CONTINUING FEAR AND HUNGER
Update on the Current Situation in Karenni

An Independent Report By the Karen Human Rights Group
May 25, 1999 / KHRG #99-05

Note: Some details omitted or replaced by ‘XXXX’ for Internet distribution.

This report consists of a summary of the current situation supported by quotes from interviews, followed by the full text of the interviews. All names of those interviewed have been changed and some details omitted where necessary to protect people. False names are shown in quotes; all other names are real. At the end of the report is a list of villages that had been relocated as of 1997 and the relocation sites at that time. The numbers which appear beside village names in the report correspond to the numbered dots on the map at the end of the report.

Abbreviations

SPDC = State Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
SLORC = State Law & Order Restoration Council, former name of the SPDC until Nov. 1997
KNPP = Karenni National Progressive Party, Karenni resistance force fighting SPDC
KNPLF = Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front, Karenni resistance group which made a ceasefire deal with SLORC in 1994
KNLP = Kayan New Land Party, Karenni resistance group which has a ceasefire with SPDC
KNDP = Karenni National Democratic Party, political wing of the KNDA
KNDA = Karenni National Democratic Army, armed group formed in 1996, reportedly by SLORC, which acts as a SLORC/SPDC militia and proxy army
IB = Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LIB = Light Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LID = Light Infantry Division (SLORC/SPDC); one Division consists of 10 LIB battalions
loh ah pay = Forced labour; literally it means traditional voluntary labour, but not under SPDC
Kyat = Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat at official rate, 350+ Kyat at current market rate

Summary of the Current Situation

"We couldn’t build houses, we had to stay on the ground. We cut leaves to lay down as a floor to sleep on and made a roof with some tarpaulin. It didn’t rain but it was very cold. We could only light a very small fire to warm ourselves because we were afraid that the fire would show the soldiers where we were. The fire could only be the burning embers. I had 4 children who were not well so they cried sometimes. Any time the soldiers who were chasing us headed in our direction, I suffered in my heart a great deal because my children didn’t know to be afraid. Back when we were living in our hill village we had to run too, but the children only learned to be afraid of battle, they never learned to be afraid while we’re fleeing. As parents we worried about them a lot. We were always worried about the next time we would have to run. Sometimes I couldn’t eat because of the anxiety. When it was time to eat, I could only eat one or two mouthfuls of rice and then I didn’t feel like eating anymore. There were many troubles and a lot of suffering. When we first left to come to the refugee camp, the SPDC army tried to chase us and a battle occurred. I heard the sounds of the weapons and was too afraid to run anywhere. I hid in many different places in the area and the children were very noisy because they didn’t understand the army troops would come to kill us. We had to worry about them so it was difficult for me to eat and sleep. We could see the houses burning in the old village, xxxx. Where we were hiding was very close to where the SPDC soldiers were." - "Lu Mya" (F, 30), talking about running from SPDC patrols in the jungle around Shadaw (Interview 5).

Between April and July 1996, relocation orders were issued by the SLORC (renamed the SPDC in November 1997) to at least 182 villages in Karenni (Kayah) State. The orders demand that the villagers move to military-controlled sites within 3-7 days. The main reason for the gathering of the villagers into these relocation sites was to bring the civilian population under tight military control and to prevent the villagers from being able to provide any support to the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP). The other resistance groups in Karenni, the Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front (KNPLF), the Kayan New Land Party (KNLP) and the Shan Nationalities People’s Liberation Organisation (SNPLO) have already made ceasefire agreements with the SLORC. The KNPP, a notably larger and older resistance force than the others, made a ceasefire agreement with the SLORC in March 1995. However, the SLORC used the premise of the ceasefire to move its troops into offensive positions and then broke the ceasefire in June 1995 by launching an offensive against the KNPP. By the end of March 1996 the SLORC had taken all of the main KNPP bases near the Thai border. The KNPP reorganised and sent guerrilla columns throughout Karenni to disrupt SLORC forces, and the SLORC responded by commencing the mass forced relocations. Fighting has been ongoing ever since, despite the false SLORC/SPDC claim that the KNPP surrendered in 1995 and that there has been no fighting in Karenni since then. Currently the bulk of the fighting is located in the southeastern part of the state.

The villages affected by the forced relocations account for well over half of the geographic area of the State and are home to at least 20,000-30,000 people. The villagers were given no more than a week to move to sites specified by the army. The written orders issued to the villages stated that after that week the villagers in those areas would be considered as enemy troops and would be shot on sight if spotted in their villages by SLORC/SPDC patrols. Upon receiving the relocation orders many of the villagers fled into hiding in the jungle and some even made their way north to Shan State to find refuge. The rest of the villagers had no choice but to go to the specified relocation sites. Those who went to the relocation sites were unable to take anything more than their children and what they could carry on their backs during the often long walk through the jungle and hills to the sites. Some of the sick and elderly had no choice but to remain in the villages because they were not physically able to make the journey to the relocation sites or flee into the jungle. The SLORC troops, acting as they had promised, started sweeping the area with patrols shortly after the time for relocation had elapsed. They systematically moved through the villages, taking anything of value that had been left behind and then burning what was left. Villagers coming from the areas around Shadaw and Mawchi relocation sites say that all of the villages have been destroyed in those areas and nothing is left. The villagers caught remaining in the areas are either forced to the relocation sites or shot on sight.

"…They gave letters [to the villages] which said, ‘If you are still not living in Shadaw by this date, we will regard you as our enemies when we come to clear the land.’ They really came! They captured people in our village and then killed them. They captured 5 people, all male, on the fields in an old village and killed 4 of them after 1 person ran and escaped. The names of those killed were Ah Tun, Ker Reh, Moo Reh and Moo. As for the Shan person, N---, who owned the field, he ran away and escaped before they could kill him…" - "Klaw Reh" (M, 45), speaking of when he was ordered to relocate to Shadaw (Interview 1).

Although living in the jungle was fraught with problems associated with the danger of the patrols and finding food to eat, some people still tried to remain there, but many gave in to the order and moved to the relocation sites. The relocation sites were scattered throughout the state at Shadaw, Ywathit, Mawchi, Pah Saung, Baw La Keh, Kay Lia, Mar Kraw She, Tee Po Kloh and Nwa La Bo. As more villages were relocated, more sites such as Daw Dta Hay were created. All were under complete control of the Army, usually located adjacent to new or existing Army bases.

Upon arriving at the relocation sites, the villagers were provided very little in the way of food or land and nothing in the way of materials for constructing their new homes. In several of the sites, including Shadaw and Mawchi, villagers report that they were given some rice during the first 3 months, though it was much less than what they required, and after that nothing else. Shortly after arriving, the small amounts of rice the villagers had brought or been given were exhausted so they had to sell their belongings to get money to buy food at inflated prices from the Army-controlled shops. The current situation is a result of people not being provided food for months or years, and given little opportunity to grow their own food.

"…They gave us land to build a house on and I was able to build a house as big as this one [approximately 15 square meters]. At first, they also gave us some rice, one bowl of rice for each person for one month. There were 9 people in my family but they gave us 1.5 big tins [per month; about 24 kg / 53 lb] of rice. They gave us rice for 3 months, as they did everyone, and then they never gave us any again." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), speaking about what the villagers were provided when they first arrived at Shadaw relocation site (Interview 4).

"They gave us 2 bowls [about 4 kg / 8.8 lb] of rice per person per month for the first 3 months. They only gave us rice, nothing else. However, later, they didn’t give us any so we had no food to eat. At that time, it was only my mother, myself and my elder sister…When we finished the rice they gave us, we sold what we had to buy more food to eat. However, now we have nothing. We couldn’t do anything so we didn’t want to stay there any longer. We came here because we needed to get out of there." - "Say Mya" (F, 21), speaking about what the villagers were given when they first arrived at Nwa La Bo relocation site (Interview 7).

The only immediately available option to slowly starving to death in the relocation sites is to flee to the jungle where life can be even more difficult. The perimeters of the relocation sites are largely left unguarded and the fences that the villagers are often forced to build are primarily around the army camps and not the actual relocation sites. The troops are lax in securing the camp perimeters mainly because they realise that the villagers have no choice but to go and forage for food outside the camps. This opportunity is often used by the villagers to flee the relocation site and go into hiding in the jungle, usually near their old villages.

This has been ongoing since the relocation sites were first established. Many villagers have reported that large numbers of people have already left the relocation sites in search of food and that the current populations of the relocation sites are much less than what they were originally. Shadaw relocation site reportedly had approximately 600-800 households in it after the bulk of the forced relocations, Nwa La Bo initially had 80-100 households and Daw Dta Hay had approximately 120 households. The testimonies of villagers who have escaped and managed to find their way to the Thai border are saying that there are far fewer families in those sites now and many who are remaining are starving and need to find another alternative.

However, the only alternative is to flee into the jungle and jungle life offers up many new problems. Not only is food still a difficulty, but also the same problems of health care and education are greatly exacerbated while hiding in the jungle. Army patrols sweeping out on "clean up" missions must be watched for at the cost of lives. If the villagers are found in the jungle they are often killed immediately or abused first and then killed. This often results in the villagers living in small groups of 1-4 families to be less detectable.

A KNPP officer has informed KHRG that the military patrols that once swept regularly through the Mawchi area killing anything and anyone they saw have now been reduced to approximately one patrol every three months. This reduction in the number of patrols may indicate that even the SPDC soldiers are aware that the people remaining in the jungle can only be few and hardly pose any threat. According to the same KNPP source, these "mopping up" patrols are still going out on a weekly basis in the Shadaw area. When patrols come near the villagers must quickly move to a new hiding place, so the villagers have to move a few times a month or even a few times a day depending on the number of patrols. Often when two groups of villagers see each other moving in the jungle they mistake each other for SPDC troops and flee in fear. Even when they meet and talk, they sometimes do not dare share the location of their hiding places for fear that SPDC troops may capture and interrogate them. These factors make it difficult for villagers to get together or pool their resources, such as food and knowledge of escape routes, in any way.

