KHRG #98-06 Part 4/5 (Karenni)

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                   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 4 OF 5 - SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***

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                                    #6.
1) NAME: "Naw Wah"        SEX: F   AGE: 40         Kayah Christian farmer
2) NAME: "Ni Reh"         SEX: M   AGE: 60         Kayah Christian farmer
FAMILY:  Married, 4 children aged 19 months and above
ADDRESS: Saw So Leh village, Shadaw township       INTERVIEWED: 1/3/98

["Naw Wah" is married to "Ni Reh".  They were interviewed just after 
arriving in Thailand on March 1st 1998.] 

"Naw Wah":  I lived in Saw So Leh village for 30 years.  Two years ago 
the soldiers ordered the villagers to relocate so we went and stayed in 
Loikaw township, at Nwa La Bo consolidation village [relocation site] for 
three months.  In Nwa La Bo consolidation village they didn't give us any 
food, and they accused my husband of supporting the KNPP.  The 
[Military] Intelligence called him and asked him questions very often, so 
we fled from Nwa La Bo consolidation village.

"Ni Reh":  We moved to Nwa La Bo consolidation village because the 
soldiers promised the villagers that they would provide rice, other rations

and medicines.  But then they only accused me of joining the Karenni 
rebels [KNPP], so after 3 months at Nwa La Bo I fled back to my village.

"Naw Wah":  When we reached our village again we saw only a burnt 
place.  The Burmese had burned down the village, so all the houses and 
rice barns had disappeared.  But we had some paddy in the jungle that we 
had hidden before they burned down the village, so we stayed and hid in 
the jungle where our food was hidden.  We stayed in the jungle for two 
years.

"Ni Reh":  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 and they took three buffaloes, 
one pig, 20 chickens and 500 tins of paddy.  In our village over 1,000 tins

of paddy and more than a hundred buffaloes, pigs, cows and chickens were 
lost.  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.

"Naw Wah":  The SPDC troops came to the jungle very often, so we had 
to hide all the time and we were worried that the SPDC soldiers would 
find us.  So we couldn't make a fire to cook and we were hungry very 
often.  As adults we could bear it, but the children cried when they were 
hungry so we had to cover their mouths and spank them very often.  They 
couldn't go to school for two years.  We heard that there was a school on 
the border [in the refugee camps] and we felt pity for our children, so we 
left our own village and fled to the refugee camp.

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                                  #7.
NAME:    "Mi Su"       SEX: F   AGE: 25         Kayah Christian farmer
FAMILY:  Single
ADDRESS: Su Leh village, Shadaw township        INTERVIEWED: 3/3/98

["Mi Su" was interviewed just after arriving in Thailand at the beginning 
of March.  On arrival she had to be sent to hospital with tuberculosis.] 

In 1996 the SLORC forced the villagers to leave our village, so we moved 
to Nwa La Bo village in Loikaw township.  In Nwa La Bo consolidation 
village [relocation site] the SLORC didn't give us any rations or any 
medicine, so we fled back to our own village.  When I fled back the 
SLORC arrested my mother and my elder sister, so I kept going back to 
my village with another sister.  When we reached our own village we saw 
only ashes, so we hid and stayed in the jungle near our village for two 
years.  While we were hiding in the jungle we had no medicine so it was 
very difficult, but I didn't know how to come to the border so I stayed in 
the jungle and got tuberculosis.

Q:  Why did you flee and come here in the end?
A:  Now the SPDC soldiers are looking for the villagers and arresting 
them, so it is very difficult to stay there and we had to flee here.  Now I

stay at the refugee camp hospital to get treatment for tuberculosis.
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                                   #8.
NAME:    "Baw Reh"         SEX: M   AGE: 47         Karenni Animist farmer
FAMILY:  Married, 7 children but 3 of them already died, eldest 
surviving is age 13
ADDRESS: Daw Kraw Aw village (#72), Shadaw township   INTERVIEWED: 29/4/98

["Baw Reh" was interviewed in a refugee camp in Thailand.  He used to 
be headman of his village.]

Q:  Why did you come here?
A:  The Burmese forced us to move to Shadaw at the same time as the 
others [in mid-1996].  The Burmese soldiers sent a letter saying that we 
had just seven days to move to the relocation place.  First they sent the 
letter, then they sent a man to the village to order us to go to Shadaw 
within four or five days.  He said, "You must go to the relocation site in 
time, you can't stay in your village after that date.  If you stay after
the date 
the soldiers will come to shoot you and kill you."  We were very afraid so 
we went there, but some old people still remained in the village. 

