 |
 |
One Year On: Continuing abuses in Toungoo DistrictForced relocationThe SPDC has long employed the practice of forced relocation at the core of their ongoing campaign to consolidate their control and bring the entire country under their absolute dominion. Traditionally, villages situated in remote locations or in areas in which the resistance can operate, where the SPDC cannot effectively control or maintain a presence, have been forcibly relocated to SPDC-controlled areas. Forced relocation orders are invariably accompanied by threats that anyone who fails to move by the prescribed date will be shot on sight. Forced relocation sites that villagers are ordered to move to are generally located along road corridors and typically adjacent to existing SPDC Army camps. This serves two purposes: firstly, to allow the soldiers to keep close watch over the villagers and control their movements, and secondly, so that the villagers are immediately available to the soldiers for extortion and forced labour. There are a number of relocation sites in Toungoo District, the largest of which is located at Kler Lah (Bawgali Gyi) and is home to well over 400 families. Other relocation sites also exist in Than Daung Gyi, Than Daung Myothit, Klaw Mee Der, Pa Leh Wah, Law Gha Inn, Tha Pyay Nyunt, and Play Hsa Loh, among others (see map). According to a press release by the KNU, soldiers from MOC #16 ordered Koh Loo, Saw See Der, See Wah Der Koh, Wah Mee Per Ko, Saw Mu Der, and Pway Baw Der villages to relocate to the relocation site adjacent to the SPDC Army camp at Tain Bpu on June 10th 2006. [5] Then on June 15th 2006, Kaw Thay Der and Klay Soh Kee villages were ordered to relocate by LID #66 Intelligence Officer (G2) Myo Htun. [6] FBR reported that on June 19th 2006, villagers from the Kler Lah and Kaw Thay Der areas were ordered to clear land to make way for a new relocation site at Bu Sah Kee reportedly intended to accommodate over 70 families. [7]While it is not yet clear which villages the SPDC is planning to forcibly relocate to the site, the report that they are planning on relocating 70 families implies that a number of villages, possibly as many as ten, will be affected. In another KHRG report released in July, it was postulated that:
The following account of the SPDC relocation campaign conducted in the Maw Nay Pwa area in June 2006 is a translation of a situation report written by a KHRG field researcher: On June 8th 2006, LIB #507 under TOC #2 of MOC #16 (Major Ko Ko Kyi commanding) forced Klaw Mee Der village and a number of other villages in the Maw Nay Pwa area (south of Klaw Mee Der) to relocate. The Klaw Mee Der villagers were ordered to relocate to Pa Leh Wah, while Hoo Moo Der, Ler Kla Der, Kheh Der, Ta Pa Kee, Lay Woh Loh, Paw Pa and Yer Loh villages had to move to the Play Hsa Loh relocation site (see map). Some of the villagers didn't want to go to the relocation site because they knew that they would be used as forced labour and would have to deal with the SPDC, so they fled into the forest. The villagers had to leave behind whatever they couldn't manage to carry. The soldiers told the villagers that they did not need to take any of their belongings with them. They told them that they could come back later to collect their possessions. All of the villagers who went to the relocation site did so with only a small load of their belongings that they could carry on their backs. After the villagers left the village, the soldiers returned and looted the villagers' rice, fishpaste, salt, chillies, pigs, chickens, goats, ducks, pots, pans, plates and any furniture that they could carry. After this they told the villagers that they could not come back to their village or their fields anymore. The soldiers said that if they saw anyone returning to their village, they would shoot them on sight.
