One Year On: Continuing abuses in Toungoo District

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The SPDC offensive against civilian villagers in northern Karen State has continued unabated through the rainy season as SPDC Army soldiers attempt to consolidate their control over the region and depopulate all areas that lie beyond their direct control. Now that the rainy season is drawing to a close and the rice harvest has begun, the SPDC is laying preparations to once again intensify their attacks against the villagers. The district has been flooded with thousands more soldiers, and many new SPDC Army camps have been built and are now fully stocked with food and weapons. There are presently over 3,700 SPDC Army soldiers in Toungoo District forcibly relocating entire villages, destroying food supplies, and shooting anyone who refuses to comply with their demands. Literally thousands of internally displaced persons are living in hiding in the forest where they are hunted and their food supplies are deliberately destroyed by the soldiers. The tactics being employed by the soldiers are calculated to intentionally bring about the demise of the Karen hiding in the forest, and while they continue to resist these abuses, the villagers are rapidly running out of options as the situation continues to deteriorate.

Top of report | Table of Contents | Notes on the text | Terms and Abbreviations | Introduction | Military expansionism | Forced relocation | Movement restrictions and food security | Internal displacement | Landmines | Conclusion

Villagers from Tantabin township after they had fled their village and made their way onwards to the Burma-Thai border in April 2006. After living in the forest for several months with their homes destroyed, their food rapidly running out, and no indication that the SPDC Army soldiers were going to withdraw or stop their attacks on villages, they decided that flight to Thailand was the only option remaining to them. Carrying what few possessions they could on their backs, they risked the long and dangerous trek to Thailand. The crossing takes two weeks and must traverse northern Papun District where thousands of SPDC Army soldiers are operating, all of whom would should them on sight. [Photo: KHRG]

Table of Contents

Notes on the text

Terms and Abbreviations

Introduction

Military expansionism

Forced relocation

Movement restrictions and food security

Internal displacement

Landmines

Conclusion

Notes on the text

All names of people interviewed for this report have been censored to protect them from possible retaliation. The captions under the quotes in the report include the interviewee's (censored) name, gender, age, status, village (although many of these have also been omitted), and date of interview.

All KHRG reports use the districts and townships as they are defined by the Karen and the KNU, as these are what are used by the villagers. These do not correspond to the 'official' SPDC-defined townships that are represented on most maps. For example, what is referred to as Toungoo District in this and other KHRG reports does not exist within the SPDC-delineated system, where it is known as Thandaung township. This should not be confused with the Than Daung township referred to in KHRG reports and marked on KHRG maps, which only constitutes the northern part of Toungoo District.

Many of the place names mentioned in the report are indicated on the accompanying maps. Most townships, villages and rivers have both a Karen and a Burmese name, and we have tried to be consistent throughout the report and favour the names preferred by local people. Karen and Burmese names and terms transliterated into English follow KHRG standards and may deviate from those used by other organisations as no convention has been universally adopted. Please note that KHRG revised our transliteration rules in October 2006 to make them more consistent and accurate, causing the spellings of many place names to change in our reports.

Villagers, particularly those in the hills, do not keep track of dates and ages, and as a result sometimes different people give different dates for an event or different ages for the people involved. Whenever possible KHRG has attempted to establish and indicate the most accurate dates and ages. Villagers sometimes mention 'last year'; this often means the time before the latest (June-October) rainy season, rather than the previous calendar year, similarly, they often refer to 'yesterday' or 'last month' to denote an event that occurred recently. All numeric dates are in dd/mm/yy format.

