KHRG #98-05 Part 4/7 (Dooplaya)

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                STRENGTHENING THE GRIP ON DOOPLAYA

     Developments in the SPDC Occupation of Dooplaya District

      An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
               June 10, 1998     /     KHRG #98-05

[Some details blanked out or omitted for Internet distribution.]

*** PART 4 OF 7 - SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***

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                                 #3.
NAME:    "Pa Hla Myint"      SEX: M   AGE: 30+      Karen Dta La Ku farmer
ADDRESS: Kwih Kler village, Dooplaya District       INTERVIEWED: 20/2/98

[This interview was conducted with a group of villagers who had just left 
Kwih Kler village a few days earlier.  In the first part of the interview,
"Pa 
Hla Myint" read from his notes on events that had happened, which he 
had written on very small and concealable index cards.  He kept his notes 
in the form of a 'Ta', a traditional Karen poem.  The rhythm of the Ta does

not translate into English, so we have translated his words without the 
rhythm.]

Listen from the beginning to the end please.  

At the end of January 1997 we had to flee, we lost our things and our 
things were destroyed.  We became poorer until we were not happy to 
farm to earn our livelihood.  The things we had lost were: 5300 pounds of 
salt; 13 baskets full of rice; 3 big tins of rice; a new bullock cart. 
After 
that we came back to our village to live again.  When we lived in our 
house again, we again lost one mat; one big tin of rice; one pot; a pair of

slippers; a bottle of kerosene; one basket.   Moreover, we had to go and
cut 
bamboo, and dig the road with our own hands.  We had to dig out the mud 
on both sides of the road.  We had to cut a lot of bamboo until there was 
enough to use [to build the SLORC camp]; we had to find bullock carts 
until we had enough carts.  The carts, the cars, the elephants and motor-
carts [small 3-wheeled tractors] could never rest.  After that, in the
second 
week of April they again needed four bullock carts with four people for 
one week to go to get the sand and brick to build pagodas.  After that they

could go back home.  We must write down about every occurrence in our 
notes to tell our neighbours and friends.  In Ber Kler which is near the 
border, they ordered 20 people from Meh Naw Dah to go and carry rice for 
the Burmese three times.  The last time, there were about 300 small sacks 
of rice which were carried by 48 people.  In each sack there were three big

tins of rice [50 kg/110 lb].  They used us to carry rice as their slaves.  

When #231 [Infantry Battalion] arrived in our place, they forced the 
people to build their bunkers, and to carry stones before building the 
bunkers.  They ordered 40 bullock carts from us.  We couldn't give 40 
bullock carts because we never had them.  So we had to gather our money 
and hire a truck.  The weight of the big stones was 1800 pounds.  So it was

not easy to carry.  

The school was still good but they were not satisfied.  They ordered us to 
take off all the zinc [roofing] to build the school in another place.  Then

the zinc was not enough for the new school.  So they ordered every 
villager to give money to them for the zinc.  Each family had to give 400 
kyats.  The poor people who have no money had to borrow from their 
neighbours or sell their  things to give 400 to them.  So it was a
difficult 
thing for the poor people.  

Another thing had to do with the farm-animal traders.  They like to buy 
and sell farm animals because they get a good income, but their problem is 
that the SLORC disturbs them.  At night the SLORC soldiers would arrest 
the traders.  Some traders were clever and hid with their animals in the 
deep forest, so the soldiers could only arrest some of the traders.  The 
traders who were safe were happy but the traders who were captured by 
the SLORC soldiers had to give a lot of money: 10,000 kyats to the 
SLORC soldiers to be free.  At night time the traders would not sleep, they

would eat myin say [an amphetamine-type drug] and think about what 
they could do to earn a living.  The SLORC stopped them from trading 
their farm animals.  If the SLORC could capture them, they would have to 
pay 10,000 kyats to save themselves.  So I don't want my people, my 
friends, to do this job.  

13th of May [1997], Tuesday night.  

At 10 o'clock the Burmese showed a movie for the villagers to watch.  A 
few minutes passed by and they turned off the movie projector and shot 
their guns, and they shot their heavy weapons four times.  The shells fell
in 
the village.  Two shells exploded but the other two did not.  Then they 
fired Chinese rockets many times [107mm Chinese ground-fired rockets].  
Then they said that the villagers were trying to attack them, but actually 
the villagers didn't do that.  They were just looking for a way to lay
fault 
with the Dta La Ku.  

