BEYOND ALL ENDURANCE

The Breakup of Karen Villages in Southeastern Pa'an District

Pa’an district forms a large area in the central heartland of Karen State (click here to view regional map or district map). Much of the eastern part of the district used to be under at least partial control of the Karen National Union (KNU), but after troops of the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military junta captured the KNU headquarters at Manerplaw in 1995, they progressively exerted increasing control over the entire eastern part of the district. Pa’an district is covered by a large central plain in the west, bounded by the Salween River and the town of Pa’an (capital of Karen State) in the west and north and by the Myawaddy-Kawkareik-Kyone Doh road in the south. In the east of the district lies the Dawna Range, a line of mountains running north-south parallel to the Thai border, which form a steep natural boundary. Currently the activities of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) are concentrated in these mountains. No longer trying to hold territory, they operate as a guerrilla force and regularly penetrate into the plain to the west. In its determination to gain complete control over all of Pa’an district, the army of the current State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) military junta is now trying to undermine the KNLA throughout eastern Pa’an district and the Dawna Range by intimidating the Karen villagers who live in the region, increasing their burden of forced labour and extorting money and food from them until they can no longer survive. The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), a Karen group allied with the SPDC, is helping them in these operations. At the same time, the KNLA, SPDC and DKBA forces have all been unceasingly planting landmines throughout the region, and the SPDC and DKBA troops have been using villagers as human minesweepers, resulting in the deaths and maiming of many. As a final straw, in August 1999 the SPDC made it known that it planned to force everyone in the hill villages of southeastern Pa’an District into Army controlled sites, and it has begun actively pursuing this operation. Villages have been emptying out as people flee into the fields and forests to escape the combination of intense abuses, landmines and the certainty of forced relocation. Unable to survive in hiding in the hills, many have begun trying to reach the Thai border, only to find the Thai Army determined to prevent them from entering Thailand.

KHRG first documented this new exodus and its causes in Information Updates #99-U3 (27/8/99) and 99-U4 (29/9/99). This report follows up and expands on those updates, analysing the human rights situation for these villagers in eastern Pa’an district and how they are affected by the current activities of the SPDC, DKBA and KNLA. It looks in detail at specific issues of concern to the villagers, such as forced relocations, forced labour and the landmines which are now being laid all over the region by all parties to the conflict. For additional background, see "Uncertainty, Fear and Flight: The Current Human Rights Situation in Eastern Pa’an District" (KHRG #98-08, 18/11/98), "Abuses and Relocations in Pa’an District" (KHRG #97-08, 1/8/97), "Interviews from Northern Pa’an District" (KHRG #96-33, 4/8/96), and "The Situation in Pa’an District" (KHRG #96-17, 15/5/96).  To view a map of the region, see KHRG's map of Karen Districts, or the more detailed Pa'an Map.

In order to produce this report, Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) researchers and field reporters have conducted detailed interviews with villagers who have fled to Thailand to become refugees, villagers stranded in camps of internally displaced people in Burma because Thai authorities will not allow them to cross the border, and people in hiding around their home villages. The interviews used directly in the report were conducted between April and November 1999, with additional background provided by KHRG interviews conducted in the months preceding that period. Most of the interviews are with people in and from T’Nay Hsah, Myawaddy and Kawkareik townships of southeastern Pa’an District, though there are some interviews with people living slightly further north in Dta Greh, Hlaing Bwe and Lu Pleh townships, and one interview with a woman from far to the east in Mon State whose husband died as a porter in eastern Pa’an District. Their testimonies have been augmented by incident reports gathered by KHRG researchers in the region. Photographs which relate to the situation described in this report can be seen in KHRG Photo Set 99-B (18/8/99). Order documents sent to villages by SPDC and DKBA units in the area can be seen in "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-B" (KHRG #99-03, 19/4/99) and "SPDC and DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 99-C" (KHRG #99-06, 4/8/99).

This report consists of several parts: this preface, an introduction/summary, a detailed description of the situation including quotes from interviews and order documents, an index of the interviews used, and finally the full text of some selected interviews used in the report. Click here to see the full text of interviews in the Interview Annex to this report.

Notes on the Text

All numeric dates in this report are in dd/mm/yy format. In the interviews we have translated as ‘paddy’ the term for rice which has been threshed and winnowed but still has a husk, and ‘rice’ to mean husked rice ready for cooking. It takes about 2 baskets of paddy to make 1 basket of rice; villagers usually store it as paddy and only pound or mill small quantities into rice at a time. Villagers often refer to ‘loh ah pay’; literally this is the traditional Burmese form of voluntary labour for the community, but the SPDC uses this name in most cases of forced labour, and to the villagers it has come to mean most forms of forced labour with the exception of long-term portering. ‘Set tha’ is forced labour as messengers and "errand-boys" for the soldiers. Villagers often refer to the KNU/KNLA as Kaw Thoo Lei, the DKBA as Ko Per Baw (‘Yellow Headbands’), and SPDC troops and officials as ‘the Burmese’. SPDC officers often accuse villagers of being ‘Nga Pway’ (‘ringworm’); this is derogatory SPDC slang for KNLA soldiers. Villagers’ exclamations such as ‘Pwah!’ and ‘Der!’ are transliterated in the text as they are pronounced.

Terms and Abbreviations

SPDC                    State Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
PDC                     Peace & Development Council, SPDC local-level administration
                           (e.g. Village PDC [VPDC], Village Tract PDC, Township PDC [TPDC])
SLORC                  State Law & Order Restoration Council, former name of the SPDC until Nov. 1997
KNU                     Karen National Union, main Karen opposition group
KNLA                   Karen National Liberation Army, army of the KNU
Kaw Thoo Lei     The Karen homeland, also used as slang for KNU/KNLA
DKBA                   Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, Karen group allied with SLORC/SPDC
IB                         Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LIB                       Light Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
Viss                     Unit of weight measure; one viss is 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds
Bowl/Pyi              Volume of rice equal to 8 small condensed milk tins; about 2 kilograms / 4.4 pounds
Kyat                     Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat at official rate, 300+ Kyat at current market rate
loh ah pay           Forced labour; literally it means traditional voluntary labour, but not under SPDC
nga pway            ‘Ringworm’; derogatory SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA people
T’Bee Met          ‘Closed-eyes’; DKBA slang for KNU/KNLA people
set tha                Forced labour as messengers and errand-boys

Table of Contents

[Click on any topic to go there, or view the report sequentially]

Preface .................................................................................... 1

Terms and Abbreviations .............................................................. 3

Table of Contents ....................................................................... 5

Map 1:  Karen Districts .................................................................. 6

Map 2:  Pa'an District .................................................................... 7

Introduction ............................................................................. 8

Forced Labour .......................................................................... 11

Portering ................................................................................. 17

Landmines ...............................................................................  22

Arrests, Torture and Threats .......................................................   27

Rape and Sexual Abuse ................................................................ 31

Killings .................................................................................... 33

Looting, Extortion, and Demands ................................................... 35

Challenges for Farmers ................................................................ 40

DKBA ...................................................................................... 44

Education and Health ................................................................... 48

Forced Relocation ...................................................................... 50

Flight and Internally Displaced Persons ............................................. 52

Future of the Area ...................................................................... 56

Interview Annex ........................................................................  61

"Being a villager is the very worst because we have to feed both sides. You can’t give to only one side, because if you give to just one, the other side hates you. If the Burmese force you, you have to go. If the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA] force you, you have to go. If DKBA forces you, you have to go. So it is the worst being a villager." - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #32, 8/99)

Located in central Karen State, Pa’an District is bounded in the west and north by the Salween River and the town of Pa’an (capital of Karen State), in the east by the Moei River which draws the border with Thailand, and in the south by the motor road from Myawaddy (on the Thai border, west of Mae Sot) westward to Kawkareik and Kyone Doh. The region referred to as the southeastern part of the District extends from the Moei River westward to the town of T’Nay Hsah (Nabu), and is bounded in the north by Dta Greh (Pain Kyone). While the western part of Pa’an District has been controlled by the SPDC for over 10 years, the KNLA has maintained a steady influence over the eastern strip near the Thai border including the Dawna Mountains and the narrow strip of land between them and the Moei River, which forms the border with Thailand. The KNLA also regularly penetrates partway into the plains west of the Dawna. Pa’an District is also known as the KNLA’s 7^th Brigade area. All of the villagers in this region are Karen rice farmers, predominantly Buddhist with Animist and Christian minorities.

Since the capture of the KNU headquarters at Manerplaw in northeastern Pa’an District in January 1995, the SPDC has intensified its presence in the area in order to undermine the KNLA’s loose but steady grip on the region. Under-manned and lacking both arms and ammunition, the KNLA has compensated by using ‘landmine warfare’ in order to prevent the advance of SPDC columns in the area. The SPDC has responded by continuing to increase its troop presence in the region despite heavy landmine casualties, and the Army is ever increasing its own use of landmines and rounding up of porters to walk in front of the columns to detonate any mines. The DKBA has also begun extensive use of its own landmines. As a result, eastern Pa’an District is probably now the most heavily landmined area in Burma. All armies involved in the conflict plant landmines, but innocent villagers are often the ones to detonate them, either accidentally as they come and go from their fields and villages, or intentionally when they are used as human minesweepers by the SPDC and DKBA. Though the KNLA warns villagers about the location of its landmines, the DKBA and the SPDC do not, and in some cases deliberately place them in areas where they know villagers will detonate them. Fear of stepping on landmines while portering, being used as human minesweepers, or simply farming their fields has caused many people to flee their villages.

Villagers interviewed by KHRG for this report cite many reasons for flight from their villages, beginning with forced labour imposed by both the SPDC and DKBA. Often patrolling together, these armies enter villages and occupy homes for indefinite periods of time; villagers rarely know when troops will come, and live in fear of a military presence in their village. Villagers no longer have money to pay bribes to avoid forced labour, so they must personally fulfil the village’s quota for forced labourers at worksites near their villages or at Army camps. Poorly rationed troops relentlessly loot from villagers, who can also no longer afford to replenish lost food and belongings. With the demands for forced labour always increasing, overtaxed villagers also cannot find time to work their own fields. The Army constantly loots their rice supply, demands burdensome rice quotas from farmers, and in at least one area is now burning the villagers’ paddy and placing landmines in their fields so farmers cannot continue harvesting their crops. All of these factors are making hunger the villagers’ chief preoccupation. Ultimately they know that if they fail to meet the Army’s impossible demands, they face severe punishment in the form of arrest, physical abuse, and potentially death.

"We left because we couldn’t tolerate the persecution anymore. We felt it from all sides. Even if we stayed in the village and used a flashlight at night, they would shoot us and not be punished for it [SPDC units regularly issue orders that villagers are only allowed to carry firebrands to light their way around the village at night, and that they will shoot at anyone carrying a flashlight]. This year before the rainy season they shot a villager named Pa B--- and his two friends who were looking after their elephants, but even then we dared not say anything. Whenever we had to go to porter for them and had no money to pay the fee, we worried that we would die. We dared not complain when they stole our chickens and pigs, or they would glare at us. When the owners weren’t in the houses, they took our belongings too. Then they demanded rice and told us they would give it back, but they didn’t. If they needed it they took it as they liked. If the owner wasn’t home when they came, they looted the paddy and carried it off to eat. If your paddy was gone you would starve. So we didn’t have enough, and we had to leave." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

The SPDC’s strategy in southeastern Pa’an District, as in other parts of Burma, is to squash the remaining presence of the opposition army by intimidating villagers into renouncing all connections to the KNLA, systematically impoverishing villages so they cannot provide material support for the opposition, and bringing villagers under direct Army control. Since 1996 the Army’s main tactic in this strategy has been to forcibly relocate remote villages in the Dawna Mountains region to SPDC and DKBA Army bases and forced labour sites. This accomplishes two goals simultaneously: villagers are more easily guarded which prevents KNLA contact, and the Army has a ready supply of villagers to draw upon for forced labour projects such as the building of military access roads. The Army increased its presence throughout the Dawna, and in 1998 it attacked and destroyed several villages on the eastern slopes of the Dawna without warning, causing all the villagers to flee (see "Uncertainty, Fear and Flight", KHRG #98-08, 18/11/98). This year the militarisation and resulting abuses have continued to increase, and to deliver the final blow to the villagers the SPDC has issued an order to clear out all remote villages in southeastern Pa’an District, primarily in the Meh Pleh Toh area, before the end of 1999. They have told villagers that anyone left after the deadline to move has passed will be shot. Villagers have been ordered to move to two main sites, one at a DKBA Army base in Ker Ghaw, and one at Tee Wah Blaw. Villagers fear relocating to the designated sites because they know that in most cases they will not be able to return to their fields because they are quite far away, the villagers are guarded at all times, and outside movement is severely restricted. The Army does not supply families with a rice ration, nor are they allowed to plant gardens or forage for food elsewhere. Due to the grim conditions of the relocation sites and the mounting presence of abusive troops in their villages, many choose to flee into the jungle rather than wait to be forcibly moved.

