.html
[34] http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/brazmigr.htm
[35] http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog61/jmoersch/reality.html
        http://www.wvu.edu/~facdis/curriculum/brazilmodules/overview.html                                                                                  http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80636e/80636E0v.htm
[36] http://www.mekonginfo.org/mrc_en/doclib.nsf/0/105248AF011EF089C7256604001603D2/$FILE/FULLTEXT.html
[37] http://www.gfbv.it/2c-stampa/2006/060918en.html