Q:  How many people from your village moved to Shadaw?
A:  There were 105 households in my village.  At first 60 households 
moved to Shadaw and some moved to Thailand.  Some of our old people 
couldn't move, and some families were split because the people who could 
travel came here [to a refugee camp] and those who couldn't travel so well 
went to the relocation place.

Q:  How long did you stay in Shadaw?
A:  At first I stayed just over two weeks, I couldn't stay any longer
because 
I couldn't get anything to live.  I'd just brought two baskets of rice, and
that 
was for my whole family.  Then the man said, "You have to bring your 
belongings".  So we went back again and again [to the village] to fetch our

things.  They allowed only seven days for that; they said that if we took 
more than 7 days they would shoot us, but we couldn't bring everything in 
seven days.  I called my family, and my whole family came and lived in 
Shadaw for more than a month.  When we stayed in the relocation site 
many people got sick.  I stayed with my family for about 20 days, and after

that I escaped without permission and went back to our village to search 
for some food I could take to my family.  I escaped alone; almost all the 
men left before their families.  My family was still staying in Shadaw.  I 
was in our village for 4 or 5 days, and if I'd stayed much longer than that

they would have killed me.  The Burmese soldiers said if you stay away 
more than a week they'll shoot you.  Then they really did come and shoot 
at people in Daw Hi So and Doi Saw villages [while they were still getting 
things in the village].  Some people could escape but others couldn't, and 
we couldn't escape so we just hid around there.  We ran from our village 
and hid in the forest.  We ran and lived in our farmfield hut.

Then I went back to Shadaw and found that all my children and my wife 
were sick.  Life was very hard there, especially for the small children, so

we left.  By then it was more and more dangerous to go back to our old 
village, so I took them all with me and we hid under the trees with five or

six other families.  We hid in the forest for four months.

Q:  Did you have to work for the Army in Shadaw?
A:  I did not live in Shadaw for a long time so I wasn't forced to work,
but 
the others were forced to work a lot.  I just went back to my village so I 
didn't work for them.  My family didn't have enough food because we had 
left most of it behind.  I didn't find any food in Shadaw, I just tried to
get 
some from where we had hidden it before.  Even my house materials and 
belongings were left behind in the village.  In my village I left a lot of 
livestock and other things as well.  When I escaped it was without 
permission.  The Burmese soldiers didn't stop us from going out because 
they could not feed the people anymore, so we went in and out.  I went to 
my village but there were no people there anymore, and then I just lived in

hiding outside the village.  I don't have any education, so it was
difficult 
for me to know what to do for our future.

Q:  How did you come here?
A:  We hid in the forest for a long time.  The old men said that we would 
die of mosquito bites and disease.  There were no medicines, and some 
died.  Some could walk but some could not,  they just hid in the forest. 
It 
is difficult to live hidden in the forest.  Then we left; the people who
could 
walk went first and waited in front while the people who could not walk 
tried to follow.  I tried to find some soldiers to guide us, and eventually

along the way we found some Karenni soldiers in a farmfield.  When we 
met them we asked them to guide us along the way.
  
That was during the tenth month [October 1996], and the Burmese 
soldiers shot at us while we were escaping.  That was when Si Reh and Ei 
Reh [both men] were shot dead.  We were escaping together with them.  I 
think four people died at that time, two villagers and two Karenni
soldiers.  
They died because they went on ahead.  Another villager was wounded 
and we carried him.  Those who were killed were Si Reh, he was from 
Daw Kraw Aw, and Ei Reh from Daw Bo Loh.  One of the soldiers killed 
was Mi Reh from Daw Kraw Aw.  I don't know the name of the other one.  
He was from Brigade 2, Column 1.  The man who was wounded was Pleh 
Law, from Daw So Kyar.  

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                                   #9.
NAME:  "Koo Nga Reh"      SEX: M   AGE: 40+         Karenni
INTERVIEWED: 28/4/98

["Koo Nga Reh" is a KNPP official.  The interview is included here 
because it presents a fairly broad picture of the current situation in 
Karenni.]

