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Enduring Hunger and Repression: Food Scarcity, Internal Displacement, and the Continued Use of Forced Labour in Toungoo District
The Military Situation
The SPDC has divided the district into three different categories: the areas under SPDC control (the 'White' areas), the disputed areas where there is some KNLA guerrilla activity (the 'Brown' areas), and areas controlled by the KNU (the 'Black' areas). Until the mid-1990's large areas of Toungoo District were held by the KNU, but now very few 'Black' areas remain. Those areas considered by the SPDC to be 'White' areas are: the plains in the west of the district, Kler Lah and the villages surrounding it, Klaw Mi Der and the villages near it, Than Daung Gyi and the villages around it, and the area to the west of the Day Loh River in Than Daung towns hip [see Map 3]. In recent years KNLA units can and have conducted guerrilla operations in all these areas, with the exception of the plains, making 'white area' a misnomer. Most of the district would more accurately be defined as disputed 'Brown' areas. The only areas that the SPDC can effectively control are the western plains of the Sittaung River basin. Successive Burmese regimes have made undermining the resistance groups by attacking their civilian populations, a central component of their counter-insurgency strategy. This has become known as the 'Four Cuts', which are to cut food, cut finances, cut intelligence and cut recruits. To this end many of the military operations conducted in Toungoo District have aimed more at harassing the civilians until they become so impoverished and starved that they have to come down out of the mountains. Without the civilians, the SPDC reasons, the KNU will have to give up. There have not been any major operations in Toungoo District since 1995-96 when the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) attempted to drive all of the villagers out of the hills of Tantabin township and into the SLORC-controlled relocation sites where they could be closely controlled and exploited by the military. SPDC Army battalions now based in the area routinely mount sweeps through the hills in an effort to flush those still living in hiding there into SPDC controlled areas in an ongoing effort to secure absolute control over the region. This control has steadily increased as the SPDC pushes through more roads, constructs more camps and brings in more troops. Many of the new military camps have been built in areas where there were previously none. Some of these camps are in areas which have traditionally been KNU strongholds. The new camps have made it possible for SPDC patrols based out of them to reach most areas of the district. In December 2003, the SPDC began moving units of Light Infantry Division (LID) #55 into the district to support a relocation campaign and offensive in southern Karenni State. Meanwhile, a 'gentleman's ceasefire' was reached between the SPDC and the KNU in talks in Rangoon in January 2004. The KNU and the SPDC verbally agreed that their troops would stop shooting at each other, but no restrictions were made about the movement of troops and supplies or the construction of Army camps or roads. Despite the ceasefire, KNLA and SPDC troops clashed on an almost daily basis throughout December 2003 and January 2004. By the end of January the offensive had ended, but the SPDC took advantage of the ceasefire and continued to move more troops into the area, stock its camps, build new camps and repair the Toungoo-Mawchi road and the Kler Lah-Bu Sah Kee road. Engagements have continued to occur, although at a reduced level, right up to the time this report was printed. The SPDC
Toungoo District is within the area of operations of the Southern Regional Command (abbreviated in Burmese as ' Ta Pa Ka ') which has its headquarters at Toungoo. The Southern Regional Command maintains two Strategic Operations Commands (SOC) in the area with their headquarters at Kler Lah and Bu Sah Kee. Each of the two SOC's are responsible for an area and deploy their soldiers at camps along the roads and dotted among the hills. From the camps the soldiers patrol the surrounding area. The Western Regional Command (' Na Pa Ka '), headquartered at Sittwe in Arakan (Rakhine) State, has also stationed at least one SOC in Than Daung township since the late-1990's. The Southern Command battalions generally operate in Tantabin township, while those from Western Command operate in Than Daung township. At any one time there are between ten to fifteen battalions from both regional commands operating in the district. Most battalions typically rotate in and out of the region every three to four months, except for IB #124 and IB #73 which have their battalion base camps in the district. The Southern Regional Command battalions that were operating in Toungoo District as of July 2004 were Infantry Battalions (IB) #26, #53 #60, #73, #75, #92, #124, #264 and Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) #439 and #589. Other battalions of the Southern Command which have rotated in and out of the district during the period in which the interviews for this report were collected are IB #30, #39, #48, #57, #59, and #234. Western Regional Command has also stationed IB #20, #34, #232, #263, and LIB #344, #354, #535, #538, #539, #540, and #550 in Toungoo District at different times. At present it is unclear which of these battalions are currently