The last post

This blog has been great fun over the last four years, and I've appreciated getting to know more readers and having a chance to share with you about the Karen refugee resettlement in Canada. You can continue to follow us at http://kawthooleisun.blogspot.com/ for more information about the resettlement news and Burma news in general.

International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma Press

Press Release: International Tribunal on Burma Calls for End to Impunity of Military Regime

Read the full text of the press release with findings and recommendations here.

-- For immediate release to media --

March 3, 2010, 10 am EST

International Tribunal on Burma Calls for End to Impunity of Military Regime

(New York) Nobel Peace Laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams - along with human rights experts Dr. Heisoo Shin (Korea) and Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn (Thailand) - today released the findings and recommendations developed during the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma held this week in New York City. The quasi-legal event featured compelling testimony - the first ever - of 12 women from Burma who have suffered rape, torture, and other crimes at the hands of the military junta. The event highlighted the egregious human rights crimes, including rape as a weapon of war, and called for policymakers to demand a last resort: the International Criminal Court.

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"Women should no longer be invisible when crimes are committed against them with impunity," said Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. "The history of violence and oppression of women in Burma is long and sordid--and must come to an end."
A few of the women who testified are colleagues of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition, still under house arrest and a prisoner of General Than Shwe. Than Shwe is the war criminal who has reigned terror over the people of Burma for decades. World leaders have rallied in support of her freedom countless times since her Nobel Peace Prize award in 1991, passing UN resolutions almost annually and demanding the release of her and other political prisoners. But these cries have fallen on deaf ears, with the international community failing to hold General Shwe and his cronies criminally responsible. The resulting impunity has given the ruling generals of Burma even more license to escalate their power and continue to inflict violence on the people of Burma.

"We live in globalized world, which means that Burma cannot do whatever it wants to its people within its own walls," said Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. "Globalization is effective when it helps bring an end to injustice. The international community cannot stand by and let other countries to use their sovereignty to commit atrocities against their own people."

The purpose of the Tribunal was to spotlight the oppression of women of Burma in order to encourage policymakers and political leaders to take specific action now. There has never been a call to refer Burma to the International Criminal Court. The women Nobel Laureates have joined with the Women's League of Burma to highlight the systemic use of rape and other forms of violence against ethnic women in Burma. The Women's League of Burma is an umbrella organization comprising thirteen women's organizations of different ethnic backgrounds in Burma.

The women who testified now live in Thailand, Bangladesh, the US and Canada and traveled to New York to tell their personal stories and those of their families. Their stories include a range of horrific human rights violations and crimes. Testimony was organized into three categories: violence against women (rape, sexual violence, trafficking), civil and political violations (torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, harassment), and social, economic and cultural violations (forced labor, portering, relocation). Violence against women in Burma is often ethnically motivated, particularly minority groups such as the Karen who have been brutally persecuted by the military regim

Continue reading the press release with findings and recommendations here.

International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma

Crime against humanity

I was sitting at home the whole day watching live webcast from New York City about Women's Tribunal of Burma. I was moved by the testimonies that twelve women presented in front of International judges. The stories they shared represent thousands of other untold stories from across Burma. Stories of fear, anguish, resistance, escape, perseverance and hope for change.

I feel that most of the abuses and violations happened to ethnic nationalities area and systematically targeted by the Burmese military regime. I was also encouraged by their braveries to tell their stories as one of the judges mentioned "It is not only hard to tell your personal story but also difficult to live in your whole life with it"

Our representative from Canada told a very moving story and I would like to highlights a few sentences here. "I am deeply concerned for the next generation of refugees. I wonder how they will tell their stories. We felt like strangers in someone else's country. And I am a refugee of a refugee's child." Tribunal Judges: We most strongly urge the UN Security Council to refer Burma to the International Criminal Court. Tribunal judge Shirin Ebadi: "Globalization can be effective only when it can stop the oppression of people" More information please visit http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/blogs/burmatribunal

Burma Needs You

Burma Needs Your Attention!

I was thrill to read the immediate respond by the Canadian government, the Opposition Party and even the Green Party condemning the Burmese military charges against Burma’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi after May 5th accident. From White House to Thai parliament, the Ottawa Citizen to Irrawaddy News, Burma issue was on the front page and became the hot topic again. I thank them for their interest of Burma Issue. But apart from what was happening with Aung San Suu Kyi’s trail in Burma, I wonder if they know about what have happening in the other parts of the country (Burma) now. Daily repression and widespread abuses against villagers in Burma's ethnic-minority areas continue. The international community and Canadian government are quiet. I wonder if they haven’t read the news, no one has briefing them what is happening now or they keep quiet because they thought the attacks are not as important as the trail of ASSK. Are they not as important as human being like you and me??? I wonder!!

