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STARVING THEM OUT

Forced Relocations, Killings and the Systematic Starvation of Villagers in Dooplaya District


An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
March 31, 2000 / KHRG #2000-02A

Full Text of Interviews #1-39 and Field Reports

Some details have been removed or replaced by ‘xxxx’ for Internet distribution.

Notes on the Text

In the text all names of those interviewed have been changed and some details have been omitted or replaced by ‘xxxx’ where necessary to protect people from retaliation. The Interview Number at the start of each interview corresponds to the Interview Numbers referenced in the captions of quotes used in the main body of the report. This Annex begins with an Interview Index listing the interviews by number and giving a brief summary of the interview contents.

All numeric dates in this report are in dd/mm/yy format. In the interviews we have translated as ‘paddy’ the term for rice which has been threshed and winnowed but still has a husk, and ‘rice’ to mean husked rice ready for cooking. It takes about 2 baskets of paddy to make 1 basket of rice; villagers usually store it as paddy and only pound or mill small quantities into rice at a time. Villagers often refer to ‘loh ah pay’; literally this is the traditional Burmese form of voluntary labour for the community or the local Buddhist monastery, but the SPDC uses this name in most cases of forced labour, and to the villagers it has come to mean most forms of forced labour with the exception of long-term portering. Villagers often refer to the KNU/KNLA as Kaw Thoo Lei, the DKBA as Ko Per Baw (‘Yellow Headbands’), and SPDC troops and officials as ‘the Burmese’. SPDC officers often accuse villagers of being ‘Nga Pway’ (‘ringworm’); this is derogatory SPDC slang for KNLA soldiers.

Contents
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maps will not appear unless you click on them here)

Preface

Notes on the Text

Terms and Abbreviations

Map 1: Karen districts

Map 2: Dooplaya district

Index of Interviews and Field Reports

Interviews

Field Reports

Terms and Abbreviations

SPDC               State Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
PDC                 Peace & Development Council, SPDC local-level administration
                       (e.g. Village PDC [VPDC], Village Tract PDC, Township PDC [TPDC])
SLORC             State Law & Order Restoration Council, former name of SPDC until 11/97
KNU                Karen National Union, main Karen opposition group
KNLA              Karen National Liberation Army, army of the KNU
DKBA              Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, Karen group allied with SLORC/SPDC
KPA                Karen Peace Army, ‘Nyein Chan Yay A’Pweh’ (‘Peace Group’) in Burmese;
                       formed in 1997 by defected KNLA officer Thu Mu Heh and allied with SPDC
NMSP              New Mon State Party Army, Mon troops who have a cease-fire with the SPDC
IB                     Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers strong
LIB                   Light Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers strong
Kaw Thoo Lei   The Karen homeland, also used as slang for KNU/KNLA
Nga Pway        ‘Ringworm’; derogatory SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA people
T’Bee Met        ‘Closed-eyes’; DKBA slang for KNU/KNLA people
loh ah pay        Forced labour; literally it means traditional voluntary labour, but not under SPDC
Viss                  Unit of weight measure; one viss is 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds
Bowl/Pyi         Volume of rice equal to 8 small condensed milk tins; about 2 kg / 4.4 lb
Kyat                Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat at official rate, 300+ Kyat at current market

Index of Interviews and Field Reports

This index summarises the interviews and field reports which have been used directly in this report; many other interviews were also conducted and used for information but are not included here. All names of those interviewed have been changed. In the summaries below, FL = Forced Labour, FR = Forced Relocation, RS = Relocation Site, LM = Landmine, TL = Thailand, and IDP = Internally Displaced Person. The column ‘Nat.’ is for the interviewee’s nationality; K = Karen, B = Burman. Under ‘Twp.’ (Township), K = Kawkareik, W = Waw Raw, Y = Kya In, H = Kaw Te Hgah, and R = Rangoon.

(The interviews appear sequentially following this Interview Index table; if you want to go directly to a particular interview, click on its interview number in the leftmost column of the table.)

Interviews

NAME:        "Naw Muh Eh"          SEX: F          AGE: 44          Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:      Widow, 6 children     
ADDRESS:    Khay R’Moh village, Kya In township                  INTERVIEWED: 1/2000

Q: Did you have a school in your village?
A: Yes. There were about 20 students. We had one teacher.

Q: What do things cost in your village?
A: One viss [1.6 kg / 3.5 lb] of salt is 60 Kyat. It is 120 Kyat for one viss of fish paste, 100 Kyat for one viss of chicken. 500 Kyat for one viss of pork. One basket of paddy is 500 Kyat. I bought one basket of rice in the rainy season for 4,500 Kyat. If we didn’t have enough rice, we had to go buy it from the trading boats. We bought it from people who came to sell it because our village is on the bank of the big river.

Q: Why did you come to the refugee camp?
A: Because the Burmese came to torture and abuse us, so we came here. [Light Infantry] Division #88 came up to abuse us, so we fled here. They came to my house and threatened us and surrounded us. Then they came up into the house and told us in Burmese, "Nobody run down [out of the house]." So nobody dared to run, and they captured one of my nephews. His name is T---. He is 35 years old, and they captured him when he was going behind the house. They called him and pointed at him with guns, so he was afraid and came back to them. They ordered him to go up into the house, and they slapped his face once. After they beat him, they called him to go with them. After that we didn’t see him. But later he ran to escape. It was on Monday December 6^th [1999]. The names of the commanders are Aung Aung and Nyo Lin.

Q: When they entered your village, did they beat any villagers?
A: They gathered all the villagers in their houses when they arrived, and then they made them stay together under the church building. They came in the morning, but nobody had eaten yet and some people had not cooked rice. After that the soldiers went into the houses and took our belongings, like necklaces, earrings, and all of the money that they saw. They detained us from morning till evening and then released us, so some children were hungry and wanted to eat rice, and they cried. But they scolded us to stop them, and when we did their sounds stopped for a while. After a while they started to cry again because they were so hungry, but the women didn’t want to eat because we were afraid. Then after they released us, the next morning they called one of our aunts to go with them. Her name is Naw M---. She is about 45 years old. They captured her because people told them that her husband had been part of the resistance. The Burmese had captured and killed him 4 years ago. Someone went to tell them that now Naw M--- had remarried her husband’s assistant [who was also a KNLA soldier]. After they heard this they came to see Naw M---, but she didn’t know about it [that someone had accused her] so she was there when they gathered the women. They didn’t let her go back and they called her with them when they left the village. Then when they arrived in Ter Noh they blindfolded her and tied and abused her, but we didn’t know what they were doing until she wrote a letter to us and asked us to send medicine that makes people fall asleep and not remember themselves [a drug to make her unconscious]. She couldn’t tolerate them, but we didn’t know what they did to her. It all started on December 8^th, so it’s been many days already.

