One Year On: Continuing abuses in Toungoo District

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

Conclusion

A group of displaced villagers from Than Daung township prepare to cross the Toungoo-Mawchi motor road with a KNLA escort in April 2006. This road is now dotted with over a dozen SPDC Army camps and is heavily and regularly patrolled as it passes through Toungoo District, posing a serious obstacle for villagers who wish to cross it. This road effectively cuts Toungoo District in two and hampers the movements of villagers who are afraid of crossing the road for fear of encountering an SPDC Army patrol or stepping on one of the thousands of landmines which line the roadsides. [Photo: KHRG]

The situation in Toungoo District has grown increasingly desperate throughout the year as attacks on displaced villages have continued throughout the rainy season and thousands more SPDC Army troops have flooded into the region. The current offensive has not followed the usual pattern in that it has persisted through the rainy season, offering the villagers little solace from the attacks and no opportunity to produce enough food for their families. The vast majority of the civilian population now lives on the brink of starvation.

The informal ceasefire that until recently existed between the SPDC and the KNU provided the SPDC with an opportunity to expand their influence into areas that they have never dominated, and consolidate their control over areas where they already operated. Over the past year the SPDC has sent over a dozen additional battalions to Toungoo District and built many new army camps to accommodate them all. In the majority of cases, local villagers have been ordered to construct these camps, and once built, to continually perform forced labour to re-supply them with rations and munitions. These camps, which now number in excess of 50, have been used by the soldiers to send out regular patrols in search of displaced villagers, who if found are shot on sight.

Now that the rains are drawing to a close and movement in the district will soon become easier, it can be expected that the attacks on displaced villages will soon be stepped up and the situation will grow far worse. Hundreds of fields have been destroyed and few villagers have any food left. What little they do have is shared. Villagers are now working frantically to harvest the rice in fields that have not been destroyed, although already the soldiers have begun targeting villagers in their fields. Military activity seems to be on the increase again and thus it is highly likely that many villagers will not be able to harvest their crops, further reducing the amount of food that they will have for the coming year.

A group of over 100 villagers from Klay Kee, Bu Kee, Hee Daw Khaw, Tha Aye Kee, Kho Kee, and Yuh Koh Thoo villages in southeastern Toungoo District as they fled to the Burma-Thai border in March 2006. SPDC Army soldiers systematically destroyed their villages and food supplies since the offensive began in November 2005, driving them into the forest where they lived as IDPs for several months. As their food supplies dwindled and the realisation that they would not be able to return to their villages and fields set in, they risked the journey to Thailand where they hoped to be taken in as refugees. Upon arrival at the border two weeks later they soon learned that attempting to cross the Salween River into Thailand would mean that, if caught they would be arrested by Thai authorities and deported back to Burma for 'illegal entry'. With few other options facing them, they soon joined the over 1,000 other displaced villagers at Ee Thu Htah. [Photo: KHRG]

The situation for villagers in SPDC-controlled areas does not seem set to improve in the foreseeable future either. The villagers continue to be exploited through extortion and forced labour and the enormous influx of soldiers into the district will likely mean that the villagers will be exploited even more as the new soldiers also issue their demands to the villagers. It can be expected that many more villagers will be ordered to serve as porters, act as guides and human minesweepers for the soldiers, repair their army camps and suffer under the full range of human rights abuses that invariably accompany increased militarization.

All indications coming out of Toungoo District suggest an imminent resumption of full-scale military activities against the civilian population. The unprecedented number of SPDC Army soldiers now operating in the district, the proliferation of so many new army camps and their continual re-supply strongly implies that the SPDC Army plans to intensify its attacks on undefended villages.

One year on, and the situation has far from improved; if anything, the opposite has occurred. The conditions facing villagers living in SPDC-controlled villages as well as those confronted by the internally displaced have deteriorated and are expected to decline even further before the year is out. The current offensive has the potential of becoming one of the biggest military offensives against the Karen in recent history, possibly even surpassing the mass offensives waged in 1997-98. Attacks on civilian villages and all associated human rights violations perpetrated by SPDC Army soldiers must therefore be entirely stopped. Without an immediate cessation of such abuses, many more villagers will continue to suffer at the hands of the SPDC.

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