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro’s End Burma’s System of Impunity at the New York Times stated it clear there:
But while Suu Kyi has deservedly received a great deal of international attention over the past two decades, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities — more than one-third of the population — have suffered without international outcry. For Myanmar’s process of national reconciliation to be successful, the plight of the minorities must also be addressed.

The Karen Human Rights Group states the same thing about what is happening now in rural Burma.

Thousands of civilians in Ler Per Her, an internally displaced refugee camp inside Burma in Karen State, fled across Thai border a few days ago because the Burmese Army moved in to the area. In January this year, I had visited Ler Per Her and another IDP camp on my fact finding trip. I had celebrated Christmas and New Year with them. I had met with orphaned children, sick elderly and newly born babies and I wonder where they are now. I look back the photos that I took when I was there and I thought are they still survived because they couldn’t bring anything when they fled into Thailand. And it is raining season now in Thailand and Burma. Can you do something Canada? Please, I need your attention.

Please come back for update of the photos that I took while I was in the Ler Per Her camp. You will be amazed to see them.

Crimes in Burma

Crimes in Burma
Five of the world’s leading international jurists have commissioned a report from the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, calling for the UN Security Council to act on more than fifteen years of condemnation from other UN bodies on human rights abuses in Burma. The Harvard report, Crimes in Burma, comes in the wake of renewed international attention on Burma, with the continued persecution of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. The report concludes with a call for the UN Security Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.

Another piece of information is the UN secretary-general Mr. Ben is planning to visit Burma "as soon as possible" ‘Be patients my Burma’s citizens, changes is coming but just a matter of time’ (Quote from someone who told me) And I don’t know when it the right time when tangible changes could happen in Burma!

Listen Up TV

Listen Up TV

Global Day Prayer for Burma March 8,2009

Global Day Of Prayer For Burma Sunday March 8, 2009
Why pray for Burma??
over 3200 villages has been destroyed by Burmese military
Burma has over 70,000 child soldiers
a place where mass displacement, forced labor, rape, torture, and all forms of persecution are a common reality
Religious persecution
Hundred thousand of political prisoners
Drug productions
Human trafficking
The list will go on and on........................... But you can make differences, Please pray for change in Burma! Thank you.

http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=press&id=833

451,000 displaced in eastern Burma in 2008

Over 451,000 IDPs in Burma in 2008: Report

A new report released on Thursday by the Geneva-based International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said there are at least 451,000 internally displaced people in eastern Burma alone as of October 2008.
The report said that in eastern Burma, particularly in Karen, Karenni, Shan, and Mon states and Tenasserim division, IDPs are mainly the result of the Burmese military-government’s human rights violations.“IDPs living in areas in Myanmar [Burma] still affected by armed conflict between the army and insurgent groups remained the most vulnerable, with their priority needs tending to be related to physical security, food, shelter, health and education,” said the report.
To read a full report……

Warm welcome in Phoenix after jungles, wire fences

Always I have to run for my life
Boo Htoo and his family lived in Mae La refugee camp for more than ten years before he came to US in 2007. Htoo, now 29, recalls making the long trek with his parents to cross the border when he was about 5. "[It's] a very long way," he says. "We don't have a car, a plane. We don't have a bicycle to ride. My parents just take what they can carry, and then we started walking across the jungle, sleeping in the jungle."

Bring Burmese Military to International Criminal Court

Send SPDC to International Criminal Court

Emergency Assistance Team – Burma and Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights released a report: After the Storm: Voices from the Delta about the Burmese military neglects toward the civilians who have suffered from the cyclone Nargis destruction. The report said:
Crimes Against Humanity
The testimonies presented in this report, document 1) intentional disregard of some cyclone victims, including women and children, that could and may have led to mass loss of life 2) failure to address the health needs of rural women, and of women and children generally, in the cyclone affected areas 4) targeted interference with relief operations on the basis of ethnicity and religion 5) forced labor 6) forced relocation affecting women and children and 7) the use of forced child labor. Each is evidence of the junta’s violation of its legal obligations to uphold the provisions set forth in the CRC and CEDAW conventions. However, taken together, these systematic abuses may also amount to crimes against humanity, as defined by article 7(k) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, through the creation of conditions whereby basic survival needs of civilians cannot be adequately met, “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

You can read a full report here.