I think that they raped her because she told us that she couldn’t tolerate it. Maybe they abused and raped her. Before I fled here they had taken her to Ter Noh, but after that we didn’t see or hear about her, so maybe they took her to Seik Gyi or somewhere else.

Q: So you don’t know what happened to her?
A: We heard that after we left they said not to kill her because she is a woman. But she has to stay in jail for 7 to 8 years. I think that she has to go to jail because people said that she married her husband’s assistant. That is really not true, but people said it. So they put her in jail. They said that if she was a man they would kill her, but they sent her to jail instead.

Q: Why did they call the women under the church?
A: They called us together and ordered us to find our husbands who had gone to work. And they didn’t let us go home until we could find our husbands. If a woman’s husband didn’t come back, she couldn’t go home either, but if her husband came back she could go home with him. They said that if our sons and husbands had gone to work, they should come back in the evening [from working their fields outside the village]. If the husbands didn’t come, we must be people who work outside [families of KNLA soldiers]. So all of the women had to find their husbands on a very hot day, and some had to carry their children and babies in the heat to find them. The babies were crying. And they had to search until they found them. All of them found their husbands but it took one or two days because some men were afraid and dared not come back. But their wives had to persuade them, because if their husbands wouldn’t come back, they wouldn’t release the wife. So even at night they had to go and call their husbands to come back. The village head stayed behind and gave them [the SPDC soldiers] assurances. There are around 60 or 70 men, about 20 houses in our village. During those 2 days, they let them go and eat, but after they ate they had to come back again. They noted down the names of the women whose husbands already came back, and they let them go. But for the women whose husbands didn’t come back, they had to go out and find their husbands. But some husbands were afraid and took a long time to come back, and also some people couldn’t find them, so they just stayed like that until dark. In the night if the husbands came back, the soldiers let their wives go home and asked their husbands to sleep among them.

Mostly the men are workers and they had gone to their hill fields, but after they heard the Burmese had entered the village, they dared not come back, and they stayed in their hill fields. After they arrived back in the village, the Burmese let all of their wives go home, but they called their husbands and ordered them to carry loads for them the next morning. They told them that it would take 3 hours, but it took 3 days.

Q: Did they capture anyone else?
A: Then they captured two of my younger brothers-in-law on Wednesday, December 1^st. They cut the younger one’s throat [not deeply] with a sickle, then they blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. They blindfolded the other one’s eyes for two days and nights, then put him in a sack and beat him 3 times on his head with bamboo, and once in his stomach with a piece of wood that broke. They came back to tell me about it. My younger brother told me that he was going to reap paddy and he brought his sickle with him, and he met the Burmese along the way. So they cut his throat with it, but the sharp part of the sickle was missing. If it weren’t missing, he thought he would have gotten a very deep cut. The sharp part of the sickle didn’t wound his throat. They took them both to Ter Noh and and tied them once they arrived there. They blindfolded their eyes, and the younger one was covered with a sarong, and the other one was covered with a paddy sack, and they beat them. The younger one is named Saw K--- and he is 20 years old. The other is 25 years old. They kept them 6 days in Ter Noh. They told me that they [the SPDC] interrogated them about people who work outside [information about KNLA soldiers] and asked them for names. They asked them where Pa T--- is [a villager believed to be a soldier]. They beat them a lot and they couldn’t tolerate it, but they didn’t tell them everything [that they knew about the KNLA]. He told them he saw him [Pa T---] in the past but hadn’t seen him recently and didn’t know where he is now. If he hadn’t told them they would have beaten him more and he couldn’t tolerate it, so he told them.

The younger one said that they told him they were going to kill him, so he was afraid and ran to escape. After the younger one ran, they were going to kill the older one, but he told them, "I am a farmer." And they said that if he was a good person, the village head had to come there [to vouch for him], so people went to call the village head and his brothers and sisters. But before they all arrived, they released him and ordered him to call his younger brother to come with them. They said, "You don’t need to worry", just come and they would give them a ticket so they wouldn’t need to worry [a guarantee that they were not soldiers, which would theoretically protect them from being arrested by other SPDC troops]. So they released him and asked him to go and coax his younger brother to come back, but the younger brother dared not go again. He is afraid. Then after they drove us out we left the village and came here.

The younger one was not beaten but tied and covered. The older one was beaten after they tied and blindfolded and covered him. They beat him terribly, and his head burst open because they beat him with a very big piece of bamboo. After they beat him 3 times his head was pale and sunken.

Q: Did you hear about other abuses to villagers?
A: The other thing we heard about was in Doh Gyi, where they killed two people. They killed one of them right away, but the other one they beat a lot before they killed him. Both of them were men, and in the past they worked outside [they were KNLA soldiers], but they had quit. They had left those jobs maybe 5 or 6 years ago.

I didn’t see it myself, but I heard people say that after they captured them they beat them because of this accusation. They beat them until they couldn’t see or walk, and after they didn’t know where they were anymore, they killed them. They tied one of them on a bamboo [stand] like a cross, and made him stay like that. They didn’t feed them enough rice, and he couldn’t move his hands or legs, but after a while he was cold and frozen. After that they set fire to a plastic bag and burned him with it, but he couldn’t move his body so he was yelling a lot. After that his wounds became infected. They knew that he wouldn’t be able to walk when they released him. He couldn’t walk or sit; his whole body was wasting away. When we fled here he was dying, but he hadn’t died yet. They are named Kaw Kaw and Kyaw Lay Doh.

Q: Why were they beaten so badly?
A: It was because of the accusation that they had been in the resistance in the past. Later they didn’t work with them, but because people accused them the Burmese went to capture them. Kaw Kaw stopped working as a soldier more than 5 or 6 years ago, but when the Burmese patrolled around Ter Noh village, people there accused him so they went to capture them. But the villagers didn’t know or care about it, so the Burmese captured and killed him. Before they killed him they beat them until they couldn’t even walk. Their faces were sunken and they couldn’t see anything, and they killed them.

