July 22, 1995 / KHRG #95-C3
"If you don't come, when the Column arrives in your village we will crush your village into many many pieces. But I'm not telling you to come. That is all." - SLORC written order to a village elder near Thanbyuzayat
"In the afternoon we set out for Bee T'Ka. We had to carry the
soldiers' rucksacks but we hadn't eaten any food, so we were very tired because they were
very heavy. All the way from this place near Naw Bo the soldiers ordered us to run, always
run, not walk, until we reached Bee T'Ka, and running it took about 2 hours. I saw one
woman who had a mouth ulcer, and after we started our journey it broke and fluid was
running out of her mouth and she was crying. They called to us and we had to hurry as much
as possible, even if there were many bushes and obstacles, even if we didn't have slippers
on our feet. Really, this wasn't a pleasant scene for us, because all we could see was
people getting beaten, and we felt terrible inside. The headwoman [who had been badly
tortured] couldn't walk, and two people at a time took turns carrying her. We'd had no
food, and we'd all been beaten." - Karen woman from Kawkareik area describing
part of SLORC's retaliation because 2 of their soldiers had deserted; the villagers had
already been interrogated under torture and were also fined 140,000 Kyat later
Everyone in the world who is interested in Burma, and even many people
who aren't, are now talking about the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. But for most of the 40
million rural villagers in Burma, that is all very far away and there are more immediate
and important issues to think about - like survival until next week. In Burman areas
villagers are starving under the weight of SLORC demands for extortion money. Shan
villagers are under increasingly heavy attack by a huge SLORC military force which is
burning their villages and taking them as porters (with the tacit consent of the
international community, which seems to consider all men, women and children in Shan State
villages to be heroin-trafficking fiends). SLORC has broken its ceasefire with the Karenni
National Progressive Party by taking thousands of villagers as porters and sending several
Battalions to invade areas ceded to the Karenni in the ceasefire deal just 2 months ago.
Several battalions of SLORC troops have resumed their attacks on Karen areas in
Mergui-Tavoy District's Kaser Doh Township, forcing entire villages to flee. Further north
in Papun District, SLORC troops have been marauding villages together with DKBA
(Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) units, looting, burning, and terrorizing villagers into
relocation camps. Refugees spill across the border into Thailand, several thousand from
Karenni, several thousand more try from Shan State but are blocked by Thai weaponry, and
close to a thousand from Papun District, saying that there are a few thousand more trying
to come, hiding and starving in the jungle, blockaded by walls of SLORC troops. In
Rangoon, one woman walks out of her house into the street. Which is the true reality of
Burma?
"If anything happens, they summon the elders and abuse and curse
them. Depending on their mood, they sometimes immerse the elders in water ... Every day
they ask if we have any news to report. If we say there is no news but they say there is,
then if they happen to be drunk they beat us and punish us." - Karen villager
in Nyaunglebin District
Any villager knows that SLORC has not improved in the least, and they
have been telling us just that. Our most recent reports focus mainly on northern and
central Karen areas, where SLORC has been working together with the DKBA. In Kawkareik
Township of central Karen State (see "SLORC/ DKBA
Activities in Kawkareik Township", #95-23, 10/7/95), SLORC has even been
handing over some degree of local village administration to the DKBA. However, this seems
to be designed more for appearances than a reflection of any change in SLORC, whose troops
remain in full force very close to all such villages. For the villagers, it has only meant
more suffering, forced to bow to two masters instead of one. SLORC demands money, DKBA
demands money; SLORC loots, DKBA loots; SLORC threatens, DKBA threatens; SLORC tortures,
DKBA tortures; SLORC kills. DKBA officers bring monks to the village to convince the
villagers to join - the monks are armed. Some of them don't even speak Karen, and the
villagers believe they are Burmese officers in disguise. Now Christian families in the
area, especially if they are close or distant relatives of KNLA soldiers (as many are) are
being systematically robbed and terrorized by the DKBA troops. At least SLORC always had
their camp away from the village, so you could pray for them to leave. DKBA never leaves.
