Thra Tha Toe (Karen and Liberty)

 

Thra Tha Toe (Karen and Lib... by S'gaw Kawhtoo

Fighting Myanmar's regime with compassion and military skills

NIKKEI ASIA
DENIS D. GRAY, Contributing writer
August 1, 2021 

Free Burma Rangers help thousands fleeing brutal attacks by security forces

David Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers aid organization, rescues a 5-year-old Demoa after her mother was killed by Islamists in the battle for Mosul. (Courtesy of Free Burma Rangers)

     CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- David Eubank, a former U.S. Special Forces officer, believes that some causes are worth dying for. His Free Burma Rangers aid organization, founded to help victims of an earlier Myanmar crisis, has since brought frontline help to many thousands in war-scarred Syria, Iraq and Sudan. Now, it is back in Myanmar helping ethnic minorities to flee escalating attacks by the regime's security forces.

Myanmar insurgents burn down another government outpost

IRISH EXAMINER
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTERS

FRI, 07 MAY, 2021 

Anti-coup protesters burn tires and chant slogans with banner read ”The Kamayut strike will be fight for to the end when we get victory” during the demonstration against the military coup in Kamayut township Yangon, Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo)

Fighters from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority have burned down a government military outpost after capturing it without a fight when its garrison fled, a senior Karen officer said.

The position is about nine miles from a larger camp which the Karen National Liberation Army stormed and burned 10 days earlier.

The KNLA is the armed wing of the Karen National Union, the main political organisation representing the Karen minority, whose homeland is in eastern Myanmar.

People Displaced by Burma Army in Karen State Facing Crisis – Aid Workers Call for Food, Medicine, Clean Water to be Urgently Delivered

Karen News
07May 2021

Karen villagers bombed from their homes by airstrikes are in urgent need of food, warm clothing, medicine, sanitation and clean water. Adding to the difficulties of getting humanitarian aid to the displaced are official restrictions put in place by Thai authorities.

Karen Civil Society Organizations, delivering and providing assistance to people fleeing the Burma Army have confirmed about 7,000 Karen villagers from Papun district, northern Karen State are hiding in the Thai-Burma border area. The villages were destroyed by the Burma’s air force in retaliation for seizure of a military base on the 27th of April by the Karen National Liberation Army. It is estimated as many as 3,000 displaced Karen are reported to have fled into Thailand.

World must not forget Myanmar's ethnic minorities

NEKKEI ASIA

Denis D. Gray
March 31, 2021

Escaping Karen villagers, pictured on Mar.28: more than 10,000 members of the ethnic minority have been driven from their villages. © Karen Teacher Working Group/Reuters

Denis D. Gray is a former Associated Press correspondent. He has reported on Myanmar's ethnic minorities since the 1970s.

The world's attention has been focused on atrocities taking place in Myanmar's central heartland: the towns, cities and villages largely populated by the ethnic Burman majority, where pro-democracy demonstrators, enraged by the Feb. 1 coup, are being gunned down by the junta's forces.

But on the country's edge, ethnic minorities making up about 40% of the population are also being brutalized. The new push by Myanmar's military to target ethnic rural areas has opened up a dangerous front in the junta's bid to "pacify" the population, which has soundly rejected the power grab by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

Thousands of People Are Fleeing Into Thailand Following Air Strikes in Myanmar

TIMES 

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

MARCH 29, 2021 

In this photo released by the Free Burma Rangers, Karen villagers gather in the forests as they hide from military airstrikes in the Deh Bu Noh area of the Papun district, north Karen state, Myanmar, Sunday, March 28, 2021.Free Burma Rangers via AP

YANGON, Myanmar — Thai authorities along the country’s border with Myanmar are bracing Monday for a possible influx of more ethnic Karen villagers fleeing new airstrikes by the Myanmar military.

Myanmar aircraft carried out three strikes overnight Sunday, according to Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian relief agency that delivers medical and other assistance to villagers. The strikes severely injured one child but caused no apparent fatalities, a member of the agency said.

The Original Panglong.

The Irrawaddy
By WEI YAN AUNG | 26 March 2019

Shan chieftains pose for a photo at the 1946 Panglong in Shan State

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of a conference held in advance of the historic 1947 Panglong. The 1946 conference, which ran through March 28, also in Shan State’s Panglong Township, has been recognized as the first Panglong but is less known than the one that followed.