"We couldn’t work fields because they would come and shoot us dead when they saw us working on fields. The 4 dead people I told you about before were killed when they saw them working in the fields. You see! [His wife added:] If they don’t see you while you are working on the farm they uproot all the paddy or burn it all. Sometimes they collect paddy that has been harvested and burn it all." - "Klaw Reh" (M, 45) and his wife, describing the difficulty of farming for those hiding in the forest (Interview 1).

"…If the Burmese saw our footprints, they followed us so we had to hide in the bushes. They always followed our footprints to kill us. We never built houses and only prepared our beds to sleep. We could only stay a few nights in each place because when the Burmese came near we had to run to another place. We had to move from place to place so often that we can’t count how many shelters we built each year. If the Burmese saw our place we had to quickly move to another place." - "Maw Reh" (M, ~80), talking about the fear of SPDC patrols in the jungle around Shadaw (Interview 2).

"Sometimes, while we were moving from one hiding place to another, we came upon each other and ran away in fear. We were afraid of each other because [each of us thought] the other was the Burmese [troops]. When we meet each other we can’t ask each other where we live because we are afraid and have to hide ourselves. Even though we occasionally met other villagers while we were looking for food, we don’t know each other’s hiding places." - "Klaw Reh" (M, 45), describing the fear of the Army in the jungle around Shadaw and how that results in the villagers fearing one another (Interview 1).

Those in the jungle can produce little or no food because of the SPDC patrols and must rely mainly on what they can forage in the forest, and for those still in the relocation sites the situation is little better. In the relocation sites, those who have been allowed to grow food must either do it outside of the site, which requires them getting a pass, or grow things such as corn in small gardens next to their houses, which is the case in Shadaw relocation site. Villagers can pay the Army to obtain a plot of land to farm near the relocation site, though often part of their crop is taken by the Army. Those who have arrived as refugees in Thailand have reported that the Army is taking half of the rice produced by villagers.

"If there are four people in the family, we made a floor for four people to sleep on and made a roof with tarpaulin. People who had no tarpaulin, they made their roof with leaves. The situation wasn’t good so we couldn’t have large hillside fields and instead had to make small fields and hide our paddy after the harvest. … There is no village anymore; all villages were burned along with all the rice and paddy in the villages. I was hiding in the jungle for 3 years. We had to find food in the forest most of the time. Even those who lived with them in the relocation site had to find food like us. They [villagers from Shadaw] came looking for vegetables and then went back to either sell them so they could buy rice or exchange them for rice. They were also looking for Wa U [elephant foot yam] to eat as we were." - "Klaw Reh" (M, 45), speaking of when he was ordered to relocate to Shadaw (Interview 1).

"The first year that we were in Daw Dta Hay, we hired ourselves out to work on other peoples’ fields and bought rice to eat with the money we earned…[Recently] we couldn’t work to produce food. Even though the rains were less, if we didn’t have to do forced labour we could have worked and produced enough food for us to live. We also had to give them 50 Kyats per week to work on their farms [plots of land allocated by the Army] where we could stay with our families. If the Burmese needed us while we were farming, they told the village headman and he told us we had to come back. The money for the farm was already paid and we didn’t get it back." - "Mi Su" (F), talking about the food shortage in Daw Dta Hay (Interview 6).

"There were many problems but we had to come. There were people near farms along the way [to the border with Thailand], some of whom have no rice or food. The farmers also complain that they don’t have enough rice because the army takes half the paddy from their farms." - "Nyi Reh" (M,28), talking about the Army taking paddy from the farmers who have farms on the route to Thailand (Interview 9).

Even holding one of the passes which the villagers are required by the Army to have before leaving the camp doesn’t guarantee safety, particularly farther than a few miles from the camps. Villagers who have fled Shadaw site say that they were told that if they went more than 3 or 5 miles from the site they would be killed.

Another source of food for the villagers in the relocation sites was rice they had managed to hide in the jungle before their villages were destroyed. However, leaving the relocation site to retrieve the hidden rice was a dangerous proposition and could only result in small amounts of rice being brought back each time. By now all of that rice has either been used up by the villagers themselves, found and destroyed by the Army or taken by villagers hiding in the jungle who can’t find food elsewhere. The food shortage problems have been exacerbated in 1998-99 by widespread crop failures that are affecting not only the majority of Burma but other Southeast Asian nations as well. The erratic climate during this period has resulted in alternating droughts and floods, causing much lower yields in most of the region.

"Their rule for us was that we couldn’t go farther than 5 miles from Shadaw relocation site. If we went further, they would shoot us." - "Lu Mya" (F, 30), who fled Shadaw relocation site (Interview 5).

"In Nwa La Bo you can’t do any work to get food. The only way to get food is to sell all your belongings, such as the silver coins our parents gave us, and buy food. Finally, all our belongings were gone...They didn’t allow us to go to our old villages. They cleared a place nearby using a bulldozer but the soil there was no good so we had to go very far away to cut a farm in the hills…If we did go out, we had to get a pass from them which cost 10 Kyats… They only allowed us 2 or 3 days so we didn’t have enough time to work the farm. We didn’t get any rice from the farm because there was no rain." - "Baw Reh" (M, 27+), describing how the villagers in Nwa La Bo relocation site had to get food. The silver coins he mentions are likely colonial pre-war rupees which are held as family heirlooms in the area (Interview 8)

"We planted corn beside our house and [my husband] took that with him to eat. We ate corn when we had no rice. There was no paddy yield [the latest crop - 1998] because the weather was hot and there was no rain. We planted quite a bit of corn but it wasn’t enough because the Burmese came and ate it too." - "Eh Reh" (F, 35+), talking about growing small amounts of food in Shadaw relocation site and the Army taking some of it (Interview 10).

"…Some villagers who went to live in Shadaw still had rice in their old villages but people who were living in the jungle and didn’t go to Shadaw took that rice because they had nothing to eat. Also, the Burmese burned any rice they found in the old villages. The Burmese killed the villagers’ buffaloes and cattle that had been left behind in the old villages. Before we went to Shadaw we hid some rice in the jungle and later returned to get it to eat, but we finished all that. It was hard to keep on living." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), describing the food shortage in Shadaw area (Interview 4).

In and around the area of Shadaw relocation site the villagers have been digging up a tuber called Wa U, elephant foot yam, which has become a main food source for those in the relocation sites and those living in the forest areas around Shadaw. Unfortunately, if this tuber is not cleaned and treated properly to remove the small amount of toxins found inside, the villagers get very ill. The Wa U has to be cleaned and sliced, then soaked in water for a minimum of 3 days. The shortage of usable water that plagues the whole area often results in the Wa U not being properly treated and thus causes illness. After drying the Wa U slices in the sun they can be boiled on their own or boiled together with rice. Wa U doesn’t appear to give the villagers much in the way of nutrition or energy, but it helps to fill their empty stomachs and hold off hunger so they eat it even though they know it can be dangerous.

"Some days we had enough rice to eat while other days we didn’t. We dug up elephant foot yam from the jungle and washed them in order to get rid of toxins. It is not safe to eat them without washing them. It would make you sick if you didn’t wash the toxins out. In some places there was too little water to clean them well so we got sick. When there was plenty of water no one got sick. When I got sick from eating it, I had no strength. I wanted to collapse everywhere I went. I wanted to vomit and go to the toilet. If I had some sour fruit to eat it would make me better. Most of the places we lived there was very little water." - "Maw Reh" (M, ~80), talking about Wa U, the tuber which the villagers in and around Shadaw are digging up to eat (Interview 2).

"When we had money we could buy rice from the Burmese shop but when we didn’t have enough money we had to boil rice to make rice soup and eat other things, like tubers. If there were no tubers there, many people would die of hunger. Tubers have become the main food for people living there." - "Kay Reh" (M, 50+), speaking of the Wa U tuber as the chief source of food from people in and around Shadaw (Interview 11).

Fortunately, the negative effects of the tuber do not seem to be fatal, but fatalities are occurring in the relocation sites for reasons just as basic and easily avoidable. Deaths from basic dehydration due to diarrhoea and vomiting are commonplace. In the area in and around the southwestern relocation site of Mawchi, it would seem that the majority of the people are dying from this, which would normally be easily treatable. Most of these deaths are among those hiding in the forests around Mawchi, but many have also died in the relocation site itself. According to both villagers and KNPP sources, this in combination with malaria, dysentery and infection from a host of parasites that can normally be found in the jungle have already killed more than half of the people who were living in the jungle in the Mawchi area. Villagers from the Mawchi area and most other areas say that before they fled there was always at least one member of their family who was sick, and that family members and friends have already died of minor diseases. The villagers in the jungle fear going very far from their hiding places because they may be killed if seen, so they resort to burying the dead in and around their small settlements, and this can lead to even further spread of disease. The villagers in the Mawchi area have virtually no access to medical supplies and the journey to flee the area is too long for those in poor health.

"The people who were hiding in the forest suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting. Almost every one of them died. The villagers couldn’t bury the dead in places far away so they buried them beside their shelters. As for our village, the Burmese are encamped and living there so people ran to hide in the jungle and then they got diarrhoea. They had no medicine so almost all of them died. Only a few people are left, some live in xxxx and some are still hiding in the xxxx forest." - "Paw Paw" (F, 27), describing the health conditions of people in and around Mawchi (Interview 13).

"My children died of diarrhoea while I was in the jungle. One died when he was four months old, I hadn’t named him yet. The other one died when he was 3 years old, his name was Htoo Nay Moo. The two children I have now were born in the jungle." - "Nga Reh" (M, 30), talking about two of his children who died from diarrhoea (Interview 15).