The difficult plight of the Karens by By Kate Heartfield

Below is a story of Paw Pway and her Travel Loan. Kate Heartfield, a member of the Citizen's editorial board, wrote a wonderful story about the issue.

The difficult plight of the Karens
By Kate Heartfield

The best way to honour the memory of Marion Dewar, the former mayor who died this year, is to revitalize the Ottawa tradition of hospitality that she began.
Ms. Dewar is best remembered for starting Project 4,000, which found homes for Southeast Asian refugees in Ottawa in 1979. There was a huge rally in Lansdowne Park. Churches and community groups, families and co-workers scraped together what money they could to help the families make new homes here.
Ms. Dewar would be sick at heart to spend an hour in the home of Paw Puay, a 52-year-old woman who came here just more than a year ago. She is one of nearly 4,000 Karen refugees the Canadian government invited to Canada over the last few years. And she's struggling to pay the federal government back for the cost of her plane ticket. To read full story

World Refugee Day_2008

Canada to welcome 1,300 more Karen refugees

Ottawa, June 19, 2008 — The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, today announced that Canada will welcome an additional 1,300 Karen refugees from Burma (also known as Myanmar) in 2008 and 2009.
The Karen, a minority ethnic group, fled their country in 1995 following a major offensive by the Burmese government army against the Karen National Union. They are among the 140,000 Burmese refugees who have been living in Thai refugee camps for up to 20 years.
“Canada continues to welcome the Karen refugees who have been living under some of the world’s most difficult conditions for many years,” said Minister Finley. “Canada is a blessed nation by almost any standard and Canadians should be proud that we are able to help those who most need it. By working together, we will be able to offer protection to more than 3,900 Karen refugees from some of the most remote camps in Thailand.”
Last year following the Government’s February 2007 announcement, Canada selected another 1,800 Karen. In the previous year, Canada welcomed more than 800 Karen refugees.
Canadian officials recently visited the camps and selected another 1,300 persons for resettlement most of whom are relatives of the 2,600 selected previously. Arrivals are expected to begin later this year and will continue throughout 2009.
The Karen who have arrived to date have settled all across Canada. They have been welcomed by communities in Charlottetown, St. John’s (Nfld), Moncton, Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Toronto, Kitchener, Windsor, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Prince Albert (SK), Moose Jaw, Vancouver, Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Lethbridge. Citizenship and Immigration Canada continues to work closely with Canadian volunteers, sponsors and settlement workers to assist in the settlement and integration of these refugees.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2008/2008-06-19.asp

