Future of the Area

"I hate them, but they have guns and I don't. If they rule we can never get peace. We want peace and love. We would like to work undisturbed. There are no civilians who love the SPDC. They all hate them. Everybody hates them." - "Po Lah" (M, 25), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #12, 4/01)

The SPDC's attempt to gain complete control of the region is not going to finish any time soon. It will take the SPDC years to establish enough camps to be able to bring all the villages in the region under their control. As long as a part of the region is free of their control, the villagers will still flee and the KNU/KNLA will still operate there. The SPDC and its predecessors have for decades tried to undermine resistance groups by depopulating the areas where they operate, and it has never yet been particularly successful. While the villagers starve or are killed, the resistance groups always find ways to bring in supplies from other regions. In some ways the destruction and relocation of villages strengthens the resistance, because it draws more recruits to their cause and also gives them more freedom to attack the SPDC without fear of retaliation against local villages. Even so, the KNU is strongly opposed to the SPDC's campaign against villagers in Papun and Nyaunglebin districts because it is their own families and their own people who are suffering. It is unclear what the KNU will or can do to limit the damage except what it is already doing, such as small-scale harassment to restrict the movements of SPDC columns, the sharing of intelligence with the internally displaced, and helping to protect some of the villagers' hiding places and villages. Though the loss of much of its territory since 1995 has led to the KNLA becoming a tighter, smaller, more motivated force, it has also lost a great deal of relevance. It can no longer drive the SPDC out of areas for any length of time, nor can it effectively protect the villagers. The KNU has been trying to initiate a dialogue with the SPDC for the past 3 years, but the regime continuously refuses to discuss anything but complete and unconditional surrender. The international community has consistently ignored this, preferring to focus its attention on the secret talks in Rangoon between the SPDC and the National League for Democracy (NLD), talks which have not produced a single statement or positive result for the ordinary people of Burma in an entire year. The talks exclude and apparently completely ignore the non-Burman peoples who make up at least half the population of Burma. They are definitely ignoring the people of Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts, whose villages and crops have continued being systematically destroyed since the talks began. The SPDC's August/September 2001 order forbidding thousands of villagers in Dweh Loh township from harvesting their rice (see 'Restrictions'), which will wipe out the rice harvest and condemn the villagers to starvation, gives a clear idea of how much these Rangoon talks are considering the fate of Burma's people. The abuses by the Army only continue.

"I think that if our leaders can solve this problem and one day if the situation in our land is good I will go back. If the situation is not good we will stay here like this. I don't go in front anymore [in the frontline areas, which is most of Papun District]." - "Saw Tha Pwih" (M, 38), refugee from T— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #56, 2/01)

"I have had a lot of problems while growing up. Since the Four Cuts when I was a child [the regime's programme to cut off support for the resistance by destroying the villagers' means of survival, which began in the 1970's], our parents had to carry us and flee. They carried us and went to other people's villages and houses and the life was hard. They had a very hard time feeding their children. Since I was a child until now I have had to face a lot of trouble. In the past the SPDC came and stole all of the paddy in the paddy barns. The rest of the paddy they threw into the water and they shat on it. It was a serious hurt to us. I suffered a lot of trouble and tried to bear it. I can't bear it anymore but I can do nothing. I have to face it step by step. Until now we have to flee and stay in other people's houses in the jungle. We don't have enough food. Sometimes we have food and sometimes we don't have food to eat. It seemed to get better, but not for long because they started doing it again. For the last one or two years we have had to face a lack of food again. I have to face many difficult things in my life." - "Hla Maung" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from P— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #88, 12/00)

"When I was facing these problems, I kept thinking that the SPDC is our enemy. When I think about it, it is very painful in my heart. However, we can do nothing with this pain, because they are the people holding weapons, and we are the people who are weak. We were earning a living for our children by working our fields. We have no weapons and we can't do anything. That's why we have to suffer and face this." - "Saw Lay Ghay" (M, 34), internally displaced village head from P— village, Dweh Loh township, (Interview #127, 12/99)

Without a ceasefire the conflict will go on, and the SPDC will continue targeting the civilians as the support base of the KNU. Despite the fact that years of displacement and struggle have left the villagers with virtually nothing with which to support the KNU, the villagers can expect to continue to see their homes and fields destroyed and their friends and relatives shot until the SPDC declares the KNU eradicated and the population sufficiently subjugated. Even then, as can be seen in the firmly SPDC-controlled villages, the nightmare of constant forced labour on 'development' projects would only become worse.

