V. Flight to Thailand

"They are active everywhere. They go everywhere around T—. In 1999, they came very often and in 2000 they have already come three times. When they came they shot at the villagers and the villagers had to flee. When they [SPDC] leave the area, the villagers come and stay in their villages again. If the soldiers come again the villagers will flee away again. The villagers have to live like this. … If they come again we can't stay here anymore. If we can't stay here, there is no way to go to another place. We will have to flee and stay in the refugee camp." - "Saw Nu Nu" (M, 37), internally displaced villager from L— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #51, 4/00)

Villagers view flight to the refugee camps in Thailand as a last resort. It is only when they can no longer do the forced labour or their food has run out and there is no hope of getting a decent harvest in the coming year that the villagers attempt the journey to Thailand. The villages are their homes and they have been attached to the same land for generations, so they will try to remain on their land or near it for as long as possible, even when conditions are absolutely desperate. To subsistence farmers who have always lived off the land, abandoning the land and going to a distant and strange place like Thailand sounds almost suicidal. What will we eat? Where will we get bamboo for a house? We will starve and die out in the open! For those who find it difficult to imagine these fears, try to imagine what an urban stockbroker would think on suddenly finding out he has to flee the city and live in a cave on a remote mountaintop illegally in a foreign land, and the thoughts will be similar. For most of the Karen farmers of Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts, even living on the run in the forest is preferable to going to the refugee camps as long as there is enough food to survive.

"I want to say that we didn't want to leave our mountains to come and stay here, but because of problems with the SPDC Army staying among the mountains we had to come here. If the SPDC Army moved their Army back into their barracks and back to the towns, none of the mountain people would come to stay here. If that happened, a lot of people who stay here now would go back to stay there, too." - "Pu Tha Ker" (M, 56), refugee from L— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #50, 4/00)

"The meaning of 'have to go to a refugee camp' is like this; if you ask people to go to a refugee camp, they don't want to go. When we look at the movements of the enemy, they shoot at us and lay landmines, so we dare not travel. But some people think that even if we stay here like this, one time a person will die, and another time a person will lose a leg. It is not easy for people to stay here either, so we heard that they will go." - "Saw Plaw Doh" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from M— village, Kyauk Kyi township (Interview #75, 3/00)

"In the future, I don't know if I can live here or not. I'm not sure. If we can't stay here anymore we'll have to go among our brothers and sisters in the high place [Thailand]. I will never go and surrender to them [the SPDC]. If we go and surrender to them they will torment us worse than now. This year we will live here and do our hill field. We will live like this until the end of this year. If in the next year we cannot stay here anymore, we'll have to go stay with our brothers and sisters in the high place." - "Meh Bya" (M, 37), internally displaced villager from L— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #54, 4/00)

"Will we be able to last the year if we don't go to Thailand? If they can't show us a way and tell us to go whichever way we want, we won't go to the Burmese, so if we must go to Thailand then we will." - "Pu Taw Lay" (M, 56), internally displaced villager from M— village, Shwegyin township (Interview #80, 3/00)

The journey is very hazardous and usually takes weeks of travelling over mountain paths, past SPDC Army camps, dodging SPDC patrols sent out to hunt them down and praying not to step on any of the thousands of landmines planted in the area. One villager who made the journey said that SPDC soldiers were waiting in ambush along the known escape routes and that these soldiers shoot on sight. The new roads being built by the SPDC also create a formidable barrier which most people do not dare to cross for fear of landmines and SPDC patrols. The worst of these is the new road from Kyauk Kyi to Saw Hta, which has cut off any possibility of flight for most would-be refugees from northern Lu Thaw township, Mone township, and Toungoo District further north. Another deterrent is cost; many villagers simply don't have the money or the food to attempt it. For most the route passes through areas of Papun District where all of the villages have been destroyed or abandoned and where people are shot on sight, and the displaced villagers hiding in these areas cannot help travellers with food. Travelling through the jungles and over the mountains is not easy and there are no maps. Most people don't dare attempt the trip unless they can follow someone who knows the way. The shortage of food also means that many villagers have to stay where they are to get food to eat and never really have enough to take with them if they want to escape. Despite all of this many villagers do attempt the journey, even from villages as far from the border as the Sittaung River plains.

"They think that they will try to endure this. They also have problems in coming here. The enemy stays on the path, along the way and along the border. It is not easy for them to come between the places [the camps] because there is a lot of jungle. It is not easy for some people to come because they have children and babies. They way is also far for them." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"The Burmese were waiting at S— to stop people fleeing from around Papun. When we arrived at S—, the Burmese had just killed 4 villagers who were crossing the old road there. We arrived just a day or two after they'd killed them. When we got there, the villagers told us. I don't know the name of those villagers, they had come from a faraway village. They wanted to come here, but the Burmese were waiting secretly on the path. They don't want us to come here, so a small unit of their troops is always waiting secretly. People said it was a whole family that they killed." - "Naw Wah Wah" (F, 41), refugee for B— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #182, 4/00)

"I started coming here on February 20^th 2001 because I had to face many troubles, so I had to come up. On the way I didn't have any money and I had to sell my machete and use the money to come here. We came on the path. We went to T—. It took three or four days to arrive at T—. When I arrived there I was faced with trouble because I couldn't find any food. At the Khoh Loh Kloh [the Salween River] I could go no further. I didn't have any more money. To go we had to have at least 400, 500 or 1,000 [Baht] and I had only 40, 50, 100 and 200. I had only 100 or 200 [Baht] and my children wanted to eat also. They saw 'moh leh saun' [a drink made of sugar or jaggery and coconut  mixed with a small lump of jelly] on the way and I wanted to buy it for them but I couldn't. When we arrived at K— I bought a short pen and one or two snacks and the money was gone. Then I couldn't hire a boat. I borrowed some money from a man who took pity on me and gave me the money. Now I have a debt to pay back to him. I suffered that and slowly I arrived at this place after 6 p.m." - "Saw Tha Pwih" (M, 38), refugee from T— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #56, 2/01)