They force four people to take turns doing sentry duty.  The people have to

make fences for the SLORC; have to porter and have to do the work that 
the SLORC orders them to do.  In rainy season Mae Naw Dah river was 
flooded.  They ordered people to go and carry things with their bullock 
carts.  They forced the bullocks to cross the river with the carts, through

the flowing river.  So the cart and the bullocks started floating away with

the water.  The people had to cut off the rope tied around the necks of
their 
bullocks.  It took 100 people to help those bulls and carts.  In August
1997 
Karen people, both Sgaw and Pwo, had to suffer big problems.  The 
problem was going from Meh Tharaw Hta monastery to Htee Hta Baw 
village.  One bag was 1 mer 8 viss heavy [1 viss=1.6 kg, 1 mer = 10 viss; 
i.e. 18 viss, a total weight of 28.8 kg/63.3 lb].  We had to carry those 
cement bags.  Then we ran away to escape from the problems.  So we ran 
over to Thailand.  The Thai soldiers drove us back to Burma which filled 
us with despair.  We went back the first time and it got worse for us.  We 
went back the second time and we reaped our paddy [refugees in this area 
were forced back to Burma several consecutive times by the 9th Division of 
the Thai First Army].  Some were finished but some were not finished yet.  
After three days a land mine exploded and Paw Eh Pa died.  He was Dta 
La Ku.  We honoured his body by cremating him.  He stepped on the 
landmine when he went to his own crop early in the morning, about half 
past five on the 3rd of January 1998.  Everyone in the village knew about 
that.  His coconut crop became the Burmese soldiers' crop.  He had to die 
for his crop, so we pitied him a lot.  

After every harvest the SLORC [SPDC] soldiers don't allow us to dry our 
paddy, so we villagers are in trouble because we have no rice to eat.  We 
have to be hungry.  In 1998 on the 5th of February, we cooked yah hu in 
the big wok [a mixture of 'beh ee' sticky rice, sesame, coconut, oil,
peanuts 
and other ingredients turned slowly in a wok until crispy brown as a 
festive snack; usually done by the whole community together at this one 
time each year].  But a problem occurred.  The monk told us that we all 
must not eat Yah Hu.  He said, "If you want to eat it, go back and cook 
Yah Hu in your own house".  He ordered us to put water on the fire, to 
blow out the fire and to beat the big jars and pots into pieces.  He told
us 
that everyone must bring the food to the monastery.  Anyone who did not 
bring their food would get his name written on a list by the monk.  [The 
SPDC troops had probably ordered the monk to hand over all the 'yah hu' 
to them.]  That is the end of my notes.

[Note: in the continuation of the interview below, the 'second man' is 
another villager from Kwih Kler, and the 'third man' is a village elder in 
the area.]

Q:  When did you leave Kwih Kler and come here?
"Pa Hla Myint":  Three days ago.  Right now the Burmese are doing 
nothing.  It is better than it was in rainy season.  Now the problem is for

the Dta La Ku people. Dta La Ku can't carry weapons and become soldiers.  
Everyone knows that we do not make good soldiers.  First they came to 
make the family list [of all families in his village].  But after we gave
them 
our family information, they changed our family list to the KPA list.  
Thirty-one households of Dta La Ku put their family names on the list but 
later they said that it was not a family list but a Peace Army list.  They
said 
the families who are on their list must become soldiers.  So we bravely 
stood up to them and told them that we would never enter into the Peace 
Army.  We told them, "If you want to kill us, we agree to die, but we can't

do their 'peace' work".  They needed us to become soldiers.  They would 
teach us through their training, they would give us guns.  So we said that 
we couldn't do work which involves carrying weapons and shooting 
people.  "If you kill us we agree to die."  We don't want to go into
battle.  
So they got angry with us and told us that they will report us to Than Shwe

and the UN.  We said do as you like, if you want to report to Than Shwe, 
we don't mind [Than Shwe is Chairman of SPDC].  If you want to kill us 
we will let you kill us, but we must not go into battle in our lifetimes.  
That is our problem. 