Hospital facilities are virtually unheard of in the relocation sites. One exception to this rule is in Shadaw, where the hospital is understaffed and the medicine is very expensive if available at all. Refugees who have come from Shadaw are reporting that the doctors who are meant to be working in the hospital in the relocation site are only coming once every 2 or 3 months and spending the rest of their time in Loikaw, presumably because they find life more comfortable there. The doctors are reportedly posted to care for the people in Shadaw, but they hardly ever appear in the relocation site. This is consistent with reports from other areas of Burma such as Shan and Karen States, where recently graduated doctors are posted to remote places but choose to stay in nearby towns instead. Diarrhoea, malaria, dysentery and the other common illnesses previously mentioned can all be found in Shadaw relocation site, and chicken pox has also caused problems and death for the villagers living just outside the relocation site. Those interviewed have noted that the few nurses that are at the hospital aren’t capable of dealing with anything other than minor problems. If a serious problem has to be treated, the person who is ill must pay to be taken to Loikaw for treatment or simply stay and suffer.

"When one of us was ill, sometimes the hospital in Shadaw didn’t have enough medicine so we had to buy medicine in other places like Shadaw town or Loikaw. The doctor had to give us a piece of paper with the name of the medicine we needed to take or inject. If we didn’t have the paper we couldn’t get the medicine. To get to Loikaw we have to walk for 4 hours to the bus stop at Bpon Chaung beside the Pon River. From there we can take the bus to Loikaw. In the first year there was a full time doctor in Shadaw, but later we didn’t know where they went to live and now there’s only a medic left there. The hospital in Shadaw is a township hospital but they don’t have all the medicines." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), describing the lack of medical facilities in Shadaw relocation site (Interview 4).

"Many children got the chicken pox. We had no medicine so they suffered from that for 2 weeks. They are better now. A woman’s eldest child, a son, died of chicken pox in the jungle and now she has only one child. She has no husband." – "Lu Mya" (F, 30), talking about chicken pox infecting and in at least one case killing the children around Shadaw (Interview 5).

"There is a hospital but the doctors only come from Rangoon once every 2 or 3 months. The doctor’s duty is to be in Shadaw but when they come they live in Loikaw. They come and show their faces [in Shadaw] once every 2 or 3 months and then return [to Rangoon] after they finish their 2 year responsibility. Then another doctor comes. There are nurses in the hospital. If an emergency patient comes, they are ordered to go to the hospital in Loikaw. The patient must hire people to carry them to Loikaw because there is no bus, car or motorbike in Shadaw. If you can’t give people money to carry you they won’t carry you." - "Ni Reh" (M, 47), describing the poor service at the hospital in Shadaw relocation site (Interview 3).

Basic education is also lacking in the relocation sites. Most of the relocation sites have no schools whatsoever. However, there is some limited access to education in Shadaw. The school in Shadaw town, which previously only went to 9^th Standard [Grade 9], now offers 10^th Standard as well. However, space at the Shadaw school is limited and for the most part only Shadaw townspeople can send their children there. People in the relocation site only get a chance to send their children there if they have been at the site for some time, and even then they must pay the full cost of schooling. Very few of them have money to do this, so very few of their children go to school. Even if children are able to get into one of the small number of schools that are available they are only permitted to study Burmese. Study of the Karenni (Kayah) language and culture is forbidden. In Daw Dta Hay there is a primary school for the children, but if they wish to continue their education beyond that they must take the risk of going elsewhere to find it. Although education is available in some areas the young people are rarely able to go because they have to work to help their family survive.

"In the past there were only 9 grades in Shadaw School but now they have increased it to 10 grades. Only people who have lived in Shadaw for a long time can keep their children in school. People who come to the relocation site from other villages can’t keep their children in school." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), describing the school in Shadaw town (Interview 4).

"I would really like to study but I think I am too old to go to school and my mother can’t afford to pay for it. My mother told me that I couldn’t go to school because she can’t send me. I cried. I would really like to go to school but we have no money. No one in my family can go to school. I had to stop going to school to do forced labour." - "Say Mya" (F, 21), speaking of how her family wasn’t able to get an education in Nwa La Bo relocation site (Interview 7).

"My sister, whose husband is a teacher, had to go because her husband was teaching. He is from Shadaw and has a field there. He is Kayah but is only allowed to teach Burmese. His salary is 1,000 Kyats because he is a middle school teacher." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), about the prohibition on Kayah education at Shadaw relocation site (Interview 4).

Daw Dta Hay is not set up as a formal relocation site, but an existing village where others have been forced to settle. Villagers who were relocated to Daw Dta Hay say that there was recently an Army training exercise conducted nearby. The Army brought in children and adults aged 14 to 30 from other parts of Karenni State to participate in the training course, which was called ‘The Column 7 Training Exercise’. Many of the children who came told the villagers at the site that they were summoned by the Army and hadn’t been told where they were going when they were forced to go with the soldiers. Some young people from Daw Dta Hay said that they had been told they would have to join the training exercise as well, but they never did. After the exercise the trainees were reportedly sent to Loikaw, presumably to join one of the 4 SPDC Battalions that are based there. The people of Daw Dta Hay were ordered to provide large amounts of food and other support for the Army personnel who came to conduct the training. Little or nothing was given to the villagers in return for whatever food or goods they provided. Daw Dta Hay has also seen at least 3 of the village’s young girls taken as wives against their will by SPDC soldiers.

"The children who were to be in the training course came from town. Those children told us, ‘We didn’t know that they would bring us here. They called us and told us that we had to go for a training course but they took us here.’ Some of the children were Karen, some were Burmese and some were Shan. We don’t know which villages they came from. None of the children were Kayah. I would guess that the children were around 13 years old. Each group to be trained consisted of 20 children and they trained them group after group. When the Burmese held the opening for the training course, they killed a cow to eat and invited the village headmen and village criers to go eat with them. When they were finished the training, they sent them to Loikaw but I don’t know where they went after that." - "Mi Su" (F), talking about the Army training course in Daw Dta Hay (Interview 6).

"We had to do forced labour in the village and on the hill. There is an army training camp there called Sa Gka Khun [abbreviation for ‘Column 7’]. Soldiers from Battalions 43, 261, 250 and 102 came for the training. There were 30 to 50 soldiers from each battalion and they came from places like Dee Maw So, Pleh Ku, Hsi Hsaing and other places. Their commander and head trainer is Major Kyi Hlaing and he is from Pleh Ku. There are many officers staying there: Major Myeh Kyeh, Bo Win Myint and Bo Ne Win. The captains who came are Captains Aung Saung and Thay Htoo. Thay Htoo is Karen and is from Hsi Hsaing. There are also instructors, namely: Than Naing Oo, Moe Zaw Oo, Maw Way, Thant Oo, Kyaw Shwe, Chit Ko Ko and others. They had a training exercise there for soldiers ages 14 to 30 that they called ‘Column 7 Training Exercise’. There are over 100 soldiers. The soldiers are from many villages, such as Bay Yay, Hsi Hsaing and Dee Maw So. They are from all battalions including 250 and 261 and they went there for the training exercise. They said they would force us to do the exercise also, but they didn’t and we didn’t know when they were going to. They forced villagers to kill pigs for them [for an opening celebration banquet] and only gave them about one third of the cost." - "Nyi Reh" (M, 28), giving details on the people involved in the Army training course in Daw Dta Hay (Interview 9).

"They like to marry women who are too young. One soldier wanted to take a 12 year old Kayah girl named C--- as his wife. People told them the girl is too young and not to take her but their commander forced the people to give her to his soldier. The girl had to agree even though she didn’t want to. Another girl, L---, was studying in grade 8 and had to stop studying [to marry a soldier]. She was 14 years old. An 18 year old girl named H--- also had to marry a soldier. They didn’t want to marry the soldiers but the commander said they should marry his soldiers so they had to do it. That was last year. One of the girls is close to having a child. Their parents aren’t very happy about this." - "Nyi Reh" (M, 28), speaking of women forced to marry soldiers in Daw Dta Hay (Interview 9).

Earning money in the camps is limited to odd jobs that are rarely available and don’t pay very much. Some of the villagers in the relocation sites look for work outside, but as the SPDC has destroyed all the villages in the area, paying work is very difficult to find. Some people have been able to work for the Army as guides, interpreters, teachers, etc. However, they don’t get paid much and what they are paid is often reduced because of unfair fees. Those who have been lucky enough to get a job in the relocation sites aren’t given anything to support their families so while they are away working the family gets nothing to eat. The small amount of work that can be found outside of the relocation sites virtually always requires a pass costing from 5 to 50 Kyats, but a pass doesn’t guarantee safety for the one who holds it.

"You have to get a pass. However, there is no village to go to because all villages were destroyed. Before, we didn’t have to pay money for the passes but now people have to pay 10 or 15 Kyats for a pass. ... There is a market area 3 miles away from Shadaw which you can go to. If you go farther than 3 miles from Shadaw, the Burmese soldiers may shoot and kill you or capture you to porter for them even if you have a pass." - "Ni Reh" (M, 47), speaking of work options in Shadaw relocation site (Interview 3).

"I was given 750 Kyats [per month] but they deducted many fees and taxes so each month I only received 200 or 300 Kyats. They deducted the cost of rice, 260 [Kyats per month], donations for social occasions, fees for sports, the price for post cards and they also said they borrowed money from us. They deducted the cost of 1 big tin and 6 bowls of rice from our salaries but they never gave us that much." – "Lu Mya" (F, 30), talking about the Army paying her as a teaching assistant in Shadaw relocation site (Interview 5).

"He also hired himself out for carrying goods from the Pon River to Shadaw. The car only runs from Loikaw to the Pon River so merchants need people to carry their goods [the rest of the way]. People who do day labour to get money to buy food go and carry goods there to get money." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53) speaking about the Husband of "Mi Su" who periodically found work outside of Shadaw relocation site (Interview 5).

However, most of the labour to be found is non-paying forced labour. Forced labour or Loh Ah Pay (‘voluntary labour’), as the Army likes to call what they force the villagers to do, is commonplace in and around the camps and the villagers aren’t given any money or food for their labour. The Army forces the villagers to work on a daily or weekly basis; generally one person from each family must go. This forced labour includes clearing bushes and trees from the roadsides both inside and outside the relocation sites, cleaning Army buildings, cultivating land for the Army, hauling water for the Army, building fences around the Army camps, digging bunkers, road construction, portering for the Army and other general servant work. The villagers are also being used to construct a road from Daw Wah Kaing to Daw Dta Hay. There is also a road 150 to 200 kilometres long being built from Mawchi westward to Toungoo; KHRG has previously documented forced labour occurring since early 1998 on the Toungoo end of this road [see "False Peace: Increasing SPDC Military Repression in Toungoo District of Northern Karen State", KHRG #99-02, 25/3/99], but has not yet been able to confirm reports of villagers being used as forced labour near the Mawchi end of the road. Getting from the Mawchi area to the refugee camps in Thailand is particularly difficult, so there are few people arriving in the camps from that area.