"They came from the time when the paddy was ripe until the villagers carried it to the paddy barn and pounded it [from approximately November 1999 to January 2000]. They burned the paddy barns and took the rice. They stabbed holes into some of the pots and took the others. The villagers had to flee without even taking our clothes. We don't have anything to wear. We are going to the refugee camp. All of the villagers from N— are suffering like this. The soldiers burned the village, then they planted landmines. We don't dare go back to the village. We have to hide. They destroyed most of the food but there were many people so we could carry some away." - "Mya Win" (M, 49), refugee from N— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #131, 5/00)

A villager and his two children make the long trek from Nyaunglebin District to the Thai border about 100 kilometres to the east. [KHRG]

Many villagers are also afraid to make the trip because news has filtered back to them that Thai forces are cruel to refugees and force them back across the border, and that even the refugee camps have been attacked by SPDC troops. Unfortunately, this news is true. Current Thai government policy is that no new refugee camps are to be established, and that no new arrivals can be allowed in the existing camps because they are already overcrowded. The combination of these means that no new refugees are allowed. The reality on the ground is somewhat different, because new refugees are still arriving in Thailand almost every day. For the villagers who finally manage to reach the border, though, their troubles are far from over. They must race toward a refugee camp, which may be as far as 50 kilometres away through Thai territory, and try to sneak in before being detected by one of the many arms of the Thai forces deployed along the border. If at any point along the way they encounter Thai Army, militia, Border Patrol Police, regular police, forestry department officials, or district authorities, they will almost certainly be forced back across the border at gunpoint with no one ever knowing about it. If they manage to sneak into a refugee camp before this happens they can hide among the refugees and later try to 'register' if they like. At present the Thai 'admissions boards', made up of military, police and government officials with no training in refugee issues, still reject en masse most new refugees who attempt to register, but even after rejecting them it is more difficult to force them back across the border from the camps because of international pressure. Some have been forced back from the camps after being rejected, but most who manage to find their way into the camps also manage to remain there. However, the problems of entry into Thailand have forced the KNU to set up camps for internally displaced people just across the border from Thailand, and many of those trying to flee to Thailand get no further than this. From these camps, groups of a few families at a time attempt the trip to refugee camps. These IDP camps on the Burma side of the border receive very little aid, are surrounded by landmines and are very much under threat of SPDC attack. In the event of attack there is almost nowhere for the villagers to flee, because their backs are up against a hostile Thai border.

"We have come here because we can't stay in our villages and houses. Our children also can't stay in the school. That is why we come here. We thought we would go to the [refugee] camp. But there the Thais don't accept us. That is why we are looking for our leaders' plan." - "Saw Maw Ray Heh" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from M— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #151, 11/00)

For those who manage to sneak into the camps they must either hide among the refugees, or if they attempt to 'register' then they are forced into barracks-like 'holding centres'. The barracks in which they are kept leak in the rainy season, are overcrowded and lack proper walls and privacy. Food, medical and other aid, all of which are provided to the camp by overseas agencies, are deliberately restricted by Thai authorities so that only a bare subsistence diet can be provided for the exact number of people registered in the camp. This has caused serious problems due to the growing number of unregistered refugees 'hiding' or staying in the camp, for whom the overseas agencies are not allowed to provide food. Although most of those who reach the camps have thus far been able to avoid being forcibly repatriated, Thai policy and crackdowns are becoming harsher with each passing month and these refugees are living under great risk. It is only international pressure on the Thai government which provides them with any measure of protection.

"The people who arrived here were able to come without a problem, but when they arrived at the border because they are from Burma the Thai authorities had to check them and allow them to enter Thailand. They were allowed to stay. Most of them stay in Meh Ka Kee refugee camp." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"We are not building a house yet because people told us that the Thais [Thai authorities] don't allow us to cut bamboo and trees. We dare not go because we are new, so we are staying here in this barracks [the holding centre for new arrivals], and when the rain comes we all get wet. We have lived like this in the barracks for nearly a month now." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 40), refugee from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #185, 4/00)

"Since we've arrived here we don't have anything to fear, but we can't shed our fears because we have lived so long in terror. When we first arrived here, even when we heard dogs bark we were afraid. Even now, just yesterday people asked us about our home place, but we still fear the thought of going back there. When we stayed there, if they [SPDC troops] ordered us to go with them we knew that they were going to beat us until our skin was cut open or until we died. Since we've come here, sometimes we have to go and talk with our [refugee] leaders here and it should not be terrifying, but still we go with fear because we already have such fear in us." - "Saw Daniel" (M, 43), refugee from G— village, Mone township (Interview #8, 2/00)

"We brought only the set of clothing on our bodies. We were carrying each other when we climbed the mountains. We couldn't carry anything else. I carried some things halfway, but then I couldn't carry them anymore and left them along the path. … I have come to stay. I wouldn't be happy to go back and stay there. That's why I came up here. I've decided that I will not go back. Even if there is peace, I will not go back because all of my relatives have died. I think that I would be alone. People are dying there, one by one. We would die if we went back to the place where we lived." - "Naw Wah Wah" (F, 41), refugee for B— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #182, 4/00)

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