Spent tea leaves were etched into the raw blisters on his face when they found him. Villagers believe the urn of scalding tea the Burmese soldiers tipped over Mu Kay's head killed him. But the betel nut farmer, 57, more likely bled to death, shot point-blank in both thighs.
He died in agony. The 150 soldiers who surprised the remote hamlet waited over his dying body for two days before leaving. When the villagers emerged from hiding they buried him in a shallow grave and left their homes for good.
The farmer's grim death is not unique. Many have been slain in the Myanmar regime's biggest military offensive in a decade -- all under the guise of "development," to clear the way for four vast hydro-power dams that began more than a year ago.
It is the latest bloody chapter in the world's longest running civil war that has lasted nearly 60 years and sent millions fleeing into Thailand. The conflict also displaced 500,000 people in Myanmar. But the newest offensive, out of sight in the jungle, is driven by the junta's aim to control resource-rich eastern Myanmar by enslaving some villages and destroying others -- killing, forcibly relocating or driving out the inhabitants.
The prize is a bonanza of foreign currency from gems, gold, logging and hydro-electricity that will bolster the repressive regime. The largest and most lucrative project is a series of four dams on the Salween river generating cheap power, mostly for export to Thailand.
"The regime uses development as an excuse for clearance," said Mark Farmaner of the UK-based advocacy group the Burma Campaign. "The generals say these are `development projects,' but they're cash projects. They invest massively in things like the dams and the revenues go straight to the dictatorship."
In the past year, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium that works in the refugee camps estimates troops destroyed 232 villages in the country's east and drove 82,000 from their homes. It is one development-driven conflict highlighted in a report this week by Christian Aid, Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis, which predicts another 1 billion people will be driven from their homes worldwide between now and 2050 as climate change joins and exacerbates conflicts, natural disasters and development projects.
This week eight British members of parliament are visiting the Thailand-Myanmar border to assess the UK's Department for International Development's efforts for refugees and those displaced by years of fighting.
Myanmar's army adopts grisly tactics to extend its writ. Villagers are given just days to move to "relocation sites" in ceasefire areas where ethnic rebel groups have signed peace pacts.
They are often forced to build roads unpaid. Remote villages of no military value are shelled and torched and their rice stores are destroyed. Landmines are sown on farm tracks.
Villagers encountering army patrols in "black zones," where the Karen National Union holds sway, are shot on sight, or worse.
"The soldiers torture them," said Naw Ler Htoo of the Karen Teachers' Working Group that trains in the camps. "They cut off the ears and cut out their eyes. Then they leave their bodies, to terrorize the other villagers."
Naw Phaw Phaw, 34, suffered the military's wrath. Struggling since her husband was killed three years ago by a landmine, she was forced to flee when her village in Karen state's Papun district was razed in March.
"They burned down all 10 houses and the three rice stores," she said, nursing her son and daughter.
"The KNU still controls the area and warned troops were near, so it might be dangerous," she said. "We left immediately and came back to find everything destroyed. We stayed for a few weeks, but it was impossible. There was nothing to eat and we left."
An estimated 95,000 people teeter on the brink of starvation in Myanmar, hiding in the jungle. The ranks of refugees in camps in Thailand have swelled to 153,000. Naw Phaw Phaw staggered into Ee Thu Hta camp exhausted and hungry late last month.
The camp was set up by the Karen authorities a year ago when Thailand blocked new refugees. Bamboo shelters house 3,000, but there is no electricity or running water. The camp squats next to the Salween river on the border with Thailand. There are three Myanmar military posts within two hours' walk, leading to constant fear of attack.
Damming the Salween for hydro-power has been the focus of countless studies over the years. But a flurry of agreements signed by Chinese and Thai companies over the past 18 months moved preparations into top gear.
They spell the end for the Salween as south-east Asia's last free-flowing large river.
Details of the projects remain secret.But the Salween Watch pressure group says work started last month on a hydro-power plant and dam at Tasang in central Shan state, where an offensive between 1996 and 1999 displaced 380,000 people. Myanmar's government and the Thai power producer MDX in April last year signed a ?3 billion (US$5.9 billion) deal to build the 7,110-megawatt project, with most power destined for Thailand to feed a prospective Asian grid.
Thai academics also recently conducted an environmental impact assessment study, guarded by Myanmar's soldiers at the southern-most Hat Gyi dam site, a ?500 million, 600-megawatt project due to start in months and funded by the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and a Chinese firm, Sinohydro.
But areas around two other dam sites at Wei Gyi and Dar Gwin remain beyond Myanmar's control. The army is focusing its 61 battalions on killing, subjugating or driving out the population to guarantee the contractors' safety.
The flooding of vast areas will drive another 73,000 people from their land in Myanmar and 10,000 in Thailand. Environmentalists say the Salween's ecosystem will be devastated, jeopardizing 235 animal species. But the biggest fear is for the populace.
"These dam projects will just mean more and more forced labor, either on roads or the construction itself," Nay Tha Blay of Karen Rivers Watch said. "Yet the Karen people will get no benefit from the dams. Only the [State Peace and Development Council] will get the money and the Thais the cheap electricity to sell to the rest of Asia."
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
RSS