"I want to say something if it will help us to be happy staying here and working for our living. We need those things, but we don't know how many years we'll have to continue facing problems like these. We can't even be sure we'll still be alive by the time all these troubles are past. For now we have enough food to eat, but we cannot speak about the future, even the next one or two months." - "Saw Dee Ghay" (M, 63), internally displaced villager from S— village, Mone township (Interview #70, 2/00)

"I am older, but if I was younger I would think about many things. Now I have a family and children. I am very angry with them [SPDC] when I think about it, but I have to be patient. When my son gets older and if they give me the opportunity I will beat them in return. They think I don't have hands but we have hands the same as them." - "Saw Thay Myo" (M, 30), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #21, 4/01)

"They are going to keep the civilians hungry. They said that their enemy [the KNU] are staying here because the civilians are living here. If the enemy can't meet the civilians then they can't get food to eat. The civilians are living here and the enemy can also stay here so they [the soldiers] are going to oppress the civilians. The SPDC knows that if they don't oppress the civilians like this, the civilians will always give encouragement to their enemy." - "Naw Lah K'Paw Mu" (F, 48), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #198, 6/00)

"They are always abusing us in many ways and we can't suffer it. They are the soldiers of the government and must govern the country and the villagers. If they are doing this a lot, the villagers also can't suffer it. … I don't want to say anything else, only this: you ask me like this and we answer like this, I don't tell lies. I speak truthfully. I can say only this. I have suffered many things. We have to suffer side by side from their torture." - "Saw Kaw Kwee" (M, 23), villager from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #212, 3/01)

One of the hundreds of widows in Papun District who must now raise her children on her own while still having to run whenever SPDC troops enter her area. [KHRG]

"They arrived there, saw him, and shot him. They shoot, and if they see people's things they take them. Nephew, they are really just bandits. They are not people who are fighting to run this country. If they were really fighting to run this country, they wouldn't steal things like that. They'd have to do things another way. If you're fighting to run a country but you steal things, you'll only make more enemies. If you shoot people whenever you see them like this, how can you organise the people? You'll never succeed." - "Pu Law Tee" (M, 70), internally displaced villager from S— village, Shwegyin township (Interview #78, 3/00)

The villagers in the area have never been adequately politically educated by either side. Few of the villagers in this area have strong views on the political future of Karen State or Burma, they simply want to be left in peace by all sides to farm and to live as they please. They are sympathetic to the KNU and KNLA because it is their people, often their relatives, it is people who speak their language and do not abuse them. They hate the SPDC not because it is Burman, but because it has never shown them any face except abuse. Ever since the brutal abuses committed against villagers in the area by General Aung San's notorious Burma Independence Army during World War Two, the villagers have almost never encountered Burmans who did anything but abuse them. It will take generations to alleviate the mistrust that over 50 years of brutal abuse have engendered. Even Aung San Suu Kyi is not seen as a beacon of hope by these people, but as the daughter of a man who oversaw the destruction of their villages and the murder of hundreds of innocent villagers 50 years ago. Foreigners who believe that a Burman-dominated democratic government with a Burman-dominated Army can quickly bring about peace and trust in such a region are naīve and sadly misguided.

"I don't know. When we look at it, we are Karen, our hearts are Karen. As for them [the Burmese], they are not our nationality. They do things to us and it doesn't make us happy as Karen." - "Naw Say Paw" (F, 46), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #195, 6/00)

"I don't think the civilians will get any benefit. They [the soldiers] accuse us of being their enemy so we also accuse them of being our enemy." - "Hla Maung" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from P— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #88, 12/00)

"I don't know what I am going to do in the future. Since I was young, the Burmese have kicked us when we cried. They've gagged us. It has never got better. Whenever they come to us they write a letter saying, 'If you need peace, lay down your arms and come back to us.' They say that they will take care of our food and security, but we are not interested. We have been fleeing since we were young and in the wombs of our mothers. In our father's time, they fled until they died. Now in our time, we are going to flee until we die." - "Saw Thay Doh" (M, 28), internally displaced villager from P— village, Shwegyin township (Interview #81, 3/00)

"All of the battalion commanders are SPDC. The SPDC tries to collect all the people and have them stay among them. If people go and live among them they have to start pulling logs and sending them abroad. Their government rules with a one party system. They look just like a tortoise. They would like to go and collect everything. They don't like the native inhabitants of the country. They collect them and force them to porter and work until they die. If they ruled by law it would be better for the native inhabitants." - "Myo Nyunt" (M, 20), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #141, 9/00)