Q:  Do you have any information about relocation sites?
A:  I don't have much information from relocation sites such as Mawchi, 
Baw La Keh, Pah Saung, Ywathit, and Shadaw because now very few of 
the people there can contact us.  All the relocation sites are controlled
by 
the SPDC, so nobody can get into those places without their permission.  
The SPDC do not allow any NGO people [Non-governmental 
organisations, i.e. aid organisations] or even the church to provide any 
assistance to the people who are in the relocation sites.  Since 1996, and 
especially since 1997, there have been very many people suffering from 
shortage of food.  They also suffer from malaria, diarrhoea and other 
diseases.  Since 1996, according to our annual report, about 300 people 
have died of various diseases in the relocation sites at Shadaw, Mawchi, 
and Ywathit.

At the moment there are five big relocation sites and five or six other 
relocation sites.  In addition, since the beginning of this year they have 
been trying to relocate some villages down to the area they control around 
Loikaw.  In many areas of the southern and eastern parts of the state there

are no more people, because the SPDC has made a big offensive in that 
area so anyone they see in those areas is suspected and shot on sight with 
no questions asked.

Q:  So are people also fleeing from fighting?
A:  Yes, there is still fighting now, especially in those areas [the east
and 
the south] because most of the people living in those areas are unwilling
to 
move down to the relocation sites at Mawchi, Pah Saung and Baw La Keh.  
They don't go because they can stay hidden in the jungle along the Karen 
State - Karenni border, so they just move around there and avoid the 
SPDC troops.  They're living in the jungle, they stay together with the 
Karenni Army there.  But they've been doing that for almost 2 years now, 
so they have to face the problem of lack of food.  I'm not sure about the 
next year, how long they can keep staying in that area by themselves 
without any support.  They have no chance to cultivate crops, because 
SPDC troops are moving around in the area.  All the villages are burned 
down now, including the churches, the schools, the entire villages.

Q:  Do they try to find the people who are hiding in the jungle?
A:  Yes, they try but they can't do it throughout the whole area, only in 
some parts of the area.  Even so, some people who are hiding in the jungle 
will be found and killed by the SPDC troops.  They call it a scorched earth

operation.  If they see anyone in the area, whether soldier or civilian,
they 
shoot him dead with no questions asked.  If they find people's rice, first 
they take whatever they can for themselves and then they burn whatever is 
left.  Especially in the area between the Pon and Salween rivers.  There
are 
still around five hundred people hiding in that area, staying together with

the Karenni troops there.  They move around and try to find some food.  
All they can find is some of the food that families have left behind there,

but there is no more food.  They have no way to keep on surviving there.  
Some try to flee to the [Thai] border but at the moment it is hard to
travel 
because there are no boats to cross the rivers.  Also, east of the Salween 
river all the way to the border there are so many SPDC troops, so the 
villagers are scared that they will be caught.  Now the SPDC Army and the 
Thai businessmen are making logging deals, so their troops travel to 
search for the logs in the forest, to know how many they have cut down 
already and how many are ready to sell.

They are trying to rebuild the old road from Mawchi to Toungoo, and 
onward into Burma.  This old road was once used to transport the minerals 
from Mawchi, so they are trying to build it again now.  They've ordered 
the people who are living in the relocation sites at Mawchi, Pah Saung, 
and Baw La Keh to go as volunteers to rebuild the road.  There are also 
two other projects.  One is building a new road from Baw La Keh to Daw 
Tama Gyi.  That is a new road.  Now all the people who live in that area 
have to be volunteers to build this new road.  It is about 10 miles long.  
The other new project is near Loikaw; Ye Yaw village is 1 1/2 miles from 
the base of SPDC Battalion #269, so they are building a new road there.  
We just got this news a few days ago.  Before there was only a path there 
so you had to walk, but now they are ordering all the local people around 
that area to build a main road for cars.  There are many villagers in that 
area, so they will probably have about 1,000 people working on that road 
every day.  It is just for the military to transport things; weapons, 
ammunition and rations.  These kind of roads just link villages to Army 
bases, so the people have no use for them.  No villagers use them.

Q:  Have any of the villages in the northeast that weren't relocated 
previously now been moved?
A:  In this area they 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 were 
already villages there, but other villages have to move down [out of the 
hills] and stay there because these villages are close to the main road.

