ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
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RESIST (Women’s Courage Tested in Myanmar One Year Since the Failed Coup)
/in ND-Burma's ReportsWomen in Myanmar have shown their strength over decades of armed conflict. They have also reshaped a landscape of patriarchal values that have long attempted to shape the country. Advocates have been calling for stronger legislation to protect women from physical and emotional violence, but there has been a disappointing lack of desire to pass laws which would protect survivors and ensure access to justice.
The malice exhibited by the Myanmar junta includes many years of sexual violence perpetrated during internal conflict. Under these harrowing circumstances, women and girls bear the burden. They are targeted by soldiers while trying to escape raids, and flee organized violence. Those who survive are left traumatized and often without adequate access to psychosocial counseling. Their lives, along with their families, are forever marred by the regime’s vehemence.
Pathways to justice are filled with roadblocks, including costly trials and protection granted to soldiers. The junta has been able to evade accountability and increase the likelihood of repeat offenses. Years of impunity has reinforced a deeply flawed legal system that denies the dignity, safety and security of victims.
Since the failed Myanmar coup on 1 February 2021, civilians have come under fire as soldiers have attempted to squander resistance movements through any means necessary. Over 1,500 people have been killed and hundreds more injured, according to local documentation groups. Against this backdrop of unyielding violence, women’s resistance movements have prevailed under the darkest of circumstances. Pro-democracy campaigns have taken place in spite of the threats and risks to their physical and digital security.
In the presence of the Myanmar military, women have never been safe. Nevertheless, women’s voices for change continue to persevere. Against all odds, indeed, they continue to resist.
The Human Rights Foundation of Monland, the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand and The Network for Human Rights Documentation Call for Justice for Women in Myanmar in New Joint Briefing Paper, “Resist”
/in Press Releases and StatementsThe Human Rights Foundation of Monland, the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand and The Network for Human Rights Documentation Call for Justice for Women in Myanmar in New Joint Briefing Paper, “Resist”
8 March 20222
For Immediate Release
Today, on International Women’s Day, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) and the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma) release a joint briefing paper, “Resist: Women’s Courage Tested in Myanmar One Year Since the Failed Coup.”
In the 13 months which have now passed since 1 February 2021, the people of Myanmar have had their basic rights and freedoms swiftly obstructed by the military junta. Women are among the hundreds who have been killed, and the thousands arbitrarily and unlawfully arrested by the Myanmar military. The lives of citizens in the country have not been safe for many months now. And yet, despite the great terrors and daily risks to their lives, the Spring Revolution has amassed a nation who refuses to bow down to the authoritarian regime.
Women throughout Myanmar’s history have tirelessly advocated for equality and recognition through their participation in all sectors of society at a minimum of 30 percent. Since the failed coup, women leaders have shown up across the country in various ways including leading protests, organizing and campaigning anti-coup rallies and offering support behind the scenes to displaced families, civilian armed defense forces and more. They have left their jobs and joined the Civil Disobedience Movement as doctors, medics, lawyers, teachers, bankers and from a variety of other professions. Amidst all of the threats, women in Myanmar continue to resist.
HURFOM, KWAT and ND-Burma call for an immediate end to violence against civilians in Myanmar, in particular an end to conflict related sexual violence and acts which endanger the lives of women and children. Women have been gunned down in their homes with their families by the junta, and have faced extreme violence in military custody. Alongside growing numbers of arbitrary arrests, detainment and forced disappearances, women who challenge the junta are susceptible to more danger if immediate action is not swiftly taken.
Media Contact
The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand
kwat.office@gmail.com
The Human Rights Foundation of Monland
auemon@gmail.com
The Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma
NDBoffice@protonmail.com
The Human Rights Foundation of Monland was founded by pro-democracy students from the 1988 uprising and more recent activists and Mon community leaders and youths, and its main aim is for the restoration of democracy, human rights and genuine peace in Burma. HURFOM is a non-profit organization and all its members are volunteers who have the same opinion for the same aim. By accepting the main aim, we would like to participate in the struggle for the establishment of a democratic Burma doing our part as a local ethnic human rights group, which is monitoring the human rights situation in Mon territory and other areas in the southern part of Burma.
The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand is a non-profit organization which works to eliminate discrimination and violence against women, enhance the living standards of women and enable them to participate in decision-making processes at all levels, and strengthen the quest for social justice, peace and development in the Kachin region
The Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma was formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
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Junta forces torch villages in Myanmar’s north amid internet blackout
/in NewsA series of attacks carried out on Saturday reduced one village to ashes, sources in Sagaing Region’s Khin-U Township reported
A village in Sagaing Region’s Khin-U Township was almost completely incinerated on Saturday as regime forces carried out a series of unprovoked attacks in the area over the weekend, according to local sources.
In a statement released on Saturday evening, the Khin-U Township Information Committee claimed that the military had reduced almost the entire village of Dan Kone to ashes earlier in the day.
Local residents confirmed that around 80 junta troops had been raiding villages as they entered the area from neighbouring Ye-U Township.
“I didn’t hear about any fighting. The soldiers just arrived and started setting fire to houses. Everybody fled,” a resident of Shwe Yamin, the village next to Dan Kone, told Myanmar Now.
“They started by torching three houses at the same time,” he said, adding that Dan Kone was the first village to come under attack.
A member of a local defence force said the junta soldiers also passed through the villages of Ywar Thit Kone, Padat Kone, Kone Thar, Aung Thar and Te Kone Gyi.
“There weren’t any clashes, but they kept attacking the villages. We’ve been retreating according to the conditions. We didn’t engage them at all,” he said.
The Khin-U Township Information Committee said it was unable to send photos of the damage because Myanmar’s junta had cut off internet access in the region.