Support Thailand Burma Border Consortium-Food Program

As the price of rice rises and refugee rations decrease, a vulnerable people will starve
Kate Heartfield, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Sunday, April 27, 2008
While Canada congratulates itself on rescuing a few thousand refugees from the Thailand-Burma border, it seems willing to watch 140,000 starve, as rice prices threaten to shrink their rations to nearly nothing.
What's more, Canada and other resettlement countries are unwittingly making life even more difficult for those left behind in the camps.
Burma is the source of a number of refugee populations throughout Asia. On the Thailand border, many refugees are from the Karen minority. Thailand refuses to allow most refugees to enter mainstream society and find work.
So the Karen families have been stuck in the camps for years, relying on food rations and watching for the Burmese soldiers that are still close enough to shoot.
Over the last couple of years, Canada's resettlement program has had many successes. The faces of the Karen people I've met in Ottawa are still lined with worry, but you can also see relief: their children are safe. The program should continue.
But even good policies can have unintended consequences.
Most of the work in the camps is done by the refugees themselves. Here's the problem: the refugees most likely to choose resettlement to countries such as Canada are the most experienced and educated: the teachers and medical workers.
Jack Dunford is the executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, which gets food and blankets into the camps. He estimates that the camps are in the midst of losing 70 per cent of their skilled workers.
In the meantime, the resettlement isn't easing the pressure the way you might think it would. While tens of thousands of refugees are making their way to North America and Europe, about 4,000 babies are born in the camps every year, and another 4,000 or so refugees arrive every year from a civil war in Burma that won't end.
The military government has finally gained much of the territory near the Thai border, and now it's consolidating control. That means a whole spectrum of repression for Karen farmers: from holes in their cooking pots, to land mines, to forced labour, to burned villages, to rape, to shooting on sight.
Donors are tired of feeding refugees from one of the world's longest-running crises. The aid organizations have already cut every "luxury" (i.e., mosquito nets) they can.
Just when it seems things can't get any worse, world food prices go through the roof.
In January, the consortium was paying about $350 Canadian per tonne of rice. On Thursday, the price hit $1,000 a tonne.
Mr. Dunford has been working in the border area since 1984. "We've seen our ups and downs and crises in the past, but this is on a different scale." He compares it to a natural disaster -- that's how fast and how damaging the inflation has been.
With one difference: donor countries are quick to respond to natural disasters. Mr. Dunford was in Ottawa recently, cap in hand, trying to fill this year's funding gap, which will be at least $7 million. He's gone to other donor countries too; Ireland and the Netherlands have pledged a total of about $1.3 million. As I write, he still hasn't got a pledge from Canada's government. (Individuals can donate, too, at tbbc.org.)
If he doesn't get the money by June, the consortium will start cutting rations.
The current daily ration is 2,126 calories, consisting of rice, beans, fish paste, oil, chilies, salt, sugar and fortified flour. If prices stay where they are now, each refugee will be limited to 944 calories a day, and the rations will consist only of rice and salt. If prices keep increasing, the ration will go to 555 calories a day.
The likely result: malnutrition, starvation and desperate people leaving the camps to make money in Thailand, illegally, any way they can.
Canada is deeply involved in these camps already, through aid support and through the resettlement program. It can't ignore the starvation of the friends and relatives of the new Karen Canadians. And it must come to grips with the fact that there will always be a constant stream of refugees into these camps, so long as Burma is under thug rule.
On May 10, Burma's people will vote -- or will at least appear to vote -- on a new sham constitution that entrenches military rule. It could be the focus for another uprising in Burma, especially given the Olympic spotlight on the military government's big ally, China.
It's also worth remembering the September uprising was sparked by inflation. This food crisis could be enough to set the country alight.
Larry Bagnell, the Liberal member of Parliament for the Yukon, is the chairman of the Parliamentary Friends of Burma. In January, he visited the camps in Thailand, and met with many activists and community leaders.
"Resistance is not dead," he reports. "The September uprising engaged a whole new generation of students."
Mr. Bagnell has a booklet that bears the title The Constitution of the Federal Republic of the Union of Burma (First Draft). Burma's many pro-democracy groups are collaborating on creating an alternative to the generals' constitution. To Mr. Bagnell, such efforts at legal reform represent one more way -- and there are many -- Canada can help the cause of freedom in Burma.
Only when freedom comes will the camps stop filling up. Until then, we have a moral duty to keep alive the people we can't rescue.
Kate Heartfield is a member of the Citizen's editorial board.
E-mail: kheartfield@thecitizen.canwest.com.
Blog and podcasts: ottawacitizen.com/worldnextdoor

Update news about Karen people in Ottawa

You read about Karen farm, school and communiy at Ottawa and below is an update. Ottawa Citizen Kate Heartfield has coverd several stories of Karen community.