Q:  How many relocation sites did you say there are in the whole state?
A:  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.  I think there are fewer people in Shadaw than there were at the 
beginning, because many people have tried to get permission to get out of 
the camp and have then managed to flee to the border.  It is very hard to 
get information from inside the relocation sites.  Most of the information 
we receive is from people who have escaped.  Not many are escaping now.  
If people from outside try to go into the relocation camps they can if they

are real villagers, but they must face many questions: "Where are you 
from?  Have you been here before?  What are you doing, why have you 
come here?  Do you know where the KNPP soldiers are, have you seen 
them?"

Q:  Are the SPDC soldiers working alone or is the KNDA involved?
A:  I think there is cooperation.  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.  
Even if they want to do something themselves, they have to get permission 
from the SPDC Commander before they can do it.

Q:  What about the "people's army" [the SPDC militia force]?
A:  This is different.  All the villages have to form a militia and are
forced 
to defend their village.  Now the SPDC has a new strategy:  whenever they 
want anything from the villagers they just force the militia to get it.  If
the 
SPDC commander comes to the village and gives orders to the headman 
then all the villagers know that the SPDC is demanding things; but this 
way, they form a militia and order it to do things for them so the
villagers 
have to get it themselves, and then when the SPDC commander comes he 
says, "No, I'm not coming to your village to do that, that's your own
people 
demanding it".  This is their new strategy.

Q:  Do they also use these militias to fight against the KNPP?
A:  If necessary they may do that.  They give them some kind of militia 
training course.  Then in each village they only provide three to five
guns, 
not so many, so the militia members have to take turns guarding their 
village.  But if they think that the area is dangerous and that there are
too 
many enemies around, they will provide more weapons and they will force 
the militia to be involved in fighting.

Q:  Do the militia members get benefits like exemption from forced 
labour?
A:  No, they have to do it, even they have to do forced labour.  I think
only 
the commander [the militia commander for the village] has to pay less or 
do less than the other villagers.  Those village militias have to be formed

with all the young men of the village.  All the young men of the village 
have to join the 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?

Q:  Is there still any area controlled by the KNPLF?
A:  They just control a small area near Dee Maw So.  Villagers living in 
this KNPLF area are safer than most others because now the KNPLF and 
the SPDC have a ceasefire agreement, so they don't do anything to those 
villagers.  But others can't really flee to that area because most of the 
people there are Padaung [Kayan], and others can't really live among them 
because the language and the culture is very different.  They also may not 
allow other people to come and live there among them.

Q:  Is it still possible for new refugees to get into the refugee camps in 
Thailand?
A:  At the end of last year the local authorities said that they would not 
allow any new arrivals, but just at the beginning of this year some new 
arrivals reached Camp 2.  There were about 60 or 70 people.  The Thais 
said nothing because those people can't stay anymore in their home areas 
so they must allow them to come; if not, those people would starve to 
death.  They came from the area between the Pon and Salween rivers.  
Some had been living in hiding and some had escaped from Shadaw 
relocation site.  The first group arrived in January and the second group 
arrived last month [in March].  They said that now it is quiet in Shadaw 
because fewer people are living there, but that they still have to work for

the military every day and the military doesn't provide them with anything.
 
The food situation there is very bad, the soldiers just provide a little
rice 
for each family but never enough, so the families try to get some paying 
work outside the camp so they can get some food to survive.  But there's 
no business in those areas, it's only small villages, so they don't have a 
chance to make money and the local people can't help them.  So it's very 
hard to get food.

Q:  You said before that they [SPDC] are using convicts for forced labour; 
convicts from where?
A:  Mostly from Loikaw prison because there are so many prisoners in 
Loikaw; some from central Burma, some from Shan State...  They brought 
some prisoners from other prisons to Loikaw because they thought they 
might need to use them for military operations in Karenni area.  They use 
them for anything and everything.  For everything they do they use the 
forced labour of everyone without payment, civilians as well as convicts.  
Even if they have reserved a budget for a project they never use that 
budget for the project, they just use the local people.  They never pay 
money for the work, you even have to bring your own food with you.  
They don't provide anything.

I don't know if things can change or not.  Mainly the military are just 
trying to get more and more power and keep it for longer, because they 
may be afraid that if they hand over power to the people then the people 
will send them to an international court.  That would be dangerous for 
them, so that is why they are afraid to lose power, and that is why they 
keep trying to increase their power more and more.
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- [END OF PART 4 - SEE SUBSEQUENT POSTING FOR PART 5 OF 5] -