Q: When the SPDC Army stays in your village, can you travel freely outside your village?
A: They don’t allow us to travel because if they stay in the village we have to stay in our houses. They allow us to go [to church], but we can’t go with the whole family because someone has to stay in the house. They allow us to go [to our hill fields], but the house cannot be empty. If there is nobody in the house, they say that the house is their enemy’s house [the house harbours KNLA soldiers or sympathisers]. If they see people in the jungle, they call them even if people say that they are going to work in their hill fields and that they are farmers. They call them and the people have to follow them, and if you don’t go they beat you. Even women have to go with them if they see them, and if there are no men to go, women have to suffer and go with them. They have to follow them and walk among them and carry loads that they [the soldiers] should carry. Sometimes 2 or 3 people have to go. Before I came here they collected 6 people from my village to help them carry loads. If they see many people they call many, and if they see two or three women, they take them too. If there are no men in the village they enter and run on a wild rampage, then call women instead, and the women dare not disobey and have to go. So people have no time to work [for themselves] because there is so much forced labour.

As I said before, they called women to guide the way, and when the people [KNLA] shot at them, two women got wounded. One of them got shot in her bottom and the other in her hand. They had to heal themselves; they [the Burmese] didn’t treat them. Their village is P’Dah Pra. They came back to get treatment from the medic who stays in the village.

I also heard that the Burmese slept with some women, but not all. I didn’t ask which village they were from, but it was people who were coming by boat to Thi Mu Kloh. They called them to get out of the boat and beat them. At that time the Burmese were drunk, and they raped two women. After they raped them, they released them.

Q: When you stayed there did you hear that the SPDC Army relocated villages?
A: Yes, they told our village, "Don’t stay in your village. All of you must leave the village. Wherever you want to move, move, but you can’t stay here. If you decide not to move, find and gather firewood and keep it under your house. Then none of you can come down from the house." Then they would come and set fire to the house. We dared not do this and we feared them, so that’s why we had to leave. We hadn’t even finished our fields, but we were afraid because they told us, "All of you have to move, and if you think that you are good people, don’t come back again. If you come back we will think that you are our enemies, so we will kill you." Even if we were villagers, if we didn’t move and they saw us when they came, they would kill all of us. So we dared not face the danger of getting set on fire, and we knew that even if we hadn’t finished our work we had to leave.

Q: Which group came to your village?
A: [LID] #88 entered our village, and that’s why no one stays there. As far as I know, my village and Kyaw Meh fled here, and after that we heard that they drove Ghaw Gheh to Ter Noh. Kyaw Meh had to move to Yaw Kya, but in Khay R’Moh village they told us that we should move wherever we wanted to move. After they took our aunt [Naw M---] they told all of us to move. But we don’t know what they thought about our village; maybe they identified our village as the place where the enemy stays. But I am not sure. They came to our village and told us to move and nothing else. They threatened us like that so we left our village.

Q: Where did you leave your paddy and rice that you had stored?
A: Der! We did not finish our work, so it was all left in the fields because we hadn’t reaped it yet and we couldn’t do anything.

Q: What kind of problems did you face on your way to the refugee camp?
A: The problems we faced on the way were due to the Burmese following close behind us. Some babies who came with us cried a lot. So to stop them from crying the mothers had to breastfeed them to fill their mouths. But they kept crying because of our troubles walking day and night, and their mothers scolded and spanked them, but they couldn’t stop. So we had to pass place after place, and once they nearly caught us - we slept in a place and left the next morning, then they arrived there too. We tried to carry our food and our children, so we couldn’t carry other things like clothes and blankets. We carried just enough rice for us to eat. If we got a fever or illness we had to stay sick because we didn’t have enough medicine on the way. We had to stay next to a fire if it was cold, and our clothes and blankets were torn and burned. The children were sick at that time, but we didn’t have any pills to heal them, so we suffered like that until we arrived here.

Because of the Burmese oppression, even if we don’t enjoy it here [at the refugee camp], we will stay because we can do nothing else. We came to stay here and left everything behind us. At the time we hadn’t finished our work so our paddy was all left in the fields. Even if we want to go back we dare not, because they have oppressed us horribly there. If they didn’t stay there, we would go back. If we go back, we will work our hill fields again. We are from the mountains and can’t do anything but work in our fields.

Q: Is there anything else you want to say?
A: In conclusion I will tell you about my younger brother. When he was a child my father admired him, and so he nicknamed him Dta Kweh Mu [‘Company Commander’]. The Burmese heard about that and they tried to find him, and after they found him they captured him. The village head went to explain it to them, but they still accused him of being a ‘Company Commander’ and beat him until his teeth fell out and his face was covered with blood, then they threw him on the side of the road. After that he woke up and came back to the house and we tried to find medicine to heal him. His eyes were filled with blood so we couldn’t recognize him; his whole face had sunken in. Even now when he wants to read the Holy Bible, he can’t read it. And he wants to eat meat but he cannot because he is missing some teeth and the others are weak. He is not quite 30 years old. He works in the fields, but the Burmese tried to find a grudge against him. All of the village heads went to explain, but they didn’t believe them. I was very sad because of how badly he was beaten. His real name is Saw K---. People kept explaining to the Burmese, and then they forgave him but they told the villagers, "From now on, don’t call him Dta Kweh Mu, instead call him Saw K---."

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NAME:         "Saw Kaw Muh"          SEX: M     AGE: 42              Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:       Married, 6 children          
ADDRESS:     Htee Po Way village, Kya In township                  INTERVIEWED: 1/2000

Q: What level of education did you complete?
A: 7 standards [Grade 7] in Burmese school.

Q: Where did you study?
A: Kya In.

Q: Do you have a school in your village?
A: Yes, we had a school in the village through 1^st Standard [Grade 1] with maybe 20 students. One teacher.

Q: How did you earn your living in Htee Po Way?
A: I earned it from our hill and flat fields.

Q: How did you get things like salt and fish paste?
A: We had to buy those things from Seik Gyi. We went by boat. Before we didn’t have any problems on the way, but now we do have problems because of the Burmese. On the way they tax it and bother people. They question us: "Do you carry things for the KNU?" They bother us by taking something for themselves to eat.

Q: How much does one viss [1.6 kg / 3.5 lb] of fish paste cost in your village?
A: In our village, 200 Kyat. One viss of salt is 50 Kyat. A duck is 1,500 Kyat. One basket of paddy is 4,000 Kyat. Rice is 4,500 Kyat [per basket]. If we didn’t have it in the village, we had to go and buy it from people who came up to sell it.

Q: Why did you come to the refugee camp?
A: Because the Burmese military oppressed us. They were from Burmese troop [LID] #88. There are 40-50 soldiers. I don’t know the name of the commander. When they entered my village they captured 5 villagers. They are farmers. They tied their hands behind their backs for the whole night. Then they ordered them to stand in a line and they pointed at them with guns. They lined them up to sit on a log during the night. They made them stay like that. They captured them because they were suspicious of them. They planned to capture and beat the villagers when they came, and they thought that if there was anything wrong in the village, the villagers would be afraid of them because of the beatings and would tell them the truth. I mean that if there were any faults with the village, the people would tell information about the KNU.