The group, formed by activists opposed to last year’s coup, added that a five-year-old child had been hit by an artillery shell, and that displaced villagers were in need of emergency assistance.
Internet restrictions were imposed on 23 townships in Sagaing last Thursday. At least seven more townships in the region have since lost internet access as the regime moves to isolate areas where it is carrying out operations against resistance forces.
A day after the restrictions were first imposed, junta troops reportedly killed nine civilians and abducted a woman and two children during raids on the Sagaing villages of Min Swe Hna Swe and Muu Kan Gyi.
Myanmar’s military routinely denies targeting civilians, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. It claims that it is protecting civilians from anti-regime “terrorists”.
Last week, local sources reported that regime soldiers and members of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia also burned down hundreds of houses in the villages of Letpan Hla and Lel Yar, in Magway Region’s Pauk Township.
Myanmar Now News
Weekly Update : 28 February to 6 March 2022
/in HR SituationSagaing Region Internet Shut Down Amid Myanmar Junta Raids
/in NewsMyanmar’s regime has cut internet access across Sagaing Region where armed resistance to the junta is strong. It is also launching airstrikes and torching villages.
Residents said the internet was down across the sprawling region’s 34 townships other than four towns and cities, denying news about the fighting.
A Tabayin resident told The Irrawaddy that the internet was cut three days ago and he heard only Sagaing, Monywa, Kale and Shwebo had access.
Internet access was cut last September in Ayadaw, Yinmabin, Kani, Pale, Ye-U, Taze and Budalin townships in the region.
The regime carried out an estimated 19 air raids on the region between last July and mid-February, according to the Institute for Strategy and Policy in Myanmar.
There were clashes in 16 townships during that period and at least 140 civilians were killed by junta forces, the institute reported in February.
The junta has torched at least 6,158 civilian homes in the 13 months since the coup, mostly in areas with heavy anti-regime resistance.
Sagaing Region suffered nearly 60 percent of the damage, according to the independent Data for Myanmar research group.
Residents fear the lack of internet access will limit their ability to avoid junta raids and find shelter after being attacked.
“It is very difficult for the displaced, especially children and old people, to find safety if we don’t get the news,” said a Taze resident.
He said they had previously asked for donations on Facebook but now they are left on their own.
The regime uses airstrikes, artillery and allied Phyu Saw Htee militias to attack villages and burn houses.
Irrawaddy News
Villages go up in flames as junta troops, militias continue central Myanmar raids
/in NewsJunta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee members ambush two villages in Magway Region’s Pauk Township, displacing residents and burning hundreds of homes.
A combined force of Myanmar army soldiers and members of the junta-allied Pyu Saw Htee militias raided two villages in central Myanmar and torched more than 200 homes this week, locals said.
The communities of Lel Yar and Letpan Hla, 18 miles south of Pauk Township in Magway Region, were targeted in the attacks carried out on Wednesday and Thursday.
Lel Yar was ambushed first.
“We could see them marching towards our village,” a 30-year-old woman from Lel Yar said. “We heard someone yelling that the Pyu Saw Htee and soldiers were coming and we fled on our motorbikes.”
More than 1,700 people from the village were displaced by the assault, including 500 children, according to local sources.
At around 8pm on Wednesday the troops and militia members began torching homes in Lel Yar, destroying some 200 out of the village’s 260 households.
“We could still hear gunshots, so we thought they were still shooting in the village but we started to see flames there,” the Lel Yar resident said. “Since the wind was blowing, the fire consumed the whole village.”
Among the properties lost to the fire were tens of thousands of dollars worth of agricultural and food supplies, including a two-storey barn, a grain processor for livestock feed, a cowshed, a waterpump, and a major harvest of onions.
“I hope they face the same fate that we did,” the woman from Lel Yar said, describing the military and the Pyu Saw Htee as “evil.”
The following day, the troops crossed the nearby Yaw stream and raided Letpan Hla, setting fire to at least 30 of the village’s 90 homes, according to a member of a local anti-junta defence force in southern Pauk Township.
“They fired heavy artillery and 60mm shells as they entered the village. We evacuated the civilians to a hill nearby and let the junta forces destroy the village,” he told Myanmar Now.
It was not confirmed at the time of reporting how many villagers were forced to flee.
The invading military column was made up of more than 150 junta personnel, the defence force member estimated, and noted that the Pyu Saw Htee members involved in the raid were identified as coming from the villages of Wun Chone, Pin Taung and Thit Cho Kone.
He said that he was upset that the resistance force was unable to protect Letpan Hla from the attack.
“It’s our fault that the village got destroyed,” he added.
A_house_burned_in_lel_yar_village_pauk_magway_photo_supplied.jpg
The guerrilla fighters also reportedly tried to defend against the raid on Lel Yar, but were forced to retreat by the significant difference in firepower.
“How would our handmade weapons work against them? We have very poor aim because of our very low-tier weapons,” the defence force member told Myanmar Now.
The junta column left Letpan Hla on Friday and was last seen heading towards the villages of Boet Mei and Inn Nge Daunt. Local resistance groups had reportedly formed an alliance and were anticipating the arrival of the troops.
In June, junta forces set fire to the village of Kinma, 20 miles south of Pauk town, destroying 80 percent of the homes and killing an elderly couple who had been unable to flee the attack.
Pauk Township is located en route to southern Chin State, which has become a resistance stronghold and site of major clashes between local defence forces and the Myanmar Army.
The military junta has been arming militia groups as part of its effort to crush anti-regime forces.
The “people’s militias”—or Pyu Saw Htee, as they are commonly known—have been deployed in many parts of Sagaing and Magwe regions where armed resistance groups have been most active.
Myanmar Now News