Home free
The first Karen refugees arrived in Ottawa about a year ago. All at once these 'pioneers' are go-to experts for those who've just arrived
Kate Heartfield, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Sunday, April 13, 2008
Scott La Htoo is a brawny, cheerful baby who doesn't, as the folksy expression has it, "make strange." That's just one idiom his mother has had to learn, along with how to move a stroller through snow and what a caesarian section is. She learned the last one the hard way.
His mother is Say Blue, one of about 200 people who recently left refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border to make new, safer homes in Ottawa. They're members of the Karen ethnic group, which has long been persecuted by Burma's dictators and displaced by its interminable civil war.
Canada began a program of resettlement for the Karens in 2006. About 2,000 have arrived in Canadian communities during the past year and a half, and another 1,000 expected this year.
I met Say Blue a year ago when I was writing about the newly arrived Karen families. At the time, she struck me as shy but determined. She wanted, she said, to grow vegetables.
Thanks to the generous spirit of Roger Stone, who owns a little land in the Stittsville area, Say Blue and other Karen refugees planted crops and benefited from an abundant harvest last fall. She hopes to be out there again this summer.
In the year since we last spoke, her English has improved. She's a little more settled. She's learned a lot about Canada. And, to her surprise, she's had a baby.
She's 38 and her husband, Saw Htoo, is 44. The last time Say Blue gave birth was in 1997, to Eh Hser Htee, Scott's brother. For years the couple wanted another baby, but perhaps because of the stress of camp life it just didn't happen. Soon after the move to Ottawa, Say Blue was feeling suspiciously unwell. Scott La Htoo was born Nov. 21, 2007 -- about a year after they arrived.
Coleen Scott, a Canadian who's spent time working in the refugee camps, is now a pillar of support to Ottawa's Karen community. She helped Say Blue understand the hospital system, including showing a video that explained the c-section. And Ms. Scott was given the honour of helping to name the little boy.
Most of the adult Karens spent more than a decade in the dangerous limbo of the camps before coming here. About 140,000 other refugees -- including many relatives of the Karens here -- are still in camps, waiting.
But as Ottawa's Karen community grows, a few family members will be reunited. Newcomers enter a community full of support and energy.
Another pillar of the community is Nimrod Andrew, a Karen man who lived in Ottawa before the resettlement. In just a few years, he's helped a nearly non-existent community transform into a thriving cultural force.
Mr. Andrew says that with every arrival the Karen community feels more complete.
On Saturday mornings, about 35 Karen children go to Cambridge Street Community Public School for classes in their mother tongue. They're learning to read and write the Karen alphabet. Perhaps more importantly, they're speaking a minority language that could otherwise disappear in Ottawa.
The children are picking up English quickly, and they already treat French as a secret language they can speak without their parents understanding.
At Cambridge, they start the day in the gym where they sing the Canadian anthem, along with the children of five other language schools. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board runs an international language program in 43 languages at 17 sites across Ottawa. Last year, the Karen language was added to the curriculum.
Tha Gay, a smiling 25-year-old man who's only been here for five months, teaches the youngest kids. He spent 19 years in refugee camps before coming to Ottawa. He's a natural teacher, but he has also taken teacher training and is studying English and political science at Carleton University.
The older students study with Wah Paw Ler, 25. This is her first year in Ottawa, too. The day I visit, Tha Gay leads the little ones in a Karen song that translates as "Clever students." Next door, the older children play traditional percussion instruments.
The relationship between the pioneers and the newcomers is reciprocal. The pioneers, especially the youngest, teach newcomers about Canadian culture. In return, the newest arrivals, such as Tha Gay and Wah Paw Ler, keep the Karen community in touch with the camps they left behind and with their native Burma.
So far, the children seem happy to talk about their refugee status with their Canadian classmates. They are taking on a new, Canadian identity. It is hard to predict whether the refugee part of their identity will survive. It's even harder to determine whether it should.
Little Scott La Htoo will grow up without ever having known Thai camps or Burmese villages. I ask Say Blue if she wants Scott to go to Burma one day. She says yes, but there's a sad expression on her face. We both know she doesn't want her son to return to the violent Burma she left behind.
Nimrod Andrew and I met with a group of Karen teenagers recently at Woodroffe High School, where they're part of the English-language learners program. There are numerous languages spoken at Woodroffe, which might help explain why the Karen students seem to have found so much support there.
They're comfortable enough that they've been heard singing Karen songs with each other in the hallways. Still, high school isn't easy. In addition to learning about science and geography and the rest, they've had to figure out timetables, bus schedules, how to dress and how to participate in a Canadian classroom. They have found mentors in other students at the school, though, and the Karen teenagers who have been here the longest are helping the newcomers figure things out.
Susan Carlton teaches a class of 15 students, nine of whom are Karen. "Their work ethic is contagious," she says. "It's changed the dynamic in there." Ms. Carlton describes one of her students, Paw K'Mwee Eh Kay, as "liquid energy."
Paw is 16 "and a half." She lives, with her three younger brothers and their parents, just down the street from Say Blue. Many of the Karen families live in Centretown or Westboro.
Paw's brothers are among a group of Karen boys who play hockey at Dovercourt. So does Eh Hser Htee, Scott La Htoo's older brother. Many of the Karen children like to skate and even braved the canal this winter. Soon it will be soccer season.
Like Say Blue, Paw and her family came to Ottawa in the fall of 2006, which makes them pioneers. I ask what advice they'd offer newcomers. "I would tell them we have to work
really hard and we have to try our best," Paw replies.
It is hard work, being a new Canadian. You can see it in Say Blue's face.
For many of the Karen pioneers in Ottawa, financial support from the government is running out.
Their lives are filled with small stresses. A call from a telemarketer is annoying enough for the average Canadian. For a new refugee, it's a test of skill.
Ehamoorah Kay, Paw's 38-year-old mother, admits she doesn't have the energy to answer the phone some days.
The adults have had some success finding jobs, particularly in landscaping. For many, their experiences in the Canadian job market have only heightened their desire to learn English as quickly as possible.
Ehamoorah Kay and her husband, 40-year-old Ter Kay, have picked up quite a bit of English in recent months. Their household is typical, though, in that it's the teenagers and children who are the most fluent.
When I ask about the differences between life in the camps and life in Ottawa, Paw translates for her parents: "In their country, they have to worry about the Burmese army.
"Here, they have to learn the language."
Online: Read Kate Heartfield's blog at ottawacitizen.com/worldnextdoor