Q: Do you remember the names of the 5 people they captured?
A: L---. He is 35 years old. P---’s father is nearly 50 years old. K--- is 47 years old. M--- is 32 years old, and D--- is 12 years old. Only one of them didn’t have a family [wife and children].

Q: What did they do to them in the morning?
A: The next morning they knew that they are really villagers, so they released them.

Q: Did they beat any villagers?
A: They beat 2 villagers who had been porters. They beat them [with a stick] and punched their chins. B--- was about 30 years old, and the other one is P---, who is 32 years old. They were captured by Burmese soldiers on their way to their work. They had to carry bullets and shells for more than a week.

Q: Did the SPDC soldiers do any other damage to your village when they came?
A: Yes. The same night they captured those 5 people, they burned down a paddy storage barn and a hut. They also shot chickens and cooked them, and looted rice to pound and sticky rice to eat. At the time we had just finished threshing the paddy, so there were 30 baskets of paddy [in the barn that the soldiers burned]. They ate maybe 25 chickens in all. They ate a pig in the village, too. When people knew that they were coming to the village they hid their good things in a safe place, so it is good they didn’t lose their nice things. But people couldn’t keep their pigs and chickens in a safe place, so they [the soldiers] caught them and ate them.

Q: Do the Burmese force women to go for portering?
A: At this time they mostly force the men [in his village]. But in villages like Khay R’Moh they forced women to send them, and after they arrived at Paw Ner Mu, they released them. They kept them as cover because they were afraid that the KNU would shoot at them. There were about 40 people. All of them were women, with children and babies. They didn’t ask them to carry loads. When they arrived in another village, they released them.

Q: Did they rape these women, or any other women?
A: We heard about that in Khay Sone. I don’t know how many women, but we heard that they did it. People told us it was [LID] #88.

Q: Did they kill anyone in your village?
A: They killed men in Plaw Toh Kee. Three people: Peh Ko, Kyaw Thaw Han, and Si Si. It seemed to us that those three were bending their backs and earning their living from their fields, but they [the Burmese] wanted to accuse them of having relations with the KNU. So they didn’t believe them, and they accused them of working with the KNU. They killed them between Pu Kheh Toh and Ywa Thit village.

Q: Did you hear about anyone else who was killed?
A: I heard about two people from Lay Wah Ploh. I didn’t get their names but we heard people talking about it. We heard that they decided to kill at least 6 villagers a month. It is their plan and their goal.

Q: Did you hear of any villages that they have already relocated?
A: Some villagers from Plaw Toh Kee moved, and also some from Ghaw Gheh village moved, but especially from Khay R’Moh and Htee Po Way. When they entered Khay R’Moh, they wanted men, but the men dared not face them. But they saw their children and wives, so they gathered them under the church and left them to dry out in the sun for 3 days, and their children yelled. They didn’t give them rice. If their sons and husbands didn’t come back, they didn’t let them go. They made them stay in the sun like that for quite a long time and then they let them go.

We heard the Burmese Army forced the villages Pyu Gyi and Meh Baw Tee Kaw to move to G’Kya and G’Kya Po Kee. Also Kyaw Kheh Ko village had to move to Seik Gyi. Dta Dah Lee and Seik Doh and other villages on the other bank of the river had to move to the lower place at Noh Wah.

Q: Did you hear that the SPDC was confiscating villagers’ paddy?
A: I heard that at Paw Ner Mu and down to G’Kya, Gru Gyi, Khay Sone, and Yay Leh they demanded paddy. They have to send it first to Ter Noh, and then they send it on to Kya In Seik Gyi. If their column arrives, we have to feed them. For example, every time [LID] #88 arrives in the village they take everything that they want to eat and we can’t tell them not to. They take chickens, pigs, cattle and buffaloes, and we dare not say anything to them. They can do whatever they want to do. People told me that those villages have to give them paddy, but starting from our village and to the east, we have to feed the Army.

Q: Did they tell you why they are confiscating your paddy?
A: After they get a lot of paddy, they report to other countries that their country produces a lot of paddy. But really they beat civilians and take the paddy from us. They are just starting to do this now so we still have enough rice to eat, but if they keep doing this for many years, I don’t think there will be enough.

Q: What did you do with your belongings?
A: We left our things, and if people want to eat them [their stored food and rice], they will. When I left the village, all of the villagers were ready to go and half of the villagers had already left.

Q: Do you think that other countries may help you, and how?
A: According to a lot of people who have fled here, if international countries see the situation, and if they think that it is not good to stay like it is, and if they plan something, we believe that the situation will improve. But if they don’t do that, it can’t get better.

Q: Did you know of an SPDC plan for your area?
A: The first thing that they did was to order that by December 25^th they would gather everything and after that they would not allow anybody to go out [of the village boundaries]. After that they won’t allow people to travel, and if they see the villagers go out, they will shoot to kill them all.

We also heard that they will build a road. I heard they will build a car road from Pya Thon Zu [Three Pagodas Pass] to Kya In. We heard that they will use it to transport their rations. I hear that they will torment civilians to build it because we will have to go and dig and build it, so then the civilians will not have time to work, as you know. It will only benefit the Burmese military.

Q: How many people did you come here with?
A: We came here with 44 people, 10 houses from 3 different villages. We had to face weakness and illness. We provided for each other and healed each other with medicine that we brought with us. We do not have a medic in my village, but we discussed with the parents and treated them with traditional medicine, like grilling roots and drinking them.

Q: Have you ever heard of HIV?
A: We did not have this disease in our village. We didn’t hear about it, and we don’t have a test.

Q: When you were in your village, did you hear about any women who were raped?
A: I heard they raped women, and they also have to porter and guide for them. If men aren’t staying in the village, the women have to build, guide, work, and cook. If I look at it carefully, we don’t have different troubles [referring to men and women]; both of us are greatly tormented with similar things.

Q: If you had a choice to go back now or stay in the refugee camp, what would you do?
A: If there was peace and equality and no problems there, we would like to go back. I would do the same thing I did before: work on my fields. But we have to do something to be ready to face these problems before we go back.