"They forced us to carry stones that were to be used for making a road between the soldiers’ area near Daw Wah Kaing and a place beside Daw Dta Hay. They forced us to go in groups of 10 or 20. People from all the villages near ours had to go. They demanded a man from each family go but if there was no man, a woman had to go. Children and old people had to go also. If the old people couldn’t go, they had to pay a fee. We carried the stones to a vehicle that was pulling a cart and then we had to carry the stones from the cart to the road. The stones were very big and heavy so I had a lot of pain in my body. It was easier for us to take the rocks off the cart because we could just push them off; lifting them on to the cart was very difficult. They didn’t give us time to rest and if we took a rest they would yell at us and beat us. They only gave us time to eat once a day, at noon time. They never gave us rice, we had to bring our own. We were only permitted a moment to drink water which we either brought from home or found in a stream on the way. When we were finished having a drink we had to continue working right away. We had to work very hard." - "Mi Su" (F), talking about forced labour while she was in Daw Dta Hay (Interview 6).

"Battalion 250 forced us to plant seedlings in a monastery garden on a hill. It could have been rubber but I don’t know. Their army camp is just below our village, Nwa La Bo, on the plain. One person from each house had to go every day of every week. They never gave us anything to eat while we were working, we had to bring food from home. If we didn’t have food at home, we didn’t eat." - "Say Mya" (F, 21), describing forced labour in Nwa La Bo relocation site (Interview 7).

"Yes, I had to go for Loh Ah Pay one day each week. Usually we had to cut bamboo and build a fence. We also had to cut grass and bushes beside the road. Men, women and children starting at age 14 had to go for Loh Ah Pay." - "Kay Reh" (M, 50+), describing those who had to go for forced labour in Shadaw relocation site (Interview 11).

"Many people can’t work on their farms and produce food because the army forces each family to do 5 acres of a rubber plantation. The plantation is beside their army camp. The people are cutting and clearing the area but the rubber seedlings haven’t come yet. The army is forcing people to prepare the area before the seedlings arrive. People also have to do clearing and do plantations of things like peanuts and other kinds of beans for the army." - "Nyi Reh" (M, 28), talking about forced labour at Daw Dta Hay (Interview 9).

"We always have to do Loh Ah Pay and portering and can only do our own work 2 or 3 days a week. We have had to do Loh Ah Pay every year but it’s been getting worse in ’98 and ’99. … Sometimes it takes 1½ months, other times it takes a week. You can’t really say for how long. Some people had to porter for years and years and some people died on the way. They’ve been calling people to porter in this way for a long time; since before the student uprising in Burma." - "Ni Reh" (M, 47), describing forced labour and portering in and around Shadaw relocation site (Interview 3).

Doing work for the Army not only prevents people from being able to do what little work they can to support their own families, but it also puts people in harm’s way. The villagers doing forced labour are routinely beaten if they haven’t finished their work, have been taking a short rest or simply don’t do a "good enough" job. If villagers are found hiding in the jungle and are lucky enough not to be killed on the spot, they are often forced to work and porter for the Army as well, and people caught in this manner are treated particularly brutally. Porters, drawn both from the relocation sites and the jungle, are expendable to the Army. If they are suffering from one or more of the many ailments that plague the area or are not able to carry their load they are subjected to abuse and are either killed outright or beaten and left to die in the jungle. With no medicine to speak of and no help, it doesn’t take long to die when left alone in the jungle.

"If you don’t work hard and do your best, they beat you. I saw them beat my friends. I don’t know their names, we didn’t know each other very well. They were from other villages and had come to live with us when we were all forced to relocate. The soldiers said to them, ‘Do it nicely.’ My friends said, ‘We have never done it before so how can we do it nicely?’ Then he beat them. My friends were women about the same size as I am. He beat them with a stick wider than my big toe. He hit them too many times for me to count. Some of them were crying." - "Say Mya" (F, 21), describing the treatment of villagers being forced to build a road from beside Nwa La Bo to Peh Kong village (Interview 7).

"People have to stand up while they are working. If they sit down, the soldiers beat them with bamboo as big as my forearm [about 5 cm in diameter]. I saw them beat E---, R--- and a few other people. They were sitting down so the soldiers beat them and said, ‘Don’t you see what those other people are doing?’ People can’t even sit and rest." - "Nyi Reh" (M, 28), talking about the treatment of villagers being forced to build a road near Daw Dta Hay. The road probably leads to Daw Wah Kaing (Interview 9).

"I was able to avoid them but they captured other people. Anytime I saw them I ran away. If they saw me it would have been better that they shot me dead rather than capture me because they treat you very badly if they capture you. B--- and his elder brother, Mee Reh, were captured in our hiding place by the Burmese. They captured them while they were harvesting paddy. They forced them to porter for one month but they couldn’t carry [much] so they beat and hit them a lot. Mee Reh couldn’t [walk] anymore because he was tired so they tied rope around his neck and pulled him. After pulling him by the neck for a while, they thought he was dead and left him. He wasn’t dead and later returned to us. His brother, B---, also escaped during the night and came back to our place but Mee Reh died two months later. He couldn’t do anything. He was sick all the time, coughing up blood, and then he finally died. The elder brother is dead and the younger one is still in the jungle suffering from what happened. When B--- first came back he was also coughing blood and he couldn’t work but he can work a bit now." - "Klaw Reh" (M, 45), describing how villagers found in the jungle around Shadaw are treated (Interview 1).

"In the first two years [’96 and ’97] I could still work and produce food but in ’98 the army came and called me time after time to be a guide or interpreter for them. … They came looking for me at my house a few times but I wasn’t home, so the commander, Soe Htun, gave my wife a bullet. … My wife and children wept and didn’t want to stay there any longer." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), explaining why he and his family fled Shadaw relocation site (Interview 4).

Most villagers are determined to survive as long as they can near their land but that often proves to be futile. One of the major problems in getting from the jungle to the Thai border is that people simply don’t know which way to go. In particular, the people in the southwest corner of Karenni, around Mawchi, have a very long way to go to get to the Thai border and the threat of being seen and killed is all too real. The fear and distrust that the Army patrols have engendered in the villagers living in the forest also poses a problem for those wishing to find refuge in Thailand. The villagers are afraid to confront or join with one another for fear of informers or detection and this reduces their options when looking for people to help lead them towards the Thai border. KNPP soldiers often help the villagers to find their way, but there are a lot of areas which the KNPP soldiers can’t reach. Often villagers will follow merchants who have been previously to the Thai border. Some of the villagers in the north of Karenni State head into Shan State to find their way to Thailand, but that route is no easier to travel. The trip offers many obstacles which pose a particular problem for the sick and elderly. There are many hills on the way to the border, rivers have no bridges, and the boats that were once available to ferry people across are gone. When the villagers are fleeing to the Thai border, they have to travel at night and away from roads to avoid detection by the Army. One common meeting point for villagers who are fleeing seems to be along the banks of the Salween River. Many villagers have reported joining larger groups of people by the river and then continuing to Thailand together.

"When they saw people, they beat some and killed some. They also took our rice to eat or destroy when they saw our farms. We didn’t allow the children to cry, if they did we scolded them. The children didn’t dare cry because they were afraid too. We lived like that until we couldn’t tolerate the hunger any longer and then we came here." - "Maw Reh" (M, ~80), describing the fear that is felt while trying to flee through the jungle to Thailand from Shadaw relocation site (Interview 2).

"We arrived at the Salween River at 6:00 p.m. My family and another 3 families left together, but when we arrived at the Salween River we found many people there. We looked for people to help us cross the river because it’s a difficult river to cross. We then saw some Karenni soldiers and they showed us the way to come here. I had never been here before but some of the people among us had come here before to sell and buy things so we came with them." - "Doh Reh" (M, 53), describing the difficulty of getting to the Thai border from Shadaw relocation site (Interview 4).

"There were Shan farms on the way and if we arrived at a farm in the morning the farmer gave us food. We spoke to each other in Burmese and I asked them if they wanted to come here with us but they didn’t dare." - "Nyi Reh" (M, 28), describing his flight through Shan State to Thailand (Interview 9).

The trip to the Thai border can take up to 3 weeks, and in the case of villagers coming from the Mawchi area it can take up to 2 or 3 months. However, many villagers from the Mawchi area don’t dare to make the dangerous trip to the Thai border and are instead taking their chances holding out in the jungle, a choice which is resulting in many deaths from starvation and disease. People often run out of food on the way, but there is no access to additional food along the way except by sharing with other people who are in the same circumstances or borrowing food from villages which they happen to pass. Most of the villagers arrive at the refugee camps in a state of malnutrition and very poor health.

"They are still living in the jungle. They would like to come here but they can’t because it’s not easy to get here. They didn’t come with us because they didn’t see us. We had to come secretly. We couldn’t tell anyone where we were going. Now, we dare not trust anyone because we are afraid they’ll inform the Burmese." - "Soe Reh" (M, 63), describing the difficulty villagers are having getting to the Thai border from the Mawchi area (Interview 14).

"We saw many people on the way. I saw a grandmother beside Nwa La Bo who couldn’t walk and had to have people carry her. When she was able to walk a little, another woman couldn’t walk and had to be carried. There were many women who came who had to be carried because of illness or fatigue." - "Say Mya" (F, 21), describing the flight to Thailand (Interview 7).

"I just followed people who had come here before to sell things. The people we met on the way [to the border with Thailand] didn’t have much rice to eat. As for us, we ate the rice we brought with us. There are 7 people in our family and we carried one big tin of rice to eat. People who didn’t have rice asked for a bit from those people who did. We shared with each other but when nobody had any rice we didn’t eat." - "Eh Reh" (F, 35+), describing the situation of villagers fleeing to Thailand from the Shadaw area (Interview 10).

