The military dictatorship of Burma – or Myanmar - has often been accused of declaring war on its own people – especially on ethnic minorities like the Karen people. 

There are now half a million internally displaced people in the rural areas of Eastern Burma alone. People who’ve had to relocate because they were living in a virtual war zone. Most of them are villagers who have been forced to leave their farms and their homes for an uncertain future. 

Around 200,000 Karen people are scratching a living in the infertile and difficult terrain of the highlands.  They were driven out by the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the area.  It’s a deliberate military strategy to keep this vast foot army unsupplied, so they’re forced to live off the land, which means that they in turn force villagers to feed and work for them, but more often simply turn them out of their homes and confiscate all they own.

As for the Karen – theirs is one of the longest running internal conflicts on earth – their battle against the majority Burman army has been going on since the Second World War, and they’ve evolved a highly efficient community network.  Volunteers are mobilized to bring supplies to remote villages, to help new refugees set up new communities. Journalist Phil Thornton has lived in the area for years and says that his research has shown that this too is a deliberate strategy on the part of the Army:  “they know that if you keep the community leaders busy taking care of refugees, travelling for weeks to bring them food and medicines and it takes time and resources away from an armed defence.”

Generations of Karen are growing up in camps and temporary settlements, far from the land and farms they still long for.  Donor fatigue is setting in and resources are thinning.  The people in the camps face an uncertain future with diminishing hope of ever being able to return back to their land.