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NAME:          "Naw Muh Paw"          SEX: F          AGE: 43          Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:        Married, 4 children
ADDRESS:      Paw Ner Mu village, Kya In township                    INTERVIEWED: 1/2000

Q: Do your children go to school in Paw Ner Mu?
A: Yes, we have a school with about 50 students and 3 teachers. But they closed the school, so people dared not go. All of the children were separated. They did not let them go to school. They [the Burmese] worried that fighting would occur if people [the KNLA] come to shoot them.

They opened the school but didn’t let them study; instead they asked them [the children] if they had seen outsiders [the KNLA]. They did this to know about the situation outside, so they coaxed and questioned children and fed them bread and cigarettes. So the students dared not go to school and we worried that trouble would occur in the village.

Q: Why did you come to xxxx [refugee camp]?
A: Because the SPDC tried to blame us and make up problems among the villagers to divide us. So we dared not stay and we had to flee. It was LID #88 on December 1^st. They took villagers’ belongings and amimals that they owned like chickens, ducks, and pigs. They shot them and ate them as if they were theirs. The Burmese steal the food that people keep for themselves to eat, and they don’t ask from the owners. They just take it. There were more than 100 chickens but now there are only 50 left.

Q: Did they destroy your village or your paddy?
A: Yes, we heard they burned down the houses when they couldn’t capture the owners, so they set fire to them and to the paddy barns and stored food. It was not in Paw Ner Mu but in other places.

Q: Were you free to travel outside your village?
A: We weren’t free to travel because they did not let us. Also it is not easy to go to church. In the past they entered our village on Sunday when people were going to worship, but they didn’t let people go to church. Instead they told people to thresh harvested paddy for them. So people had to thresh paddy and sift it on the Sabbath day.

They didn’t let people go when they were in the village, but when they were outside the village, we could go. When they stayed in the village if people went out they accused them of contacting rebels.

Q: Did your village have to do forced labour or porter?
A: Married women from other villages like Ka Theh and Htee K’Pa had to do forced labour. They kept them as a cover to stop the people shooting them. So they took the married women in the night and rain, and their children cried, and they said that the women made their children cry. Really they didn’t make their children cry, it was that their children were sick. Then they wrung the necks of the children [according to other villagers’ testimonies, the Burmese didn’t actually kill the babies, but twisted their necks to threaten their mothers].

Q: Were the women raped?
A: I didn’t hear about that.

Q: Did you hear if any villagers were beaten or killed?
A: I heard from a village that they tied a man and stabbed his stomach. His intestines came out, and they touched them with fire. And then they asked him, "Does this hurt?" and he dared not say whether it hurt or not, but he had to suffer like that. They scalped the second person and pulled him to follow them.

Q: Why did they do these things to these people?
A: Because other people had accused them that they had worked with outsiders [the KNLA], so the two had to suffer. They were not in the resistance, but they had worked and walked together [with opposition people] like that.

Q: Did you hear if they have relocated or burned any villages?
A: I only heard about Khay R’Moh village. We didn’t hear if they burned any houses or not, but we heard they ordered villagers to move and didn’t let any of them stay.

Q: Did they confiscate the paddy?
A: We didn’t hear if they confiscated the paddy, but after people finish their work they have to give the paddy to them according to what they ask. It depends on the number of houses [in the village]. Some big villages have to pay 500 baskets of paddy, and some pay 250 baskets.

Q: How much did your village have to pay?
A: 250 baskets of paddy. G’Kya has to give 500 baskets. We have to send it to Ter Noh. They told us nothing else.

Q: Do you think more people will flee here?
A: Yes, we have more people coming here. I think maybe 50 or 60 more.

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NAME:          "Saw Kaw Htoo"          SEX: M          AGE: 37        Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:        Married, 3 children          
ADDRESS:      Khay R’Moh village, Kya In township                    INTERVIEWED: 1/2000

["Saw Kaw Htoo" came with over 40 people to xxxx refugee camp, braving a dangerous journey. Once in the camp, they found out that their village had been burned by the SPDC shortly after their departure.]

Q: Do you have a monastery in your village?
A: We didn’t have a monastery, but we had a church in my village. All of the villagers are Christians.

Q: Do you have a school in your village?
A: I have a school in my village, but not a high school. It just has only 2 or 3 grades and one teacher.

Q: After the Burmese arrived, did you still have a school?
A: Students went to study under the building of the church, but after they didn’t allow us to stay in the village [after the SPDC came and imposed a deadline to relocate the village], we requested that they give us half a day to clear the bushes under the church, but they didn’t allow us to do it, so we couldn’t do anything else. They couldn’t go to school as before and all of the students scattered. The teacher fled, too.

Q: What do you produce in your village for your livelihood?
A: In the village we have bananas, limes, and betelnut crops to sell. Mostly people earn from their hill and flat fields. We grow paddy but we don’t get any profit for ourselves. We breed pigs and chickens, but our cows and buffaloes have gone since [LID] #44 arrived in the village and we had to leave also.

Q: So when you didn’t have food in your village, where did you get food to buy?
A: If we didn’t have food in our village, we bought it from the Mon who came in their big boats to sell things in T’Mee Kloh. Our village is established on the bank of this river. Some people go to buy rice in Kya In Seik Gyi.

Q: What were the prices like?
A: One viss [1.6 kg / 3.5 lb] of garlic or fish paste was 200 Kyat. One viss of salt is 30 Kyat. A basket of rice is 4,000 Kyat. One viss of pork is 500 Kyat, and one viss of chicken is 700 Kyat.

Q: Did the Burmese give you trouble when you went to trade or buy things?
A: They made trouble, like when they taxed for each basket of rice and each longtail boat. Some Burmese didn’t ask, they just took. Sometimes it was necessary to stop to sleep and they asked for money. If you had rice, they asked for rice.

Q: Can you explain why you came to xxxx [refugee] camp?
A: The reason that we came here is because the Burmese Army tortured us and we couldn’t tolerate it anymore. They made us do forced labour when we had to work our jobs, so we fled here.

Q: What was the battalion number of the troops that came?
A: I don’t know their [battalion] number but the badge that they wear is #88. [Light Infantry] Division #88. 50 soldiers. They came on Monday, December 6^th [1999].

Q: Did they beat any villagers?
A: They entered the village when the men had gone to work. They gathered all of their wives and children and kept them in the same place. When they called them together on the ground in the same place, they went up into the houses and took all of the belongings like clothes, blankets, and pots that they could use or were nice. And at the time married women and children, even babies, had to stay under the hot sun so they were crying and had nothing to eat or drink. They ordered them to find their husbands, but some had gone to work a far distance away because they didn’t know that the Burmese would come to the village. So it was very complicated for them [the women], because if their husbands didn’t come back they [the Burmese] said that they all must be wives of Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA]. They accused them of that, so people had to find them. Before finding their husbands, the women and children suffered because they didn’t eat any rice or drink water that whole day. The children ate rice that evening, but it hurt and weakened them a lot.