Fresh Violation-Burmese soldiers order to rape Karen women in Burma

New Year Presents- for civilians in Burma

A few days ago when 2008 arrived we greed each other to have a healthy live, peace and prosperity. Yes, because we want New Year bring us a better life, a good health and luck. However, it was not for the civilians in Burma. In late 2007, the Burmese military commanders ordered solders in Mutraw District, Karen State to torture and rape every girls and women on their way to the border. According to the news on January 28 posted at Kwekalu, a Karen online news website, confirmed, “Battalions’ commanders in Eastern part of Burma order soldiers to arrest and rape any girls they saw in that area”. The Karen Information Centre (KIC News) also confirmed this news and District Karen Women Group at the area warmed girls and women to avoid and run away if they knew that attack would happen. Actually, for many of us who watched John Rambo movie, we might visualize what was happening in the movie and was the location that described in the movie. Burmese military have been using torture, rape and violence as a weapon against Karen and other ethnic women at the rural area where the war took place and it was well documented by several human rights institutions. Lately we saw “License to rape” and “Shattering Silence” were among violence conducted by Burmese military against women in rural areas. It is an ongoing practice that happen so long military ruler is in power. Many of the observers might feel that Rambo, this time, a real one, to rescues Burma and bring back democracy and freedom for Burma civilians.

Rambo - He is back

John Rambo – He is back
(Action and violence for viewers, but for the sufferers, it is the reality)

After twenty yeas of his last Rambo movie about Vietnam War, Sylvester Stallone is coming back with his new Rambo movie, which is release on January 25, 2008. This time, it is about Karen people in Burma and their struggle for freedom and self-determination. On near by Thai-Burma border, the world’s longest-running civil war, the Burmese-Karen conflict, rages into it 60th years. After the Second World War, the Karen people had been fighting for self-determination, freedom and the reorganization of Karen State, however, their struggle was long and continues until today. Since Burmese military controlled media inside Burma and the conflict took place in the rural areas, this longest civil war is rarely covered by international media and little known by International communities. Burmese military are systematically attacking not only Karen fighters but also Karen villagers, killed, reaped women, girls, and torture them all. Human rights abuse, force labor and force relocation happens everyday since the war started. Ten of thousands of civilians sacrificed their live for freedom and democracy in Burma.

‘The situation in Burma, there has been a large civil war in the world and it’s been 60 years. So I thought if there is going to be another Rambo, let it be about something that actually exists. Though we are giving you an entertaining film, we’ll also be able to help some people who are facing life and death every day,” said Stallone.
The British newspaper, Daily Mail, quoted leading actor Sylvester Stallone as saying: “I witnessed the aftermath [in Burma]—survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off. I want people to feel the violence because that is what is really happening in Burma. Believe me, it's even worse than what we depict. "I felt that I had to live up to the responsibility of showing the world what is happening in Burma," he added. "People were dying there while we were making our movie."

It was true that after watching this movie by myself, I felt that it is a good opportunity now to show the world what Karen people are really suffering under the Burmese military rule. Most viewers might feel that it’s another good Rambo movie and enjoyable to watch, but for the Karen people, it is the reality and their suffering is happening here now in Karen State, Burma.

"Live for nothing or die for something" Rambo. "Freedom is for those who dare to fight" Gen. Saw Bo Mya.

If you are interested helping Karen people in Burma or in Canada, please write to ottawakaren@gmail.com or visit http://www.karencommunity.ca/ for more information.

