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KHRG #98-06 Part 2/5 (Karenni)
- Subject: KHRG #98-06 Part 2/5 (Karenni)
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 07 Jul 1998 19:42:00
A STRUGGLE JUST TO SURVIVE
Update on the Current Situation in Karenni
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
June 12, 1998 / KHRG #98-06
*** PART 2 OF 5 - SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***
Even though the villagers are going hungry and struggling to survive,
SPDC troops controlling the camps still make them do forced labour on a
daily or weekly basis. The villagers are forced to build and maintain Army
camps in the area, to build fences, dig bunkers, cultivate land for the
Army, cut firewood, haul water to hilltop Army camps, do other general
servant's work, haul Army rations to the hilltops when they are delivered,
and sometimes to go as porters with SPDC patrols, although currently the
troops take many of their porters from among the prisoners in Loikaw jail.
The villagers are not given any money or any extra food for this forced
labour. Relocated villagers are also being used as forced labour to build
at
least two roads: the 96-mile road from Mawchi westward across Karen
State to Toungoo, and a short road near Loikaw from the base of Infantry
Battalion #269 to the village of Ye Yaw. Families in Mawchi relocation
site and in the town itself have to send one person each day to work on the
Mawchi - Toungoo road; families are each given an assignment and must
stay at the road, eating their own food, until it is finished. This road
is
supposed to facilitate the transport of minerals from the Mawchi mine into
central Burma. However, the road was already rebuilt once in the 1970's,
and that time it only lasted 2 months before it was destroyed by the rains.
The same is likely to happen this time.
"The road from Mawchi to Toungoo is 600 feet wide [not the road itself,
but the villagers must clear a wide 'killing ground' along both sides of
the road to prevent ambush or sabotage by KNPP troops]. It is nearly
finished. They started it in November 1997. Many soldiers came for
this road but they don't work on the road. There are also no machines
working on the road. One person from every house has to go every day
to do it, so women and children are also going. People have to take
along their own food and sleep beside the road. Every family is assigned
a length of road to finish, and they must stay along the road until it is
finished." - a Karenni National Women's Organisation representative
(Interview #10)
"They forced me to become a porter. ? First we went to Shadaw by car.
At first I had to carry big shells. ? I also had to carry rice and bullets.
It was very heavy. The soldiers didn't even carry their own [personal]
bags, we had to carry them. They carried only guns and equipment. ? I
saw older people, three or four people who were 40 or 45 years old. I
also saw young people, fifteen or sixteen years old. ? they beat Aik
Htun. He was 25 years old and he was a prisoner. He was beaten by a
three-star Captain from Battalion #250 ? the soldiers followed him and
beat him from behind because he could not carry quickly enough. They
beat him on the back and on the head with a bamboo stick. He was
wounded and bleeding a lot. I tried to heal him for one day [before he
ran away himself]. They forced him to carry again but he could not
carry anymore, and when he couldn't carry the soldiers beat him again.
? They also beat another man, Saw Ee. They beat him on his back
because he couldn't carry anymore, because he didn't get enough food
and he was sick." - "Sai Long" (M, 30), a Shan convict in Loikaw prison
who was used as a porter by SPDC troops patrolling Karenni in early 1998
(Interview #5)
At most of the relocation sites the troops no longer guard the perimeter
very tightly because the villagers have no choice but to scavenge for food
outside the camp. Many villagers have taken advantage of this opportunity
and fled into the forests, usually to go and live in hiding back around
their
old villages. They join the others still there, many of whom have already
been living in hiding for close to two years now. Most of the villagers in
hiding are staying in the forests somewhere near their old village. Almost
all of the relocated villages have now been burned and completely
destroyed by SLORC/SPDC patrols, but most villagers had some food
supplies and belongings hidden in caves or small storage barns in the
forest and have been able to live off of this for some time. Those who
have been in hiding for any length of time have already exhausted their
supplies, and are trying to live by growing small crops in parts of their
long-overgrown fields, or by finding the hidden food supplies of other
villagers who have long been gone in the relocation sites or in Thailand.
