Ethnic minorities and indigenous people policy and rights

Many people’s hearts sink every time they see news photos about treeless mountains in once-verdant Nan province or mask-wearing people in frequently hazy Chiang Mai. “We used to have our own land plots and earned a living as farmers – but not anymore,” lamented a middle-aged ...

The NGO Forum on 28 June released an extensive and updated accounting of economic land concessions in Cambodia, suggesting that in a 20-year period, 267 ELCs totalling 1,532,783 hectares were granted. The data collection, from 1995 to the end of 2015, was conducted by the Research Advocacy ...

The Nam Tha, or Tha River, begins in northern Laos near the Lao-China border and runs southwest to join the Mekong just south of Huay Xay on the Lao-Thai border. In October 2014, I traveled by motorcycle and longtail boat up the Nam Tha, starting ...

The Human Rights Human Dignity film festival could not screen its opening film Twilight over Myanmar: My Life as a Shan Princess in Yangon this week. Myanmar’s film censorship board banned the film because it could allegedly tarnish the image of the Myanmar Army and harm ethnic ...

On 14 June, at about 11:30am, several officers from the refugee department visited Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district to photograph and take names of some of those residing at a guesthouse where about 100 Montagnards have been staying with support from the UN refugee ...

Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has said there needs to be a complete update of the mechanisms and policies to spur socio-economic development in ethnic minority-inhabited regions. Phuc made his statement at a conference held by the Government’s Committee for Ethnic Affairs and the ...

An umbrella organisation of ethnic armed groups has formed a five-member team to help negotiate an end to fighting in northern Shan State that has forced up to 5000 people to flee their homes. The United Nationalities Federal Council formed the team at a four-day emergency ...

Refugees from fighting between two ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State are still flowing into the government-controlled town of Kyaukme amid reports that the Tatmadaw is stepping up its presence in the conflict zone. Relief workers are sending vehicles to war-torn villages to help civilians – ...

Two young women who were the focus of a Myanmar Times investigation this month into mass abductions of civilians by ethnic armed groups have been freed by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Ma Nang Htwe Yin and Nang Kyan Kham, both 20-year-old ethnic Shan pre-school teachers, were ...

Indigenous peoples fighting economic land concessions (ELCs) in Cambodia are more likely to get results with violent protest than lodging their complaints through legitimate channels, a controversial study published this month argues. The paper, published by Young Sokphea in the Asian Journal of Social Science, concludes ...