"There are about 100 Burmese soldiers who stay in Taw Oak. Before that, their troops were only staying in Ker Ghaw. The commander’s name is Kyaw Zay Ya [commander of the troops from LIB #118]. It might be his soldiers who come to our village, but people said he does not come himself. The Burmese are working with the DKBA. After I came here, the people said there are many Burmese soldiers in Pah Klu village." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

Pa’an District is the headquarters of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), and it maintains a strong presence in the southeast. Since its founding in 1994 with the backing of the SLORC, the DKBA and the SLORC/SPDC have collaborated on the common goal of ridding the area of the KNLA. Trust between the two armies is minimal to nonexistent, however, and the DKBA reluctantly works with the SPDC mainly because Rangoon supplies its food, arms, and ammunition. In return, the DKBA helps the SPDC by acting as guides, fingering villagers with KNLA connections, doing much of the actual fighting with the KNLA and providing convenient cover for cross-border incursions into Thailand. The SPDC stopped paying cash salaries to DKBA soldiers 3 years ago and threatened to cut off the DKBA’s provisions by the end of 1998, but it appears that this has not in fact occurred. It is clear that the DKBA and the SPDC continue to work together in the region, to the extent that villagers often confuse which soldiers belong to which army. They inflict the same abuses on the villagers, from forced labour to heavy fees, and they share the strategy of purging the KNU from the region by starving their support base—the villagers who supply them with food and necessary materials.

"In the month of October their commander’s name was Captain H---, and the troops were from #207 [SPDC Battalion]. They came and said that they will behave peacefully. They came and said that they will gather all the villagers together and do good things. They said that we must not stay in the forest, that we must all come back and stay together in the village and then they wouldn’t beat or torture us. Then after the villagers came back to stay together in the village, they gathered 30 villagers and forced them onto a truck, and forced them to go with them back to the Moei River [as porters to the Thai border]. All of them were from our village. One of them died by stepping on a landmine, not on the way but on the way back. He died when he ran to escape at Thay K’Yah." - "Saw Tha Wah" (M, 32), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #3, 11/99)

Aside from the dominating presence of the SPDC and DKBA, there are other smaller groups of troops in southeastern Pa’an District. Of particular note is a group of troops staying in Pah Klu village who bear a strong resemblance to the Sa Thon Lon Guerrilla Retaliation Units that began operating in Nyaunglebin District in September 1998 [see "Death Squads and Displacement: Systematic Executions, Village Destruction and the Flight of Villagers in Nyaunglebin District", KHRG #99-04, 24/5/99]. Commissioned as the SPDC’s special execution squads, the Sa Thon Lon move from village to village executing anyone suspected of connections with the KNU/KNLA. The villagers’ name for the Sa Thon Lon is ‘Baw Bi Doh’ [‘Short Pants’], which describes the soldiers’ civilian dress, but residents of Pah Klu call the troops staying in their village ‘S’Ker Po’ [‘Short Skirts’], a sarcastic reference to their attempts to rape women villagers. These troops have yet to execute any villagers in the brutal way associated with the Sa Thon Lon—usually by cutting the civilian’s throat—but the dress and manner of these soldiers have made some villagers suspect they could be one of these feared units. A villager from northeastern Pa’an District also reported that in that area the SPDC is forcibly recruiting people in their villages to serve in village-based militias. By letter to the village head, the SPDC conscripts a certain number of male villagers whom the other villagers are then instructed to support with a salary and rations. The Army outfits the militia members with weapons and charges them with guarding the village from enemy contact, but the SPDC often finds their greatest use for such villagers as cannon fodder in battles with the KNLA.

The villagers remaining in this area are struggling against all odds to survive. Villagers in the Pah Klu, Taw Oak, and B’Naw Kleh Kee area claim that most of their villages are already cleared out as people have fled before being forcibly moved. Villagers have been enduring the extensive abuses just to make it to the harvest of October/November 1999, only to have the harvest fail because they were busy doing forced labour or hiding from patrols. One villager from the hills of T’Nay Hsah township told KHRG that while harvesting in November, SPDC troops came while people were harvesting, burned the rice already harvested and landmined the crop still remaining in the fields. Many villagers are either joining the thousands still displaced in the jungle without adequate food, medicine or shelter, or they are braving the journey to the Thai border where they find their hopes for safety thwarted by full refugee camps and aggressive Thai soldiers. For these villagers, their past is destroyed, their present is unstable, and their future is ominous

"If I go back I won’t even have a pot. I sold all my pots and plates. If I stay here, I have no pots, plates, or a house. I have no one to help me. I don’t know where to go." - "Naw Bway" (F, 29), Pa Noh village, Kyaik Mayaw township, Mon State (Interview #27, 8/99)

"When they entered the village the Burmese collected porters and other people for forced labour. Each month they demanded 5 porters to work for them, and if you could not go you had to give them money. We had to pay 2,500 Kyat per person for 3 days. They also demanded that for every 10 houses we send 4 people for ‘set tha’ [forced labour as messengers and doing other errands]. We could never stop to take a rest. Someone had to go every day and if we could not go we had to give money, 800 Kyat per day. A group of villagers had to be there every day to porter, and we would take turns going in groups for 5 days at a time." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

Widespread, relentless forced labour is the most common complaint among villagers from southeastern Pa’an District, who commonly cite it as the primary reason for fleeing their villages. The most common type of forced labour has traditionally been road construction, and from 1995-96 villagers were used to build and upgrade a network of roads linking the main towns of Kyone Doh, Kawkareik, Nabu, Pain Kyone, Pa’an and Myaing Gyi Ngu. As the Burmese Army presence in the region intensifies, building and maintaining new roads remains a priority to facilitate transportation between SPDC Army camps. In this area there are only dirt roads, so villagers are forced to repair them every year after the rainy season washes away the work accomplished the previous year.

"Last year before I went to porter, I also had to dig a road at B’Naw Kleh Kee. It was horrible. I had to go for 5 days and take my own food. Five villagers at a time had to go from each of Toh Thu Kee, Kwih Lay, Kyaw Ko, Ker Ghaw, and Thay K’Dtee [villages]. We dug a road from Lay Kaw Tee to Meh Pleh and Kway Sha. We had to work the whole day except for time to cook rice and eat it. We dug out logs and bamboo stumps and carried rocks." - "Pa Ghaw" (M, 35), Toh Thu Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #38, 7/99)

"The villagers have to go to fetch water, find firewood, and carry rice for them. On each turn we had to carry 10 times. Two villagers would go every day, and one person has to carry 2 big tins each time [about 32 kg / 70 lb]. It is very far, about 1 furlong [220 yards] distance. Once they had enough water, they forced us to carry firewood. If they didn’t need firewood, they forced us to send letters. If we didn’t send the letters, they punished us. I also had to cut and clear alongside the car road [the Myawaddy/Thingan Nyi Naung road]. We even had to fence the bridges where the cars pass." - "Saw Ler" (M, 36), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #29, 8/99)

"We didn’t have any more money for ‘set tha’ [to avoid forced labour as messengers] and so we had to go in person. If we went for ‘set tha’ and also portering, we would come back from ‘set tha’ one day and the next day have to go as porters. Then we would porter for 3 days and there would be no replacement because they had come to our homes to collect people for ‘set tha’ or ‘loh ah pay’ already. So we had no time to do it all in person because if we went then we had to pay money too, and so we couldn’t tolerate it." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

"…they are still clearing the place to plant rubber. I think they are planning to plant rubber between Toh Kaw Ko and Dta Weh Dah. They are building a road between those places this year. Last year it still didn’t reach Toh Kaw Ko, only Dta Weh Dah, but this year they will continue it. Last year we had to dig the road, but this year the Toh Kaw Ko villagers will have to do it." - the mother of "Nan Paw Oa" (F, 18), xxxx village, Kawkareik township (Interview #42, 7/99)

All the types of forced labour are too numerous to mention, but they can be grouped into 3 general categories: ‘loh ah pay’, ‘set tha’, and portering. When villagers refer to ‘loh ah pay’, the work required usually entails a 1-3 day commitment and relates to general jobs like construction of Army bunkers or fences at the camp, road-building, and cutting firewood or bamboo. ‘Set tha’ is the term used to describe chores like serving as a messenger between Army camps, or simply being on call to meet the random demands of officers. Portering is often classified in a category of its own, and is discussed at length in the following section. Villages located nearest the Army camps bear the greatest burden of forced labour, since their proximity makes it convenient for troops to round them up quickly. In addition to roads and facilities, the greater concentration of troops in the area also necessitates a greater food supply; since troops receive only meagre rations at best from Rangoon, the Army confiscates fields near the camp and orders the villagers to work them. An officer will usually issue orders to a village head demanding a quota of villagers for forced labour who must report to the camp or worksite at a specified date and time. The village head then decides which villagers must go, usually implementing a rotation system calling for one person per family. Villagers are never safe, however, from the threat of capture by Burmese and DKBA soldiers looking for people to perform everything from trivial chores to intense physical labour. The next page shows the direct translation of a typical order issued to a village by an SPDC officer and illustrates the type of demands placed upon villagers on a regular basis [see Order #9, "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-C" (KHRG #99-06, 4/8/99); a copy of the original order is included on page 59 of this report].

The informal rotation system implemented by many village heads theoretically disperses the burden so that each family will have time to tend their own fields, but with the demand for labourers ever increasing, villagers are finding it more and more difficult to make time for their own work. As the above order reveals, the villagers are often instructed to bring along their own oxen, bullock carts, and tools to use while working, eliminating the possibility of family members tending the fields while they are gone. As one villager bluntly describes it, "We had to pay four different ways: our own labour, fees, our bullock carts, and our cattle." ["Kyaw Soe" (M, xx), xxxx village, Myawaddy township (Interview #31, 8/99)] Due to the increasing and constant demands for forced labour from both the DKBA and the SPDC—which can amount to several times per month, or even half the work week—the villagers must neglect their fields, leaving little possibility of harvesting enough rice to sustain them throughout the year. Hunger is thus an ever-present worry among villagers. Following last year’s drought, villagers were hoping for a good harvest this year, but the call for forced labour, often at great distances from their villages, obligates them to remain away from their fields for days on end at crucial times in the crop cycle. When they return they are often too exhausted to satisfy the demands their own fields require.

"They did that near their battalion camp. They have 2 paddy fields that the villagers have to go and work on for them. They don’t do it themselves. The villagers have to do it every year." - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #28, 8/99)

"At the Burmese camp now there is a farm, so we must go to plough, sow, and transplant paddy in their field. If you have buffaloes and a plough, you must go to plough, and if you have nothing you must go to dig the earth, sow, and transplant. At harvest time, they force people to reap for them until it is finished. As for us, we don’t even have enough food for our family, and no time to work for ourselves…[Also] the road that leads from Kawkareik to Mya Pa Deh [Myapadine] and T’Nay Hsah. The width of the road is approximately 10 cubits [15 feet]. We had to dig earth and put it on the road to build its height to 4 or 5 cubits [8-foot high embankment]. People from the whole village had to go. If you had money you could hire others, but if you didn’t have money you had to go. People who had bullock carts had to go with bullock carts. We had to take our own rice, fishpaste, and chillies from our house. We even had to take our own machetes, axes, mattocks and spades." - "Maung Hla" (M, 30), Kru Bper village, Kawkareik township (Interview #44, 4/99)

"I went twice and had to plough the field. The other villagers went during the time of transplanting the seedlings and harvesting. They even forced us to do it in the rainy season. I was not free to do my own work." - "Saw Ler" (M, 36), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #29, 8/99)

"I always had to go for ‘loh ah pay’ every day. They forced people who live in the fields to go, and if they didn’t the soldiers chased them and captured them. The fields are destroyed because no one is working on them." - "Pa Po Doh" (M, 24), Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township (Interview #39, 7/99)

The rainy season, usually a time of respite from forced labour for the villagers, was particularly stressful this year, as the Burmese augmented their demands and forced the villagers to work in the very worst conditions. Villagers who chose to hire people rather than work in dangerous conditions on slippery roads and elsewhere paid so much money in fees that they depleted all their savings, sold their possessions or went into debt. Both the SPDC and DKBA collect forced labour fees from villagers who cannot or choose not to go. Seldom are the villagers excused from forced labour shifts if they are sick or have other legitimate reasons, so instead they must pay a fee—typically 500 Kyat per day—to hire someone else to replace them. Villagers may hire replacements in three ways: by personally seeking out a fellow villager or an itinerant day labourer to hire, by paying the village head the fee and leaving it up to him/her to hire a replacement, or the most common way, which occurs when villagers hand over the fee to the village head, who then pays the SPDC Army. This last option especially creates a distressing cyclical pattern for the villagers, who hand over a sum of money intended for hiring substitutes. The soldiers pocket these ‘fees’, then go to other villagers demanding ‘volunteer workers’. These villages in turn pay their obligatory fees instead of going in person, until eventually the soldiers have accrued a substantial amount of money from the villagers but are left with no workers. This prompts them to capture villagers while they are working in their fields; villagers have the option of running and being shot at, or being captured to serve as porters or forced labourers. This is why many villagers complain of paying twice, once in fees and once by their work.