Terms and Abbreviatons

Introduction

Almost exactly a year ago, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Burma's current ruling military junta, launched its latest dry season offensive against the Karen population of eastern Burma. The offensive began with the attack upon and subsequent destruction of Hee Daw Khaw village in southeastern Toungoo (Taw Oo in Karen) District on November 26th 2005. [1] Soon after, many other nearby villages experienced similar attacks and then in February 2006 the offensive expanded and intensified as it spread into adjacent Nyaunglebin (Kler Lweh Htoo) and Papun (Mutraw) Districts (see Karen districts map). Attacks on civilian villages have persisted throughout the year, showing little let-up even during the rainy season. The extent to which this offensive has been implemented and the number of villagers whose lives it has affected has made it the largest military offensive conducted in Karen State in the past decade. SPDC Army soldiers have mounted regular patrols through the hills of Toungoo District seeking out the internally displaced who evade SPDC control. Civilian villages have been shelled with mortars and strafed with assault rifle and machinegun fire. Dozens of villages have been burned to the ground and scores of the villagers' rice fields and plantations have similarly been destroyed. Many villagers have been forcibly relocated to SPDC-garrisoned relocation sites where they are held captive and exploited as slave labour by the military. Once relocated and under SPDC control, the villagers are kept that way through the use of forced labour, extortion, and movement restrictions. These practices serve not only to oppress and control the villagers but also to bolster continued military domination. Once interned in a relocation site, villagers are often denied the right to leave and are typically not allowed to return to cultivate their fields. Much of whatever money the villagers are able to raise ends up being extorted from them under the guise of various 'fees' and they are frequently called upon to provide unpaid and forced labour for the military. Villagers are regularly ordered to construct new SPDC Army camps and maintain existing ones, build and repair the growing number of roads, porter supplies for the soldiers, and serve as guides and messengers, all without pay. Time spent doing forced labour for the SPDC is time lost; time that would otherwise have been spent raising a crop or providing for their family. As a result, the villagers are unable to get enough food.

A group of 280 villagers as they fled from their homes in Than Daung township southwards through Papun District to the Burma-Thai border in March-April 2006. Their villages had been destroyed by SPDC Army columns that had remained in the area to prevent them from being able to return to their fields and tend their crops. Their remaining food supplies quickly ran out, prompting them to leave their homes behind and head for Thailand. [Photo: KHRG]

The combination of the lack of food, the constant demands and loss of freedoms leads many villagers to flee and return to the forests where they hope to live beyond SPDC oppression. Once they do so, however, they are hunted and will likely be shot on sight if discovered by one of the many SPDC Army patrols whose whole purpose is not to seek out and engage the armed resistance, but to attack unarmed civilian villagers.

This past year has differed from many previous offensives in that the SPDC Army soldiers did not withdraw at the onset of the monsoon. The soldiers have remained in place, garrisoned in small army camps throughout the district, and have continued to mount sweeps of the hills in search of the internally displaced and villagers who refuse to obey their demands. Furthermore, the SPDC has moved thousands more soldiers into Toungoo District to assist the soldiers already present in this task. Many new army camps have been built and the soldiers have continually ordered villagers to re-supply these and existing camps with food and munitions. The combination of these factors suggests that the SPDC is preparing to launch renewed attacks on the villages of Toungoo District as soon as the weather permits them to do so.

The following report is based upon situation reports written by several different KHRG field researchers working from within the region and is supplemented with the direct testimony of villagers interviewed by these field researchers, as well as by information compiled from other sources. Large sections of this report are direct translations of those situation reports, using the words of the researchers themselves. Quotes and information attributed to "a KHRG researcher" need not necessarily imply that all such quotes were made by the same person.

Top of report | Table of Contents | Notes on the text | Terms and Abbreviations | Introduction | Military expansionism | Forced relocation | Movement restrictions and food security | Internal displacement | Landmines | Conclusion

Footnotes

[1] For more information on the attack upon Hee Daw Khaw village, see: Karen Human Rights Group. Recent Attacks on Villages in Southeastern Toungoo District Send Thousands Fleeing into the Forests and to Thailand. March 16th 2006, KHRG #2006-B3; and KHRG Photo Gallery 2005, Section 1 (KHRG #2006-P1, 6/4/06).

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