Karen Rivers Watch
Self-Description : September 2008 http://www.karenriverwatch.net/krwfrontpage.htm
MANY development projects with regard to the natural resources in Burma have become an attractive issue for exploitation by international corporations and foreign country enterprises since the repressive military regime took over power in 1988.
Many of these project areas are in the non-Burman ethnic states where resistance armies are still fighting for greater autonomy. The military regime commits atrocities in those ethnic areas and always justifies the need to rule the country by saying that the country is still unstable since it took power from the previous regime led by Ne Win.
The plight of the non-Burman ethnic nationalities in Shan State, Karenni State, Karen State and Mon State provide solid evidence of the regime’s aim to uproot the ethnic minorities in those areas to make way for development projects.
In many cases, the local communities were not even consulted, but were forcibly relocated and often killed instead.
All the projects implemented under the regime are used as a tool to control the areas in the name of “development”. In areas under the regime’s control the local people are used for forced labour and regularly face arbitrary extortion and other human rights abuses.
What We Are
The Karen Rivers Watch (KRW) was formed in order to educate the communities about any development scheme, to actively find other alternative solutions that are environmentally sustainable to meet their needs and to be able to materialise these plans when there is a just and democratic government in Burma.
KRW is a coalition of Karen organisations - the Karen Office of Relief and Development (KORD), Karen Youth Organisation (KYO), Karen Student Network Group (KSNG), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), Karen Women’s Organisation and Federal Trade Union of Kawthoolei (FTUK) - which work on environmental, women’s, youth, human rights and development issues within the Karen community in Karen State.
It was formed to monitor development processes affecting the environment, especially rivers, in Karen State in particular and Burma in general, and to mobilise grassroots communities, as well as advocate with other Burma compatriots for democratic and sustainable development in Burma.
Mission
KRW is a forum for individual Karen people and Karen organisations who are interested in actively protecting the Karen social, economical, political and environmental aspects of life.
Objectives
- To safeguard and protect the river environment;
- To highlight the advantages and disadvantages of any project on the rivers in our areas; and
- To actively be involved in the protection and conservation of the environment and Karen people’s human rights, including the right to self-determination