"When I was taken to the hospital [in Thailand] the nurse … scolded me. She said, ‘Why didn’t you come earlier? The child is too ill.’ I told them that I was living very far away and couldn’t come any earlier. We couldn’t understand each other. It was very difficult for me." - "Mi Su" (F), about arriving in Thailand after fleeing Daw Dta Hay (Interview 6).

Since January of this year over 1,500 villagers have arrived in Thailand seeking refuge. The majority of new arrivals are coming from the Shadaw area but some people are coming from other areas, such as the Mawchi and Loikaw areas. Thus far all of the arriving refugees have been allowed into the refugee camps by the Thai officials but there is often a delay before the Thai officials will permit aid to be taken into the camps for the new arrivals. There are still serious concerns over camp security, especially after the refugee camp known as Karenni Camp 2 was attacked by the Karenni National Democratic Army (KNDA), a ‘splinter’ organisation aligned with the SLORC/SPDC, in January 1997. On May 2, 1999 Burmese soldiers attacked a Thai police post in Mae Hong Son province and left evidence that would point to a Karenni group (KNDA) as the perpetrators. Mae Hong Son has a total of 6 refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border. In light of this most recent event and attempted deception, security in and around the camps is of high concern.

The future of the villagers, both in the relocation sites and in the jungle, looks bleak if the situation continues in its current direction. The SPDC has made it clear that nothing less than unconditional surrender will be accepted from the KNPP and so the fighting continues. With the weather patterns in the region continuing to be erratic, it is difficult to predict whether the rice crop in 1999 will be successful, or a complete failure as it has been for the past two years. Even with good growing weather it is very unlikely that villagers in most of Karenni will have the required seed paddy or safe access to their fields, both of which are essential if they are to produce any crop at all. All of their villages have been destroyed and all of the food reserves are long since used up. Food is scarce and the death rate due to starvation and minor illnesses is only likely to increase unless something is done soon. The SPDC appears to have no intention but to continue on with business as usual. There are even indications that they may start building more new roads, which would all be built with forced labour and would therefore put further strain on the already very desperate situation for the villagers. The villagers are starving and aren’t able to move anywhere without the risk of being arrested and forced to work or simply shot on sight. Fundamental political change in Burma still seems to remain the only hope, albeit remote, for these people.

"Just before we left, we heard them saying they’re going to build a road. I’m not sure which road they are going to build. It could be from Dta Tha Maw to this border or a Shadaw-Pon river road, I don’t know exactly. They have engineers and bulldozers but surely they are going to call villagers to help them. They can’t do anything without villagers. … We came out because we couldn’t tolerate it anymore. We were forced to work until we couldn’t work on our own farms anymore, both this year and last year. In ’97-’98 it was better than in ’98-’99, when we could not even harvest one basket of paddy. We didn’t have food and we didn’t have time to go out and find food because of the work we were forced to do. Our lives were getting very hard. Finally, we decided to go out and hide in the forest regardless of what would happen to us. When we got to the forest we met many people who were talking about coming here so we came with them." - "Ni Reh" (M, 47), describing the desperate situation around the Shadaw area (Interview 3).

Index of Interviews

Note: The names of all those interviewed have been changed. Numbers correspond to village numbers in the list at the end of the report and on the accompanying map.

FR = Forced Relocation, RS = Relocation Site, FL = Forced Labour.

Interviews

Interview #1

NAME: "Klaw Reh" SEX: M AGE: 45 INTERVIEWED: 4/99.
FAMILY: Married. 2 children aged 11 and 16. Wife is 30 years old.
ADDRESS: Kyu Leh [Su Leh, village #17], in Shadaw area.
DESCRIPTION: Lived in the jungle around Shadaw before fleeing to Thailand.

Q: How many people came here with you?

A: 382 people. They live separately. Some people are in Section x [of the refugee camp] and others are in Sections x, x and x.

Q: When did you arrive here?

A: I arrived on January 16, 1999. I came from the forest. We went to hide in the forest and then finally came here. The Burmese came to here and there [everywhere] and if they saw us, they captured and beat us so we had to go hide in the forest. They wanted us to go live in Shadaw. We didn’t dare go to Shadaw. They forced villagers from all villages [in the area] to go live in Shadaw, however, [many] people didn’t dare go to live there so they ran to live in the forest.

Q: When did they force people to go to Shadaw?

A: [They’ve been doing that] since 3 years ago. They gave letters [to the villages] which said, "If you are still not living in Shadaw by this date, we will regard you as our enemies when we come to clear the land." They really came! They captured people in our village and then killed them. They captured 5 people, all male, on the fields in an old village and killed 4 of them after 1 person ran and escaped. The names of those killed were Ah Tun, Ker Reh, Moo Reh and Moo. As for the Shan person, N---, who owned the field, he ran away and escaped before they could kill him. He was tied to a tree with rope and they almost shot him. He pushed off the rope and rolled himself down the slope of the hill and then finally was able to return. He didn’t come here but [I’m not sure why], maybe he has some sort of problem preventing him from coming. That was a long time ago, in 1998, but I don’t know which month. It was during the time of sowing the paddy [possibly June/July].

Q: Were all 4 of the people who were killed Karenni?

A: No, some were Shan and some were Kayah. There were 3 Shan but one escaped so only two of them, [Ah Tun and Moo] were killed, the other 2 people who were killed, Moo Reh and Ker Reh, were Kayah. Moo Reh was about 45 years old and Ker Reh was about 20 years old. They both have families and Ker Reh’s wife arrived here 5 days ago with some other people who arrived recently. Her name is O--- and she has 2 children.

Q: Based on your own knowledge, how many people living in the jungle did the Burmese kill?

A: I know of 5 people. Meh Reh has disappeared [and is presumed dead] but we’ve never seen his dead body. The Burmese came when we were going to get a kind of liquid from a tree that can be used to make a torch. His friends ran away when they heard the sound of the Burmese. He is deaf so he didn’t hear the Burmese coming and they captured him. After that we went to his place but we didn’t see him. We did see a rod [approximately 5 cm, 2 inches, in diameter] with blood on it so I think they beat him to death with the rod.

Q: Did many people from your village go to Shadaw when they were forcing people to go there?

A: There were about 30 houses in our village and 6 of them went to Shadaw. Some also went to live [in the area of] the Pon River and some went to hide in the jungle. Now all [of those 6 houses] have left Shadaw except one. They lived in Shadaw for one year and couldn’t tolerate it any longer so they left and hid in the jungle.

Q: When Kyu Leh villagers were forced to go and live in Shadaw, did they force only Kyu Leh village to go or did they force any other villages also?

A: They forced the people from many villages, such as Thirida, Daw Tanaw, Leh Du, Tee Leh [Pray Kyu Leh in Kayah], Daw Klaw Leh, and many other villages. Pray Kyu Leh is to the east of Thirida and is also near our village, Kyu Leh. They demanded that we go live in Shadaw but people didn’t want to go so some went to live in the jungle, some went to live near the Pon river and some went to live in Daw Ta Hay. Some of the people did go to live in Shadaw.

Q: How many people are living in the jungle?

A: I can’t tell you how many people because we didn’t live together. We lived far from each other. Sometimes, while we were moving from one hiding place to another, we came upon each other and ran away in fear. We were afraid of each other because [each of us thought] the other was the Burmese [troops]. When we meet each other we can’t ask each other where we live because we are afraid and have to hide ourselves. Even though we occasionally met other villagers while we were looking for food, we don’t know each other’s hiding places.

Q: How many families were living with you in your hiding place?

A: There were 8 families, all from my village. We all came here together as we are all related.

Q: When you hid in the jungle, did you hide near Kyu Leh village?

A: Yes, we hid in the jungle near Kyu Leh. Sometimes we had to change our place 3 or 4 times in one month. If the Burmese weren’t coming, we could stay in one place for one or two months. Sometimes, when the Burmese were coming, we had to change our place 3 or 4 times in one day. It depended on the situation.

Q: Could you build your house?

A: If there are four people in the family, we made a floor [big enough] for four people to sleep on and made a roof with tarpaulin. People who had no tarpaulin, they made their roof with leaves. The situation wasn’t good so we couldn’t have large hillside fields and instead had to make small fields and hide our paddy after the harvest. There was less rain and water, but hillside fields don’t need as much water as flat paddy fields.

Q: How did you get food when you were in the jungle?

A: In 1996 they gave us the letter [telling them to relocate] and after 3 or 4 months of forcing the villagers to relocate, they burned the village. [At first] we secretly went back to our farms and gardens to get food. There is no village anymore; all villages were burned along with all the rice and paddy in the villages. I was hiding in the jungle for 3 years. We had to find food in the forest most of the time. Even those who lived with them in the relocation site had to find food like us. They [villagers from Shadaw] came looking for vegetables and then went back to either sell them so they could buy rice or exchange them for rice. They were also looking for Wa U [elephant foot yam] to eat as we were. We ate that when we had no rice, but sometimes we had a bit of rice so we could cook it with rice also.

His wife: When we didn’t have rice to eat we dug up elephant foot yams and brought them to our place. We slice them and then cover them with cloth and but them in water over night. We change the water each day for at least 3 days. We then squeeze out the liquid and put them in the sun to dry. Then we could cook and eat them.

Q: Couldn’t you work on your fields?

A: We couldn’t work fields because they would come and shoot us dead when they saw us working on fields. The 4 dead people I told you about before were killed when they saw them working in the fields. You see!

His wife: If they don’t see you while you are working on the farm they uproot all the paddy or burn it all. Sometimes they collect paddy that has been harvested and burn it all.

Q: How many months did you have to go with no rice to eat?

A: We can’t say how many months. Sometimes we didn’t have anything to eat for a few days and sometimes we had no rice for 5 days. When we had rice we boiled it and drank it [rice soup is made to add more volume to the small amount of rice that is available]. When we had no rice, we ate plants and tubers.