posted to Toungoo District. The regular rotations of the different battalions make it difficult to say which battalions are in the area at any one time. The only units which do not appear to follow this system of rotation are IB #124, whose battalion base camp is at Bayinnaung Army camp near Than Daung and IB #73 based near New Than Daung. Occasionally, other military formations are brought into the district to conduct specific operations. In December 2003, Tactical Operations Command (TOC) #552 of LID #55 began operating in the eastern portion of the district, especially along the Toungoo-Mawchi road. This TOC was brought in to secure the area as a part of the SPDC's offensive and relocation campaign in southern Karenni State in December 2003 and January 2004. The units of LID #55 reported to be operating in Toungoo District at the time were IB #94, and LIB #508, #511 and #117. LID #55 withdrew from the area by April 2004.
The SPDC has spent a lot of time building an increasing number of Army camps throughout the district. There are now camps all along the Kler Lah-Bu Sah Kee road and the Kler Lah-Mawchi road. These heavily fortified camps form a barrier to the movement of internally displaced villagers as well as the KNU/KNLA. They also provide bases from which SPDC columns can patrol the surrounding areas for internally displaced villagers and to destroy their food supplies. In addition, new camps have been set up in the hills of central Than Daung township. From these camps the SPDC has spread its influence over an area which it previously only had tenuous control over. The Dam Byan Byaut Kya
The Dam Byan Byaut Kya ('Guerrilla Retaliation' Units) first emerged in the plains of Nyaunglebin District in September 1998 and later expanded northwards into southern Tantabin township at the beginning of 1999. Their structure is unlike the regular SPDC Army battalions in as much as they operate in small sections of five to ten men, typically travelling at night, not along the trails but through the forest itself. They carry non-standard weapons such as AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles which are better suited to jungle warfare than the SPDC Army's standard-issue G3. They do not wear a uniform like the regular soldiers, but a combination of military fatigues and civilian clothing. Many of them wear military shirts along with a pair of short pants, giving rise to the name by which many villagers refer to them by: the Baw Bi Doh ('Short Pants'). Soldiers selected to become members of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya are reportedly chosen for their propensity for cruelty [for more on the Dam Byan Byaut Kya see "Death Squads and Displacement: Systematic Executions, Village Destruction and the Flight of Villagers in Nyaunglebin District " (KHRG#99-04, 14/5/99), " Peace Villages and Hiding Villages: Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District " (KHRG#2000-05, 15 /10/00), " Flight, Hunger, and Survival: Repression and Displacement in the Villages of Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts " (KHRG#2001-03, 22/10/01), and " Information Update: Toungoo District " (KHRG#2002-U1, 30/1/02)] . As their name implies, the Dam Byan Byaut Kya dispense their own special brand of 'retaliation' on anyone who they perceive as helping the resistance. For the first few years of their existence they moved from village to village seeking out villagers who they suspected of having past or present contact with the resistance. Upon arriving at a village, they appeared to already know exactly who they were looking for, giving the impression that they had a list of names of their intended victims. The villagers were then taken from their homes into the jungle where they were brutally executed. Although they carried rifles, they showed a preference for killing their victims with knives, often beheading or mutilating the bodies. These executions took place for contacts that could have taken place a decade prior to the Dam Byan Byaut Kya coming for the villager. Offences as slight as portering a load, or acting as a guide for the KNLA, voluntarily or otherwise, could result in a brutal death at the hands of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya . In recent years there has been a decrease in the numbers of deaths attributed to the Dam Byan Byaut Kya . When they have killed people, incidents of mutilating or beheading their victims have also become far less common. Now they act much like the regular SPDC Army battalions in as much as they seem to be more content with extorting food, money and forced labour from the villagers. Perhaps they are acting under orders from Rangoon to tone down their activities so that the international community does not learn of their existence, or they have simply depleted their lists of intended targets. They still continue to patrol through the jungle and arrive unexpectedly at villages. This combined with the reputation that they built up in 1998 and 1999 makes villagers fear their arrival more than any other unit operating in the district. This is likely a large part of their reason for being; their brutal methods coupled with the shroud of secrecy surrounding them instils fear in the minds of the villagers. The result is that many villagers are too afraid to help the KNU, lest one of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya units learns of it and comes looking for them to deliver their retribution.