"If the men don’t stay in the village they force the women to go and carry rice whenever they run out. They force one villager per house to go. If the villagers are not free to go, they have to hire someone for 500 Kyat per day. We have to pay the village head and then the village head repays the one who goes in the villager’s place." - "Naw Lay Wah" (F, 25), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #36, 7/99)

"Der! All of the villagers have to give, and the people who can’t give have to sell their rice and paddy to give money to them. Each family has to hire someone for 1,000 Kyat or more per time; some families have to give 2,000 Kyat. They don’t care about young or old people; young and old all have to go. They force children as young as 10, and some people who go are 50 or 60 and have grey hair already. Some people who went came back and told us that they hadn’t eaten for 4 or 5 days. As for me, I was afraid and I didn’t go, also because I am a woman and mostly men go. In our village other women have gone, but I never went." - "Naw Paw Htoo" (F, 27), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #9, 9/99)

One of the most alarming consequences of the increased demand for forced labour is the rise of child labour. With a diminishing supply of able-bodied adults to satisfy the Army’s demands since men and later women flee to avoid portering shifts, or are already working for the Army, families must resort to sending their children, especially when other adults must stay to work the fields. Children as young as 10 have been sent by their families, or even captured by troops, to work as forced labourers, and many drop out of school because they have to go on a regular basis. Similarly, elderly family members must fulfill the quota if no one else in the family can work. It is now quite common for women to go for ‘loh ah pay’ more often than men, who either remain to work the fields or flee to avoid capture as porters. One villager succinctly explained, "Mostly they need men but the men hide, therefore the girls have to go." ["Saw Daniel" (M, 70), Dta Greh village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #41, 7/99)] Particularly in the Ker Ghaw area, the site of a large DKBA camp and relocation site, villagers of all ages and physical ability are forced to do labour of some kind.

"The youngest are children, as soon as they can work. Children who are over 10 years old. The oldest who have to go and make fences are old enough to be grandparents. Women too. Recently P--- worked for them and she is over 50. My wife and children had to carry water for them, they couldn’t avoid it." - "Pa Noh" (M, 45), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #12, 9/99)

"If the village head couldn’t collect us, they arrested people themselves. Even women and children have to go, some as young as 12 and 13 years old. If their parents are sick, the children have to go. People 40 and 50 years old have to go if they are strong and can work. They forced us to dig the road and build bunkers beside it in Hsah Htoo Gone, between Myawaddy and [Thingan] Nyi Naung. They also forced us to weed the road, cut the grass, haul bamboo, build fences, and cut small trees and bamboo to build their bunkers." - "Pi Ghaw Paw" (F, 51), Meh K’Neh village, Myawaddy township (Interview #40, 7/99)

"For ‘loh ah pay’ we had to do many kinds of work like plough the fields, clean the roads, cut down trees and bamboo, make fences, and build bridges. Also we had to build their bunkers, since they set up their camp only 30 yards from our village. Villagers had no time to rest; both men and women had to work for them. They demanded one person from each house each day, but because we couldn’t finish our own work that way the village head arranged for 10 villagers to go per day. The old people asked their children to go for ‘loh ah pay’, and the youngest one was just over 10 years old. We had children around 12 and 13 working also. Children under 10 had to carry water for them." - "Saw Po Doh" (M, 36), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #23, 8/99)

"Ah, ah! Do not talk of ‘loh ah pay’! I had to buy food from the Burmese soldiers’ wives who sold it for 200 Kyat, but I only brought 100 Kyat with me. I worked very hard. I carried earth on my head like this. They came and took a video of us and I thought to myself, ‘Go ahead, if you want to take a video of a tall woman carrying a load on her head!’" - the mother of "Nan Paw Oa" (F, 18), xxxx village, Kawkareik township (Interview #42, 7/99)

The conditions for forced labour vary by the type and frequency of work required, the length of the duty, and especially by the treatment of the labourers by the troops. Often the village head is called upon to supervise the villagers at forced labour, which in some villages obligates him/her to serve every day, leaving no time for personal work. Because of this demand and the severe punishment that the village head faces if the forced labour requirements are not met, villagers dread the appointment as village head. Many villagers report that verbal and physical abuse are prevalent at the work sites, particularly if soldiers think that villagers are not working fast enough. Villagers usually work a full day with only one break to eat, though sometimes they are required to stay overnight at the worksite or Army camp. They must bring all their own food and are often denied water and permission to rest, even when working in the midday sun. These conditions vary, however, and some troops are kinder on villagers than others; the DKBA, for example, usually requires villagers to do ‘loh ah pay’ for shorter periods of time under better conditions than the SPDC. The villagers attribute the heavy demands for forced labour in southeastern Pa’an District as a major cause of flight from the area. They remain in their villages as long as they are physically able to do so, but the threat of physical abuse combined with the lingering fear of starvation leaves them with flight as their only viable option [see "Flight and Internally Displaced People" below].

"They did not guard us, but they came to look at us sometimes as they forced us to work. The children who couldn’t speak Burmese were beaten, but people who could speak Burmese weren’t beaten. I saw them beat Pa N--- with my own eyes. They slapped his face. He slapped him twice with his right hand. He told him he was stupid because he couldn’t speak Burmese. Pa N--- is married, he is from B’Naw Kleh Kee." - "Pa Noh" (M, 45), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #12, 9/99)

"The DKBA don’t collect money, but they force us to do ‘loh ah pay’. The villagers have to go and stay with them and cook rice and fetch water. They force us to do it once a month. As for the Burmese, they don’t even care if they force us to go twice or three times a month. The Burmese are always forcing the villagers to go." - "Saw Lah Ku" (M, 21), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #18, 8/99)

"I had to plant rubber. They have already planted many rubber trees in lines. Many people had to go, so we had to do it for 2-3 days, then we went home. They didn’t give us anything to eat. We had to take our own food there too, but they gave medicine to the workers who were ill, and if they couldn’t work anymore they sent them home." - "Maung Hla" (M, 30), Kru Bper village, Kawkareik township (Interview #44, 4/99)

"They didn’t give us anything [money] and they didn’t feed us rice. They didn’t give us water to drink, either. They were always very angry. If I look back on my life, this was the very worst time. My heart was gone." - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #32, 8/99)

Portering

"My husband died 15 days ago. The Burmese forced him to do ‘loh ah pay’ [she means portering]. They said that he would only have to go for a few days, but they forced him to go for 10 days. We couldn’t hire someone to go for him because we had no money. They said that the villagers who didn’t go had to pay them money, that’s why we had to go. He had not even been gone for 10 days when people sent me a message that he had died. I didn’t know anything. I went to ask the Burmese soldiers and they said he died on the borderline. One of his friends said, ‘I saw him when they arrested him, but I don’t know where he carried because I didn’t see him again’. I went to find him at Ka Daung and Mudon, but I couldn’t find anything. After that I didn’t know where to go. I thought that I would go to his younger brother, but I couldn’t. In the past I stayed in the village, but I have no parents or siblings there. We left the village 10 days after we heard that he died. I have a younger brother who stays in Thailand, but I don’t know where. That’s why I came up to my Uncle’s house, but my Uncle hasn’t seen him and can’t find him. When I arrived at my Uncle’s place, I didn’t know where to go next." - "Naw Bway" (F, 29), Pa Noh village, Kyaik Mayaw township, Mon State (Interview #27, 8/99)

Portering is technically classified as forced labour, but to villagers it falls in a category of its own. The KNLA regularly demands young and middle-aged men for shifts of portering usually lasting one to several days. In the past, the SPDC and DKBA troops primarily targeted male villagers as well, but the influx of troops in southeastern Pa’an District leaves all villagers living in constant fear of being arrested for portering. While serving as porters for SPDC or DKBA troops villagers must remain with the troops for days on end and endure extremely demanding work while they are routinely denied food and often beaten. Young men flee the village immediately upon hearing that troops are in the vicinity, running as fast as they can into the jungle to avoid capture. Villagers try to warn each other when troops are roaming the area looking for porters, but this informal communication network proves only partially effective. Soldiers capture porters if their demands from a particular village for forced labour have not been met, or if they happen to pass men working in their fields while on patrol. If seen running to escape, villagers are shot on sight. Those captured must drop everything to serve as porters often for unspecified periods of time. Men who manage to avoid capture hide out in the jungle, sometimes with no food or shelter, until the troops have moved on - which may take weeks.

"Then they came out of the forest, they entered the village in the night and the dogs didn’t even bark at them. They arrived and fired their guns for a while. He captured me and touched me with his gun. He wouldn’t even let me urinate, he ordered me to go so I had to go. Some people who could run to escape didn’t need to go, but the people who they captured in the group all had to go. If you had 2 or 3 people in your family, they all had to go. They beat and kicked the people they captured before us. Then they went to Tee Hsah Ra, and they forced us to send them there. They forced me to go and carry bullets and shells for them." - "Saw Ghay" (M, 36), Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township (Interview #7, 9/99)

"The Burmese came to stay at Ker Ghaw when they went to the Lay Ta Play and Ko Ko areas to look for porters. The village head went around the village and told every family to come to a meeting. He said, ‘Now the Burmese have arrived, so my dear children, if you do not want to be a porter, wrap up your sarong around your legs and run as fast as you can.’ The village head dared not hand us over [to the Burmese], so we ran. Because our village is on the frontline, the Burmese often needed porters when they came before." - "Saw Kee" (M, 21), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #11, 9/99)

"In our village, the men always have to flee from the village. If they don’t flee, the soldiers chase them to capture porters. One troop of Burmese stays in the village, and the other is ordered to capture the men. If they couldn’t collect porter fees, they would capture the men." - "Saw Nya" (M, 60), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #37, 7/99)

"The people who dare to stay in the village are captured by the Burmese. Many who try to flee have no food outside the village, so they must come back. When the Burmese are leaving the village, they capture the villagers as they like [to go with them]." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

When troops camp in or near a village for a significant period of time, the male villagers are forced to set up shelters in the jungle where they remain in an exiled state indefinitely, tending hill fields to survive. Occasionally the men will sneak back to the village secretly to visit their families and to get food and supplies, risking arrest if troops are still in the vicinity. If the SPDC or DKBA comes through looking for porters and finds few men in the village, they will often capture women, older people, and even children big enough to carry a sizeable load. Whereas villagers used to believe that women would be treated less brutally if they served as porters instead of men, now women are particularly terrified of portering because they constantly fear the possibility of rape. One villager from Dta Greh reported that SPDC ‘Bpay Pwet’, or ‘payroll troops’, head up into the hills each month to deliver salaries to soldiers, and that they usually collect women porters to follow them. As the ‘Bpay Pwet’ troops are not carrying heavy supplies, their specific demand for women is probably to use them as human minesweepers or for purposes of rape.

"Bpay Pwet [payroll troops] bring a salary once a month for the Burmese who stay in the mountains. … they come and call the women to go with them." - "Saw Daniel" (M, 70), Dta Greh village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #41, 7/99)

"This year we had a lot of people who carried food for them. Even women had to carry for them, and this year mostly women did it because the men were afraid and ran away, but the women dared to stay for a bit, and they forced the women to porter. They were forcing us and touching us with guns, so people had to go." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"Ah! I saw a lot of older people with white hair whom they forced to go portering. The village head collects us but nobody dares to go. Therefore, the Burmese take the money and have to hire the porters. But if they can arrest us instead of hiring us, they can use all the money for themselves. If you give money to the Burmese they say that they have hired the porters, but we never saw them hire anyone. You can’t do anything about that." - "Saw Nya" (M, 60), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #37, 7/99)

The only recourse for captured villagers is to pay a "portering fee"—typically 500 Kyat a day—rather than going in person, which few villagers can afford anymore after repeated heavy taxation, crop quotas, and forced labour fees. This year the porter fees are steadily increasing as fewer people are available for hire, mainly because the risks of portering are so high that many villagers refuse to hire themselves out anymore. As with the forced labour fees, the portering fees are only squandered by the military, who then turn around and capture more porters. Villagers are now testifying that troops force villagers to porter even though they have already paid the "portering fees", in effect penalising them twice. Soldiers often break agreements with villages over the terms of portering by refusing to release them at the designated time, or in some cases holding porters hostage until the village head will pay for their release.

"Now people have to hire porters [to go in their place] for 3,000 Kyat because people dare not go for less than that." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

"They come and capture porters when their new friends [replacement troops] come. Every month they collect 7 porters from B’Naw Kleh Kee and Paw Baw Ko. We had to go for 3 days, then after 3 days those 7 people go home and another group has to go. They demanded that the village head collect people for portering. If people could not go they had to give money - 2,500 Kyat for 3 days. They didn’t hire other people with the money, they just took it for themselves." - "Saw Po Doh" (M, 36), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #23, 8/99)

"When I arrived there, I thought that they would release me, but they didn’t. They released me when the village head came to pay them 1,500 Kyat. I had to carry for over one month but they still demanded 1,500 Kyat [to release him]." - "Pa Ghaw" (M, 35), Toh Thu Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #38, 7/99)

After the fear surrounding arrest, they face the threat of abuse if caught and forced to serve as porters. If villagers cannot pay the fee to hire a replacement, they must typically porter on 5-7 day shifts to accompany SPDC or DKBA troops on patrol through the Dawna Mountains. Sometimes they are also called for shorter shifts to carry rations between Army camps. They carry immense loads of food, ammunition, and the soldiers’ personal gear, and are often denied adequate food and drinking water. One porter described the food deprivation as so desperate that "We had to steal from each other to eat enough." ["Saw Maw Hla" (M, 30), Maw Goh village, Lu Pleh township (Interview #43, 7/99)]. In addition to malnourishment, they receive hardly any rest and no medical attention for injuries. A portering shift will often so debilitate a villager that s/he will spend one month or longer rehabilitating.