Q: How could you get rice?

A: We secretly went to buy rice from Shadaw. When the situation was still good we worked so we had some money and belongings. We bought rice with the money and then finally had to sell our belongings to buy rice. We weren’t allowed to be there so if they saw us they captured us. People couldn’t travel without passes. If we lived with them in Shadaw they would treat us very badly, so we didn’t want to go and live there.

His wife: We sold all the belongings we had in order to buy rice.

Q: Do they feed the people who are living in Shadaw?

A: No, they don’t feed them. People there have to find their food on their own. They are able to go out and move about with a pass, but we had no rights to travel as they did. They force people to work for them too much. If they [the villagers] can work for themselves for one day they have to work for the government for 2 days.

Q: Do you know anyone from Shadaw who has come here?

A: I know one person, a man named S---, who came from Nwa La Bo relocation site.

Q: Did they capture people in the jungle and force them to porter?

A: I was able to avoid them but they captured other people. Anytime I saw them I ran away. If they saw me it would have been better that they shot me dead rather than capture me because they treat you very badly if they capture you. B--- and his elder brother, Mee Reh, were captured in our hiding place by the Burmese. They captured them while they were harvesting paddy. They forced them to porter for one month but they couldn’t carry [much] so they beat and hit them a lot. Mee Reh couldn’t [walk] anymore because he was tired so they tied rope around his neck and pulled him. He had no strength to walk and they just wanted to torture him. After pulling him by the neck for a while, they thought he was dead and left him. He wasn’t dead and later returned to us. His brother, B---, also escaped during the night and came back to our place but Mee Reh died two months later. He couldn’t do anything. He was sick all the time, coughing up blood, and then he finally died. The elder brother is dead and the younger one is still in the jungle suffering from what happened. When B--- first came back he was also coughing blood and he couldn’t work but he can work a bit now.

Q: Was there any medicine in the jungle?

A: No medicine. He came back and was coughing blood and couldn’t do anything. He was suffering from the Burmese beating and kicking him. He was 50 years old and died when the harvest was finished in ’98 or ’97. That’s the same year that the other four died.

Q: Where did they have to porter to?

A: They were travelling around. They [the Burmese soldiers] were just looking for people in the jungle and the porters had to carry their things. Each day we had to find [another] hiding place. We moved from place to place, one or two places every day. If they see anything in the old villages they shoot and kill it all. If they see people or buffaloes they shoot them dead. That’s what they said [they would do]. They are trying to find us in the forest. After we had hid in many hiding places we knew that they would see us some day so we went to Shan State. We couldn’t live for a long time in Shan State so we came back to Kayah state again.

Q: When you were in the jungle were there any ill children?

A: Yes, there were. Some children were thin but others were bigger because they were suffering from oedema [which swells up their bodies]. We could only watch them. If they lived, they were lucky and if they died, they weren’t lucky. In our hiding place there were 8 families and 5 children died. Some of the old people were also ill but they didn’t die.

Q: Could the children in the jungle study?

A: There was no teacher. We were on the run all the time so we couldn’t ask teachers to join us.

Q: Do you know the names of the mother and daughter who were taken by the Burmese soldiers to sleep with them?

A: The mother’s name is L--- and her daughter’s name is B---. We’re not sure if they slept with them or not because we didn’t go to see them. Their village is xxxx. They were living in the jungle and were going to their farm when the Burmese soldiers met them and took them to go and stay with them for a few nights. We don’t know if they raped them or not. We don’t know what they did with them, because they didn’t say anything when they came back.

Q: Did you ever go to Shan State?

A: While we were living for 3 years in the jungle, a battle occurred between Karenni soldiers and Burmese soldiers at Lweh Pee, which is a mountain. There’s no village there, it’s above Daw Tanaw. In 1998, at the beginning of the harvest [Oct./Nov.], I went to live in Shan State, on the other side of the river that defines the border, for a month in order to find refuge. We were staying in a place between xxxx and xxxx. We went there before harvesting our paddy and returned later to harvest it. Our farm still had paddy when we returned, but the farms near the path had all been destroyed. After the battle, the Burmese were looking for people in the jungle. We didn’t let the Shan people know we were there because we were afraid they would tell the Burmese and the Burmese would come to find us.

Q: When you went to Shan State, how many families went with you?

A: The 8 families we were with together in the jungle. We didn’t know about other families living in different areas of the jungle. We didn’t know where they hid when the Burmese came or if they had gone to the Shan side or not. When the Burmese come, they even kill villagers. If they can capture them, they torture them before killing them. Some of the people they capture and torture aren’t killed, instead they force them to go with them and carry things for them.

Q: How many days did it take you to come here from your hiding place?

A: 8 days. We came out in the evening. We had troubles climbing up and down the mountains because some of the people were ill, but we didn’t see any Burmese on the way. Each of us carried 30 milktins [about 8 kg / 18 lb] of rice for the journey. We walked through the jungle [not along the path] on our way here from our jungle hiding place. We came through the jungle so we wouldn’t see any landmines. If we had come by the path, there would have been landmines.

Q: Have you ever come here before?

A: No, but in the past, when the situation was good we came in this direction to sell things, so we guessed the direction [to come here] and came through the jungle. We didn’t dare walk too close or too far from the path.

Interview #2

NAME: "Maw Reh" SEX: M AGE: ~80 INTERVIEWED: 3/99.
FAMILY: Married and had 12 children but now only has 7. Others lost to illness.
ADDRESS: Thirida (#19&20), Daw Tanaw (#8), Kayah State
DESCRIPTION: Lived in the jungle around Shadaw before fleeing to Thailand.

Q: Why and how did your children die?

A: All of them died of illness. They died while we were living in Daw Tanaw, Kayah State. The situation was good at that time and the Burmese hadn’t forced us to leave our village. We could still stay in our village and that’s where they died. My children went to work on the farm and when they got back they got ill and died. They were all adults at the time. At that time there were no Burmese soldiers in our area. The situation got worse after I wasn’t able to have babies anymore and the Burmese came and made problems for us. We Kayah people don’t know about or have any medicine. If anyone is ill and has no medicine to take or inject they can die.

Q: Where is your village exactly? Thirida or Daw Tanaw?

A: We lived in Thirida and if we got bored we went to live in Daw Tanaw. If we were bored in Daw Tanaw we went to live in Thirida. We just work on farms here and there.

Q: Who forced you to leave your village?

A: The Burmese forced us. They forced us to go and live in Shan State but we didn’t go. We went to hide in the jungle but there was no safe place for us there. When they came and saw people who were hiding in the jungle they killed them. Anywhere they saw people they killed them.

Q: How many people did they shoot and kill?

A: They shot 5 people in the area below ours. They shot and killed people on the only path from Shadaw to Kyu Leh. Some of them were Shan people and some of them were Kayah. Among them was one of my nephews, his name was Ker Reh. He has a wife and 2 children who lived in xxxx, Kayah State. His wife lived in the jungle with him. When he went to work on fields in xxxx village the Burmese killed him. He didn’t have his own field and instead hired himself out to work on the fields of a Shan person. When they were working together, Shan and Kayah, the Burmese came and killed them, the Shan people also. The Shan owner of the field, N---, was killed also.

"Klaw Reh": The field owner escaped but the other Shan people, Ah Tun and Moo, as well as the Kayah people, Ker Reh and Moo Reh, were killed. The field is in xxxx [the Kayah name], which is called xxxx in Burmese.

Q: Did you have rice everyday?

A: Some days we had enough rice to eat while other days we didn’t. We dug up elephant foot yam from the jungle and washed them in order to get rid of toxins. It is not safe to eat them without washing them. It would make you sick if you didn’t wash the toxins out. In some places there was too little water to clean them well so we got sick. When there was plenty of water no one got sick. When I got sick from eating it, I had no strength. I wanted to collapse everywhere I went. I wanted to vomit and go to the toilet. If I had some sour fruit to eat it would make me better. Most of the places we lived there was very little water. If there’s little water and it’s not flowing we would get sick even though we left them in the water for 3 days and 3 nights. When there was little water we had to put them back in the water for another 3 days. After 6 days we could take them out of the water and squeeze out the liquid. Then it was safe for us to cook and eat them.

Q: Who taught you to eat them?

A: When we were hungry we ate anything we could eat. We saw other people eat them so we ate them. When there was plenty of water and we carefully washed them and soaked them in water for 2 nights, it still could make us ill. We had to put them in water for 4 nights to make them safe for eating. We ate them just to make the hunger go away. People who were so hungry that they couldn’t wait until the yam was purified got sick often.

Q: Was the place you were hiding in the mountains or in the plains?

A: There were no plains. It was only mountains and valleys. If the Burmese saw our footprints, they followed us so we had to hide in the bushes. They always followed our footprints to kill us. We never built houses and only prepared our beds to sleep. We could only stay a few nights in each place because when the Burmese came near we had to run to another place. We had to move from place to place so often that we can’t count how many shelters we built each year. If the Burmese saw our place we had to quickly move to another place.

Q: How did you get food if you had to live like that?

A: We made small farms but the Burmese were always looking for our footprints.

Q: What did the Burmese do when they saw people?

A: When they saw people, they beat some and killed some. They also took our rice to eat or destroy when they saw our farms. We didn’t allow the children to cry, if they did we scolded them. The children didn’t dare cry because they were afraid too. We lived like that until we couldn’t tolerate the hunger any longer and then we came here.

Q: How did you come here? Did you know anyone here?

A: I have some children and relatives here. They brought me here. My children are in xxxx.

Q: How many days did it take to come here from the jungle?

A: I think we had to sleep for 8 or 10 nights on the way but I can’t remember exactly because I’m too old.

Q: Did you carry rice on your way here?

A: If we didn’t carry any, would we have eaten? We carried a small amount of rice with us.

Q: On your way here from the jungle did you see landmines, Burmese soldiers or any other problems?

A: We didn’t come on a path so we didn’t see anything. We climbed up the mountain, pulling ourselves up using the plants. I don’t think they [the Burmese Army] knew I came, if they knew there would no chance for me to be here.

