MYAWADDY-KAWKAREIK AREA UPDATE

An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
August 6, 1995 / KHRG #95-30

Pa Er was killed by SLORC soldiers on 22 June. He was 30 years old, a Karen Buddhist. It happened in Naung Kaing village, Kawkareik Township [just east of Kawkareik Town]. He was a farmer, married with 3 children. He was killed by LIB [Light Infantry Battalion] #230 - Major Aye Than Maung and soldiers from Column 2. Their camp is at Thee Ho Taw in Kawkareik Township. Their soldiers found Pa Er while they were searching for our units in the forest. He was there picking dogfruit. They asked him about us but he didn't know anything, so they tortured him to death. He was tortured terribly. We saw his body - his mouth had been cut open, his ears had been cut off and his face was sliced up. The porters and villagers in the area saw them doing it. They saw the soldiers beating him severely. It was at Htee K'Saw Meh, between Than Bya and Naung Kaing. They also caught N--, 46 years old, together with Pa Er. They accused him of being KNLA as well, and they beat him severely and his left arm was broken in two places. Now he's still in the village. There were many witnesses who saw them kill Pa Er. Both men were accused of having connections with KNU [Karen National Union]. Sometimes we stay in Naung Kaing, but they were not KNU members. Pa Er was just captured in the forest, that's why they accused him. He gave them his village head's name and told them the village head would vouch that he was only a villager, but because they saw him in the forest they accused him of being an "insurgent".

The same day they arrested P---, and accused her of connections with us. She is also from Naung Kaing, and she is over 50 years old. The SLORC said her husband was one of our members, but actually they're just ordinary villagers. They saw her outside her village and she told them she was a villager. They asked her about our movements but she said she didn't know anything because she hadn't gone anywhere. They accused her of taking rice to Karen soldiers because she was wearing a big towel on her head. Then they tied the towel over her face and kicked her to the ground, and then two or three soldiers walked and jumped on her body and threw water on the towel so she couldn't breathe. But they didn't get any information from her, because she didn't know anything about us. Because of this, the villagers are always afraid and live in terror. The SLORC always demands that people report anything they know about KNLA, and if they don't give information they are punished. Now the Ko Per Baw ["Yellow Headbands", i.e. DKBA] are also controlling and watching, so the villagers are left with no choice [but to tell], and it is difficult for us.

I know Ko Per Baw. They are the worst. They think they are doing good things, but actually they are torturing our people and they just don't see this. Most of them used to be villagers so they know about our operations and they inform the SLORC, so our messengers and others who help us are in danger. When the SLORC soldiers get the names they arrest the people. There was one KNU village head, I don't want to give his name, when the Ko Per Baw announced that all KNU members had to report to them he did so. The Ko Per Baw checked his name against a list given to them by the SLORC and then captured him. He was tortured and gave information. That was last month.

The area Ko Per Baw leader is U B'Nya Tha Meet. He calls himself Captain B'Nya Tha Meet. His assistant is "Captain" Kyaw Kyaw, who can't speak or read Burmese and has no education, so it is a problem that he got an officer's rank. B'Nya Tha Meet was a monk before, now he is a soldier. In Htoo Kaw Ko village, the Ko Per Baw leader is Maung Soe [Maung Soe led the armed kidnapping of Pado Mahn Yin Sein from Beh Klaw refugee camp in Thailand in February, and later wrote a death threat against Mahn Yin Sein's nephew, who escaped the kidnapping - see "SLORC's Northern Karen Offensive", KHRG #95-10, 29/3/95]. At one time Maung Soe was in the KNLA. He was married, but he ran off with another woman who was also already married and then married her, and then he married again to a third woman. We arrested him and jailed him, so he was a convict. He had also done many other bad things, including killing people, but the [KNU] judge who heard his case had mercy on him and only jailed him. He was released in the course of the last battles [for Manerplaw] and went and became a holy man [religious layman]. He reunited with his first wife - I don't know about the other two. He was wearing robes, building a pagoda and living together with his wife. Then when Ko Per Baw reached his area he joined and received a pistol and a uniform with two stars [Lieutenant]. Then he gave a list of names of all our messengers and members that he knew, and those people had all their property confiscated by SLORC, including their fields, cattle, and their rice supplies. Quite a lot of families suffered. They left their villages and went to 6th Brigade area [the new headquarters area to the south, now under attack]. They didn't dare stay.

There are not many Ko Per Baw in Naung Kaing, maybe 10, but there are hundreds of SLORC soldiers. We estimate that the total number of Ko Per Baw is only 300-500, because they are very thinly spread. Their arms are the same as ours but they have little ammunition, not enough for even a single battle, and I don't think the SLORC will issue them any more. We know that the SLORC have no faith in the Ko Per Baw and don't let them enter their [SLORC] camps. They stay separately, with the Ko Per Baw only operating in the midst of SLORC units. So the Ko Per Baw are surrounded, and they think that therefore they are safe and well-guarded - but they can't see the SLORC's plan.

SLORC gives supplies to Ko Per Baw. Ko Per Baw announced that they would not take money from villages, but now they do. The SLORC is not giving money for their salaries so they say the villagers must give the money. They demand a lot. If they control a village, they collect the money on a monthly basis, but it is usually not enough for them. So their soldiers go to villages where they don't stay, and collect money "in advance". But if they come again and again, they demand it again and again [several times every month]. Now they are establishing a "Justice Department" and are reopening and retrying all cases previously handled by the KNU, and they have announced that KNU decisions are all illegitimate. Their "judges" are illiterate and will usually accept the argument of the first person to come to them about a case, so the man who speaks first and most in court will be successful. They decide theft cases, civil disputes, etc. Usually they just reverse KNU decisions. The truth is that it's just a business, a way to get money.