Q: Did they take all the animals as well?
A: They ate all the livestock bred by houses in the village. Sometimes they ate our pigs without asking us. They ate all the chickens that were kept in our teacher’s house, around 30. And they ate about 50 chickens in total from the village. There were approximately 70 or 80 chickens and ducks.

Q: Did they burn down houses in the village?
A: After I left the village, I heard that they burned down the village. Khay R’Moh village was destroyed. I didn’t see it with my eyes, I just heard from others.

Q: Did they beat any of the villagers before they relocated the village?
A: No, they didn’t beat any civilians, they just gathered them together, including a village headwoman, on December 6^th. They ordered her to come and then took her to their Operations Commander at T---. They said that they [the villagers] fed Kaw Thoo Lei and that she was the wife of Kaw Thoo Lei, but the village headwoman is a widow. And since then we have heard that three soldiers in the unit were drunk because of their Operations Commander [who encouraged them to drink]. He collected 3 soldiers for the interrogation and they blindfolded her and interrogated her at the same time. Her name is Naw M--- and she is 46 years old. She has 5 children who stay in T---. They interrogated her many times for a long time, and the village headmen and villagers wanted to go and see her and testify for her. But they didn’t allow them to go, and she asked to see her children. But this unit of Burmese didn’t allow them to see them.

I didn’t see for myself when they beat her, but according to a letter that she sent, she asked the villagers to send a kind of medicine that makes people dizzy. After she drank it she would be drugged so she wouldn’t wake again, so she didn’t have to face the suffering that she was facing right then. And she wrote to make the villagers aware, because she wanted the villagers to know. As far as I know they took her to T---, but recently I heard that they sent her to Kya In Seik Gyi, but we are not sure if that’s true or not. But they did not release her. We thought they had two options for her: one, to kill her, or two, to jail her.

Q: Do you think that they beat or raped her?
A: It could be something like that [rape], according to the letter that she sent. Because they didn’t allow them to sleep with women in someone’s house, so they ordered her to sleep among them. And she still has a pretty body, too.

Q: When and where did they capture her?
A: They captured her in Khay R’Moh village 27 days ago.

Q: Did they allow the villagers to travel freely outside your village?
A: They did not allow us to travel as freely as we liked. They didn’t allow us to go and work outside the village, or travel, and if they saw us in the jungle and the date or time had expired [on their travel passes], they would shoot us dead if we ran. If we didn’t run, they captured us and we saw some people who were captured and beaten. They captured two villagers from my village. Their names are Saw B--- and Saw K---. They are over 20 years old. They are workers in the hill fields, and they were captured when they had gone to work in their fields. Then they questioned them about many things and accused them of being soldiers, but they are not. If the people say that they haven’t seen them [KNLA soldiers], they are beaten, but if they say that they have seen them, they are accused of being Kaw Thoo Lei, and the soldiers ask them to show them [where to find KNLA]. But how can we show them?

Q: Did they beat them?
A: After they captured them, they blindfolded them and tied and beat them, and they put one of them into a gunny sack. They knotted a sarong and put him inside it, and beat them and interrogated them for two days and nights.

Q: Were they fed?
A: Not enough, because I went at that time too. It was during the time that they called the widow. They fed her just enough to keep her alive. At the time when I went with them, the widow didn’t have to carry anything, and they carried their own loads. As for me, my shoulders burned and even if I couldn’t carry I had to try. It was a very heavy load for me. I had to carry vegetables, meat, rice, and pots and other food that they looted. They told us to go with them for 3 hours [to porter], but they forced us to go east and west, and we couldn’t finish our own work.

In the early morning they fed us just a bit of leftover rice, but if we compared it to what we eat at home, humans don’t eat that—we give it to the dog. But we had to eat this dish of rice that was soggy and rotten, because we were afraid of them and hungry. We tried to eat it to stay alive.

Q: How many porters went with you?
A: All of the porters numbered more than 30, including the ones from our village and other villages. There were 50 soldiers. No women were involved. I asked the oldest porter I saw, "Uncle, you are very old already. Why do you have to carry?" and he told me, "We dare not stay without coming to carry." He had gray hair already; he was more than 50 years old. They forced them to carry the same things as we did, like pumpkins, fruit, food and rice. Even if they couldn’t carry it, they had to go slowly until they could. Some fell down and people had to pick them up; it was torturous. We saw that they slapped some. But they scolded them horribly so even if you couldn’t go you had to go.

Q: Did anyone run to escape?
A: Yes, some people escaped. For the people who ran, they noted down their names and charged each of them one pig. If they didn’t have a pig, they had to pay 6 viss of chicken and a bag of rice. They went to [Kya In] Seik Gyi and people had to pay them.

Q: Did you escape when you portered?
A: Don’t mention it! I did run to escape from them. I ran to escape from everything, and to save myself from paying them a pig, too. So I fled and stayed in the jungle because I dared not face them or be close to them.

Q: If they captured porters again after they fled, did they release them?
A: After that, people had to give recommendations for them [fellow villagers had to ‘vouch’ to the local military commander for the porters who fled], but the first and second times they [the Burmese] didn’t release them, not until the third time. They also had to pay some money, but not so much.

Q: Did they beat them?
A: Yes, it was very horrible. They beat their heads and shoulders until they sunk in, and they sliced a person’s throat with a sickle. It was very painful.

Q: Did they ever capture porters who ran?
A: For those people they beat them and tortured them. They shot them with guns. They shot a man from Kaw Ler who ran to escape at the other side of the river called T’Mee Kloh, which is near our village. I saw it because we were with them, and they fired many guns and a lot of bullets. After that the man dove into the water, and they kept shooting him in the river for a long time. His name is N---. They couldn’t capture him.

Q: Did they give you any medicine when you portered?
A: They didn’t give us any. One of my younger brothers who had gone with us got a fever and he just had to suffer. I saw that they just gave him quinine, but it didn’t heal him and he got worse. A lot of people got fevers, and I had to buy medicine for myself, too. There were two medics in their unit. They had medicine for themselves; if their soldiers got fevers, they treated them very well. But for us we know that they really did not treat us well.

