Karenni Action Project is a group based in Sydney, Australia working to support the Karenni people in refugee camps in Thailand and displaced in Karenni State and refugees who have recently relocated to Australia. KAP communicates and works with Karenni community organisations to support projects assisting current and ongoing needs of the Karenni people. KAP supports various projects including community-based and education projects in the refugee camps.

KAP Activities

Ae Mon has started an after-school program teaching children computer skills in Huay Pu Keng. KAP donated this Tablet to the program.

Funds from KAP'S Huay Pu Keng Livelihood project contributed towards the purchase of this weaving loom, which was an initiative of Fair Tourism, a community based tourist advocacy group from Holland. They surveyed residents and visitors in Huay Pu Keng and Huay Seua Tao in late 2013 and sales from a photographic exhibition they held were used by HPK residents to pay for the loom.

One of KAP's members was able to visit the recently opened Karenni National Women Organisatiion's office in Loikaw, Kayah State. A donation was used to buy items for a newly set up safe house for women and children in the local area.

Who are the Karenni?

22,000 people from Karenni state in eastern Burma languish in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, among a total of 142,000 Burmese refugees, mostly of ethnic minorities, in Thai border camps that have now existed for twenty years. Others are among the 92,500 internally displaced persons in Karenni state and 650,000 internally displaced people in Eastern Burma alone.

The Karenni are an ethnic minority from eastern Burma who have spent more than fifty years engaged in guerrilla warfare with the Burmese government, struggling for the independence and self-determination they historically enjoyed. During this time, Karenni civilians and villagers have repeatedly and continue to be subjected to large scale atrocities, human rights abuses and persecution by the Burmese state military forces.

Karenni state is an area situated between Thailand and Burma. Covering an area of 4,582 sq. miles, it is approximately the same size as Hawaii. The land in Karenni state is rich in tin, wolfram, teak, gold and precious stones and the indigenous Karenni people who inhabit it are made up of 12 subgroups. The largest of these groups is the Kayah and perhaps the most well-known is the Kayan, sometimes referred to as 'Long Necks'. Other Karenni groups include the Peku and the Kayaw.

The oppression of the Karenni people by the Burmese military has accelerated since 1988, when people throughout Burma and the surrounding ethnic minority regions demanded democracy. Intent on maintaining control over resource rich Karenni state and annihilating Karenni culture and people, government military forces have systematically destroyed hundreds of Karenni villages and large areas of natural resources. Where this occurs men, women and children from the villages are sent to military camps controlled and operated by the regime and often subjected to forced labour without adequate access to food, water and other necessities.

About Karenni State

The Karenni are an indigenous ethnic minority from Karenni state in Burma who have been engaged in ongoing civil war with the Burmese government since 1948, when Burma gained independence from Britain and Karenni state was forcibly incorporated into the independent Union of Burmese states. There is no definitive classification of the subgroups of the population native to Karenni, but they have been divided in an anthropological study into the Kekhu, the Bre, the Kayah, the Yangtalai, the Geba, the Zayein, and the Paku. Historically they were considered a sub-tribe of the neighbouring Karen, whom they are related to linguistically. The population includes Burmese and members of other ethnic minorities and others who have settled in Karenni state. Other ethnic Karenni reside or are internally displaced in other states in Burma, or are refugees or illegal immigrants living in Thailand and elsewhere.

In 1998 Karenni state had a population of 207,357 and a sparse, mostly rural, population density. Due to internal conflict, inaccessibility, mountainous terrain and a sparse population and resources, it is lagging in terms of economic development and infrastructure and is considered one of the poorest areas in Burma. There are seven townships - Loikaw, Demawso, Pruso, Pasuang, Bawlake, Meh Set and Shadaw. Land ownership is fragmented and a significant proportion of the population is landless. There is some wet paddy farming close to the rivers but most crop farming, predominantly of rice and maize, is upland shifting paddy cultivation, which has lower yields than wet paddy. The largest natural resource is teak forest; long extracted and traded and critical historically to power relations and the development of conflict in the area. There is a history of cross-border trading, logging, and mining with Thailand.

Karenni state suffers from chronic water shortages and upland villages are dependant on rain fed agriculture. There are two main rivers – the Salween and the Pon. In 1967 Mobye dam was constructed on the Balu Chaung River, a tributary of the Salween, on the border of Karenni and Shan states to divert water to the Lawpita hydroelectric power plant outside of Loikaw, which supplies over 20% of Burma’s electricity. Due to inaccessibility and ongoing conflict, Karenni is behind in terms of human development, with the lowest literacy rates in the country, just ten high schools in the state and many children in remote areas having little or no access to education at all. The overall health situation is poor, communicable diseases such as malaria are widespread and many people lack access to health services, particularly outside of the main towns.

22,000 people from Karenni state in eastern Burma languish in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, among a total of 142,000 Burmese refugees, mostly of ethnic minorities, in Thai border camps that have now existed for twenty years. Others are among the 92,500 internally displaced persons in Karenni state and 650,000 internally displaced people in Eastern Burma alone.

The Karenni are an ethnic minority from eastern Burma who have spent more than fifty years engaged in guerrilla warfare with the Burmese government, struggling for the independence and self-determination they historically enjoyed. During this time, Karenni civilians and villagers have repeatedly and continue to be subjected to large scale atrocities, human rights abuses and persecution by the Burmese state military forces.

Karenni state is an area situated between Thailand and Burma. Covering an area of 4,582 sq. miles, it is approximately the same size as Hawaii. The land in Karenni state is rich in tin, wolfram, teak, gold and precious stones and the indigenous Karenni people who inhabit it are made up of 12 subgroups. The largest of these groups is the Kayah and perhaps the most well-known is the Kayan, sometimes referred to as 'Long Necks'. Other Karenni groups include the Peku and the Kayaw.

The oppression of the Karenni people by the Burmese military has accelerated since 1988, when people throughout Burma and the surrounding ethnic minority regions demanded democracy. Intent on maintaining control over resource rich Karenni state and annihilating Karenni culture and people, government military forces have systematically destroyed hundreds of Karenni villages and large areas of natural resources. Where this occurs men, women and children from the villages are sent to military camps controlled and operated by the regime and often subjected to forced labour without adequate access to food, water and other necessities.

Who are the Karenni?