The Dam Byan Byaut Kya have tended to confine their operations in the past to areas which have already been largely pacified by the regular SPDC battalions, such as the western plains of the Sittaung River basin where they made their debut in Toungoo District in early 1999. Their assignment appears to be more of a final blow to crush the civilian support of the opposition after the regular battalions have removed the threat of the KNLA. While regular SPDC battalions do not often actively seek out the KNLA in Toungoo District, they do at times clash with them, but the Dam Byan Byaut Kya almost exclusively go after the villagers. KHRG has not received any information regarding instances of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya ever seeking out the KNLA in Toungoo District. The KNLA, however, has been able to ambush Dam Byan Byaut Kya groups. The Dam Byan Byaut Kya have told villagers on numerous occasions that they will kill five villagers for every one of them killed by the KNLA. Using tactics similar to those employed by the regular SPDC Army battalions, the Dam Byan Byaut Kya have staged retaliatory attacks against the civilians after one of the 'guerrillas' has been wounded or killed by the KNLA, regardless of whether the villagers were complicit in the attack or not. The Dam Byan Byaut Kya have expanded their area of operations in the past few years and now operate well into the hills. They currently operate in and around Kler Lah, in the Bu Sah Kee-Saw Mu Der area, in the Maw Nay Pwa region stretching from Klaw Mi Der to Play Hsa Loh in Tantabin township, and around Than Daung Gyi, and in the area to the west of the Day Loh Rive r in Than Daung township [see Map 3] . The expansion of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya into the hills may mean that they have already depleted th eir lists of names from the plains and now plan on doing the same in the hills.
Each Dam Byan Byaut Kya unit assumes an ominous sounding name, possibly to further frighten the villagers. The various units now known to be currently active in Toungoo District go by the names Moe Kyo ('Lightning'), Mone Daing ('Storm'), Galone ('Garuda'), Mone Thon ('Monsoon'), Wei Za ('Supernatural Being'), Ba La ('Strength'), and Kya Gyi ('Big Tiger'). Two of these groups, Wei Za and Ba La were only first reported by KHRG in June 2003 [see "Expansion of the Guerrilla Retaliation Units and Food Shortages in Toungoo District of Northern Karen State" (KHRG#2003-U1, 16/6/03)] . The Kya Gyi Guerrilla Retaliation Unit is another previously unreported unit. Which of these units are companies and which of them are sections within those companies is not clear. The men selected to join the Dam Byan Byaut Kya are mostly NCOs (Corporals and Sergeants) who are noted for being particularly brutal. According to one KHRG researcher, those who are selected are promoted to the next rank level after completing special training. Many of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya soldiers also adopt pseudonyms. These are usually menacing sounding so as to further frighten the villagers. Some of the commanding officers have taken the same name as the unit itself. For example, the commanding officer of the Moe Kyo ('Lightning') Guerrilla Retaliation Unit is Bo Moe Kyo.