"They fed us twice a day, but it was not enough for us because they started early in the morning and we weren’t fed until 10 a.m. Then we ate again at 4 p.m. For 5 people they spooned out just enough rice to cover the lid of the pot, then divided it into five and fed you. It was about the same as 2 eggshells full of rice and a spoon of beans, so it was not enough for us. I asked for more but we couldn’t get anything more. If we asked for more again and again they glared at us, so we dared not stay close to them. They had enough rice to fill them, but the porters did not. I told him, ‘Der! You do not feed us enough, so we cannot carry for you’, and he told me, ‘Don’t argue with me. I feed you well enough already.’ Then I said, ‘Yes, it is delicious to eat rice with beans, but it is too little.’ When you carry loads like that you become more hungry and tired, but if we ate like them we would not have been hungry." - "Saw Mo Aung" (M, 39), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #13, 9/99)

"They gave me only a little rice and a little bit to drink twice a day. They fed us the same amount as the head of a cat [a small ball of rice]; it was not enough for us. They fed us only salt with rice and we didn’t get water to drink, while they ate good food which they had brought for themselves. They didn’t care if we ate enough or not. When I came back from portering, I was in so much pain that I had to drink many gallons of spirit water [traditional medicine]. I rested for one month." - "Pa Ghaw" (M, 35), Toh Thu Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #38, 7/99)

"…the last time was during the rainy season when I had to climb the mountains to Meh Pleh. It was the time to plant paddy and it was raining a lot, so there was flooding. I climbed up the mountain for 3-4 days from Sghaw Ko and B’Naw Kleh Klee to Dta Thu Kee. We had to carry many kinds of loads, and even if you were already carrying bullets and shells they gave you food to carry as well. It must have been more than 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb] because we could barely walk. They kicked you if you couldn’t carry it, so you wouldn’t dare tell them if you couldn’t carry it. We couldn’t take a rest except when they let us. Even if we were so tired that our sweat filled our nostrils, we could not rest or they would kick our behinds." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

DKBA and SPDC troops both treat their porters horribly, beating them at the slightest provocation. Because the porters are fed less than the troops while carrying heavier loads, they often have trouble keeping up and are severely punished if they lag behind. Porters who have returned to their villages tell stories of others who simply could not continue, and were savagely beaten before being left for dead by the soldiers in the middle of the jungle. Some are killed outright and left on the path without burial, while some die from wounds inflicted from landmines or physical abuse by the soldiers. Another disturbing trend of which villagers recently informed KHRG after their portering shifts is the distribution of Methamphetamines to porters in order to curb their appetites and numb their pain. The porters have no idea what drugs they are forced to consume, just that they leave them in mind-altered states with strange physical side-effects, often lasting well beyond their portering term.

"They gave me medicine, the kind that does not make you sweat but makes you happy to walk. In Kywe and Ta months [around April 1999] there was no shade in Lay Gaw, but because of our medicine we were not sweating. I don’t know what kind of medicine it was, but when I arrived in Maw Pleh the people told me that you need a certain kind of medicine to counteract the medicine I had taken. But they didn’t give us that one, so I became very sick." - "Saw Mo Aung" (M, 39), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #13, 9/99)

"One day one of us died and the Burmese told us he was their friend, but we didn’t know if he was Burmese or not. He got sick from the rain and not enough food or sleep. He didn’t have a shirt on, and they left him uncovered; we didn’t know if he was dead yet, but we knew he would soon die if they left him. We thought he was a villager like us, because we came from different villages and didn’t know everyone. I think if he was their servant they would have treated him and taken him with them; people said he was their friend but I can’t believe it." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

"They beat me on the temples once. I tied up my load to the baskets and the soldier asked me, ‘Is that tied tightly?’ and I answered him, ‘It is tight.’ But when we were marching the shells fell down, so he beat me on the temple. Another time he kicked me with his jungle boots when I was picking up the fallen rice grains on the ground to eat. When we arrived at a place where people had lived and recently left, I picked up some rice to eat to curb my hunger since I hadn’t eaten enough rice. He asked me, ‘Why do you pick up that rice to eat? If they have poisoned it, you will die.’ And he kicked me with his boots on the head." - "Maung Hla" (M, 30), Kru Bper village, Kawkareik township (Interview #44, 4/99)

"They were Htay Htay Po, Pa Lone Tin, Pa Kyaw Wah, Sah K’Lin, and Pa Oo Ngeh. The Burmese killed all of them because they couldn’t carry their loads when portering. They couldn’t walk, so they fell down and the soldiers kicked them. They stabbed them and beat them to death; they didn’t shoot them dead. " - "Saw Lay Htoo" (M, 42), xxxx village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #10, 9/99)

One of the most frightening aspects of portering is the danger of stepping on landmines. The KNLA lays landmines to compensate for being under-manned and poorly equipped, and the SPDC/DKBA responds by planting landmines of their own. As a consequence, Pa’an District is the most densely mined area in Karen State. The fact that many porters would rather risk escape through a heavily mined jungle than continuing to serve as porters testifies to the desperation of their condition. Some porters do escape successfully, but the dangers they face once in the jungle prove very daunting. Weariness and disorientation are nothing compared to the possibility of stepping on a landmine and losing life or limb. Soldiers cultivate this fear in order to prevent escape, often telling porters that they will die if they run, either from their bullets or from landmines.

"They told us not to run because there were a lot of landmines, and also we didn’t know where to run to because we didn’t know where we were. They said that if I stepped on a landmine they wouldn’t bury me but would shoot me dead and throw me in a valley. If you listened to them you were afraid, so we dared not run. … During the time we were there 3 porters ran to escape, but they were killed by landmines. People said that they were from Maw Toh Ta Lay and had been porters for over a month." - "Saw Mo Aung" (M, 39), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #13, 9/99)

"The places where we ran were full of landmines. We didn’t know the direction to run, but we ran ahead and reached Pah Klu even though we’d never been there before. When we arrived at Pah Klu, the Sgaw [Sgaw Karen] women asked us, ‘How could you dare to come back this way? Landmines are everywhere. We are surprised to see you arrive here safely.’ Some people ran into Burmese soldiers, though, so the soldiers tortured them." - "Maung Hla" (M, 30), Kru Bper village, Kawkareik township (Interview #44, 4/99)

"One porter stepped on a landmine when he was carrying and they shot him. They didn’t bring him back to the village. A villager from Pah Klu witnessed it." - "Naw Lay Wah" (F, 25), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #36, 7/99)

"Last year one porter died. His name was Hsah Po Dee, about 25 years old. He stepped on a landmine… He was going to hire someone to replace him, but he missed the car at Dta Greh Bridge, and so he had to go. Two groups of people came to replace the group he was in, but he didn’t come back. Later the porters who were captured by the Burmese and went together with him returned to the village and said he had been injured by stepping on a mine. He shouted, but the Burmese didn’t take care of him. He didn’t die right away, but they couldn’t go any further with him. No one carried him. His wife is still living in the village…The Burmese didn’t come to tell her anything. After people knew about it they went and asked for compensation, but the Burmese refused to listen." - "Saw Daniel" (M, 70), Dta Greh village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #41, 7/99)

Landmines

"Many villagers’ legs have been blown off from stepping on landmines. I foraged for food until I dared not forage any more. The last time I went foraging with other villagers, a girl’s legs were blown off by a landmine and two of her sisters were hurt. They are over 20 years old and married. One did not lose her leg, but the other did. Two of my grandchildren also lost their legs. About 12 villagers from Ker Ghaw have been injured, and 3 have died. Kyaw Per died, he was about 50 years old. Also Lin Noh, who was about 30 years old, died this year. The villagers don’t know if it is the Burmese or the KNLA who plants the landmines. We don’t follow them so we don’t know. One of the villagers was shooting squirrels near his house and stepped on a landmine. Now no one dares to go on the upper side of the pagoda. They plant them near the village, by the pagoda and monastery, where the villagers go to take care of their cattle. When I went to find bamboo shoots there, one cow stepped on a mine. Boom!! It blew its front leg off, and it died." - "Saw Nya" (M, 60), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #37, 7/99)

Landmines are being laid in ever-increasing numbers in southeastern Pa’an District by the SPDC, the DKBA and the KNLA. While the KNLA attempts to notify villagers of where they have laid their mostly hand-made mines, the SPDC and the DKBA never do so, and the SPDC often deliberately mines pathways to villagers’ fields in order to kill or maim internally displaced people who are hiding in the forests. The number of civilian victims is increasing, and most die before they can be carried to any medical help. SPDC and DKBA columns are now regularly ordering villagers to march in front of their columns as human mine detonators, and fear of this form of forced labour has caused many people to flee their homes.

"I stepped on a landmine near our village one month ago. It was a Burmese landmine, and they put it beside our village. I was going to my hillfields with 5 friends of mine. … Right after I got wounded people carried me to my farmfield hut and I slept one night in my hillfield. Then the next day people came and carried me back, and I got treated by a Burmese medic at xxxx. Then people carried me here and I slept 5 days on the way. We worried that the Burmese would come and question me about what happened, so I dared not stay." - "Naw Hser Paw" (F, 28), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #26, 8/99)

"My daughter and grandchild stepped on landmines and died, so we dared not stay. If we had stayed longer, all of them would die because they tortured us a lot. My daughter stepped on a Ko Per Baw [DKBA] landmine and died 2 rainy seasons ago. She was 20 years old, and her name was Naw Sher Pa. They set up landmines at Kwih Baw Nee, not so far away, about one hour’s walk. They set them along the villagers’ path to trap their enemies. She died on the path and we went to see her. She had gone with her friend and her older sister, but her sister just got a wound on her leg under her knee. My daughter and my two-month-old grandson and a guest from Tee Hsah Ra village died right away. The guest was named Naw Shu, and she was around 50. They were coming back to the village at the time. It was at the time when the Burmese came to attack this side [to attack the KNLA east of the Dawna Mountains, near the Thai border] that my daughter was killed by a landmine." - "Pu Tamla" (M, 60+), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #8, 9/99)

The SPDC used to rely mainly on imported mines, but over the past few years China has provided them with factories and technology to produce most of their antipersonnel landmines themselves. The two main mines used by the SPDC are the MM1 and MM2, both made in Burma in factories supplied by China. The MM1 is a copy of the Chinese-made PMOZ-2 or ‘corncob’ mine, and the MM2 is a copy of the Chinese-made PMN mine; both of these Chinese models have been heavily used in Cambodia. They sometimes mount the MM1, more powerful than the MM2, on a post at waist level in long grass or scrub and rig it with a tripwire; in this way it will kill the villager who trips it and possibly several others rather than just blowing off his or her leg. The MM2 is modelled on a cheap Chinese-made mine which is flat, round and partly made of plastic; however, the Burmese version is made of metal. The SPDC Army has extensive stockpiles of Chinese-made mines and a few old U.S.-made mines, including the M76, but is increasingly reliant on the mines they manufacture themselves.

"A lot of women have to carry for the Burmese too. Der! Last year the Ko Per Baw forced women to go in front of them [to step on landmines] but the women didn’t dare to go, so they forced the village head to go. He didn’t dare to go either, but they pointed a gun at him and he had to. He went and he died. His name was P---. It happened at T---, next to xxxx." - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah twp. (Interview #32, 8/99)

The KNLA uses mines to shield certain areas from SPDC troops, and also lays them along pathways used by SPDC columns. These improvised mines are usually made of steel pellets and explosives encased in bamboo or other readily available materials, although the KNLA does have access to some landmines from Cambodia and Vietnam bought on the black market. Heavy casualties of SPDC soldiers in the past year from KNLA landmines have prompted the SPDC and DKBA to use villagers as human minesweepers. They often collect villagers in the area specifically to walk in front of a column of troops, to become human mine detonators and human shields against ambush. Most often, however, they require porters to march in front of troops, threatening to shoot anyone who refuses to go ahead. Soldiers frequently force porters to serve as guides if the territory is unfamiliar to them, in order to avoid KNLA landmines. The villagers have sometimes been told by the KNLA which pathways are mined, but they do not know exactly where the mines are and they are constantly afraid of triggering mines as they forge their way through the jungle. Some villagers told KHRG that even when they told SPDC troops that the KNLA had mined the path, the soldiers ordered them to proceed regardless.

