Ka Hsaw Wa is Co-founder and Executive Director of EarthRights International, and a member of the Karen ethnic nationality from Myanmar (Burma). He received his M.A. from the School for International Training (SIT) in Intercultural Leadership and Management. In 1988 after he was captured and tortured, he participated in the 1988 student uprising calling for human rights, democracy and an end to military rule. In the ensuing crackdown by the Burmese regime, he fled the country. Since that time, he has traveled clandestinely to remote areas of Burma to interview witnesses and victims of human rights abuses perpetrated by the junta and exposed these abuses to the international community.