Second man:  Lone Shwe [a KPA officer] said that if we don't do as the 
others do, it means we are their enemies. Yes, he said that.

Third man:  First the KPA told us that they wanted to know how many 
families of Dta La Ku are in each village:  Kwih Kler, Maw, Kwih Lat Der 
and Kyaw Kwa.  They needed to know how many men 40 years old and 
above there were, and how many men and boys between 15 and 40 years 
old.  After they knew this information they told us that every male person 
between 15 and 40 years old must become a KPA soldier.  They hadn't 
told us that at first.   That is why we are not happy.  

"Pa Hla Myint":  To get people into the KPA they didn't say that people 
must become KPA, they just said that they wanted to know how many 
families there are in each village and how old the people are. After that, 
they said that men 15 to 40 years old must become KPA.  Only the Dta La 
Ku.  They will take all, because they already know our number and our 
ages.

Third man:  After that when they started to collect the names for soldiers 
they lied to us by saying that many Dta La Ku people from Maw already 
joined the KPA, and when they came to Kwih Lat Der they said that many 
people from Kwih Kler had already joined.  The people from Kwih Lat 
Der and Kwih Kler couldn't understand anything that was going on.  Only 
when we met each other and talked together did we know that no one had 
wanted to join and that they had lied to us.  They said, "People who won't 
obey our orders must become our enemies".

Second man:  Because of this 43 Dta La Ku people from Maw and 12 
people from Kwih Lat Der joined the KPA at first.  The KPA said that 
people who did not join KPA as others already had must be their enemies.  

Q:  Do you think that KPA and KNLA are fighting with each other now?
Third man:  If the KNLA comes and shoots them, I'm sure that they will 
shoot the KNLA back.  If you have a gun then others will think you are 
their enemy, and everyone wants to shoot you.  That's why we don't want 
to carry guns.  I want to say this.  If you are not carrying weapons and
I'm 
not carrying weapons, we see each other and sit together and talk to each 
other in peace.  If you and I are both carrying weapons, then it is not
easy 
for us to sit together.  We will have to be afraid of each other and stay
far 
from each other.  If neither of us have weapons, we don't need to be afraid

of each other, we will sit closely and talk to each other.  So it is not
easy 
for us to answer [to groups which ask them to take sides].  If we carry 
weapons, the other groups will think about us, "Are they our enemy?"  
And then they dare not come to sit with us. So we don't want to do bad 
things like that.  Real peace is to sit together like this.

Q:  How many KPA soldiers do you think there are now?
Third man:  The KPA is really quite new so there are no more than 300 
soldiers who have passed the training.  Most people are not interested in 
the KPA.  There were 12 people from Ker Kee village who joined.  The 
KPA recruits have already gone for training now, but none of the Dta La 
Ku people have gone.  We already held a meeting with them and told them 
that the Dta La Ku can't become soldiers.  They reported it to the Burmese 
operations commander, but he told them, "I won't crush the Dta La Ku by 
forcing them to join the army, because they are practicing their religion 
which prohibits holding arms".  But the KPA leader said that the people 
who live in this area must not remain separate from the KPA.  He never 
agrees with the operations commander.  So the Burmese commander told 
him, "I can't do it, but if you can do it, go ahead".  The KPA commander 
said he would go ahead.  We are angry with him because he is our own 
nationality.  When we went for a meeting with him the other day, they 
talked about the militia, nothing else.  They said the Dta La Ku must join 
the KPA or its militia.
  
Q:  How do the KPA get bullets and food?
Third man:  They get all of it from the Burmese.  They have their own 
camp at Saw Hta [Azin].  Their headquarters used to be the Saw Hta 
women's office [the Karen Women's Organisation, connected to the KNU, 
had its office there before the SLORC occupation in February 1997].  

When they called the first meeting to build up the KPA, they explained 
that the villages along Ser Yah Kloh and Ta May Kloh [rivers] belong to 
the KPA and Burmese, so they said they will develop the villages there to 
become towns.  They will develop the road so they can travel in all 
seasons.  They will do logging, and they said they will share the money 
with the villagers.  They said they will destroy the KNU because it gives 
problems to SLORC and makes villagers become soldiers.  They said if 
there is no KNU there will be peace in the area, so if we see some KNU 
people we must send them to the KPA to become KPA.