"I was carrying a backpack, and he grabbed the backpack and pushed as strongly as he could. Der! He beat me because they forced us to walk and show the way but we dared not go in front of them. People had planted landmines there! I told him that people said there are landmines there, so we dared not go there anymore. If our legs disappeared, we would have nothing. One of my son’s legs was blown off by a landmine. It was a Ko Per Baw landmine that had been planted a few years ago. But the soldiers only said that some people had warned us, so why were we so afraid? But they dared not go either, because they worried that their own legs would be blown off. I dared not go, but they went step by step. We thought it would be suicide to go like that. If I stepped on a landmine, maybe I would die or my legs would be blown off, so my life would be useless." - "Pu Than Nyunt" (M, 55), B’Nweh Pu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #15, 9/99)

"I portered for them [SPDC troops] when they patrolled the area between Pah Klu and Ker Ghaw. They guarded us from behind and forced us to go in front of them and walk among the landmines. Four of us had to go in front of them and all of us were villagers. If the landmines were there, they would have liked us to die by them. We were afraid to go because we could not see where the landmines were buried underground. If I went and stepped on a landmine and my leg was blown off, how could I earn my living? My family would be broken-hearted, but I wouldn’t dare to hang myself, even though it would break my heart." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"They arrested us and tied us up, then they accused us of being Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA], but we told them that we are not Kaw Thoo Lei and they shouldn’t kill us. Then they forced us to go and give directions [serve as guides] for them because they don’t know the way in the mountains. I went carefully along the way. If you didn’t know the way, you would lose half your leg. We had to go with them for 7 days in the hills with landmines. We dared not go, but if we didn’t go they would have shot us with their guns. We were afraid but had to go." - "Saw Lah Ku" (M, 21), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #18, 8/99)

Landmines are one of the most prevalent and feared causes of death for villagers. The KNLA’s notifications regarding which pathways they have mined are clearly insufficient, because villagers continue to detonate KNLA landmines. The SPDC and DKBA lay them covertly, often at night without informing villagers of their number or location, causing villagers injury or death when coming and going from their hill fields, or when taking their cattle to graze outside the village. Neither the SPDC nor the DKBA ever offers any compensation for injuries to people or animals as a result of landmines. Villagers are often left on paths to bleed to death, and if they manage to make it back to the village, the chance of medical attention is slim given the lack of trained medics or supplies in the villages. The villager would have to be carried to the nearest medical facility, a journey almost guaranteeing death for a seriously injured landmine victim.

"That morning he wanted to go and tend his hill field and he asked me to go with him and check the path. So I went and was checking [with a stick] along the way, but the landmines were buried beside the path. He was following me, he turned and stepped off the path and a landmine exploded. I turned and looked and saw him running without one foot, and I called to him, ‘Don’t run!’" - "Saw Lay Mu" (M, 33), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township, talking about what happened after SPDC troops mined their fields during this year’s harvest (Interview #1, 11/99)

"During the night they sometimes encircled the village with landmines. They planted them surrounding the houses, and if they had sentry duty they planted them around themselves. They planted them surrounding Pah Klu village, but when morning came they took them out." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

"The DKBA laid the landmines near the village and along the way that the villagers take to go to their hill fields. Two villagers stepped on landmines and died. One was named Pa Plah Po. He was about 40 years old and has had many wives. Another one was a woman named Peh Peh, who was also about 40 years old and had many children. She stepped on a landmine and then people brought her home. Then they sent her to Ra Ma Tee [Myawaddy] hospital, but as they were carrying her on the bullock cart she died halfway there. So they carried her back home. It happened in July [1999], when the villagers sow the seed paddy. The man also died in the same month." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

"In Taw Oak the DKBA set up a lot of landmines at the top of the village and beside the bank of the river. Just 2 months ago 2 women stepped on landmines when they were going fishing. One of them named Nga Bla Ree died; she was about 30 years old. The other one lost her leg; her name is Y--- and she is over 30. She still stays in the village. Her brother came here and said that they didn’t take the pieces of shell out of her leg, and no one sent her anywhere." - "Taw Lay" (M, 41), Kwih Lay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #6, 9/99)

The following order by Commander Chit Thu of DKBA Brigade #999 illustrates how the DKBA’s response to the KNLA’s planting of landmines in the area hurts innocent civilians more often than the combatants they were intended for. In this order sent to a village head, Chit Thu warns the village that the DKBA will plant landmines because the KNLA had already mined the area, but he does not specify the locations of the landmines, nor accept responsibility for the consequences the villagers may suffer. Instead, he implicitly threatens to shoot all villagers who run away.   [See Order #P1, "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-B" (KHRG #99-03, 19/4/99).  This order was typed in Karen and signed with a signature stamp of Chit Thu, a well-known DKBA commander. ‘DKBA’ is spelt out phonetically as ‘Dee Kay Bee Ay’ rather than its Karen or Burmese equivalent. Similarly, ‘KNU’ is spelt out as ‘Kay Eh Yu’.]

Many villagers are terrified of going for forced labour shifts because of the potential to encounter landmines while working. The SPDC/DKBA uses villagers as "dispensable" labourers in high-risk areas where they do not wish to send soldiers, particularly in places that were formerly controlled by the KNLA, such as a logging site near Kawkareik where villagers cut logs in a heavily mined forest. Villagers are also being used as minesweepers at Army camps to clear mines laid by the KNLA, particularly when an SPDC or DKBA column stays for a long time in the village and could be the target of a KNLA ambush. A villager from B’Nweh Pu reported that the SPDC ordered villagers to Tee Wah, where they the Army tried to force them to be human minesweepers, and when they would not go the soldiers beat them. The SPDC military has involved villagers in landmine warfare in the area for at least 2 years by using them as minesweepers and mine detonators, but soldiers are now treating mines as deadly tools in a terror campaign targeted at villagers. In villages that the SPDC is relocating, soldiers now deliberately plant mines in areas where they know only villagers will go, such as private homes of people with suspected KNU/KNLA connections. The SPDC’s warfare tactics against villagers are the same ones used against the resistance army, reflecting the Army’s view that innocent villagers are their enemy.

"We were afraid because the KNLA went and placed landmines around the logging sites. The KNU had protected the woods for hundreds of years, but when the DKBA and the Burmese were planning to log them, the KNLA placed landmines there. We heard about this and were very afraid of doing forced labour there. I had to go to do it, and we helped each other roll the logs or carry them in the cart." - "Nan Paw Oa" (F, 18), xxxx village, Kawkareik township (Interview #42, 7/99)

"I went to cut trees for them because the Burmese wanted to build a bridge and needed wood. When I started to cut down a tree, I stepped on a landmine. Three of us went. One of my friends got a small wound and the other one had dirt sprayed in his face. But I got hit worse than them." - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township; both of his legs were blown off but he survived (Interview #28, 8/99)

"One time a woman from Pway Taw Ro was found dead in her hut, but we didn’t know who had killed her. She and her husband were both stabbed to death. She was cut around her neck. At the foot of her ladder there was a landmine, and also in her kitchen there was a landmine. It was lucky that a dog went in there first and lay down, so it exploded that landmine. We don’t know who put the landmines there. In the house above the ladder [which serves as the front steps] there was a landmine in the water jug [a pot with drinking water for visitors and passersby]. Since she had died, many people had gone to her house and passed under her ladder. Suddenly somebody knocked the water jug, and it fell down and exploded. Then no one dared to move and walk around her house. Her mother told us this when she was visiting a relative in Pah Ka. I don’t know if it was the Ko Per Baw or the Burmese. Her mother told us that her daughter’s 4 necklaces were stolen, also 3 rings and 2 pairs of earrings. They also took 20,000 Kyat." - "Naw Kyaw" (F, xx), Pah Ka village, Dta Greh township (Interview #33, 8/99)

Arrests, Torture and Threats

"The village head has responsibility for all people who are sick and cannot go or pay the fee for portering. This is why no one wants to be the village head. Our last village head, D---, fled already, and nobody wanted to be the village head after he left. He was elected by the villagers to cooperate with them to solve their problems, but he did not want to cooperate with the Burmese. If the Burmese demanded things from the villagers which we couldn’t give, the village head had to take responsibility. The Burmese punish him if he can’t give them what they want. Sometimes they asked for money, but they would also beat him for punishment. My older brother was the village head and I saw the Burmese slap his face and head, just like they do to the villagers who go and work for them every day. His name is xxxx and he is 40 years old. The Burmese hit him when they were angry because they saw the villagers running from them, and when they asked the village head, he told them that they were running to escape from being captured as porters. So they punished the village head. This year at the start of the rainy season the Ko Per Baw ordered a village head to collect porters but he would not go at first and nobody dared to go. They arrested him and put him in jail for 2 or 3 days but he escaped. He is my nephew, only 20 years old. His name is Saw xxxx." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

The village head serves as a liaison between the village and the military authorities. While ordinary villagers are routinely detained and tortured by SPDC troops, village heads are usually the first ones targeted for failing to comply with the Army’s many demands. To the SPDC it is a moot point whether the village can actually meet the monetary, forced labour, portering, and other demands inflicted upon them. A dissatisfied officer will order his troops to arrest and often torture the village head, then hold him/her for ransom while the villagers raise enough money to secure his/her release. Sometimes the forced labour fees, arbitrary taxes, and other demands must come out of the village head’s pocket if villagers cannot afford to pay the Army themselves. Traditionally men have been elected to serve as village heads, but now villagers tend to elect women in hopes they will be treated less brutally. Most villagers are terrified of becoming the village head, so many villages now elect their leader on a short-term, rotating basis so s/he will not have to face repetitive punishment. Village heads, even women, are often beaten and tortured when the village fails to raise enough money or fulfil the demands for forced labour, and the killing of village elders is not a rare occurrence.

"If we didn’t have the money when the Ko Per Baw came to collect it, they captured the village head. Then if we didn’t collect the money for them, they wouldn’t allow the village head to come back. They would capture him and keep him in jail. Then the villagers had to collect money until we could give them enough. If you have a goat or a hen you have to sell it. Before some people had money, but with more and more collections they sold all their belongings, even their cattle, pigs and goats." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"There are about 100 houses in the village. They elect the village head for two or three months at a time. Sometimes in the past they elected one village head for 6 months, but now they always change the village head. If the villagers think that someone can do it, they ask the person to do it. If you ask the villagers to do it, nobody wants to. The villagers all have their land and fields to work." - "Saw Nya" (M, 60), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #37, 7/99)

"He is an old village head, and he argued with the Burmese [soldier] so he slapped him. He ordered the village head to buy alcohol for him, but the village head wouldn’t do it so he slapped him twice on the back of his neck." - "Pa Noh" (M, 45), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #12, 9/99)

"They beat the villagers, which is why nobody wants to be the village head. This May they beat one of the village heads, who was a temporary headman. … One time when they tortured him, he didn’t want to be the village head any more. He told me that the DKBA beat him. They wanted villagers to go immediately, but he told them that they could not find anyone right away. They said, ‘The villagers are bad, and we already told you to get them.’ Then they beat him. He told me, ‘Brother-in-law, I cannot suffer anymore.’ He could not bear it anymore and so he fled from the village. … Now the villagers are working together with ‘Dta Lah Lu Gyi’ [‘monthly village head’], who is always a woman. The villagers elect her every month. The villagers work for Dta Lah Lu Gyi throughout the year, and each house gives 1 basket of paddy to them for taking care of us. They would elect men but they dare not. When the DKBA or the Burmese come to the village, it is a different matter with a male village head. Once in the past they came to collect emergency porters and the headman couldn’t find any for them. Then they beat the headman and the people dared not complain." - "Saw Daniel" (M, 70), Dta Greh village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #41, 7/99)

The SPDC and DKBA soldiers often beat, threaten, and intimidate ordinary villagers if they resist handing over their food or belongings on demand. Villagers are routinely arrested for random reasons, for which no explanation is offered before, during, or after their detention. Often villagers will complain to DKBA troops about looting or other injustices on the mistaken assumption that the DKBA will act as allies and confront the SPDC on the villagers’ behalf. The DKBA immediately informs the SPDC, and the plaintive villagers are punished for their disobedience. The motivations for torture are too numerous to mention here, but the incidents are becoming more commonplace as the military presence in the region intensifies, resulting in more demands and more interactions with reluctant, weary villagers.

"[talking about the village headwoman] She complained to the Ko Per Baw leaders at Ko Ko and the Burmese beat her very badly. It was after we fled here, because the other group that came after us told us. She was telling the truth, but they didn’t like that. She said that the Burmese are raping women and stealing belongings. The Burmese beat her with a stick because they accused her of complaining to the Ko Per Baw about what the Burmese have done. She only reported it to the Ko Per Baw, but they cooperate with the Burmese so the Burmese found out, and they beat her. They accused her of being an informer and they tried to kill her." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

"Yes, they beat one married woman named P---. She is around 70 years old. When they were looting her children’s paddy she told them, ‘It will all be gone, then we will have no paddy to eat.’ Then they took a stick and beat her once and kicked her once. She dared not complain [to the commander] because the commander and the soldiers are the same." - "Saw Nyo" (M, 50), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #25, 8/99)

"Yes, they frightened us when they demanded food. If people didn’t give it to them, they threatened us and touched us with their guns saying, ‘Will you give it to me or not? If you don’t give, I will shoot you.’ We were afraid so we gave to them. We didn’t know if they would fire at us or not, and if they did we would die." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"I was carrying paddy to my house, and when I arrived he came up into the house and demanded alcohol. I told him that we didn’t have any alcohol. He called me down to the ground with two of my friends, and then he told me that whether I found it or not he would tie our hands behind our backs and also tie our legs. Der! He accused me of being a Karen soldier. They saw that I had only one foot, so they couldn’t tie it. They tied the hands and legs of the other two with me and demanded that we lie down, but because I couldn’t do it quickly they kicked me once on the back with their big boots. They hit my chin with the butt of a gun, then they punched my friend and split his forehead open." - "Saw Tha Suh" (M, 45), Tee Wah Klay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #14, 9/99)

"One time they shot at the village children who were looking after the cattle in the hills, and they captured many children. It was around 20 people. There were children and women, some of whom were carrying their babies. They called them back to their Battalion and forced them to spend the night. Then they released them." - "Saw Baw" (M, 29), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #24, 8/99)

Aside from failing to meet demands, the other most frequent cause for detention and torture is the suspicion that a villager has KNU contacts. The SPDC intimidates villagers by physical torture who they suspect have ‘rebel’ affiliations, though their suspicions are hardly ever based on concrete evidence. Often if villagers fail to comply with their demands, soldiers will automatically accuse them of being KNU members. Although the KNLA does depend on villagers’ contributions of food and supplies, any villagers with real allegiance to the KNU stay silent for fear of drawing the SPDC’s attention, while most simply wish to distance themselves from all sides of the conflict. Those who happen to know about KNLA activity dare not reveal their information when interrogated unless soldiers literally beat it out of them. DKBA and SPDC soldiers usually make completely arbitrary accusations against villagers, sometimes spurred from personal grudges or a selfish hope for a promotion. Soldiers often detain villagers whose innocence they have never doubted simply as an excuse to demand a significant bribe from the village for his/her release, often totaling 20,000-30,000 Kyat. Whatever the provocation, villagers understand that any known or suspected connection to the KNU will cost them, their families, or their fellow villagers great personal harm. If a villager is arrested, he or she will not receive a fair trial, and will be held indefinitely, possibly serving as a frontline porter or as a forced labourer at an army camp, until village elders can ‘vouch’ for their innocence. No one is spared from this ‘witch hunt’ process, and many villagers report savage beatings of women, elders, and children. Through arrest and torture, the SPDC has managed to instill both tremendous fear and the unwilling compliance of villagers.