Q: Did you have money to pay them if you really didn’t want to go?
A: Yes, if people dared not go, they had to pay money. Each village had to give 10,000 Kyat to the SPDC Army. But that is only per month, not for the whole dry season. Some villages had to pay 10,000 or more, but smaller villages paid 7,000 or 8,000 Kyat. After we paid we still had to go, but a little less often.

Q: Did they carry enough rations with them?
A: They didn’t carry enough rations with them because we saw them ask and take rice from villagers’ houses. They asked without paying money to the villagers. The villagers had to give it to them because they fear them. If the villagers didn’t give it to them, they beat them and looted it from them anyway.

Q: Did they demand that any women go with them when you portered?
A: We saw that they called to women along the way and ordered them to guide them. Actually, they kept them as cover for when the people [the KNU] shot at them. We heard from another village that they demanded all of the villagers, including women and children, because the people had shot at them. They ordered them to guide them to each village, then to another. As far as I know they called a lot of women from Htee K’Pa village, including children. People had to come down to send them [the Burmese] to Paw Ner Mu Hta, and then they released them. They called some for one or two days, but some for days at a time. Some women had to carry their babies on their backs and the Burmese forced them to go like that. They fed them just enough to stay alive. For the women who could carry, they ordered them to carry, too. Some didn’t have to carry but they forced them to go with them like that.

Q: Did you hear that they raped any of the women that they called?
A: We didn’t hear about that around our village. But I have heard about it from other villages, though I couldn’t tell about it because I don’t know their names. But everything I was told and know is true. They called the women, children, and old people to go with them to stop the people from shooting them. They ordered them to go with them, and the second thing was that they told the villagers we saw that if people shoot at them near a village, they will enter that village and torture the villagers. I heard that near Kyo Kyaw village the people shot at them, so they [the Burmese troops] entered the village and killed two villagers. I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but I heard it and it is true. I think it was [LID] #88. I only know one person’s name, Saw Klo Paw. He is nearly 40 years old. I know that both of them were farmers.

Q: When you lived in your village, did they allow you to worship in a church?
A: When we stayed in the village they allowed us to go to church, but they guarded the church with a fence.

Q: Since you made your living farming but you couldn’t go to your huts, how did you tend your fields and cattle and buffaloes?
A: Since they don’t allow us to work freely, we lost those things and they were ruined. They said that after 8 days if they saw us in the jungle they would shoot us because we didn’t obey the rules. For that they gave us 8 days, but for portering sometimes it was 10 days or half a month. As for me, we had already harvested and gathered the paddy, but we had to leave it behind, and we dared not go close to it.

People couldn’t do anything with their cattle or buffaloes. So they let them loose, and people thought that if they had the chance to come back after they left the village, they would be able to catch them again. But some might be lost.

Q: In your area did the Burmese relocate villages and burn down the houses?
A: We didn’t hear anything special about villages before we fled here. The first village that had trouble where people had to flee was Khay R’Moh village. And they said that Khay R’Moh was feeding Kaw Thoo Lei and was a rebel village. So people ran to escape, and they said, "If you run, run until you escape from us, but if we see you again, you have no chance to live, and you can never come back to the village."

Q: But they didn’t tell you where they were going to relocate your village?
A: They didn’t tell us where they are going to drive us, but they said run until you get to safety. We didn’t hear where, and they didn’t announce it to us.

Q: Why did they drive out the villages?
A: The villages that they drove out are good villages, but they said that there are Kaw Thoo Lei in them. If they know that Kaw Thoo Lei has passed through that village, they make trouble and drive the people out. Some villages haven’t been driven out yet, but there has been trouble in them before [i.e. a battle has occurred there or they have had past contact with KNU/KNLA] so the villagers dared not stay, and they ran away. This happened in my village; we dared not face them, so we ran away.

Q: You said you heard that they were confiscating villagers’ paddy?
A: Yes, we heard about this in the villages of Meh T’Kreh, Paw Ner Mu, G’Kyo and A’Kyo, and Gru Kyi. They took paddy and asked each village for a certain amount, and villagers had to send it to Da Nu. There were many other villages but I don’t recall their names. Some villages had to pay 500 baskets of paddy, and some small villages paid 150 baskets. It was very difficult for the villages to pay as they demanded, because they had no time to work.

I think that they demanded paddy because they wanted to subjugate the village, that’s why. We all know that the villagers who don’t know where to flee and stayed in their villages will have to buy things to eat from the Burmese later.

Q: What did you do with your rice, animals, and belongings when you had to leave your village?
A: We had no time to keep those things that we left. The reason why we couldn’t keep them was because they only gave us a few days to finish working on our rice and paddy. They called us for 10 days and more [of forced labour], so that left us no time to work, and so those things were left to ruin. We left the paddy in the fields and all of our pigs and chickens were left in the village also. The paddy we couldn’t do anything with was destroyed. The villages usually get about 2,000 baskets of paddy [from the annual harvest].

Q: Is anybody still there, or has everyone fled your village?
A: Not all of us fled here, but nobody stays in the village because they dare not, and the Burmese won’t allow them to stay either. We know that some people went to stay in other villages, and some are hiding in the jungle, and some are trying to come here [xxxx refugee camp], but they haven’t arrived yet. There are a lot of people who want to come here, but they can’t because some are sick, so they just hide.

Q: Do you know any of the SPDC’s plans for your village or for the area?
A: We heard that they plan to build the road, and it will be terrible for civilians. Because if they are going to build a road, we heard they will call for civilians to do forced labour. We are not sure if it’s true or not; we just heard that they are planning to build a car road from Kho Ther Pler [Three Pagodas Pass] to Kya In Seik Gyi. It is a very far distance; it takes 5 days on foot. So it will be a problem for civilians. I think that it will benefit them [the SPDC].

The other thing that they have planned which makes us afraid is what they will do to our relatives who joined the resistance. It is easy for them to capture them, and they will torture and abuse us until we tell them [who is in the KNLA]. They will interrogate us until we answer, so we are afraid of them and have to avoid them. They will also demand things and gather our paddy, but what will they do to the villagers who remain in the village? We heard that they will do the same thing that they have done in the area of Myint Wah Kyo Baw. So they will drive them to the same place and force them to work hard for them. They will work each morning and afternoon, and the villagers will have to go and take rice from them for each meal. They will suffer like that. They do this because they want to starve Kaw Thoo Lei. The way I see it is if they do it this way, it will not hurt Kaw Thoo Lei, but it will hurt civilians.

