This video documents the horrendous situation that villagers in Toungoo, Nyaung Lay Bin and Muthraw Districts are facing and includes testimonies from villagers affected by this offensive. Throughout this military campaign, which began in November 2005 and is still continuing, villages have been shelled with mortars, looted and burnt to the ground. Crops and food supplies have been destroyed. Burmese soldiers are ordered to shoot on sight regardless of whether it is a combatant or a defenseless civilian. As a result more than 27,000 people have been forced from their homes, either hiding in the jungle or trying to find refuge in Thailand. The Burmese army continues to increase its military presence in these areas and carry out attacks against villagers. Thousands of lives have been affected by this offensive and many have been lost - all valuable and irreplaceable.
The video calls for increased cross border humanitarian assistance, for ASEAN to take a stronger stance against the regime and for a United Nations Security Council Resolution on Burma.
Produced by Burma Issues December 2006
13 minutes
Season of Fear:
Internally
Displaced People in Burma call for International
action
This video shows the day-to-day struggle of over half a million displaced persons in eastern Burma and how displacements impacts communities and individuals. In September 2005, the Burmese military launched an offensive and displaced thousands of people in Nyaung Lay Bin and Toungoo Districts. Some villages were burnt down and some people had to cross border to take shelter in refugee camp.
In the context of human rights, this should be a cause for increased international pressure on the miliary regime in Burma. The actions we and the IDPs themselves are calling for includes increase level of humanitarian aid and support to IDPs and condemnation by the international community of attacks on IDPs
Produced by Burma Issues March 2006
10:05 minutes
An estimated 540,000 people were internally displaced in eastern Burma, on the run, or living in forced relocation sites. In the video three internally displaced people (IDPs) talk about their hopes and fears for themselves and their children and the impact that being forced to flee for their lives has on their ability to nurture and care for their families. A week after the footage was filmed the offensive reached this area and these IDPs were forced to flee, again.
Produced by Burma Issues February2005
Time: 5:35
Do Our Lives Matter?
Do Our Lives Matter? is about Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), living in Southern Karen State. In this area in Tenasserim Division, since early 2004, the SPDC has launched a renewed operation to find IDPs, to force them to live in the SPDC's Forced Relocation Sites. The IDPs, who fleed into the jungle from the SPDC, now have to worry even more about their safety as the SPDC is looking for them now. It seems that in 2004 the situation for the people in many areas in Karen State has become increasingly difficult.
Produced by Burma Issues October 2004 (Kanchanburi Office)
Living in Unsafety
In the first months of 2004, the SPDC military government started an offensive in Northern Karen State and Southern Karenni State, which share a border. In only a few months 5000 people were displaced in this area. Without any food, shelter, clean drinking water or any health care, these thousands of people had to survive in the jungle with all their families, children, elderly people and also pregnant women.
The video Living in Unsafety tells the story of th eIDPs hiding in the jungle in this border area between Karen and Karenni State, and the difficulties that they were faced with. It includes interviews with two porters who were forced to work in this offensive and who were able to escape.
Produced by Burma Issues August 2004
Voices from the Salween Valley
Voices from the Salween Valley tells the story of the people living close to the area where the SPDC government, in cooperation with the Thai government, will build a dam on the Salween River. The dam will have a major impact on the lives of the people living in this area, as well as on the environment. In previous development projects, the SPDC government did not compensate villagers for their loses. Instead, villagers were often used as forced labourers or forced to relocate. As the villagers in this area wer not officially informed yet by the SPDC about the dam project, through the measurements had already started, and as they live in a 'free fire zone', they fear for their future.
This video includes the testimonies of a range of villagers (with a mix of gender, occupation and age) about their understanding of the proposed Salween dam, their feelings about it, their views on the probable consequences and what action they would like to see against the dam project.
Produced by Burma Issues February 2004
From Prison to the Frontline
From Prison to the Frontline is a brief documentary detailing how prisoners in Burma are being forced by the SPDC to become military porters and human landmine sweepers. It specifically documents how the SPDC took prisoners from the prisons in to Karen State where the SPDC held their attack against the KNU, which began in September 2003. Through the use of interviews the video also details the human rights violations committed against the porters and how a group of 24 porters escaped from their captors to the safety of the KNU camp.
Produced by Burma Issues in 2004
14 minutes and it is in English
No Place to Go
No Place to Go covers the major issues pertaining to IDPs in Burma through eyewitness accounts. IDPs themselves explain their displacement caused by military operations, their crop destruction due to the hands of the Burmese military, no access to both education and healthcare, human rights violations, constant movement, food scarcity and child soliders. They tell of their daily dtruggle to survive against an oppressive military regime and they show courage and resilience as a people who refuse to be forced from their own land.
The video was produced with coopertion from WITNESS. This video can be viewed at the WITNESS website (http://www.witness.org), in the Rights Alert section.
Produced by Burma Issues
The Burma Deception
The Burma Deception is an overall sweep of the issues surrounding human rights offenses in Burma. It tells of many innocent people being forced to work as Porters, whether they are healthy or not, and in some cases they are used as human mine sweepers. There are detailed stas of where Burma refugeess have gone and it discusses the operations of the military. It also touches ont he wide opium trade in Burma and the effects on the economy and where government spending goes, as a result of military rule.