Q: Did you have a school in your place?

A: We never had a school.

Q: The people who are hiding in other places in the jungle, which villages are they near?

A: They live near xxxx [Kayah language], which is called xxxx in Shan.

Q: What is your religion?

A: We revere Dagun Dain, which is called May Lu in Kayah. Baw Mee is a festival we have once a year. We go to get tall leaves and put sticky rice in them and then cook them. We share it with other people to eat. Before we erect the ceremonial pole and celebrate the festival of Dagun Daing we kill a chicken and look at its bones. If we find that it’s good to have the festival, then we have the festival. We dance and feed the people who come.

Q: Do you want to say anything else?

A: I can’t say anything. I am too old, my eyes can’t see clearly and my ears don’t hear clearly so even if you ask me, I cannot answer. I would like to tell you what you want to know but I can’t.

Interview #3

NAME: Ah Lay Sho SEX: M AGE: 47 INTERVIEWED: 3/99.
FAMILY: Married. 10 children but of them 2 died, 8 surviving children aged 2-23.
ADDRESS: xxxx, Than Daung township, Toungoo District, Karen State.
DESCRIPTION: A Karen national who lived and got married in Shadaw.

Q: What language do Gkay Bah people speak?

A: We speak Gkay Bah language. A few words are similar to Karen language but most of the words are very different. Only some Gkay Bah people understand the Karen language. I don’t speak Karen. In our area, most of the people are Gkay Bah but there are also Ku Htee, Blow Htee and other people also. There are many villages is the area but I left there over 20 years ago so I don’t know much about it [now].

Q: Where did you go?

A: I went to Kayah State to work. I arrived in Loikaw on January 7, 1972. I went to work in the Pon river area for 5 months and then arrived in Shadaw during the 1972 rainy season, June or July. I was single when I went there and remained single until 1975 when I married a Kayah woman. We had 10 children together but 2 of them died so I only have 8 now. The first of the two that died, died 4 or 5 months after being born. The other one died at 4 years old. They both had fevers for two days and then died. That was in June of 1998. We took them to the Shadaw hospital, where they got 10 injections but they still died. I don’t know why they died or what illness they had.

Q: Were you happy in Shadaw?

A: We came here because we weren’t happy in Shadaw.

Q: Is Shadaw a town?

A: It’s a town but you can only see a car there once a year. There is a car road but it’s very rough. There are many shops.

Q: Is there an army camp in Shadaw?

A: There’s an army camp and a police station.

Q: Why don’t you like Shadaw?

A: We always have to do Loh Ah Pay and portering and can only do our own work 2 or 3 days a week. We have had to do Loh Ah Pay every year but it’s been getting worse in ’98 and ’99. There are many kinds of work. Sometimes the army camp writes a letter and forces us to send it for them any time they want, day or night. We have to send the letters cautiously and are very afraid when we do. Sometimes we had to go for portering, and if we couldn’t go they collected porter fees from us. Sometimes we have to carry their rations from the Pon river to Shadaw, and other times we have to carry them from Shadaw to the Dta Tha Maw army camp which is to the east of the Salween River. We had to carry things like rice, beans, salt and shells when they needed them. One person had to carry 1.5 big tins of rice; two people must carry one sack or 3 big tins. If we go by ourselves, we can go and come back on the same day, but when we went with them, we couldn’t return before they allowed us to. We had to stay many days.

Q: For how many days do porters have to go with them when it’s their turn?

A: It depends on how long they are travelling. Sometimes it takes 1½ months, other times it takes a week. You can’t really say for how long. Some people had to porter for years and years and some people died on the way. They’ve been calling people to porter in this way for a long time; since before the student uprising in Burma. They always do this but in the past it was better than it is now. Now the situation is much worse. It got worse after the [1988] uprising. They don’t only have one army troop, they have many. Their troops come one after another.

Q: What is the battalion and division number of the troops in Shadaw camp?

A: I don’t know the division number, but the troops who were in Shadaw camp just before I left were LIB 531. They came and stayed on this border and then went back to move in the area of Shadaw for 2 weeks and then they settled in Shadaw. There is one battalion in the camp and 2 battalions moving around. I can’t remember [the number of the other 2 battalions] because they came and went all the time.

Q: What kind of labour do you have to do there?

A: Clearing the grass and bushes beside the road, digging mud, pounding rock, carrying rock and cutting trees and bamboo to build the fence around their army camp. Each family must cut 20 or 30 poles. They force us to cut trees and bamboo once every 2 or 3 months. If we don’t go for Loh Ah Pay, they fine us at least 100 Kyats per day.

Q: Did you ever have to go portering?

A: I had to go often. I had to carry medicine boxes and other things from the Pon river to Shadaw. The Pon river is only 12 miles from Shadaw, so you can go and come back in the same day. However, if you go with the soldiers you have to sleep on the way. I can’t say how many days [it takes for each trip], because you must sleep wherever they want to sleep. Sometimes I had to carry rations such as rice, milk, sugar and salt all in one pack. Each pack is enough for one soldier for one month. I only had to carry one pack, but if there are only a few porters one porter must carry 2 or 3 packs. About 4 years ago, in December, they came and called me from my house and forced me to go with them. I had to go with Battalion 102 from Dee Maw So, Pruso area for 8 days and 9 nights. They came and settled in Shadaw for a while and called me to go to Daw So Kyar and Daw He So. I went to every village on that side. That was before the forced relocation to Shadaw.

Q: Did you ever have to go portering in 1998?

A: I never went portering in 1998. As I told you before, I had to do Loh Ah Pay at least once a week. Every Saturday we had to clear [bushes and plants] around the village.

Q: Do they give you food while you are doing Loh Ah Pay?

A: They never give you food. We have to pack our own rice and take it with us. Working in town is not so bad, they don’t scold or beat people. People who go for portering are scolded and beaten.

Q: Is there a school in Shadaw?

A: There is a school. In ’98 and ’99 they increased the number of standards available to 10. My children go to school but if the situation isn’t good, the students have to run here and there. All of my children went to school when they were small but some of them are married now.

Q: Is there a hospital in Shadaw?

A: There is a hospital but the doctors only come from Rangoon once every 2 or 3 months. The doctor’s duty is to be in Shadaw but when they come they live in Loikaw. They come and show their faces [in Shadaw] once every 2 or 3 months and then return [to Rangoon] after they finish their 2 year responsibility. Then another doctor comes. There are nurses in the hospital. If an emergency patient comes, they are ordered to go to the hospital in Loikaw. The patient must hire people to carry them to Loikaw because there is no bus, car or motorbike in Shadaw. If you can’t give people money to carry you they won’t carry you.

Q: Is there any food in Shadaw?

A: There is food but we don’t even have enough money to buy one big tin of rice. It is difficult to earn money and when people from many other villages are forced to relocate there it even becomes more difficult. The Burmese sell us rice at 1,200 Kyats for one big tin. If [we get] rice from the Shan or here [Thailand], one big tin costs 1,300 or 1,400 Kyats.

Q: Were there many people from other villages forced to relocate [to Shadaw]?

A: When they first came there were about 700 or 800 houses, but later they all disappeared. Some of them came here [Thailand] and some went to Loikaw. People who had buffaloes, cattle and money went to Loikaw while people who had nothing came here.

Q: When living in Shadaw, do you need to get a pass to go to other villages?

A: You have to get a pass. However, there is no village to go to because all villages were destroyed. Before, we didn’t have to pay money for the passes but now people have to pay 10 or 15 Kyats for a pass. I never went to the forest so I don’t know the exact price. When I went to Loikaw, I had to pay 5 Kyats for a pass but just before I came here I had to pay 10 Kyats. There is a market area 3 miles away from Shadaw which you can go to. If you go farther than 3 miles from Shadaw, the Burmese soldiers may shoot and kill you or capture you to porter for them even if you have a pass.

Q: Did any Shan people go to live in Shadaw?

A: There are some Shan people also but there aren’t as many Shan as there are Kayah.

Q: What date did you arrive here?

A: January 30, 1999. I came here with friends who had been here before for business reasons. I didn’t know about this refugee camp because I had never been here before. I can’t remember the names of all those who arrived here when we did. If I could tell you them all you would need 2 or 3 sheets of paper to write them all down. I am the only Gkay Bah to come here, one Shan family with 2 people also came and all the rest are Kayah.

Q: When you came here how many families came with you?

A: One other family came out with us. His name is U T---, his wife’s name is P--- and they have 5 children. They went to live in xxxx which is just at the foot of this hill. I hid in xxxx, east of Shadaw, for 9 days. There are no villages around there because they have all been destroyed. We avoided the old villages and went through the forest. We came out because we couldn’t tolerate it anymore. We were forced to work until we couldn’t work on our own farms anymore, both this year and last year. In ’97-’98 it was better than in ’98-’99, when we could not even harvest one basket of paddy. We didn’t have food and we didn’t have time to go out and find food because of the work we were forced to do. Our lives were getting very hard. Finally, we decided to go out and hide in the forest regardless of what would happen to us. When we got to the forest we met many people who were talking about coming here so we came with them.

Q: How did you get food?

A: We took one big tin of rice with us when we left. While we were coming [to the border with Thailand] we also borrowed rice from people on the way. There were about 20 families already near the Salween River, but they were very far from any villages. They were also from Shadaw relocation site. When we arrived there were about 172 or 173 people there including us and them. They came from many different villages; 3, 4 or 5 different villages. Some were from Daw So Sah, Daw Wi Ku, Daw Soe Hset, Daw Tama and Daw Bo Loh. They had been forced to go to Shadaw also but went to hide in the jungle because life in Shadaw was so hard for them.

Q: If the Burmese soldiers new that you were leaving Shadaw to come here, would they have allowed you to come?

A: If they knew, there would have been no chance for us to come here.

Q: Were there any landmines on your way to the border?

A: We don’t know about landmines on the border here or there because we didn’t dare come here by the path. We came secretly through the jungle.

Q: Is the way open for people there to come here?