Those in hiding have long ago exhausted whatever stable food supply they
may have had, and most of them are living off the forest and going hungry.
They have no access to medicines, and many have already died of disease.
"Did the people get sick while they were hiding?"
"How wouldn't they get sick? And we couldn't go anywhere to find
medicine. But only my wife died. She died of diarrhoea. Her name
was Pru Meh. When we lived in Shadaw it was worse - at least one
person in each family died of disease there." - "Klaw Reh" (M, 50), Daw
Kraw Aw village (Interview #1)
The SPDC still sends patrols into the abandoned villages, area by area,
seeking out Karenni forces or villagers in hiding. Many villagers stay
together with groups of Karenni soldiers for some form of protection. The
soldiers sometimes have limited supplies of medicine and some rations,
both of which they share when possible with villagers who are particularly
desperate. Villagers can only stay in small groups of two or three
families
to minimise the chance of detection. Those who are not staying with
Karenni troops stay in small shelters in the forest, often taking turns as
sentries to watch for any SPDC troops coming their way. Once in a while
the patrols find their shelters and they must flee to another place, and
once
in a while they are seen and shot by SPDC patrols. Even if they are only
wounded they are likely to end up dead, because the troops will either
finish them off with a knife or leave them to die in the forest because of
the impossibility of getting treatment or medicines. Despite all these
difficulties, more and more villagers are choosing this way of life over
the
slow death of life in the relocation sites.
"I decided that if I died everything would be over and that would be
better than going back, because life is very bad in the relocation site. ?
The Burmese called the people who escaped to come back to the
relocation site, but after we escaped we didn't want to go back. When we
were hiding there, if the Burmese ever saw some smoke [from a
cookfire] they fired mortar shells at it. I was afraid because I saw many
people killed by the Burmese, and we were afraid we would also be
killed. ? SLORC soldiers came and when they found villagers they shot
at them. We posted people as sentries, so when the SLORC were coming
we always ran out of the village. We saw people shot at by the Burmese,
but they didn't die because we knew they were coming. They look on the
villagers as Karenni soldiers so they just kill them. They killed many
people. We were really lucky to survive this long. I'm very, very lucky."
- "Klaw Reh" (M, 50), Daw Kraw Aw village (Interview #1)
"When they found out where we were hiding we had to move, then when
they found out our new place we had to move again. We had to move at
least four or five times. But they didn't find us, because if they had
found us they would have killed us." - "Klaw Reh" (M, 50), Daw Kraw
Aw village (Interview #1)
In some areas, such as in the west and in the north of the state, villages
were not forced to relocate because they were in areas allocated to groups
which have made ceasefire deals with the SLORC/SPDC, and some
villagers fled to take refuge in these areas. In particular, people from
several villages fled Shadaw relocation site in 1996-1997 and took refuge
in KNPLF areas near the Shan border. However, since then there have
been disagreements between the SLORC/SPDC and the KNPLF, the
ceasefire areas have shrunk and most of those villages have been forced to
relocate. Since the beginning of 1998, villages throughout the northern
tip
of Karenni have been forced to relocate to sites at Nwa La Bo and other
small newly-created sites in the area. The ceasefire areas no longer offer
a
chance of refuge.
"[T]hey started to relocate most people around the beginning of this
year. They didn't do it in the past, only this year, because this year
there
has been a little more KNPP troop activity in this area. So they want to
relocate the people down to the main road closer to their base, where
they can supervise all the villagers more closely. Their base is at Nwa
La Bo. They've deployed their troops to control the people, watch the
people and see what they are doing. They have moved people to small
relocation sites at Tee Say Ka, Nwa La Bo, Myeh Nee Kaw, Tee Plaw Ku
and Pao Mai. There are 3, 4, or 5 villages together at these places. ?
There are five big relocation sites and about six or seven small ones, but
the small ones are difficult to count because they're always creating
more of them to concentrate the villages more and more. But there are
five big relocation sites: Mawchi, Pah Saung, Baw La Keh, Ywathit, and
Shadaw." - "Koo Nga Reh" (M, 40+), a KNPP official, explaining the
recent relocations of villages which had previously been told they could
stay where they were (Interview #9)
Immediately following the biggest wave of forced relocations in June/July
1996, about 3,000 people arrived at existing Karenni refugee camps in
Thailand. A few months later after the rainy season another 1,300 arrived.