In some villages, DKBA collects money or livestock for SLORC, or helps arrange forced
porters. In some villages, SLORC does the killing for DKBA.
"Pa Nwee spoke at a public meeting. He said that everything about Ko Per Baw is good and nothing is bad, therefore we should join or else they would burn down our houses, our school and our church!" - Karen Christian woman who fled DKBA occupation in Kawkareik area
"The abbot said 'I will give it [petrol] to you, and you can burn
the church down, and then you can also burn my monastery down. Because we [Buddhists and
Christians] in this village have lived together since long ago and we live together
peacefully, understand each other and drink the same water from the river. To burn down
the church and not the monastery would be unfair.' But the Ko Per Baw still wanted to do
it, so the abbot said 'If you do that, then I will leave here and go to the town to tell
everyone about everything you did in our village.'" - villager from Kawkareik
area on how the Buddhist abbot saved the village church from the DKBA
Further north in Papun District, the SLORC and DKBA have a different approach (see "SLORC/ DKBA Activities: Northern Karen Districts", #95-24, 18/7/95). They are ordering dozens of villages to move, some immediately, some at the end of rainy season. DKBA is ordering them to move to its headquarters at Khaw Taw Pu (in Burmese, Myaing Gyi Ngu) so that it can enlarge its civilian support base. SLORC is ordering them to move to relocation camps outside its Army bases surrounding Papun, or to larger villages under SLORC control. In some cases, the villagers are told they will then be moved to Khaw Taw Pu. SLORC's goal appears to be clearing out the civilian population between Papun and the Thai border, as part of its Four Cuts program to cut links between civilians and Karen resistance forces and also to create a 40-km. wide military-only free-fire "killing zone" which would block the embarrassing flow of refugees escaping the country.
For these hill villagers, going to Khaw Taw Pu would mean moving
several days' walk southward out of the hills, onto the plains where there is no available
land. They know that in Khaw Taw Pu their sons would be conscripted into the DKBA and they
would most likely be forced to do porter duty for SLORC. On the other hand, going to a
SLORC relocation camp would only mean perpetual forced labour and probably eventual
starvation. So the villagers are refusing to go. The penalty, from either SLORC or DKBA,
is a burned village, and possible torture or death. Some villages have already been
burned, so now villagers everywhere have been fleeing into hiding in the forest, even in
mid-rainy season. Some 700 or more have made it to the Thai border to become refugees.
Thousands more want to get there, but are blocked by SLORC troops or are waiting for the
end of rainy season.
"The situation of the villagers in my interviewing area is very critical and serious. Most of them are without rice and they don't have adequate shelter. Children are malnourished and have no medical care." - Karen human rights monitor in Papun District
"For now we will share what we have. We have very little but we
can share what we have between us. If we are rich, we will be rich together. While we are
poor, we will be poor together." - village elder from Papun District, after
SLORC troops burned down his village in late May 1995
At the same time, however, there are ever-increasing signs of problems between SLORC and the DKBA. In Papun District the two groups are often issuing contradictory orders to villages, and in many cases SLORC has directly and deliberately countermanded DKBA orders. The villagers are caught in the middle and have to flee, fearing retaliation from one side if they do and the other side if they don't. To the west in Thaton District, SLORC commanders have reportedly issued orders to their units not to operate or camp together with DKBA forces other than taking a few DKBA soldiers as guides and intelligence operatives. Instead, SLORC Battalions are sending out several patrols to "shadow" every DKBA patrol which moves. The reasoning given is that DKBA is proving too difficult to control, and, ironically, that as long as SLORC troops move together with DKBA the villagers will blame everything the DKBA does on the SLORC. KNLA officers in the area believe that the SLORC is pushing the DKBA to issue orders which SLORC later countermands, all in order to turn the civilians against the DKBA. In Khaw Taw Pu, SLORC has cut the rations provided to families to 4 pyi of rice per person per month, less than half what is needed to survive. DKBA soldiers' salaries have been slashed, and SLORC no longer provides rations to the DKBA in Khaw Taw Pu - instead it confiscates these rations from villages in the area, and makes sure they know where their rice is going. Conditions at Khaw Taw Pu are worsening - bamboo is scarce and people cannot build houses; medicine is nonexistent, and children are dying. Many families are trying to leave.