"Yes, they beat and tortured a villager named P---, who is around 30 years old. The commander ordered it and the privates beat him. They accused him of being Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA] and working with them. He was never Kaw Thoo Lei, and he told them that but they did not accept it, so they sliced his ears. They beat him horribly with a stick in the village, and we dared not go to look because we were staying outside the village. Now he is not strong enough to carry anything." - "Naw Paw Htoo" (F, 27), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #9, 9/99)

"He asked me, ‘Maung xxxx, where are you from?’ and I told him ‘I stay at T---.’ [Where his farmfield hut is.] He said, ‘What do you do there, and where do you keep your gun?’ He told me that I wasn’t telling the truth, so he kept me tied up with rope. After they had kept us tied up at that place for 4 or 5 hours, he said, ‘Tie them separately.’ The rope was 40 handspans long, but it wasn’t long enough for him so he untied a rope from someone’s pig and tied me on the back with that rope, too. They tied my friend to me so we were like a ball. You don’t need to ask how tight it was. I couldn’t sit down so I didn’t know what to do. As for my friend, when the Burmese tied him he shouted out and they threatened him with a gun and told him, ‘Be quiet. You are real Nga Pway [SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA].’ We told them, ‘We are not Nga Pway, we are workers and if you don’t believe us, go look at our huts.’ Pwah! Then we couldn’t do anything, so we told the other villagers to go and tell the village head that the Burmese had us tied up. We had done nothing wrong." - "Saw Kee" (M, 21), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #11, 9/99)

"Der! They beat my husband’s cousin. They chased and captured him and stabbed him with a bayonet. Then they twisted it inside him and he yelled loudly because it was so painful. They accused him of having a gun and radio and making contact with T’Bee Met [‘closed-eyes’, DKBA slang for KNU/KNLA], but he never had. All of the people they capture they beat a lot. The time they captured my husband they captured 7 people and they slapped their faces until they were bruised. They accused them all of having guns and radios, so they interrogated and beat each of them in the fields. They tied them all and beat and kicked them. Later they released them all because people gave guarantees for them. I was very afraid and my feet were trembling, and I was so afraid that I couldn’t go to guarantee him [her husband]. But I had to go to give the guarantee because they kept telling me that they were going to kill him. They said that he and his cousin, B---, were most at fault." - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township; her husband S--- was later shot dead by the DKBA, though he was innocent of any contact with the KNLA (Interview #32, 8/99)

"Yes, the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] arrived one time and touched us with guns. The Burmese were also involved. When they arrived at the hut, they pointed their guns and ordered us, ‘Don’t run away.’ We dared not run because they were close to us. Then they said, ‘Have you seen T’Bee Met?’ [‘Closed-eyes’, DKBA term for Karen soldiers] I said I hadn’t seen them. They started to frighten me and said that the day before they had passed through our area. I told them that they hadn’t come, but they continued, ‘Uncle, tell the truth. If you do not tell the truth you will face many problems.’ So I told them the truth that they had not come, and then they pulled me down toward the path, and when we arrived on the path they asked me again, ‘Do they [KNLA] come often?’ I told them, ‘We haven’t seen them’, but we were lying to them because some people from here were our friends and sometimes they did come. They told me again, ‘Tell the truth’, and they kicked me one time on my back and slapped my face twice. I fell down into a gully. We said, ‘They do not come often. Sometimes once a month or once a week.’ Then they didn’t beat me anymore, and they released me and told me to go up to the house." - "Pu Tamla" (M, 60+), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #8, 9/99)

Rape and Sexual Abuse

"They tried to steal women to sleep with, so the women had to gather and sleep together in the same house at night. They had to close the door tightly and each of the women had their own big knives. They dared not sleep at their own houses because the Burmese were staying in their houses, so 4 or 5 families would sleep together in one house. The men dared not guard them. Der! In the morning they would go back home. They asked my wife to have sex because she stayed with just one or two others, and she scolded and shouted at them. We dared not stay without many people. I cannot explain how great the fear was. I have a daughter who is a teenager, so I dared not let them meet her. Two or three years ago they didn’t do things like this, and my wife and I didn’t want to run too hastily. My wife is an especially strong woman and she faced the Burmese treatment until she couldn’t face them anymore. One time my wife visited me in the farmfield hut and whispered, ‘We have to move. We dare not stay anymore because now in the night we have to sleep in one big group with big knives.’ So people fled because they couldn’t tolerate the Burmese treatment. Now they have all fled." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

On the rise in southeastern Pa’an District are incidents of rape and sexual abuse of women by SPDC troops. While men flee their villages as soon as the military approaches, women usually remain to take care of the house and surrounding fields. Without a male presence to prevent their advances, troops more easily take advantage of the women’s vulnerable position. Knowing they will encounter less resistance if the male owner of the house is absent, soldiers boldly enter houses at will, looting belongings and making sexual advances towards women. Some women have been able to ward off intruding, often drunken soldiers, but many have not. Soldiers will often try to convince women to return to their camp when they enter a village at night. In one case, the village headwoman of Pah Klu was forced to become the sexual servant of Captain Toe Aung, a Company Commander with Light Infantry Battalion #120, for the duration of his stay in the village. The other village women, afraid of a similar fate, gathered to sleep in groups and carried knives to protect themselves against soldiers who stormed their houses at night. In the end the women of Pah Klu were largely successful in warding off their attackers because they threatened to tell the soldiers’ commanding officer if they were raped. Privates know that rape is one offense they can actually be punished for, though the punishment is almost always minor. In the Burmese military, rape is considered an officer’s privilege, and most privates are afraid of overstepping their bounds. In some regions the local commanding officers who commit rape will also be afraid of their superior officers finding out about their own transgressions. The threat of punishment, however, is often not daunting enough to deter soldiers from trying to rape women, especially if they observe the example of their commanding officers. In general, and certainly in southeastern Pa’an District, the Burmese military creates an atmosphere of impunity around rape, just as it does with the torture and killing of villagers.

"He said, ‘A’Mo pay! A’Mo leh saun!’ [literally: ‘Mother, give! Mother, a present!’] I asked him, ‘What kind of present?’, and he came near to me so I was afraid. He said ‘A’Mo pay! Pay!’ and I said, ‘Give what?’, and I moved away from him little by little because I was afraid. I told him, ‘Go back. It is dark, go back.’ And I moved away from him. I spoke to him in Karen, but he spoke to me in Burmese. After I asked him to go back he went back. … As for me they couldn’t rape me, but they did it a lot to my friends and my nieces, so I couldn’t stay anymore. I was afraid and sometimes our hearts become cold and sometimes hot [angry], and we couldn’t sleep until morning. In the night my heart and hands became cold with fear of them. My husband was not sleeping beside me." - "Naw Paw Mo" (F, 42), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #21, 8/99)

"There were 3 or 4 women and the people told me they were married. They are older than me. The Burmese soldiers went to the women’s houses; they didn’t call them [to the Army camp]. They couldn’t sleep with the women, but they could hold their hands and legs. At that time I was together with them because the Burmese had arrested and tied me up at the time when they slept with the women. They are the same troops who tied me. I didn’t see it because they kept me in another place and in the morning we heard the village head complain to their commander that his soldiers had slept with the women. They punished the soldiers, but they are still doing it." - "Saw Lah Ku" (M, 21), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #18, 8/99)

"…her husband ran at night because they came to kill him so they could have sex with his wife. They couldn’t, because she can speak Burmese, so she spoke to them and avoided it while her husband fled in the night. Her name is Ma T--- and she is 30 years old. This was not a long time ago, only 10 days or so." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

"[about the village head, who is a widow:] He took the village headwoman to sleep with him, and he kept her beside him and slept with her. … The children go with her and stay with them. She has two children and one is 7 years old. I can’t tell what he does with her because he never lets her out, and she has to stay there both days and nights. If he went somewhere, she had to go with him day or night." - "Naw Paw Mo" (F, 42), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #21, 8/99)

The whole village will feel the consequences of a woman’s rape. Fear of being violated, and shame experienced after the fact, will drive women out of the village to join their husbands in hiding until soldiers have left, or until the family can flee to a safer location. Rape and the threat of it is often the trigger for a mass exodus from the village, since fear quickly spreads to all women left unprotected, and because no family members are able to remain in safety any longer. The villagers are reluctant to leave their homes unattended because they know that soldiers will raid them, but many women would rather lose everything than face aggressive soldiers.

"Once a Burmese soldier entered a married woman’s house. When she tried to go into her room [to escape], he caught her by the leg and pulled her back out of the room. The Burmese was drunk so the woman became afraid and came back out…Now not many women are staying in the village. Mostly they go and sleep in the jungle or in their field huts. They [Burmese] don’t try to find them, because whenever house owners flee they are happy because they can steal freely." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"They walked around the whole night and went into people’s houses. They stole people’s belongings and questioned women. They asked the women to sleep with them, and so some women dared not stay and ran away because they couldn’t face it. I did not hear that they raped women in the village, but I heard that they harassed women. They asked to have sex and the women got angry and moved away. They harassed 2 or 3 women like that. After people knew about that, only a few people remained in their houses. Most people ran away." - "Saw Nyo" (M, 50), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #25, 8/99)

Killings

"…they killed one of my nephews. They didn’t allow the people to go out at night. He was foolish and went outside the village at night to find frogs in the rainy season. It was in Lah Ghoh [August] before people transplanted their paddy seedlings. We had already sown the seed paddy and the seedlings were growing long. Then DKBA soldiers who were staying in the village killed him. His name was Saw Eh Kweh, and he was about 20 years old, younger than my daughter. At that time the KNLA came to fight the DKBA in Taw Oak, and when the KNLA entered the village they met him. Some soldiers arrived and started shooting in the village. When he heard the shooting he was afraid and dared not return to the village, so he ran and followed the KNLA. After they [KNLA] finished shooting, they went back to Pah Klu village and took him there, too. But he was not a soldier, so the KNLA soldiers left him there and went away from Pah Klu. The next day when DKBA went to Pah Klu, they killed him and threw his body in the river. The villagers from Pah Klu saw them do it. They stabbed him through his clothes. Maybe they tied him, too, but we didn’t go to see him. It was raining then and the river was in flood. Later when the river went down his body appeared, and the villagers from Pah Klu took him out and buried him." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

Villagers in the Pah Klu area have recently reported encounters with troops who bear a strong resemblance to Sa Thon Lon Guerrilla Retaliation Units. These units are special execution squads which the SPDC has employed in Nyaunglebin District, where the villagers call them the "Short Pants" ("Baw Bi Doh") in reference to their civilian clothes. The units there are known for their brutal execution techniques and sexual harassment of women. In Pah Klu they are called "S’Ker Po", or "Short Skirts", apparently a sarcastic reference to their attempts to sleep with all the village women. In Nyaunglebin District, the Sa Thon Lon have a clearly stated mission to execute on sight anyone they believe has had past or present contact with the KNU, but they are also notorious for their unceasing harassment of village women. (For a history and description of ‘Sa Thon Lon’ units, see "Death Squads and Displacement: Systematic Executions, Village Destruction and the Flight of Villagers in Nyaunglebin District", KHRG #99-04, 24/5/99). Until now there have been no confirmed reports of Sa Thon Lon activity in Central Karen State, but there have been several reports that the SPDC planned to bring some Sa Thon Lon execution squads into Pa’an District. KHRG has not found any evidence to confirm these rumours. Rape and looting are rampant in the village, but villagers have not yet reported executions of the type associated with Sa Thon Lon units. It is possible, however, that several units have moved south in order to terrify villagers and facilitate the SPDC’s relocation of villages to Army camps with the goal of eliminating the KNLA’s support base.