Q: How many villages from your area fled here?
A: There were three villages who started to come from our area. Khay R’Moh, Htee Po Way, and Paw Ner Mu. There were 10 houses with 44 people. On the way we had to sleep in the jungle and bush to avoid the enemy, and it was horrible for us. There were some children who got sick, but we dared not make a sound. We had to climb many mountains to arrive here, and it was very difficult. Some children were very sick, and some adults were, too. We met with each other on the way here, and really we didn’t know how to come here. But we asked Karen villages that we passed to show us the way here. It took 7 days on the way.

Q: Are you happy to stay in xxxx [refugee camp], or do you want to go back again?
A: We are happy to arrive in xxxx camp because we are saved from our enemy’s oppression. But we want to go back to our village if we can go back to stay, and if our enemies have gone back to their place. Because it is our village—our place—and we have belongings and animals, too. So we have to go back.

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NAME:          "Saw Htoo Klih"          SEX: M           AGE: 30         Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:        Married, 2 children          
ADDRESS:      Plaw Toh Kee village, Kya In township                   INTERVIEWED: 12/99

["Saw Htoo Klih" left all his belongings and food in his village and fled to the Thai border with 26 other families.]

Q: Why did you come to the refugee camp?
A: I will explain to you what I heard and saw. The main problem was that we feared the oppression of the SPDC. The first fear is that when the SPDC army entered the village, there were no men there at the time. So they gathered all of the women and then the private soldiers went into houses and took everything they liked. Then when they wanted to eat the livestock like chicken or ducks, they took it all. Then since they didn’t see any men in the village, they called the married women with babies and forced them to carry loads for them for one or two days, even if their children cried.

Q: Which unit entered your village and tortured you this way?
A: The main group is Strategic Command #881, LIB #415 Column 1, and the name of their commander is Lt. Colonel Zaw Aung. They came on November 23^rd [1999] and left the village on November 30^th after they oppressed the villagers.

Q: Did they burn down your village or force it to relocate?
A: They drove the villagers who stayed around the village into the same place [i.e. forced the villagers in outlying areas to consolidate into the centre of the village]. They warned that if they didn’t see everyone crowded in the same place, they would kill them all. They said that if they didn’t drive them all together, the villagers would contact their friends in the Karen resistance, so they drove all of them to the village to starve the resistance. They could not make contact in the SPDC area.

Q: Did the women have to porter?
A: The longest period of time was 1 or 2 days. When there were not men, the women had to carry bullets, clothes for the soldiers, and everything that they took from the villagers’ houses. We didn’t see how heavy it was, but after they arrived back at their houses all of their bodies ached, and they were in pain. All of the women had to carry. If they saw the mother of a newborn while she was going to find vegetables, they called her too, but they carried quite light loads. For the people who could carry 20 viss, they forced them to carry 50 viss. For the people who couldn’t carry loads, they beat them until they died. As for the women who couldn’t carry loads, they called them in Plaw Toh Kee to follow them anyway. The youngest was 18 years old.

They ask women to carry because the men dare not face them. The second reason is that they worry that on the way the resistance will shoot them and lay landmines on the path. But they know that if they go with women the resistance won’t shoot or trap them with landmines. So they call a lot of women to carry for them.

Q: How did they collect the women porters?
A: When they came they held a meeting in the village, and they told us that if the women were not involved with them, the resistance could shoot a lot of them. So we had to call women to go with them, and after they released them they said "Thank you very much." At the time there were more than 30 women who went to carry for them.

Q: Where did the women sleep when they portered?
A: They surrounded them and guarded them carefully. They didn’t allow them to sleep separately. They made them sleep in the area where their commanders sleep. Their commanders sleep among their private soldiers, who guard their commanders. The women sleep around the commanders because then in the night they are protected from shelling. They had to sleep in the forest and it was very cold for them because of the rain.

Q: Did they provide medicine for any porters if they got sick on the way?
A: They gave some porters medicine, but some couldn’t get it, and more often they killed them along the way. I don’t know the names of the people who were killed, but they lived near my village. On the way from Kyaw Soe to Plaw Toh Kee and on to Kyi Soe, they killed at least 20 porters. I also saw them kill three people in Plaw Toh Kee.

Q: How did they kill them?
A: Before they killed them they captured them, and they didn’t feed them rice or give them water for 7 days. They didn’t let them lie down or sit down, they just tied them standing against trees and a stand of bamboo. Then they questioned them about the resistance, but they couldn’t answer them because they are farmers. They beat them and punched each of their faces more than 500 times. Then they sliced their legs and arms in rows, and dried them in the hot sun. They stabbed them 1 inch deep at least 200 times each. They abused them until they cut out their intestines and then pushed them back inside their gut, but didn’t kill them right away. They kept them like that day and night, then killed them in the jungle. Their names were Peh Ko, Kyaw Thaw Han, and Si Si.

Q: Do these men have families?
A: Peh Ko is my younger sister’s husband, and he has 2 children, also his wife is pregnant. She went back to stay with her mother. Kyaw Thaw Han has 2 children and his wife has been left alone; she went to stay in another village. They could not escape their enemies and feel the same things as other people do, like fear.

Q: Why did they kill those people?
A: They thought that they were people who work for the resistance, so they accused them and killed them. The village head went to recommend them but he couldn’t. After they killed them they buried them in the same hole. They had never carried guns in their lives; they were workers in the fields and they bred cattle. They stayed in the village and everybody in the village believes that they were good men.

Q: Which troops did this?
A: The troops were Strategic Command #881, LIB #415. The commander is [Lt. Colonel] Kyaw Zaw Aung but he ordered his privates to do it. They didn’t allow us to go and watch closely when they tortured them; we looked from afar and listened to their voices. Only a person who could not die would beat another person like that. As far as I know, they beat them at least 3 times a day, and they kept them separately in each place. Each group went to beat them once or twice. The troops that beat them have a medic, and the medic wanted to treat them but their commanders didn’t allow him to. They kept them in the village for 6 days. On the 7^th day they pulled them to Ywa Thay, but along the way the three people couldn’t walk, so they killed all of them. We knew that they killed them because some villagers travelled outside, and when some villagers from Plaw Toh Kee went to porter, they saw it near Ywa Thay. They didn’t allow anybody to see it, but people could see them when they pulled them to the place where they were going to kill them. And they heard their voices digging the hole for them, and after they buried them the other people saw that they had buried 3 people there, so we believe that they were killed in that place for sure.

Q: Did you hear of any other people who were killed?
A: I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but my friend saw, and I heard from other people as well that they killed a lot of people like those three. We heard that they killed someone by standing on him until he drowned in the mud, and then they stabbed someone by throwing a knife at him. His name is Nga Lu and he stayed in Htee Khay village. I didn’t know him