In Khaw Taw Pu, DKBA chairman monk U Thuzana has reportedly been having
doubts about the way things have gone and has told his troops that SLORC is still their
enemy, to look on their presence among SLORC as an "opportunity" and to keep the
"fishing-hook" (the bitter memories) inside them. It is unlikely that the SLORC
would commence open warfare against the DKBA, unless the DKBA starts it. More likely
possibilities are that the SLORC either want the DKBA to die out into a token, powerless
force now that it has served its main purpose, or that they want to maintain DKBA as a
force but only if they can have virtually full control over it. This would require a very
serious purge of the DKBA's "less cooperative" members, in other words those who
have political ideas about Karen autonomy, those who are interested in more than just
getting rich from looting. There are signs that this purge may already be happening. There
are many reports claiming that the DKBA monkhood, especially in Khaw Taw Pu, is heavily
infiltrated with SLORC officers dressed as monks. There are already many disappearances of
DKBA personnel in Khaw Taw Pu, as well as shootouts between DKBA members and SLORC which
on the surface appear to be personal quarrels. In Kawkareik area, there have been several
killings of DKBA by SLORC recently, and in each case the SLORC troops cover them with a
weak excuse such as "We mistook him for a KNLA soldier". Pa Nwee, one of the
main DKBA leaders in Kawkareik Township who was viewed as a moderate by the villagers, was
called to a meeting at a nearby SLORC base in mid-June and never came back, although other
DKBA members went to search for him. Meanwhile one of his subordinates, Pa Tha Da, who
only appeared to be interested in looting and abusing villagers, was promoted from 2nd
Lieutenant to Captain by SLORC, given a Burmese name, and transferred.
"In my opinion, SLORC is trying to destroy the DKBA. ... Now they can survive because SLORC can use them. If SLORC cannot use them anymore, they'll be finished." - KNLA officer commenting on current SLORC / DKBA relations
"U Thuzana told his armed force, 'Enemies are enemies. SLORC are
not your people. You have been fighting them but now you are staying among them. It is a
good opportunity for you - keep the fishing-hook inside you'." - information
from a resident of Khaw Taw Pu, where the DKBA has its headquarters; U Thuzana is chairman
of DKBO/DKBA
The villagers are caught in the middle of all of this, and not only are they suffering horribly under the looting, extortion, torture, killings, and forced labour, but they are increasingly confused by the situation and feel psychologically and spiritually broken. Many are still trying to escape to Thailand, but SLORC and DKBA are actively trying to block people from reaching the border. Even those who finally make it face a new surprise: the Thai National Security Council and the Thai Army, having declared that the situation has "returned to normal" in the areas the refugees have fled, have now said that they are preparing to commence forced repatriation of all Karen refugees in January 1996, pending agreement of the SLORC. They have made clear that no cross-border aid to the refugees will be allowed from Thailand once they have been pushed across the border, and that any agency wishing to help them should go through Rangoon. They are also cutting off cross-border aid to the Mon refugees whom they forcibly repatriated to Halockhani in September 1994 - aid which they promised as a condition of the repatriation. Agencies wishing to help the Mon are also being told to go through Rangoon. At the same time, SLORC has clamped down against independent aid agencies trying to operate in Rangoon. The International Committee of the Red Cross is withdrawing from Burma, citing SLORC's refusal to keep its promise to allow ICRC access to prisons. Foreign Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) which had agreements with SLORC to commence programs in Karenni, Shan and other areas have now found those agreements cancelled, or put into limbo while they wait month after month for SLORC to sign the promised Memorandum of Understanding. Even agencies which do not insist on strict monitoring conditions are now being blackballed by SLORC. If the Thais forcibly repatriate the Karen, no aid will be allowed to reach them from either side. Instead, they will most likely be sent directly to SLORC labour camps. This must be stopped at all costs.