"We heard about them [Sa Thon Lon] but we could not figure out if these belong to the same group, because they are doing the same things as those groups." - "Naw Paw Mo" (F, 42), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #21, 8/99)

"They [the soldiers] already went back to their camp at Ker Ghaw but we heard that they will come back again. I don’t know their unit number but there are 80 soldiers. They wear the same clothes as villagers. They wear short pants and shirts…People told me that it is Baw Bi Doh, but we called them S’Ker Po ["short skirts"]… they do not carry guns. They bring knives. They walk around day and night. They are going after women, not men." - "Saw Nyo" (M, 50), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #25, 8/99)

As with torture and detention of villagers, the DKBA and SPDC continue to kill indiscriminately in all areas of southeastern Pa’an District. They are known to blame each other for acts of killing in order to avoid confronting village elders or compensating relatives. Both armies will seek out villagers to accuse of KNU affiliations, but legitimate proof of guilt is never necessary before killing a villager. When summoned by troops, many villagers run in hopes of avoiding interrogation about the KNLA, which may or may not involve torture, and/or an inevitable porter shift if captured. Soldiers shoot anyone running to escape, justifying their actions by claiming that running implies that the villager does indeed have KNLA connections. They seldom offer explanations to relatives of victims either, and never report them as civilian casualties. If recorded at all, the dead are considered KNLA soldiers killed in battle, numbers which are used to boost the SPDC’s claims of crushing opposition groups.

"The #120 [Battalion] troops killed a villager named Du Lay Loh. They didn’t tell anyone when they captured him, and then they killed him the same day. Later people found his body in a hole and buried him. They didn’t tell any of the village elders why they killed him." - "Saw Than" (M, 43), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #5, 11/99)

"They are always shooting their guns in the village, both big weapons and small guns. If they see the people run, they shoot them all. They starting shooting last year, and they didn’t think beforehand whether they’re aiming at villagers or the KNLA. The Burmese accuse the DKBA of doing the shooting and the DKBA accused the Burmese of doing it." - "Naw Lay Wah" (F, 25), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #36, 7/99)

"…one of my brothers was shot to death by the Burmese. … The Burmese didn’t say anything afterwards, because they couldn’t do anything since he was shot already. Maybe they could have done something, but the Burmese are like that - they shoot first and think later, and you can’t bring people back to life. After the people ran away, they took the belongings that they had left. My brother’s friend was with his wife, and she was shot. They took all the woman’s belongings, like shirts, clothing, pots, and other things. " - "Naw Paw Htoo" (F, 27), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #9, 9/99)

"…they come to my village often and whenever they come they shoot villagers. The other time they came they shot a man named Htay Lah. He is Karen and a villager. He was eating rice at his wife’s parents’ house when they shot him. He wasn’t wearing clothes while he was eating, only short pants. They started shooting into the house, so he stopped eating and ran down to the ground. He ran and they shot him to death. They accused him of being Nga Pway [KNLA soldier]. People told them, ‘He is not Nga Pway; he is a villager. Look in his house—there are no weapons!’…When their commander asked them they said that a small battle had occurred with the KNLA and they had accidentally hit a villager. For sure there was no battle, because there was no KNLA there. They just shot at a villager who was running." - "Pu Dta Ler" (M, 50-60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah twp. (Interview #45, 4/99)

"He went into the forest to find some vegetables to eat, but he didn’t know that the Burmese [LIB 331] were staying along the path waiting for them, so he went down to enter the village and when the Burmese saw him and his friend, they shot the two of them dead. My uncle’s name was Per Ta Lu and he was 32 years old. His friend was Pa Mu Dah, who was only 15 years old. … We knew it because they came carrying their bodies in blankets and bags. They said that they made a mistake by shooting them, but they were dead already, and these dead people were villagers. They were carrying vegetables when the soldiers shot them dead." - "Naw Paw Htoo" (F, 27), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #9, 9/99)

As the SPDC concentrates its offensive against the KNLA in Pa’an District more villagers are forced to suffer the consequences, usually not by being caught in the crossfire but by facing SPDC reprisals after the shooting stops. Villagers often become scapegoats when a battle occurs near the village, forced to placate troops by clearing away the dead soldiers, treating the wounded, and providing them with food and supplies. This is often is not enough, however, and soldiers vent their rage by killing civilians whose only fault was being too close to a battle site. Villagers have no idea how to approach unpredictable and dangerous soldiers, so without a better alternative many opt to flee deep into the jungle, becoming internally displaced.

"In the plain area [west of the Dawna Mountains] they beat all of the villagers who live near to places where battles have occurred. One battle occurred at Kaw Suh, near Ler Dah, only 20 minutes’ walk from Ta Plaw Pu. It happened between the villages. There were only a few soldiers from the Karen side, so they shot for a while and then ran away. I was involved there too, and when the Karen soldiers ran and shot at them, one or two of them were wounded and they were upset about this. So they accused the Kaw Suh villagers of feeding Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA]. They killed two women because the Kaw Thoo Lei had shot at them. They weren’t village heads. They were married women, and they ran from fright when the Burmese arrived. They shot 5 or 6 cows at the same time; it was not a mistake, they aimed at them and shot them. The Karen soldiers had already run far away from the village, but the Burmese came to shoot the two women anyway. They were around 45 years old; one of them has 4 children and the other one has 2 children." - "Saw Lay Htoo" (M, 42), xxxx village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #10, 9/99)

Looting, Extortion, and Demands

"If they tax us, we have to give to them. We can’t stay without giving to them. Both the DKBA and the Burmese tax us. Last year they taxed us until we could not pay them. This year they taxed us too, and we couldn’t pay them anymore. That’s why we fled from them. They collected once a month from every house to buy their food. Each time we had to give 1,000 or more Kyat [per house], and sometimes they collected 2,000 or 3,000 Kyat. We had to pay the Burmese less than the DKBA; we usually had to give the Burmese 500 Kyat [each time]. They collected irregularly, twice or three times a month. They made problems for the villagers who could not pay. If there were villagers who couldn’t pay, each house would have to give until they collected 10,000 or 30,000 Kyat. The next time the villagers would have to find enough to pay them again." - "Maung Shwe" (M, 36), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #19, 8/99)

Villagers in Southeastern Pa’an District have been the victims of relentless looting of food, livestock, belongings, and money by SPDC and DKBA forces. The SPDC has been gradually reducing rations to its soldiers nationwide and directly ordering them to live off the land or the local villagers. Similarly, DKBA forces cannot depend on Rangoon for any supplies at all anymore. SPDC officers have been known to take the rations and sell them, then inform their privates to loot from nearby villages. Additionally, the quality of the rice rationed to rank-and-file SPDC soldiers is now so poor that most soldiers refuse to eat it, so many simply take the villagers’ good quality rice. The SPDC, DKBA and KNLA armies are all therefore dependent on resource-strapped villagers for food and supplies, which they take at will. Villagers are forced to hand over their food to troops who demand them and are threatened in various ways if they do not comply. Most villagers cite looting as a primary reason for flight from their villages, as hunger becomes less of a fear and more of a reality.

"During this last rainy season the rice [ration shipments] didn’t come for them, so they didn’t have enough rice. Then they demanded rice from the villagers. They demanded it from the village head, and he had to give it to them because he was afraid of their guns. So the villagers had to give and then they had to buy rice for themselves in order to eat." - "Saw Baw" (M, 29), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #24, 8/99)

"If the house where they are staying doesn’t have rice, they look at other houses to see if they have rice, and they steal it in the night. Villagers sometimes didn’t have enough rice and so they couldn’t eat. They take our livestock, mostly pigs and goats. If you add up the livestock that they eat during one night, it is at least 3 pigs. They steal it during the night and don’t give any money." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"At my mother’s house, where 2 of my sisters were also staying, they [soldiers] came and touched them with guns and looted some rice. Then they threatened my sisters with a firebrand and cut up my mother’s bed." - "Naw Paw Mo" (F, 42), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #21, 8/99)

"Don’t ask if they eat or not! They ate a lot. We dared not complain to them. If we complained, they said, ‘I eat your poultry. If I ask from you, give. Don’t talk too much.’ The villagers are afraid of them and feed them. But the villagers don’t want to feed them in their hearts." - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #28, 8/99)

"When they enter the village they eat pigs and hens, and they come and steal all the villager’s belongings. They don’t ask for it, and if they ask the owner and the owner doesn’t give it to them they kill it for themselves and nobody dares to complain. If you talk back to them they point their guns at you. They ate one of my hens but I dared not say anything to them. I stayed quiet, and their commanders also scolded us the way they do. Der! The privates and their commanders eat together. They eat the villagers’ pigs and chickens and they don’t pay for it." - "Naw Paw Htoo" (F, 27), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #9, 9/99)

"Even though I didn’t raise livestock, they took my pumpkins. If I complained, they told me ‘You have no legs. You shouldn’t say anything.’" - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township, who lost both legs to a landmine doing forced labour for the SPDC (Interview #28, 8/99)

The looting is actively encouraged by commanding officers, who demand large quantities of food and money for themselves and have no objection to their troops obtaining all their food from the villagers. Many villagers report that extortion takes many forms; for example, troops demand that the villagers feed them pork, leaving them the burden of buying livestock outside the village, or the burden of monetarily reimbursing a villager whose pig they must sacrifice. Soldiers also loot in order to provide for their wives and children if their families stay with them in or near the village. It is widely known among villagers that SPDC soldiers, eager to supplement their humble earnings from the military, steal from the villagers and send the money and clothing they steal back home to their families in other parts of Burma. Officers can make millions of Kyat extorting money from the villages in their area in the course of a year’s posting, money which their families can use to start businesses back in Rangoon or other towns.

"They took 4 or 5 baskets of paddy from L---’s house. From other women they looted rice and touched the women with their hands. Then there was only a bit of rice left, and they shat in it and then left." - "Saw Mo Aung" (M, 39), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #13, 9/99)

"They demand to eat in the village as well. We have to find money to pay for 2 meals of pork per month, which is 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb] of pork each time, or 40 viss in total. One viss of pork costs 500 Kyat, so that makes 20,000 Kyat monthly just for pork. If we do not have pigs in the village we have to go outside the village to find them." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

"They collected money, for example we have to pay for their batteries and pork. We had to collect money recently so that they can eat pork twice a month. For each month that costs each family 1,000 Kyat or more. Including everything, like porter fees, batteries for their torchlights and radios, and monthly ‘set tha’ fees, each family has to give 3,000 Kyat or more. We have to give that every month because they demand it every month. If we don’t give it to them they just glare at us. You can’t stay there without giving, so you have to give all you can." - "Pa Noh" (M, 45), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #12, 9/99)

"Der! They will do what they want and send it to their families. It is the way of earning respect from the family by sending them money." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"They did not ask to buy it [rice], they looted it from the owners. The owners saw it but dared not say anything, and if they [the soldiers] were carrying their guns the women were afraid and said, "take as you will". They took it and put it in sacks that hold 3 big tins each [50-kilo rice sacks], then they pounded it themselves with the villagers’ mortars. Then they walked into the village and sold it for 1,000 Kyat per sack. Some people bought it, because if people didn’t buy it they couldn’t live. Some people can’t [afford to] buy it but others can. People bought it to eat because in the village there is rarely enough rice, so we have to go down to buy rice from the plains. The Burmese came to stay in the village, and then the Ko Per Baw took the Burmese rice while it was on its way, and didn’t send any of it on to them. [The DKBA stole a Burmese Army rice ration shipment.]" - "Saw Mo Aung" (M, 39), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #13, 9/99)

Now that the demands for portering and forced labour are increasing, many villagers are forced to leave their homes for periods of time, either to escape forced labour shifts or to fulfil them. The soldiers take advantage of the owners’ absence by freely entering homes and eating rice, stealing belongings, trashing whatever possessions they cannot use or carry, and in some cases occupying the houses for the duration of their stay in a village, effectively forcing the villagers out of their own homes. Soldiers never offer compensation for stolen pots or clothing, items which are difficult for villagers to replace, nor do soldiers care if they loot the villagers’ main food supply. Villagers are frequently left with nothing after soldiers come through their village, without any means of replacing stolen or damaged goods. Despite this, they are still forced to pay extortion fees to the military.