Now they've said that next year they won't allow villagers to keep or kill domestic animals, and that everyone must become vegetarian. We thought the Ko Per Baw were vegetarians, but some eat meat. For example, the leader of the Ko Per Baw in Htee Law Thee village is Thay Klaw. He was a villager before and was known as a strict vegetarian, but then he went to Myaing Gyi Ngu [DKBA headquarters] and came back as a Company Captain on June 8th. People went to prepare vegetable curries on his return, but he told them to add some meat. They asked "Can you eat meat?", and he explained that he can't eat "living things", only meat. Then he told them to catch 2 chickens and his soldiers cooked them. Then he announced that the chicken's inner organs must be thrown away because these are the "living parts", that he and his men would eat only the flesh and that this would be the equivalent of vegetarianism! I don't understand how this is so, and I don't understand their ideology and their ways. Most of their members previously had criminal records and are liars. For example, Po Yaw, he's a useless man with debts in Mae Sot [Thailand], Thingan Nyi Naung and Kawkareik. He is a liar and a gambler, and drank alcohol and played cards all day. He's surrounded by debts, and his wife has refused to stay with him. He's afraid of her, so he joined Ko Per Baw. Now I heard he has become a holy man and does nothing bad. But I don't know how long that will last for.

In Naung Kaing every family must pay 25 Kyat per month to LIB 230, and there are also many "emergency" porter fees that are quite expensive: 500, 600, or sometimes even 1,000 Kyat per person called [SLORC calls people whenever they need them, and the only way to get out of it is to pay - often they will deliberately call several times the number they need in order to get both porters and money]. The villagers must also give money to another group, Tha Ka Sa Pa [the "Anti-Insurgent Group", a special group under the Army], two baskets of rice from each family every year plus a lot of money, but I forget how much. Tha Ka Sa Pa has about 15 men at Mya B'Dine, but there are a lot at other villages further into Burma. They are Burmese, and SLORC officers lead and control them. Also, the "People's Army" [a SLORC militia] demands 15 Kyat per month per family. They don't demand as much because they get money from setting up checkpoints on the car roads. So now the villagers suffer a lot. Years ago, few groups demanded anything from them, but now there are many - SLORC, Ko Per Baw, Tha Ka Sa Pa, People's Army, and also us. They face a big burden. They hoped Ko Per Baw would be their salvation, but actually Ko Per Baw demands the most, and now they have also started to demand porters because they can't carry all their possessions. They don't beat the porters, but SLORC is infamous for this. Last month I saw two of their porters dead. I saw the bodies on June 13. One was north of H---. The villagers said one had died there, and we looked and buried the corpse. The other was between T--- and H---. I couldn't guess his age, because the corpse was bloated and rotting. I could only see a longyi [sarong]. That is a very harsh route, their loads are very heavy and they are not given enough rice. Some porters escaped in groups of three or four and told us that many were beaten. Most of them were Burmans, some of them from towns very far away. I asked them "But you're the same race [as the soldiers], why do they do this to you?" And they said the soldiers didn't care. I pitied them. At first some of them were afraid, but later we spoke normally and I said "I don't have any money to give you to help you on your trip home, but I can feed you rice and give you some to take". We gave them rice, chillies and fishpaste.

In May, villagers north of Myawaddy saw more weapons like those they used at Wan Kha [Kawmoora] being transported into the area. They brought three more artillery pieces, but I don't know why because we have no more bases there. They were very big, with a barrel diameter of about 1 foot - to be mounted like mortars, but much bigger than the 120mm's that the villagers had seen before. Six people were needed just to lift one barrel. [Something like 200-300mm siege mortars with delayed-action shells were used to destroy the bunkers at Kawmoora. They have relatively short range but the explosion is devastating. It is hard to guess why the SLORC needs more in the area now, unless it is a show of strength to scare Thailand.] Also , three days ago many new soldiers arrived at Bo Pah Hta [about 100 km. further north, on the border with Thailand]. And I heard that 2 ew supply Battalions arrived in Kawkareik in the last few days. It is strange that when there was more fighting there was not much activity in rainy season, but this year there is.

[Light Infantry] Division 88 is operating in our area. They have been forcing the villagers to build new camps and roads, including the Kawkareik-Nubu road. In the hot season men, women, and children must work - nearly entire villages must go. There is also a place near Nubu where SLORC is now making rubber plantations, and the villagers must work there too - clearing ground, which is quite hard. Also, especially in #355 and #356 Battalion areas many people's fields have been taken, maybe thousands of acres. The owners are not allowed to work on them now, but other villagers are forced to work on them [growing crops for sale or consumption by the Army]. The owners are from Baw Law and Kway Shan villages [north of Thingan Nyi Naung]. The people doing the work aren't paid. In Kawkareik there are three security battalions [as opposed to supply battalions] - #97, 230, and 231. In Myawaddy, #355, 356, and 357. Now they plan to put another into Kawkareik at Kyaun K'Lay village and also another one at Myawaddy, so that will make 8 regular battalions in 2 townships. I believe that a lot of people will go to Thailand soon [as refugees]. They are trying to block the border, but villagers will try to come because they have to face too many difficulties, and because I really don't think the SLORC operation is over yet.