Karen New Year Celebration Ottawa

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nkT_xGRUOdI&feature=related

you can visit www.karencommunity.ca for more information

Wayne Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/views/bios/story.html?id=bbc4b9de-3979-4d6f-8c13-905c299b677f&p=1

Kate Heartfield . The power of volunteerism
Kate Heartfield, The Ottawa CitizenPublished: Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The most powerful force for good on the planet is the inclination to act on a simple idea.
Why not volunteer? Why not compost? Why not offer your unused land to somebody who can use it?
That last one is the idea that came to Roger Stone a few months ago. He'd read one of my columns about the Karen refugees, people who have been living for years in camps on the border between Thailand and Burma. Canada is resettling hundreds of the refugees, and more than 100 have already come to Ottawa.

Roger Stone, centre, has given a group of Karen refugees in Ottawa, including Lah Say, left, and Way Thaw, use of several acres of formerly fallow farmland on the edge of Kanata's suburban growth so they can grow food.


Mr. Stone lives in a farmhouse that's more than a century old, in a rural area that seems doomed to be swallowed up by suburban Kanata South. A stone's throw from the strip malls and parking lots, Mr. Stone and his wife Margaret live with their border collies and the flowers and birds, a few outbuildings and some lovely old trees. They moved there as newlyweds nearly 40 years ago.
Part of their land has been sitting fallow for years. Mr. Stone thought the newly arrived refugees might be able to use it, for picnics or barbecues. So he got in touch with Nimrod Andrew and Colleen Scott, who have been working tirelessly to help the newcomers adjust to life in Ottawa.
Ms. Scott told him that what the Karens really wanted was a place to grow crops. So Mr. Stone, an engineer, mowed about an acre of his land.
"They took one look at it and said, we'll take the whole field," Mr. Stone says cheerfully. "That's when I started to think about water."
He found a guy with a rototiller who could help clean up the field. "Within about a week from a standing start, we were ready to go," he says, surprised himself at how smoothly it happened.
The Karens are now using about three or four acres. Their rows of tomatoes, eggplant, coriander, corn, lettuces, onions, squash, cabbages, dill and peppers stretch across the field, dotted with rain barrels and a few young oaks planted by jays or squirrels.
Mr. Stone hasn't just made his land available; he's become a friend to the community. He keeps a curious eye on the crops and talks with the farmers, across the barriers of culture and language. He gives them advice about growing in this climate, about the need for water and weeding -- although he admits to some embarrassment on the water score, since our summer so far has been downright tropical.
OC Transpo does have a route that goes fairly close to Mr. Stone's place, although it can't be a very convenient trip. So some of the refugees stay overnight on the weekends, making use of a trailer on the grounds or Mr. Stone's homemade indoor squash court (he's always trying to find partners.) The kids swim in his pool.
There's more work to be done: He wants to create a shelter so the farmers can grow from seed next year instead of buying seedlings. As long as the Stones are on the land, it looks as if it will be available for the Karens.
The crops look fantastic: when I was there, the tomato plants were heavy with green fruit and the Karens were harvesting the lettuces and cabbages.
They might not have experience with the Canadian climate, but they do have experience with farming. Many of the refugees grew food in the camps, and before that, when they were living in Burma and being persecuted by the military. In March, I interviewed a woman named Say Blue, who spent 14 years in the camps. She told me she'd like to have a place to grow vegetables: now she does.

These refugees have been in this alien culture for less than a year and most of them don't speak fluent English or French. Despite that, despite all the difficulties they face, they get on the bus and spend their weekends growing food. It's the simplest way people can provide for their families, and a universal joy.
And it started with a very simple idea: if you don't need something and your neighbour does, you lend it out. It's a country idea, as beautiful and old-fashioned as Mr. Stone's house. And just like Mr. Stone's country house, I hope it survives.
I think it will: I know of many other Ottawans who have helped the Karens in their own ways. Anyone who'd like to help at harvest time or on special projects at the farm can e-mail me and I'll put them in touch with the Karen community.