Some of the villagers who ran out of food secretly returned to their villages to take the food and goods that they had left behind, only to find that there was nothing left. The soldiers had stolen what they wanted and destroyed everything else. Others who tried returning to their village were captured and killed by the SPDC Army soldiers. On July 19th 2006, soldiers from LIB #522 shot and killed two villagers from Ler Kla Der. Saw Ta Kay, 46, and Saw Lah Yer, 25, had returned to collect their food after that which they had taken with them ran out when they were seen and killed by the soldiers. The soldiers also destroyed the homes and any rice storage barns that they found. Then, on July 29th, two military columns under LIB #4 attacked Yer Loh villagers in the site where they were hiding in the forest. After the villagers had fled, the soldiers stole everything that they could carry and destroyed everything else. There were about 50 houses in Play Hsa Loh village. Most of these are made of bamboo and only last for about two years before the bamboo needs to be replaced. Every two years the villagers have to either repair their homes or build new ones. However, in forcibly relocating the eight villages listed above, an additional 400 households were relocated to Play Hsa Loh, placing enormous strain on available land and resources. These people had to leave their homes, plantations and fields behind and move to the Play Hsa Loh relocation site. As a result, 85 paddy fields had to be abandoned. Upon arrival, they had to cut down and use all available bamboo to build houses for themselves - bamboo that would ordinarily be used by the original residents of Play Hsa Loh to repair their homes. This competition for resources has created tension between the original inhabitants of the village and the new arrivals. There is now very little bamboo left in the hills surrounding Play Hsa Loh. Furthermore, the villagers who were forcibly relocated are not allowed to return to their own villages to tend to their fields and plantations and there is not enough land for everyone close to Play Hsa Loh. The villagers can only grow small hill fields, small cardamom plantations and small betelnut plantations. There is not enough arable land available to allow the villagers to have large fields or plantations, drastically affecting the amount of food that they are able to produce. Whatever money that some of the villagers had to buy rice is already gone. Now many villagers must borrow food from their friends and neighbours, although many of them do not have much food left either, so they do not have much that they can share. The villagers say that they do not know what they will do in the coming months. The villagers from Klaw Mee Der who were relocated to Pa Leh Wah have faced similar problems. The SPDC Army has been based there for many years so there was no bamboo left for the villagers to build their homes. The school in Play Hsa Loh is not very big and there are only a few teachers, so not all children are able to go to school. The parents want their children to attend school and receive an education, so they extended the school and asked the villagers who have received at least some education and are literate to become teachers. Many of these villagers, however, have not received a very extensive education. Most of them would only have received a primary level education themselves, with few of them ever going beyond Fourth Standard (Grade). The standard of education in schools like this is not as high as those in villages that are more stable. Only 50 percent of the children can attend school. The parents of the other half also want to send their children to school but they can't because they must help their parents in the fields. They do not have enough food or enough money so they must work with their parents. Many of the Play Hsa Loh villagers are animist and conduct the Aw' Kheh ritual (an animist ceremony in which meat, usually pork or chicken, is placed under a sacred tree to appease the spirit that dwells there and watches over the village). Most of the villagers, therefore, raise pigs and chickens but because of this there are pig faeces everywhere. During the rainy season the ground is polluted by the faeces of the pigs, and to a lesser extent of the chickens. The villagers who were forcibly relocated to Play Hsa Loh could not build large homes, like those they would build raised well above the ground in their home villages. Their houses are small and are built low to the ground, so water splashes into the houses when it rains. This water is dirty and contaminated by the pig faeces that litter the ground, so many villagers have fallen ill with various different diseases (possibly including typhoid, dysentery and/or cholera). There is no hospital or clinic in the village and the SPDC does not allow villagers to buy any medicine to treat themselves. The SPDC is afraid that the villagers will give the medicine to the KNU/KNLA, so whenever the SPDC catches anyone with medicine they threaten them, exact a fine of money or chickens, and then confiscate the medicine. Many pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, and the elderly have thus become sick because they do not have any access to medicine. Footnotes[5] KNU press release #24/2006, dated August 30th 2006. [6] KNU press release #25/2006, dated August 30th 2006. [7] Free Burma Rangers. Burma Army Begins New Attacks in Nyaunglebin and Toungoo Districts, Karen State. June 30th 2006. Received by email. Accessible on the FBR website at http://www.freeburmarangers.org. [8] Karen Human Rights Group. New SPDC military moves force more villagers to flee (KHRG #2006-B9, 4/7/06) |
||||||||
| All images and reports © Karen Human Rights Group | Top |  |