However, a representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
office in Bangkok recently stated that the UNHCR will most likely cooperate with any Thai
forced repatriation. The UNHCR's logic is that this act of refoulement is
inevitable anyway, so they might as well cooperate to see if they can make "a bad
situation a little better, like in Bangladesh". In Bangladesh, according to reports
by independent NGOs, the UNHCR's role has been to lecture and coerce the refugees into
returning, block information from reaching them, ignore all their appeals, and report to
the rest of the world that the situation is good. The UNHCR's final decision on what to do
in the event of forced repatriation of Karen refugees must come from their headquarters in
Geneva. They should be made aware that the Karen refugees are more aware of their rights
than the Rohingyas in Bangladesh, and that should they try to force them to Burma they may
well have a fight on their hands.
"Dare we go back? If the SLORC and DKBA over there don't
disappear, can we dare go back?"- Karen woman who recently fled Papun
District and became a refugee in Thailand after DKBA and SLORC burned her village, when
asked her opinion about Thai plans to repatriate refugees
As the situation continues to worsen throughout the country, the
hijackers who run Burma have released one of their 45 million hostages from her house, if
not from their control. Usually once hijackers release their hostages they are simply
carted off to prison, but instead SLORC is actually being commended and rewarded from some
quarters. It is true that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release is a positive step, but a
miniscule one at best. As she herself said, "I have been released. Nothing else has
changed." However, some things are likely to change - for the worse. SLORC's silence
since her release has been frightening and ominous, and is reminiscent of the period from
August to September 1988 - when Burmese troops suddenly disappeared from city streets and
the regime went quiet, only to wait for opposition leaders to come out into the open so
they could be picked off and mowed down when the Army suddenly hit the streets again with
redoubled fury in September. This time, SLORC will probably wait for the international
media to get bored and go home first, for economic sanctions bills to die and for aid
money to begin flowing in. Then they can arrest or kill anyone they like, so long as they
don't touch Suu Kyi herself, and it will probably never be reported. But beyond that, it
must be remembered that whenever SLORC makes the tiniest concession it feels entitled to
worsen all of its other forms of repression. The day after Suu Kyi was released, SLORC
began new and fiercer attacks against the Karenni and the Karen. As aid and trade pick up,
so will SLORC's "development projects" - meaning more land confiscation, forced
labour, beatings, starvation and death for rural villagers. Though Aung San Suu Kyi may be
"free", she is not free to do anything about that, and under the international
veil of her "freedom" SLORC is almost certain to get away with it. The SLORC may
have released Aung San Suu Kyi, but how many people will it enslave, torture and murder as
its price for her release?
"The people there are too tired to run away any more, so they made
agreements with the SLORC that if they no longer run away and they give the SLORC
everything they want and nothing to the KNLA, then the SLORC soldiers will no longer shoot
them ..." - teacher from Nyaunglebin District on how some villages have made
their own 'peace' with SLORC
Most of the statements in the wake of Suu Kyi's release have
fortunately made it clear that this is not an end by any means, but only a beginning.