A: We don’t know if the way is open or not. Just before we left, we heard them saying they’re going to build a road. I’m not sure which road they are going to build. It could be from Dta Tha Maw to this border or a Shadaw-Pon river road, I don’t know exactly. They have engineers and bulldozers but surely they are going to call villagers to help them. They can’t do anything without villagers.

Q: Can you tell me why you needed to come here?

A: As I said to you before; we had to come here because we couldn’t tolerate the effects of the SPDC anymore.

Interview #4

NAME: "Doh Reh" SEX: M AGE: 53 INTERVIEWED: 3/99.
FAMILY: Married. 6 children aged 5-20.
ADDRESS: Thirida (villages 19 & 20).
DESCRIPTION: Forced to relocate and went to Shadaw relocation site.

Q: Have you lived in Thirida since you were a child?

A: Yes, I lived there when I was a child. However, I spent some time growing up in Loikaw and went to school there until grade 6. When I was young, my father let me stay at his Karen friend’s house in Loikaw so I could study in school. My father is old now, over 70, and staying with my sister in Shadaw. My sister is 30 years old. My mother is dead. After that I drove a truck delivering goods for a Karen person in Loikaw. I’ve been up to Kyine Don in Shan State and down to Pa Thein, Rangoon and Yay Dwin Yay Gang. I got married in Thirida and was living there in 1998. There were about 100 houses in Thirida but now there are no villagers there. When the Burmese implemented their Four Cuts policy in 1996 they forced us all to leave, so we no longer have homes. [Four Cuts is the SPDC policy of undermining the resistance by controlling and impoverishing the civilian population.]

Q: Where did they force the villagers from Thirida to go?

A: They [the Burmese soldiers] gave an order to the village headman and he told us. Villagers went to where their relatives were. Most people went to live in Nwa La Bo which is near [north of] Loikaw. Some people also went to stay in Daw Dta Hay. Only 2 or 3 people, including myself, went to live in Shadaw. In the beginning there were 600 or 700 houses in Shadaw but later they disappeared. They left because they couldn’t or didn’t like to live there any longer.

Q: Did some people go to hide in the jungle?

A: At first, some people went to stay in the jungle but they later went to live in Shan State. They lived in different places where they had relatives. I know of about 10 families from our village who went there and they stayed in xxxx, xxxx and xxxx villages. Some villagers who went to live in Shadaw still had rice in their old villages but people who were living in the jungle and didn’t go to Shadaw took that rice because they had nothing to eat. Also, the Burmese burned any rice they found in the old villages. The Burmese killed the villagers’ buffaloes and cattle that had been left behind in the old villages. Before we went to Shadaw we hid some rice in the jungle and later returned to get it to eat, but we finished all that. It was hard to keep on living.

Q: How long did you live in Shadaw?

A: I lived there for more than 2 years. While I was there, I worked for the SPDC in a low position pertaining to health and sanitation. Most of the time I was working on a small farm that didn’t belong to me. I had to rent it from other people. When we first moved there, the government spoke to us nicely. They gave us land to build a house on and I was able to build a house as big as this one [approximately 15 square meters]. At first, they also gave us some rice, one bowl of rice for each person for one month. There were 9 people in my family but they gave us 1.5 big tins [per month; about 24 kg / 53 lb] of rice. They gave us rice for 3 months, as they did everyone, and then they never gave us any again. Those who went to Shadaw because they had no rice have to dig up a tuber called elephant foot yam [Wa U]. They have to be thinly sliced, dried in the sun and then soaked in water for three days before they can be cooked with rice. If they aren’t put in water they can make you sick. We mix one tin of rice and one tin of elephant foot yam and cook them together. It doesn’t taste too bad but it doesn’t give us any strength either. We use them so we can have more food to eat. People in Shadaw town also eat them because they don’t have enough rice.

Q: Did you and your family have to do Loh Ah Pay?

A: To live there we had to do Loh Ah Pay. We had to do Loh Ah Pay 4 or 5 times a week. Their mouths said, "We give you land to do your own plantations so do it." That’s what the SPDC government said, but the SPDC Army forced us to work for them. Some people have to pound stones, cut bamboo and fence the army camp, carry big logs from the forest to the sawmills in order to build floors, and clean in and around the hospital, school, offices and monastery for when the officials came. They forced us to clean because the officials were coming but they didn’t come. Then it happened again, and still the officials didn’t come. One month passed and they still didn’t come. So we thought, "Ah! They’re just forcing us to clean to prevent us from finding time to work for ourselves. They force us to do it just to disturb us because they don’t want us to have enough time to work and produce food for ourselves." We talked about this and thought that the Burmese were just giving us busy work to waste our time.

In the first two years [’96 and ’97] I could still work and produce food but in ’98 the army came and called me time after time to be a guide or interpreter for them. Working for them all the time I had no time to work to feed my family. They provided food for me but they didn’t feed my family, so they had nothing to eat. Before I went into hiding I told them that my family had no food to eat, but they told me, "They have food to eat." I went and hid outside the village in the forest because my family had no food. While I was in the forest I saw people going to their farms and my friend came to visit me sometimes. I had to take rice with me. They came looking for me at my house a few times but I wasn’t home, so the commander, Soe Htun, gave my wife a bullet. That was on October 15^th 1998, but I’m not totally sure of the date. My wife and children wept and didn’t want to stay there any longer. Soe Htun is from Division 55, Battalion 108 and they stay in Kya Saud. When I went with them [to be a guide or interpreter] I wasn’t feeling so well. I got an abscess on my back but they didn’t care.

Q: What about working on roads?

A: Loh Ah Pay is cleaning and also includes working on roads. Each month we had to work half the month, 15 days, for them. Sometimes when someone in our family was ill, it seemed as though everyone in the house was very busy. When one of us was ill, sometimes the hospital in Shadaw didn’t have enough medicine so we had to buy medicine in other places like Shadaw town or Loikaw. The doctor had to give us a piece of paper with the name of the medicine we needed to take or inject. If we didn’t have the paper we couldn’t get the medicine. To get to Loikaw we have to walk for 4 hours to the bus stop at Bpon Chaung beside the Pon River. From there we can take the bus to Loikaw. In the first year there was a full time doctor in Shadaw, but later we didn’t know where they went to live and now there’s only a medic left there. The hospital in Shadaw is a township hospital but they don’t have all the medicines.

Q: Did your wife ever have to do Loh Ah Pay?

A: She couldn’t go because she is getting old and has a lot of pain in her knees. From my family, my children and I went sometimes. Two of my sons went, one is 20 years old and the other is 18 years old. My sister, whose husband is a teacher, had to go because her husband was teaching. He is from Shadaw and has a field there. He is Kayah but is only allowed to teach Burmese. His salary is 1,000 Kyats because he is a middle school teacher.

Q: Did you have to carry things for them?

A: Sometimes I did but sometimes I didn’t. After they gave my wife the bullet, my family didn’t want to stay there anymore and I didn’t know where to go. Finally, I went to Loikaw to find a place for us to live. My friends and relatives there told me to live near them in Loikaw. I thought that if I bought a house I wouldn’t have food to eat, and if I bought food I wouldn’t have a house, so I decided that I wouldn’t go. I thought to myself that if I went to Shan State I wouldn’t know anyone there and wouldn’t know how to live and get food there. I had no options for places to go, so we took some food and headed into the jungle with no idea of where we would end up. We left Shadaw at 6:00 a.m. and walked the whole day. We arrived at the Salween River at 6:00 p.m. My family and another 3 families left together, but when we arrived at the Salween River we found many people there. We looked for people to help us cross the river because it’s a difficult river to cross. We then saw some Karenni soldiers and they showed us the way to come here. I had never been here before but some of the people among us had come here before to sell and buy things so we came with them. We slept for 4 nights on the way. We started out from Shadaw on November 28 [1998] and arrived here on December 2 [1998]. When I arrived, 130 people arrived in total.

Q: Were there any problems on the way?

A: There was a problem. My wife had pain in her legs and knees. We prayed to God to lead us on our way and when we arrived here safely we knew that it was under God’s blessing. When we were on our way, there was a woman who gave birth to her baby on the eastern side of the Salween River so she couldn’t come here. I saw her parents only, I didn’t see her husband with her. I don’t know if they had come directly from Shadaw or if they had been living in the jungle, because I had just met them, but she is still there. I gave her an injection of vitamin K which I was carrying because she was bleeding too much. She will get better for sure. We couldn’t wait for her, but I think her relatives who came and met her from Shadaw would be bringing her food from there still.

Q: Do the Burmese soldiers allow you to come to Thailand?

A: The Burmese soldiers wouldn’t have allowed us to come if they knew. We had to come out secretly during the night.

Q: When you were going around with Burmese IB 108, what villages did you go to?

A: When I was with them, we left from Shadaw and went north to Daw Mumar, Daw Klaw Leh, Thirida, Nam Aw, Daw Ka Teh, Tin Loi, Daw Law Bu, Nam Kyait Lay, Sa Laung, Tin Loi and Pah Ler villages. I spoke to them in Kayah, but Sa Laung [Thaw Raw in Kayah], Nam Kyaing Lay [Nah Gkay in Kayah] and Tin Loi [Pray Kyu Leh in Kayah] villages are Shan. We went into old villages that had no houses. Battalion 54 and others burned all the houses in ’96 and ’97.

Q: Why were they going around like that?

A: They were looking for Karenni people. Sometimes they saw them. They forced them to go to relocation sites to cut off all contact with the Karenni soldiers. However, some didn’t go to the relocation sites so they are looking for them. During ’97, if they saw people they captured them, beat them and put them in jail. Some they killed. I didn’t see that with my own eyes but people who did see it told me about it.

Q: While you were going around with them did you see any of the people they were looking for?

A: When I was with them in 1998 I didn’t see any villagers, but a battle occurred. They kept me in the middle of them during that.

Q: When you were with them, did they have any porters with them?

A: Yes, there were porters with them. They got Kayah people from Shadaw to porter for them. There were no women or old people, they were young people that they had forced the village head to give them. However, if there are no men in the family a woman must go. I saw them hit a porter who was about 40 or 50 years ol