"That group [the SPDC] is very cruel. They don't want the Karen people to rule the country, they would like to rule the country alone. Even though they rule, if they ruled properly it would be better. Even though they rule, they don't want to govern or keep the Karen people. They want to finish us all. If they said, 'Okay, you can stay and do your hill fields and if we come, invite us, try to send us here and there.' If they did like that there would be peace in the country. Because of what they do we dare not accept them. If we accept them, we are dead. Even though we don't accept them, we go and we are still dead. It is very difficult." - "Saw Pleh Wah" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from T— village, Hsaw Tee township (Interview #99, 3/01)

Charges of genocide have been levelled by some groups against the SPDC. KHRG does not believe that the SPDC plans to systematically wipe out the entire Karen people, but this does not mean that genocide is not occurring. Article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines five actions, any one of which is sufficient to constitute the international crime of genocide: the killing of members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The first three of these conditions clearly exist in Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts. It cannot be ignored that the abuses of the SPDC Army are deliberately directed at the Karen civilian population, not at the Karen Army or political organisations. Karen civilians are shot on sight, arrested, tortured, summarily executed, fined, restricted in their movement, deliberately impoverished, denied access to food, medicines and education, and deliberately prevented from growing food to survive, all because they are Karen. In areas where Burmans also live, such as the Sittaung plains, most of the abuse is directed at Karen villagers. Though KHRG and others may believe otherwise, it is a common belief among Karen villagers that the final plan of the SPDC is to completely wipe them out.

"I don't think it is right how the Burmese oppress the Karen people. It's too much, because they even regard our belongings and everything else as their enemies. I don't think that it is right to do that. If they say that they are going to kill and oppress their real enemies, that should be enough. But now if they see villagers who are adults or children, blind or deaf, sick or missing arms or legs, they shoot them all. None of that is right. They have kicked and trampled some of our villagers to death, some were shot dead, some they stabbed to death and some they beat to death with a stick. We couldn't tolerate it anymore. I don't think they want to rule over Karen people, I think they just want to wipe us out until we're gone, and then divide up our country. They plan to wipe out the Karen nationality." - "Saw Lah Htoo" (M, 40), refugee from K— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #35, 1/00)

"We don't see that they are good. The soldiers who stay in W— are destroying the villagers' land and plantations. In the past the villagers who stayed in the mountains could stay there, but now they [the SPDC] doesn't allow them to come up. They allow only their own [Burman] civilians to come up. They call them up and look for gold. They bring machines and pan for gold. The villagers have to come and hire themselves out to cut grass and clear things." - "Saw Dee Ghay" (M, 45), internally displaced villager from T--- village, Hsaw Tee township (Interview #90, 1/01)

Forced labour is a chief component of the SPDC's plans and as such will continue. The Army believes its soldiers cannot operate and its camps cannot be supplied without unpaid servants and the thousands of porters forced to carry supplies for them. In addition, the loyalty of the officers to the regime largely stems from their impunity to use villagers for their own purposes, and the regime will want to retain that loyalty. The increasing militarisation of the area will mean that the villagers will have to work as labourers on the roads and at the camps, as servants for the officers and as workers on the soldiers' money-making projects. All of these things continue to occur despite ILO censure of Burma and international pressure against the regime. Most of this pressure is starting to dissipate simply because the SPDC is talking to Aung San Suu Kyi, despite the continuation of forced labour and other abuses. At the time of writing the ILO has just completed an investigative trip to Burma to discover whether anything has been done to stop forced labour. Whatever the ILO finds in Burma, information from Papun and Nyaunglebin districts indicates that the SPDC has no plans to discontinue the practice, only to disguise it. The villagers in the area will be forced to work for the SPDC for a long time to come.

"The things I have suffered are due to their [the SPDC] oppressing us. We want to stay but we can't stay anymore. We can't work to eat. We have to flee all the time. Our children can't learn. So we have to go. … If the situation is good we have to go back." - "Saw Kyi Po" (M, 37), internally displaced villager from L— village, Hsaw Tee township (Interview #107, 3/01)

"This group [the SPDC] is not easy. This group only destroys. They torture and kill civilians. They go and burn the civilians' villages, paddy and hill and flat fields. They burn everything they see. They take some of the paddy, but they stomp on the paddy that they can't take from the rice barns. For example when they came to our place, they destroyed some of the paddy and some they threw on the ground so we couldn't eat it anymore. Some of the paddy they didn't throw, they burned. We couldn't do anything. How can we eat? We dare not be close to them. We just go back and look at our village for a while. We have to flee. We also have to be afraid of their landmines. We have to be afraid of them about everything and we dare not go anywhere." - "Saw Pleh Wah" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from T— village, Hsaw Tee township (Interview #99, 3/01)