Since that time there has only been a slow trickle of people crossing the
border into Thailand. Groups of 60 or 70 reached the refugee camps in
January 1998 and then again in March. Most of these people have finally
fled to Thailand because they found that there was no way they could
survive any longer in the relocation sites or in hiding. They say that
they
didn't make the trip previously for several reasons: that they were
determined to stay near their land if there was any way to survive there,
that many of the sick, weak and elderly were unable to make the long trip
over the hills through abandoned areas of burned and destroyed villages,
that there are no boats crossing the big rivers anymore, and primarily that
the SPDC has sent so many troops into the area between the Salween
River and the Thai border that it is almost impossible to get through
without getting caught, especially if travelling with children and the
elderly. Access to the Thai border is almost completely blocked for these
people.
"I didn't want to go back to Nwa La Bo and I didn't want to go to the
Thai border either, so I stayed in the jungle near my village. Infantry
Battalion #54 had burned down the village ? We ate wild vegetables
and fruit and boiled rice for two years in the jungle. If we were sick we
had no medicine to treat ourselves so we had to treat ourselves with
natural medicines. Now the SPDC soldiers are trying to find us, they
started coming to shoot at us very often and they also arrested some
other villagers, so we fled to this refugee camp." - "Ni Reh" (M, 60), Saw
So Leh village, who fled Nwa La Bo relocation site after SLORC accused
him of being a KNPP member (Interview #6)
"It is very difficult to come here because Burmese soldiers block the
border, but we had to try to pass. I came with a lot of people - one
family from Daw Kraw Aw and two families from Daw Lay Da. If
someone is lucky he can pass, if he is not he will die. I was afraid, very
afraid that we would be killed. While I was coming here my mind was
right outside of my body [an expression for extreme fear]." - "Klaw Reh"
(M, 50), Daw Kraw Aw village, describing his flight to Thailand
(Interview #1)
The current SPDC strategy for strengthening control over Karenni State
includes more than the forced relocation of villagers. The regime is now
attempting to divide the Karenni population against itself through the
artificial creation of a new Karenni Army, the Karenni National
Democratic Army (KNDA) and its political wing, the Karenni National
Democratic Party (KNDP). This 'splinter' organisation was formed on
November 5th 1996 and allied itself with the SLORC to fight against the
KNPP. Its first significant act was to attack Karenni refugees at Camp 2
in
Thailand, killing 3 refugees and wounding 9 more. The KNDA/KNDP
claims to be independent, but most observers believe it has been created
and completely controlled by the SLORC/SPDC from the beginning;
unlike the case of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in Karen
State, there appears to have been no movement among Karenni people to
create such an army, but there is a definite SPDC strategy of using 'proxy
armies' to do its work in any part of Burma where the opposition is not
sufficiently divided. Many of the KNDA recruits have been former KNPP
soldiers who left the KNPP for various reasons. They are then identified
in their villages by SLORC/SPDC, approached and told that they can
either join the KNDA or be arrested. The KNDA is now also demanding
quotas of recruits from villages, whether they are in the relocation sites
or
not. Villagers who refuse to go as quota recruits after they have been
selected face arrest and imprisonment. At the moment the KNDA is much
smaller than it claims to be, reportedly consisting of only one or two
hundred soldiers, maybe only 50 of these under arms. However, it gives
the SPDC a front which can be used to attack refugee camps in Thailand
and to claim that the Karenni people support the junta in Rangoon.