Kate Heartfield writes for the Citizen's editorial board. Blog: ottawacitizen.com/worldnextdoorE-mail: kheartfield@thecitizen.canwest.com

The Ottawa Citizen: Karens learn to deal with freedom - Kate Heartfield

The Ottawa Citizen: Karens learn to deal with freedom - Kate Heartfield

Tue 13 Mar 2007

When I ask the Karen refugees what they like about living in Ottawa, they say they like being free, that they like not having to deal with harassment from soldiers.It’s an obvious answer, but it hits me in the gut anyway. I expect them to say they like the stores or the washing machines or the snow. All that stuff is incidental to them. They don’t talk about the weather or shopping unless I ask. Even then, they’re unlikely to answer with much more than a smile.
They’ve only been here a few months. Their old life is still fresh: refugee camps in remote parts of Thailand, and before that, villages in Burma (officially Myanmar). Burma is ruled by a junta that persecutes the Karen people and other minorities.
The soldiers came and burned the villages; the refugees fled. There are about 140,000 refugees in those camps near the border. Many of them have been there almost 20 years.
The federal government recently resettled about 800 Karen refugees from those camps across Canada, almost 100 of which came to Ottawa. The government plans to bring about 1,850 more refugees from the camps to Canada over the next two years, starting in May. Some of them will come to Ottawa to join the little but rapidly growing Karen community.
Say Blue, a small woman with a sweet but serious face, spent 14 years in the camps, before she came to Ottawa with her husband, her 17-year-old daughter, Say Gay, and her nine-year-old son. In Burma, she had a farm. There were pigs and chickens. She grew rice, cucumbers and beans. That was before the soldiers came, burning the crops and putting holes in the cooking pots.
Now, Say Blue is learning to cook with an electric rice cooker on a countertop, instead of on a charcoal fire in a bamboo hut. Everything’s different in her life. She doesn’t know much yet about workplaces in Ottawa. She isn’t sure what kind of a job she might have. She’d like to have a place to grow vegetables. The first thing she says to me is that she’s very lucky because she isn’t on the run.
She’s finding English difficult to learn. All the recent Karen refugees spoke with me through an interpreter, Nimrod Andrew, a young Karen man who’s lived in Ottawa for a few years.
“We believe that as long as we have rice we will survive,” he jokes, as we talk to Say Blue about cooking in her new home.
Way Thaw was a businessman in his village. He traded in cows and produce. He tries not to think about the time when the soldiers burned his village. During his 15 years in the camps, he felt guilty because he was getting food without working for it. And he felt deeply the lack of freedom. Thailand does not allow the refugees to leave the camps, unless they’re being resettled to another country such as Canada.
He found the Ottawa February difficult because he has asthma. But he’s still happy to be here because there’s no war. There’s freedom. His children and grandchildren will have better lives and the chance to be hard-working people.
Colleen Scott, an Ottawa woman who’s spent time with the Karen in the camps, is helping the fledgling Karen community here. She’s been teaching them about bank machines and buses and helping them get to appointments. She says she learns as much from them as they do from her.
“It’s a terrifying journey, and an unbelievably brave thing that they are doing,” she says.
One of the challenges they’re facing, she says, is that many have never had chances to make decisions for themselves. Autonomy is unfamiliar. The young people, such as Say Gay, have known nothing but camps. They don’t even remember Burma.
Way Thaw’s son, Htoo Htoo, is also 17. Like Say Gay, he’s going to Woodroffe High School, learning English and a few other subjects. He’s been skating, on an expedition led by Ms. Scott, but he still hasn’t been to a movie. He enjoys playing guitar, basketball and soccer. He would like to be a doctor, although he’s embarrassed to say so.
In January, I wrote a column about the obstacles these Karen refugees might face in Ottawa. Ms. Scott says Ottawa’s reception of the newcomers hasn’t been perfect. Few people here have even heard of the Karen people, or know that they’re a distinct ethnic group within Burma. It’s still a struggle for people such as Ms. Scott and Mr. Andrew to help the refugees get around town and learn about their new home.
“It’s an overload situation, with a group of people nobody knows anything about,” says Ms. Scott, her frustration evident.
Nonetheless, I’m impressed with what this little community has accomplished so far. They’ve set up a school in the Karen language so the children won’t lose their heritage. The ability to understand English is starting to come, especially for the youth. Some are able to speak a little English, too.
I’m glad the pioneers, including Way Thaw and Say Blue and their families, will be here for the next group.
But there’s more the rest of us could do to make the transition easier for the Karen refugees. For example, aboriginal people in the Ottawa area might be able to talk with the Karen families about ways to maintain their cultural values of self-sufficiency and respect for nature in an urbanized society.
There are all kinds of possibilities. As the Karen people have reminded me, all possibilities begin with freedom. Everything else is secondary.
Kate Heartfield is a member of the Citizen’s editorial board.





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Karen Refugees arrive in Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/ottawa/media/audio/burmeserefugees/20061207gardner_burma.ram
Nimrod Andrew