As originally created, the Dam Byan Byaut Kya took their orders directly from the Southern Command commander and Military Intelligence Battalion #3 based in Toungoo [see " Death Squads and Displacement: Systematic Executions, Village Destruction, and the Flight of Villagers in Nyaunglebin District " (KHRG#99-04, 24/5/99)] . Whenever villagers complained to the regular Army units about the Dam Byan Byaut Kya , the soldiers would reply that they could not do anything because they did not have any authority over them. The Dam Byan Byaut Kya units and the regular battalions avoided each other and some villagers even reported a degree of enmity and fear on the part of the regular soldiers toward them. This, however, seems to have changed somewhat with the regular battalions and the Guerrilla Retaliation Units now operating more closely. At least some of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya units appear to take their orders from the regular battalions. This may make them more accountable to the Army, but more likely provides each battalion with a unit to use to do their dirty work.
Although the Moe Kyo , Mone Daing , Galone , and Mone Thon units have been operating for several years now, originally in Nyaunglebin District, it now appears that each battalion in the Southern Command has been given the power to create its own unit within the battalion. According to a KHRG field researcher, each battalion based in the area under the control of the Southern Regional Command has formed its own Dam Byan Byaut Kya unit. The Wei Za unit was formed as a Dam Byan Byaut Kya unit within IB #124 based at Bayinnaung Army camp near Than Daung Gyi. The Ba La Guerrilla Retaliation Unit also seems to have been formed directly by a battalion. A Column Commander from the Wei Za Guerrilla Retaliation Unit, Captain Cheh Tee, for instance, takes his orders from Battalion Commander Kyaw Zaw Han of IB #124. The Wei Za Guerrilla Retaliation Unit has as many as forty soldiers, who then separate into eight to ten sections of four or five men each whenever they are out on patrol. It appears that the Wei Za unit may be a company within IB #124. KHRG has yet to receive any information that any of the battalions from Western Regional Command in Than Daung township having formed their own Dam Byan Byaut Kya units.
Some villagers from the region have stated that Karens are also within the ranks of the Dam Byan Byaut Kya . Some of these Karens are former KNLA soldiers who have defected to the SPDC; others are regular SPDC Army soldiers who come from the Karen areas of Rangoon and the Irrawaddy Delta. This is consistent with reports from Nyaunglebin, Thaton and Papun Districts where Karen speaking members of the Guerrilla Retaliation Units have also been reported. Having Karens within their ranks would help the Dam Byan Byaut Kya to overcome the obvious language barrier. They would be able to more efficiently interrogate Karen villagers and be able to listen in on conversations, especially by sitting under the villagers' houses at night, as they have been reported to do. Furthermore, if these soldiers are in fact KNLA defectors, they would likely have knowledge of KNLA tactics and strategies. If they are from units in Toungoo District, they would also be able to point out which of the villagers have been helping the KNU in the area. According to a KHRG field researcher, some of the Bweh (one of the Karen subgroups) Karen villagers living in Than Daung township have been arrested by the SPDC and forced to become soldiers in the Army, ten percent of whom have been assigned to the Dam Byan Byaut Kya .
'Peace Groups' and the People's MilitiaSplinter groups from the KNU have not had as much of an impact on Toungoo District as they have in other Karen areas to the south. The only major defection was in 1997 when two KNLA officers and a few of their men defected to the SPDC. The two groups were promoted in the much publicised "Exchanging Arms for Peace" program and combined by the SPDC into the ' Nyein Chan Yay A'Pwet ' ('Peace Group') [for more on the formation on the 'Peace Group', see "Peace Villages and Hiding Villages: Roads, Relocations, and the campaign for Control in Toungoo District" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/00)] . Although the two groups were permitted to retain their arms, they are largely marginalised and have taken no active role in fighting against the KNU/KNLA. The exception was shortly after their defection, when they entered the hills east of the Klay Loh River and burned a number of Ywa Bone villages and plantations in that area. Some of the 'Peace Group' soldiers now reside in Pya Sakan village on the road from Toungoo to Kler Lah, and another group lives at Leit Tho on the road to Loikaw. The ;Peace Group' spends much of its time running the small logging businesses which the SPDC gave them in return for surrendering. This group is not allied in any way with another 'Peace Group' which operates in Dooplaya District farther to the south. The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which operates throughout much of the rest of Karen State, has never operated in Toungoo District.
A Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) battalion lead by Bo Ta Neh and stationed just across the border in Karenni State, defected to the SPDC in October 2002. Renaming themselves the Karenni Solidarity Organisation (KnSO), they established their headquarters at Kwa Kee village in Karenni State. They have been operating closely with SPDC Army columns, most notably in the offensive in northern Karen and southern Karenni States in December 2003 and January 2004 when some units of the KnSO accompanied SPDC columns into Toungoo District. The KnSO had approximately 100 men under arms when they first defected, but many have since returned to the KNPP, leaving the KnSO with a force of only about 35 men. They operate in small sections with SPDC columns and do not have much real power. Another Karenni group, the Karenni Nationalities People's Liberation Front (KNPLF), also operates in the southwestern portion of Karenni State bordering Toungoo District. This group occasionally issues orders to villages in Toungoo District, but mostly keeps to itself in Karenni State. The SPDC has been expanding its Pyithu Sit ('People's Army') in many Karen areas, especially in Mon State and Tennaserim Division. The Southern Command began forcing local villagers to join the Pyitthu Sit in Toungoo District in March 2002. The Pyithu Sit function as a local militia with members conscripted from the villages. Village heads are usually given a quota of how many men from the village should 'join' the militia. The villagers are then given military training and weapons. Once the training is finished the Pyithu Sit are expected to patrol the area around their village and keep resistance groups from entering the village. They are also sometimes required to accompany SPDC columns as guides. Villagers from villages near the Kler Lah relocation site as well as from Twenty Miles, Thu Keh Der and Htee Hta Pu villages have been ordered to meet quotas of men established by the SPDC. One village head told KHRG that one person from each house in his village had to join. In Twenty Miles village, 30 villagers had to go, Thu Keh Der village had to send 25 villagers and Htee Hta Pu had to send 30 villagers.
The KNU and KNLAToungoo District is the area of operations of the KNLA 2nd Brigade. With its rugged mountainous terrain and thick forest, Toungoo District is ideally suited for guerrilla warfare. Since the late 1990's KNLA-held territory has been limited to pockets within the eastern hills, but KNLA soldiers have been able to reach most areas of the district. Soldiers of the 2 nd Brigade operate in small units carrying out hit and run attacks and ambushes against SPDC Army units and harassment attacks on SPDC camps. The SPDC's increased militarization of the district and the pushing through of roads is making it increasingly difficult for the KNLA to hold on to this territory. Being outmanned and outgunned has necessitated that the KNLA guerrillas must outmanoeuvre the SPDC. The fact that they still remain to fight is a testament of their knowledge of the land and of guerrilla tactics. KNLA units have been able to carry out ambushes and harassment attacks on SPDC columns and camps even in strongly held areas such as around Kler Lah and Than Daung Gyi. Many of the KNLA's ambushes are sprung with landmines because ammunition is in short supply. The KNLA, short of funds and supplies, produce their own homemade landmines that they use for perimeter defence of their camps, at sites where internally displaced villagers are living and in ambushes against the SPDC [see ' Landmines' ] .
The KNLA, being a guerrilla army, is highly vulnerable to attack from the SPDC through the harassment and abuse of the villagers. The KNU and KNLA still enjoy widespread support among the villagers. However, much of this support is moral rather than physical, especially among the Nyein Chan Yay villagers. Nyein Chan Yay villagers have had their villages shelled or shot up by small arms after SPDC troops have been ambushed or stepped on landmines near the villages. Villager heads must report any movements of the KNLA to local SPDC Army outposts. Village heads have been arrested and tortured after being accused of helping the resistance. This has created a climate of fear among the villagers who are now less willing to help the KNU as they were before. Despite this, some of the villagers in the mountains still help the KNLA when they can, especially the villagers living outside of SPDC control. The KNU/KNLA, in turn, helps to bring in whatever small amounts of aid can be provided for the internally displaced villagers. The villagers and the KNLA warn each other of approaching columns, and sometimes small KNLA units provide some security for the villagers' hiding sites.
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