Governments, activists and Suu Kyi herself have reminded the world that human rights
abuses continue, and that these include the continued detention of many of Suu Kyi's
colleagues, and ... ? The problem is, that in almost all of the statements there is no
"and ..." Whatever happened to the rural villagers who make up at least 90% of
Burma's population? The villagers, both Burman and non-Burman, who continue to suffer far
worse abuses then their urban counterparts? The villagers who often speak nostalgically of
the "good old days" before the mid-1970's, when if they spoke out against the
regime they only had to go to prison? But a prison term is too much to hope for in
the minds of Burma's rural villagers these days. If they speak out against the regime,
they know full well that there is one penalty awaiting them - death. The only question is
whether it will be a slit throat, a plastic bag over the head, being beaten to death with
rifle butts, burned over a slow fire, or thrown in the river with your hands tied. A
simple bullet is usually out of the question, and the word "trial" is something
most people have never heard of. KHRG is only one of several groups which have been trying
to help wake up the people of the world to the plight of Burma's rural villagers, and to
arm overseas activists with evidence that there is more to human rights issues in Burma
than #56 University Avenue and Insein Prison. The statements in the wake of Suu Kyi's
release make us wonder if our message is getting through. For example, several times this
year our reports have mentioned Maung Kyaw Pu and Saw Tah Kee, two Karen villagers who
were arrested for no reason and were being held, almost certainly under torture, at a camp
of SLORC's #9 Light Infantry Battalion. Maung Kyaw Pu is 55 and has gastritis, and Saw Tah
Kee, 30, is physically handicapped. They are refugees and have never done anything
political. They are Prisoners of Conscience, but it is unlikely that they will ever get
international attention. If they had been Burmese students arrested for unfurling a banner
in Rangoon, international activists and human rights groups would immediately jump on
their case, but they are not. Amnesty International reasoned that they would be safer if
their case remained unpublicized. If there is a difference between these two refugees and
the students in Rangoon, it is that these two have never even done anything against SLORC
- yet while the students face prison terms, these two men face summary execution. In fact,
their families now believe they have been executed. SLORC will probably never have to
answer for it because it will never be reported in the media and they will never be
confronted with it. So now it remains our duty to explain to a wife and a mother who told
us their stories why we simply didn't do enough to save a husband and a son.
"In Kawkareik, when they need porters the militia surrounds the
slum area. Then they arrest the poor. They never arrest the rich. The authorities just go
to the rich and demand money, about 2,000 Kyat. The rich man will never be a porter. But
the poor and the jobless like us are always afraid of them." - escaped
porter, a Muslim day labourer from Kawkareik
SLORC benefits from the international focus on the urban human rights
situation alone. They have the cities under virtually complete control, so it is easy for
them to take measures like lifting curfews, pulling some soldiers off the streets, or
paying labourers. None of these things happen in rural areas, but nobody goes there to
check. These days the SLORC takes far fewer porters from urban areas - instead they take
more from rural areas. Even the increased economic prosperity of certain classes of people
in the cities and the urban beautification and "development" projects are
largely being financed with money extorted every week from rural villages nationwide, then
sent in by soldiers to their families in the cities or to the SLORC's holding corporations
by military officers. The amount of money stolen from the villages and sent to the cities
can only be guessed at, but it is certainly well into the millions of Kyat every month. Of
course, for the urban majority most conditions continue to worsen. But it is important for
people to start realizing that not only is the rural situation worsening much faster than
the urban situation, but that even the SLORC's small "concessions" to people in
the urban areas are being carried out at the expense, both financial and in terms of
repression, of the rural people. And as long as the world continues to cling to her every
word, the one person who most urgently needs to be aware of this is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
"Come in person and pay month 7/94 for July. Mr. xxxx, come and pay month 8/94 for August. You need to pay month 9/94 for September. The Army Column is now demanding month 10/94 for October. You are one month overdue. Come quickly and pay. Quickly prepare yourself and come." - typical SLORC written order demanding extortion money, Thanbyuzayat area, southern Karen State
"Now the people who gather food from the hills are forbidden to go there by the SLORC soldiers, so they can't get enough to live. Also this year there was a flood and all the paddy was killed. So it is not easy to survive. Moreover, every week 6 villagers have to go to do sentry duty. If they can't go they have to go and pay 300 Kyats to Major Kyaw Kyaw at LIB #351. Now they are also taking porters by force. If you can't go you have to pay them 2,000 Kyats. If you can't pay, you have to go as a porter, and when you return 3 to 5 months later you suffer from diseases. Among those who return to the village some are crippled. Some die from exhaustion, and some have lost their legs. Two people from the village lost their legs this way, and the rest who come back are too feeble to live normal lives anymore." - Karen villager describing rural life in Nyaunglebin District
"If only we can be free of this bad regime. In the future we want to live like our ancestors, our families together with our whole village - we want to be able to work our fields, free in our hearts and in our bodies. This is my longing and my hope."- Karen villager, Nyaunglebin District