This displaced villager from Nyaunglebin District set up his temporary shelter to rest and hide in the forest in May 2001. Shortly thereafter he had to flee the SPDC soldiers again, and eventually decided to try to flee to Thailand. [KHRG]

"We don't want to stay under the SPDC soldiers at all. We don't wish to do their work. We are the civilians so we want to stay peacefully. If we have peace we will be happy and the village will develop and improve. We can go and visit other villages. Now we have a problem because the SPDC soldiers are here and we can't go to visit. We also have to work for the Burmese, the SPDC, and we have many problems. The other thing I would like to say is about our nationality, the KNU, we are not able to work for them. We would like to work for them, but we can't. We have to work only for the SPDC and we are unhappy. … I will tell you how the SPDC is. They have weapons and they have a country so they want to force us as slaves and buffaloes. We can't carry but we have to carry. We can't do it but we have to do it." - "Saw Ra Doh", (M, 35), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #199, 6/00)

Villager after villager in the more than 300 interviews conducted for this report has told KHRG that what they want is peace and the freedom to grow their own food. Villagers living as IDP's in the forests and mountains want to return to their villages so they can grow enough food to live through the year. The villagers in the SPDC-controlled villages would also like simply to be left enough time to be able to plant enough food to live on. Many villagers have indicated that they wouldn't mind having to pay the crop quotas and having to go for occasional forced labour if they were also given the time and the freedom to work their fields and if the demands were kept well within what they can manage. They simply want to be left in peace to work their fields.

"I would like to tell you because you asked me. The problems are as I told you before. The main problem is food. The villagers have to face this. The second problem is about health. Some people should not die but they die, and people who should not be getting sick are getting sick. We have only hope. In addition there is an education problem - our children remain uneducated. They should be learning now but they aren't. They stay in the jungle. We pity them when we look at them but we can do nothing. We believe that something will change for us. We don't want these problems any more in our future. We hope that our leaders can solve these problems. We hope that in the future we will get something. That is all." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"They didn't force us to do anything because we didn't dare to see them [they never let themselves be caught for forced labour]. We could face it if we heard that they'd come to fight with our soldiers [KNLA], but if they saw us villagers, whether in the day or the night, they shot at us all. Not only did they shoot to kill, but they also spoiled people's fields, paddy and rice and destroyed all the people's belongings. They killed all the animals like cattle and buffaloes when they saw them. That is why we don't dare to see them face to face. Because we don't dare to face them and because they do this to us, step by step we have run to live in the jungle and they have to find us step by step like that. When we could suffer it no longer, we ran away to this place." - "Saw Tha Pwih" (M, 38), villager from T— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #56, 2/01)

"For our problem now, people must help us. If there is no help we are in trouble. Our civilians have trouble. When we go to buy rice it is because people [the KNU] give us money so we can go and buy it. We have no income. There is no work to do to get money. Even if there is paddy, if we don't have money, we can't buy it to eat. So people must help. If there is no help it will not be easy. The leaders must help. They should contact the other countries and help us. If they don't help us it will not be easy for us. Like I told you, we stay like this and the only thing we need is food. If our leaders and the other countries help us then we can stand. If they don't help us, it will be too hard for us to stand." - "Saw Pleh Wah" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from T— village, Hsaw Tee township (Interview #99, 3/01)

"[I]f the needs of the villagers can be met and if there are rights for the villagers then everything will go well and they will not be poor like this. Some of the villagers said that if there are rights for them and their needs are being met, then even if they still have to give taxes it will not be a problem for them. If they can go freely to their hill fields and into the jungle and work there is not much of a problem, but because they can't travel they can't work easily and they cannot easily pay the taxes. … I don't have anything else to tell, but in the future I would like to have peace and development in our country. We should have peace and then work well to get enough food. There are many ways of oppression and we would like to be safe from these. It would be enough for us if we were safe from the many kinds of oppression." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

"I can't tell you about anything else. I can tell about the time when I was angry. When I was angry I couldn't laugh or cry. I came back and saw that my rice was already burned. I had no rice to eat. I didn't want to laugh. I couldn't cry. I was angry but I couldn't do anything. I wanted to cry but I couldn't cry. I wanted to laugh but I couldn't laugh." - "Naw Mu Lay" (F, 36), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #142, 9/00)

VI. Future of the Area