Tenasserim division or Mergui-Tavoy district is the southernmost district of KNU's administration and the most isolated from the headquarters of the KNU. Most of the populations live in villages along the Tenasserim river and its tributaries, Tavoy river tributaries, Ngawun river and its tributaries etc., and along the government-controlled costal plain.

According to the SPDC's Ministry of Forestry's Survey Department estimation of population is 1,373,707 in Tenasserim division in 2001. The major ethnic groups are Burman, Karen, Mon, Merguian and Tavoyan. The area is 16735.55 square miles.

The majority of the population makes a living by subsistence agriculture and people in mountainous regions using shifting upland farming techniques. Fishing and hunting supplement villagers' diets. To the west in Kaserdoh township there are large gardens of betel nuts plantations. To the south in Ta Naw The Ri or Tenasserim township there are rubber and oil palm plantations. All large oil palm plantations are in the hands of the government and foreign companies or multi-national companies. In general, agriculture is backward and transport are very difficult.

The northernmost township of Lerdohsoe is the site of the Yadana gas pipeline. Villagers here were relocated to make way for the natural gas pipeline project and to make the area secure. Due to the gas pipeline and other infrastructure project in the area, the Burma army strength in the district has been steadily built up from four battalions in mid 1991 to 29 by 1997.

Displacement by mass forced relocation program started from the construction of Yadada gas pipeline, and followed by a massive relocation exercise in late 1996, which was thought to be due to the consolidation of the area by the new Coastal Regional Command, took place around the Mergui/Palaw area.

The combination of the gas pipeline, the various road projects, lignite and tin mines, the oil palm plantations and the fishing and tourism opportunities in the Mergui archipelago make this region very attractive to the SPDC to secure and develop for their own.

In 1997 Burmese troops made and offensive against the KNU's Mergui-Tavoy District HQ in the east of the division on the Thai-Burmese border and overran it and occupied some parts of the district.

According to Committee for Internally Displaced Karen Peope's Mergui-Tavoy district, 122 Karen villages were destroyed, 86 were forcibly relocated while 31 villages remain unaffected by forced relocation program or Burmese troop's offensive. After 1997, 74 percent of Karen populations are in forced relocation sites, 9 percent are hiding in the jungle as internally displaced people while 17 percent become refugees and as externally displaced people or illegal immigrants in Thai villages on the border.

Human rights abuses are systematically carry out by the Burma army against the Karen population and other ethnic groups or civilian for decades and so far. Notably extra judicial killing, torture, forced labour, forced portering, forced relocation, extortion, rape, destruction of properties, land confiscation, culture/literature oppressions and other etc.