"They forced them [the ex-KNPP soldiers] as well as villagers to become
KNDA. If the villagers obeyed and became KNDA they didn't arrest
them, but if they wouldn't become KNDA they arrested them and sent
them to prison. ? I joined the KNDA because they came and forced me
to become KNDA. ? They gave me an AK [AK47 assault rifle], and I
had to carry that. Before I went there I'd heard that there were four
hundred soldiers in the KNDA, but when I arrived there I saw only a
hundred. The Burmese control them completely. Wherever they go the
Burmese follow them." - "Nyi Reh" (M, 26), Daw Leh Da village, who
was forced into the KNDA under a recruitment quota while in Nwa La Bo
relocation site (Interview #2)
"The KNDA is together with them because their group was created by
the SLORC. Many of them used to be KNPP soldiers, then they freely
resigned from KNPP and returned to their homes, but the SLORC
forced them to form a new group to attack the KNPP. That is the new
strategy of the SLORC, just as they did in Karen areas [by creating the
DKBA]. The KNDA is not so big, just 40 or 50 armed men. They also
conscript villagers to be their troops. They always have to move together
with SPDC troops because they have to be supervised by the SPDC, they
cannot do anything without an order coming from the SPDC." - "Koo
Nga Reh" (M, 40+), a KNPP official (Interview #9)
The SPDC is also conducting a drive to force all villages in Karenni which
have not been relocated to form SPDC-run 'People's Army' [Pyitthu Sit]
militia units. Similar units exist throughout Burma. Villages are ordered
to put forward a certain number of recruits based on village size. These
are then given a basic militia training, given a few weapons and ordered to
guard the village against opposition groups. In other parts of Burma the
villagers are usually forced by the SPDC to give rice and money to the
militia members. In Karen State, village militia groups are sometimes
used as cannon-fodder in SPDC attacks on the Karen National Liberation
Army. In Karenni, it is still unclear whether the militia members receive
any benefits or not, but most of them do it against their will. Currently
the
SPDC Battalions use them to obtain food, money, and forced labourers
from the villagers; the local SPDC Battalion can then claim that it is not
they who are making demands on the villagers, it is the villagers' own
militia.
"All the young men of the village have to join the [SPDC] militia, or else
they have to join the KNDP. If you don't do either then you'll be sent
away as a porter. So there are only three ways you can choose from:
would you like to join the militia forces, would you like to join the
KNDP, or would you like to be a porter for the military? Which one
would you like to choose?" - "Koo Nga Reh" (M, 40+), a KNPP official
(Interview #9)
There are no indications that the situation in Karenni is going to improve
in any way in the near future. The SPDC has made it clear that they are
unwilling to accept anything but unconditional surrender by the KNPP,
and the fighting continues. It will be almost impossible for the SPDC to
gain the kind of control it wants in Karenni, the kind of control it
demands
before it will loosen restrictions on the villagers. The only thing that
can
be predicted with near certainty is that the death toll among villagers
will
continue to rise, probably at a more rapid rate as food supplies become
completely unavailable. What will happen to the people struggling to
survive in the relocation sites is difficult to predict, except that many
of
them will probably flee into the forests while many others will die. With
starvation becoming more prevalent among villagers hiding in the forest
and the route to Thailand almost completely blocked by the SPDC, the
situation is desperate. Even if the relocation sites cease to exist and no
more villages are forced to move, it is difficult to see how the people of
Karenni could start to rebuild anything in the current political situation.
All the villages are destroyed, boats are prohibited from moving on the
main rivers, even people in the southern town of Mawchi say they are
going hungry because the SPDC prohibits the transport of food to Mawchi
from Loikaw or anywhere else, other than rations for the soldiers, mine
workers and civil servants. People can barely move anywhere in Karenni
without the risk of being arrested or simply shot on sight. Fundamental
political change in Burma appears to hold the only hope, albeit remote, for
these people.