Q:  Are the Burmese or KPA working on the motor roads?
Third man:  In Saw Hta they're working on the car road, but they haven't 
finished it to Kwih Kler yet.  They came up from Rangoon and Moulmein 
to Kya In Seik Gyi, then on to Ber Kler and the border.  The children 
counted 31 trucks but we heard that  the number is really more than that.  
We heard 50 to 60 trucks were coming.  31 trucks reached the border so 
far.  Five of them were 4-wheel drives; three of those carried Burmese 
soldiers, and two of them carried KPA.  We heard that the new road will 
go to Kyo G'Lee and Kwih Ta Khoh.  They've brought 500 prisoners to 
help them.  They brought them from the jails in town.  They're using both 
machines and people to build the roads.

Q:  I heard that the SPDC wants to build a road from Saw Hta to Htee Hta 
Baw.
Third man:  Yes, they have plans but it has not started yet.  They will
start 
at Kya In Seik Gyi and build to Saw Hta and Ber Kler.  They also want to 
build an all-season road to Htee Hta Baw.  I heard that they'll need 500 
people to build that road, but we haven't seen it yet.

Q:  Have you heard any news from Htee Hta Baw area [further south, 
toward 3 Pagodas Pass]?
Third man:  Many of the villages have been destroyed between here and 
there, such as Htee Mu Ku, Lay Wah Chut, Kyaw Kwa, and Kyay Loh 
Neh.  There are no people in  Htee Hta Baw, Htee Po Chut and Htee Po 
Maw.  The SPDC stays around there now.  It is in Waw Raw township.  
Down there the people still stay in the villages near the Thanbyuzayat road

[to Three Pagodas Pass], but I heard that they have many problems.  They 
have to be afraid of both SPDC and KNU.

Q:  Do the SPDC stay in Kwih Lat Der now?
Third man:  Yes, they are camped in Kwih Lat Der right now.  They have 
about thirty or forty troops.  Their Battalion number is 62.  They stay
with 
the KPA.  There are four KPA there.  Those KPA used to be KNLA 
soldiers, but then the SLORC arrested them and they went to be DKBA for 
a while, and now they have become KPA and they stay with the SPDC 
troops.  There are about 47 houses in Kwih Lat Der.  Some villagers are 
still staying there; for example, if there are 4 or 5 people in a family
then 
maybe 2 or 3 of them have fled to Thailand and the others are still in Kwih

Lat Der.  Now our people are in a terrible situation from all sides.  We 
must be afraid of the Thais as well as the Burmese.

Q:  How do you feel to stay here?
"Pa Hla Myint":  It's nice for us to stay here but the problem is food.  If

we had enough food here we would never go back to our village to see 
their faces again.

Second man:  The people from here sent us back to our village because 
they didn't have food to share with us.  We'd rather not go back.  We'll
try 
to live here and just go back to our village to get our food stocks and
bring 
them here.

"Pa Hla Myint":  The people from our village taunt us, they say, "Look, 
the squirrels are coming  to steal food.  They are thieves."  They call us 
"squirrels" because of our hair.  [The Dta La Ku are a minority in Kwih 
Kler and are sometimes persecuted by other Karens; they wear their hair 
long, tied in a top knot.]  We feel upset to hear that, but we pretend that

we don't hear.  We go on and retrieve our food.  

Second man:  You can call us thieves, but we never steal other people's 
things.  We only go back to steal our own food from our own farms.

Q:    Do  you want to say anything else?
"Pa Hla Myint":  What I really want to say is that I want our brother 
Burmese to keep the Dta La Ku together in a safe place which is free from 
portering, forced labour and battle.  We don't want to be soldiers.  I
can't 
understand why they don't let us have a place like that.  Burma is very big
 
and I think that in such a big land there must be a safe place for us 
somewhere.  But we can't ask them for it because there are no educated 
people among us who can go and ask them.  I hope our English brothers 
will help us by saying that for us.  We are hoping for help from our 
English brothers.
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