"In Mawchi it is difficult to eat because no trucks carrying dried foods
are allowed to travel between Loikaw and Mawchi. People are not
allowed to grow food in the [relocation] camp, and the available food is
reserved for the people who work in the mine and for the civil servants,
not for the villagers. No permission is given to bring in food [from other
areas]. Some people have paddy rice hidden in the forest but if the
SPDC troops see them going into the forest they shoot them. In March
this year one woman tried to go. She was captured by the Army and tied
to a tree. She stayed there for three days and had already died when the
Karenni soldiers found her and untied her." - a Karenni National
Women's Organisation representative (Interview #10)
"Some are starving to death. Many people die of sickness, especially in
the rainy season from malaria and diarrhoea. They are also forced to
work for the military doing things like carrying water, cutting bamboo,
making fences and collecting firewood for the Army. Especially in the
Second District, the Army goes to fight almost every week so the people
are forced to carry their supplies and ammunition, and many people die
as porters at the frontline. Now a lot of people who stay in the
relocation sites are forced to be militia too, but not only people in the
relocation sites have to do that. People from other villages are forced to
do that too." - "Saw Kler" (M, 20+), Mawchi town, describing conditions
in Mawchi relocation site (Interview #3)
____________________________________________________________________________
_
Index of Interviews
Note: All names of those interviewed have been changed.
FR = Forced Relocation, RS = Relocation Site, FL = Forced Labour.
# Pg. Name Sex Age Village Subject
1 13 "Klaw Reh" M 33 Daw Kraw Aw Destruction of his village
in 1996, life at Shadaw RS, sickness at RS, Shadaw clinic,
returning to village to get food, staying in hiding,
hunted by SLORC/SPDC, death of his wife from disease,
caring for his 8 month old baby, dangerous flight to Thailand
2 15 "Nyi Reh" M 26 Daw Leh Da FR to Nwa La Bo, 2 years in
Nwa La Bo RS, food shortages, medical clinic, no permission
to build a church, FL at Army plantation, forced recruitment
to KNDA, control of KNDA by SLORC/SPDC, escape from Nwa La Bo,
flight to Thailand
3 16 "Saw Kler" M 20+ Mawchi town Poverty in Mawchi, SPDC
forbidding villagers from keeping food under suspicion
they will give it to KNPP, prohibition on transporting food
to Mawchi, starvation, disease, and FL in Mawchi RS,
FL on Mawchi-Toungoo road
4 17 "Paw Lweh" F Mawchi RS Fear of rape while in
Mawchi RS, lack of food and water, sickness, SPDC refusal to
provide health care, poor quality of shelters in RS
5 18 "Sai Long" M 30 Loikaw township Shan arrested for carrying
opium without paying SLORC opium tax in 1994, sentenced to
10 years in Loikaw jail, living conditions in Loikaw jail,
illness and deaths, women and children prisoners,
taken to be a porter in early 1998, carrying shells through
Karenni area, beatings of porters, escape to Karenni Army
6 20 "Naw Wah" F 40 Saw So Leh FR to Nwa La Bo, lack of food
"Ni Reh" M 60 Saw So Leh and medicines, "Ni Reh"
accused of being KNPP, flight to jungle, village already burned,
hid in jungle for 2 years, children suffering hunger and no school,
SPDC troops hunting villagers more frequently so had to flee
to Thailand
7 21 "Mi Su" F 25 Su Leh FR to Nwa La Bo, no food
so fled, mother and sister arrested, village already burned,
hid in forest for 2 years and got tuberculosis, fled to Thailand
8 21 "Baw Reh" M 47 Daw Kraw Aw FR to Shadaw, returning to
village to get belongings, villagers shot at by SLORC troops,
wife and children all sick in Shadaw RS, flight into hiding
in his village, deaths of disease, flight to Thailand, encounter
with SLORC troops and 2 villagers killed on the way
9 23 "Koo Nga Reh" M 40+ KNPP official describing life
in relocation sites, lack of food and deaths of disease, new FR
in northern Karenni, difficulties of villagers in hiding,
SPDC/Thai logging, FL on roads, KNDA, forced recruitment to SPDC
militias, convict labour
10 26 KNWO Karenni National Women's
Organisation member describes food shortages and killings in
Mawchi, Mawchi mine, FL on Mawchi-Toungoo road, FL at Army camps;
also KNWO report on arrests, FL and demands for building
materials for new Army camps
11 29 Monitors Field reports collected by
human rights monitors; FR and village burning in March 1998,
rapes and killings including rape and murder of children
____________________________________________________________________________
_
- [END OF PART 2 - SEE SUBSEQUENT POSTINGS FOR PARTS 3 THROUGH 5] -