"They took everything that they saw, like gallon jugs and containers and as much as they could carry. Someone from Gkah Deh said, ‘They are like gorillas, even if they see pumpkins or pumpkin leaf they take it, and if they see just one aubergine they take it and put it in their basket and you can’t keep it.’ Even if they saw half a knife [a broken machete] they would take it. Just recently they went and took O---’s saw, and when he went and asked for it back the Burmese pushed his chest with the butt of a pistol and slapped him once on the face." - "Pu Than Nyunt" (M, 55), B’Nweh Pu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #15, 9/99)

"Those troops shit into people’s mortars [for pounding paddy] and cookpots. There were a lot of people who had to face this in Pah Klu; the married women there said that you dared not open your cookpots because they were full of shit, and so were their [rice container] tins. … they didn’t stay in our village, they just came and stayed one night and I said to him, ‘Son, don’t shit in our mortars.’ He asked me, ‘Where did you hear that?’ and I told him, ‘I heard from Meh Pleh that you shat in their mortars.’ … Both their leaders and their private soldiers do it, because their leaders are no good and it is like rain dripping down from the roof of the house [the example of the officers trickles down to the men]. People say ‘When the head goes, the tail is pulled along’ [a Karen proverb]. I told them we would go to their battalion base at Moh Ta Ma to do our own shit, and I told them, ‘You have very rude habits! You should know a toilet, can’t you tell a toilet from a mortar or a cookpot?’ He said, ‘Mother, who told you this?’ I told him I heard it when I was in Meh Pleh, and all the married women in Pah Klu were also talking about it. They did it in Pah Klu just for spite." - "Naw Hsah Paw" (F, 47), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township; the mortars are large wooden mortars people keep under their houses for pounding and husking rice (Interview #2, 11/99)

In addition to theft, the SPDC and DKBA constantly demand fees from the villagers for everything from replacement of forced labourers to arbitrary taxes on personal possessions. Sometimes the villagers are fined for circumstances completely unrelated to them, such as an incident in B’Naw Kleh Kee when the DKBA commander charged the villagers 70,000 Kyat to compensate for a soldier’s desertion. A villager from T’Nay Hsah township told KHRG how an SPDC officer demanded 316,000 Kyat per month in ‘porter fees’ alone from the 5 villages around hers, then kept all the money for himself and demanded porters as well. Often the villagers have no idea what they are paying for, but they have no choice but to meet the demand. Typically the village head collects the various fees from the villagers on a monthly basis, but often the troops demand random fees without prior warning. Sometimes the village head establishes a sliding scale system, taxing the richest villagers more than the poorest. Villagers try to cooperate and help each other meet the demands, but all have problems meeting the heavy fees imposed on them. Most villages in southeastern Pa’an District have been so heavily taxed that villagers simply have no money left, and are forced to take their turns for forced labour or portering instead of hiring replacements. This only reinforces their debt, however, as villagers have no time to work on their fields to produce rice. Instead of remaining caught in this relentless cycle of fees, more and more villagers are opting to flee their villages and take their chances on surviving in the jungle.

"For each month our village had to give 14,000 Kyat for each of 2 people [to not send 2 porters], so we gave them 70,000 Kyat in 3 months. He took the money from every village. Our village is only small, he demanded more from the bigger villages. From Ker Ghaw he collected for 6 people [porters] at 12,000 Kyat each, 6 people from Tee Wah Blaw, six from Tee Law Thay and six from Sghaw Ko tract, all at 12,000 each. He just took money, not people [he didn’t want the porters, it was just an excuse to demand money; in total, the 5 villages listed had to pay a total of 316,000 Kyat per month for ‘porter fees’ alone, not counting other fees]. There are other village tracts too, like Pah Klu tract, Loh Baw, Meh Pleh Wah and so on as far as Tee Wah Klay and Day Law Pya. He also beat people, and a lot of villagers from our village ran away. … Sometimes he demanded 10 people or 30 people from each village, took the money for that all for himself and then still called for ‘loh ah pay’. He demanded people as well as money. Sometimes when they were going to patrol to Meh Pleh and come back he took more than 10 villagers from our village." - "Naw Hsah Paw" (F, 47), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township, talking about a commander from SPDC #116 Battalion (Interview #2, 11/99)

"They collect 2,000 Kyat once a month from each house. They told us that it is for porters’ fees, and since villagers dare not go to porter, they give money. If [the Burmese] can’t get it, they trouble the village head. They beat him, so the village head has to come back and ask the villagers again until they can raise the money. Then we take it to the village head, and he takes it to them. The village head has no time to rest." - "Saw Mo Aung" (M, 39), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #13, 9/99)

"They often demanded between 70,000 and 80,000 Kyat from each village. If the Burmese demand it, the DKBA will demand the same. There are only 83 houses in our village so each house must give more than 1,000 Kyat at the least. Some families, like ours, have to give 3,000 or 5,000 Kyat, and some even give 10,000. The poorest family in the village must give 1,500 Kyat. But you have no time to go out and work for money, so how can you give that much money so often? You go for ‘loh ah pay’ every day, so how will you get money?" - "Nan Paw Oa" (F, 18), xxxx village, Kawkareik township (Interview #42, 7/99)

"We paid the big fees 3 or 4 times a month and the small fees 4 or 5 times a month. Some months we had to pay 2,000 Kyat total, but some months we paid 3,000 Kyat [per family]. If we couldn’t pay the village head might take away our precious things, such as cooking pots and other things that he could sell to get enough to pay the fee. He is the Burmese village head [the village head appointed by the SPDC]." - "Maung Hla" (M, 30), Kru Bper village, Kawkareik township (Interview #44, 4/99)

"Ah! If they saw a house with a tin roof, they collected at least 5,000 Kyat per month. I don’t know what they do with that money. People can’t stay [in the village] without giving to them. If you have chickens or cows you have to sell your livestock. They collect 5,000 Kyat from villagers who have belongings, but from people like me they collect 2,000 Kyat per month. They always collect, but for what I don’t know. " - "Saw Kee" (M, 21), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #11, 9/99)

"After we sold all our belongings we all had to run away and come here. I don’t know what would happen if we still lived in the village, if they would kill us or not. But now a lot of people cannot pay them, and this year there is not enough rice or paddy either, so maybe the villagers will have to steal. " - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #32, 8/99)

Challenges for Farmers

"They confiscated our fields but forced us to work on those fields for them. They only sat around and ordered us while we ploughed, sowed, and transplanted. When we finished the harvest they took all the paddy. They didn’t give us anything even when we reaped, gathered, winnowed and put the paddy in the [milling] machine. We had to go and sell things like oil, onions, and beans on the other side of the mountain. We bought rice from them [SPDC soldiers] with the profit, but they sold us old rice that smelled bad." - the mother of "Nan Paw Oa" (F, 18), xxxx village, Kawkareik township (Interview #42, 7/99)

To compensate for their depleted rations and those which have been hoarded or sold by the commanders, SPDC officers often encourage their soldiers to simply confiscate farmers’ crops when they enter villages. The villagers have little if any rice to spare since last year’s poor harvest gave them barely enough to store for their own consumption. After taking more than enough for themselves, the Army sometimes sells the villagers’ own rice back to them at half of market price, or tries to sell them their own extremely poor quality ration rice. After paying forced labour fees, rice quota service charges, and other extortion money to the SPDC soldiers, the villagers have no money left to buy back their confiscated rice. In the end, many have been left with large debts and nothing to eat but boiled rice soup—a thin gruel which families eat to try to make what little rice they have last longer. Many are facing starvation.

"They have their own rice but they said it was not white. They wanted to eat the villagers’ rice, but they don’t give their rice to the villagers. They just took ours." - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #28, 8/99)

"Paddy and rice. They demanded it often and we always had to give. Last year we had only a small amount of paddy and rice [the crop was very bad]. For every basket or big tin of rice we ate, they looted one basket or big tin. We had to collect rice for them too, and Pa N--- from the Ko Per Baw told me to complain to them so I did, but they didn’t respond. He said that they would give it back to us because he is the one who takes care of their rations, but they gave us nothing. I know that the name of the chief commander of the Burmese is Pu P’Na Wah, and he has to send rations to all the soldiers, including the Ko Per Baw." - "Pu Than Nyunt" (M, 55), B’Nweh Pu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #15, 9/99)

As in the rest of Burma, villagers in hills of the Dawna Mountains have to hand over a portion of their crops to the SPDC authorities as ‘Ta Won Gyay’ (‘Obligation’) paddy, the official state-sanctioned rice quota. This applies both to people still living and farming in their home villages and to those living in relocation sites but commuting to farm their own land. In a good year, one acre of flat paddy field can produce only 40-50 baskets, yet the quota is often 10 baskets of paddy or more per acre. No exceptions are given during bad crop years, and the quota is calculated on the acres registered to the farmer, not however many they have planted. The 1997 and 1998 crops were both dismal, leaving many farmers without enough seed paddy to plant more than a fraction of their fields; yet during this time period the quotas have actually increased. SPDC officials justify crop quotas by citing the written law in Burma which decrees that all land belongs to the state. It is not only the Army but also the local quota collection officials who are corrupt, and they find ways to steal additional paddy and money from villagers. When farmers bring their 12 or 15 baskets per acre, the Township officials often claim that it’s not ‘clean’, i.e. that it contains bits of straw and impurities, and either winnow it a second time or calculate a reduction in the number of baskets to be paid for. They then deduct a portion of the paddy which they say will be ‘donations’ to local temples, the Township PDC, etc., and reduce the payment accordingly, though it is very unlikely that this paddy will ever be given to any temple. Many also demand an additional cash service charge, and the villagers must put on a banquet for them when they come. Sometimes even more deductions are made. In the end, most farmers are paid for no more than two thirds of the paddy which they are forced to bring, and at half or less than half of market price (about 250 Kyat per basket [market price is 500-600], though a farmer from Dta Greh told KHRG that he only received 3 Kyat per basket once the officials had finished their ‘deductions’). The payment per basket is not adjusted to the rapidly increasing market prices, even though much of the inflation is caused by this very quota system. The money not paid to the farmers is either pocketed by the officials or kept by the state. The villagers are fully aware that this is simply corruption, but they do not dare complain for fear of arrest. They have no choice but to pay the quota as demanded each year, and many years the only way they can do so is to go into debt by buying rice at full market price just to hand it over to the authorities.

"…they collect one basket of rice from each farmfield hut. We have to give one basket of rice regularly every month. Even if we have no rice to eat, we have to feed them." - "Saw Lah Ku" (M, 21), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #18, 8/99)

"This year they announced that the government will gather all the paddy that we get from the fields, and then we have to go and buy it from the government. According to them, Pah Klu and Kwih Lay are ruled by them so they have the power to do this. For example, if the villagers would sell each other a basket of rice for 500 Kyat, we will have to buy it from them for 250 Kyat." - "Taw Lay" (M, 41), Kwih Lay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #6, 9/99)

"They taxed us three times this year and were very strict. Every year they collect Ta Won Gyay [‘obligation’ quota paddy] from the farmers, 5 baskets for every 100. It has been very hot and dry there, so there is a lot of chaff, and when we take 5 baskets to them, they blow off the chaff with a fan and it becomes less. Last year there was no paddy because it was so hot and dry, so they asked for money instead. The government’s price is 3 Kyat per basket [actually it is several hundred Kyat per basket, but the officials steal most of the rice quota payouts and give almost nothing to the farmers who are forced to hand over the rice]. They gave three Kyat for one basket and then you had to give more than that to the owner of the bullock cart who carried the paddy for you. But we had to pay 1,000 Kyat three times because we had no paddy, and we couldn’t stay without paying them [in lieu of giving paddy]. After collecting the first time, the village head took all the money and fled the village. Then they elected a new village head and he collected again. But that time there wasn’t enough money, and so we had to give a third time. We gave 3,000 Kyat in total last year. The last two years there have been droughts and we didn’t get enough paddy for seed, so we had to sell the cows and buy paddy seed from Maw Goh village. One basket of paddy is 500 Kyat. Before for one basket of rice [after husking] we had to pay 1,400 Kyat, but now we have to pay 1,600 Kyat. That’s why we’re bitter. If we suffer any more than this, we’ll all die." - "Saw Daniel" (M, 70), Dta Greh village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #41, 7/99)

In Dta Greh Township villagers have described "double-cropping" projects presented by SPDC officials as ways to promote their crop yield. These projects are always devised by SPDC officials in Rangoon as part of the regime’s nationwide agricultural plan, often with the help of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) and other international agencies. SPDC officials come to villages and call a meeting with the farmers, where they inform farmers that they are expected to grow 2 crops per year with the use of fertiliser and other modern agricultural equipment. Often they insist that farmers donate the entire second crop to the state, but other times farmers are allowed to keep the harvest if they pay a significant quota on it to the local SPDC officials. Guaranteeing that they will donate fertiliser and sophisticated tools, which are unavailable resources for Karen farmers, the officials leave without delivering the products or following through on their initial demonstrations. The second crop inevitably fails because the farmers never receive their promised fertiliser, which has most likely been sold by the SPDC officials in charge, but farmers are still forced to pay a quota on the failed second crop. Farmers go into debt buying rice for a quota on this nonexistent second crop, or simply never plant it and try to find the money to pay off the officials. "

"They are not always Burmese soldiers. Sometimes officials come to town and talk about agricultural development and the villagers have to feed them too. They come to talk about how to plant and fertilise the rice. They came to tell us but they didn’t do as they said. We never saw fertiliser or anything else. We have been doing the fields in Dta Greh for a long time, and it is not productive to fertilise the fields in that area. We were tired of doing what they taught us with the fertiliser; there was no improvement. Sometimes when they came to the village, we wanted them to help us because we don’t have anything and our living condition is poor. They came to tell us that they understand, but we don’t understand them. If they understood, they would come and show us new methods. But they just come and tell us about them. They already knew that the earth wasn’t fertile, but they came to check. Here the earth is better for planting mangoes and other fruit. Instead we transplanted 10 baskets of [paddy] seeds and some years we harvested only 30 or 40 baskets, which was not enough for us. We had nothing to give to the civil servants [rice quota collectors], but they also have to give to the government [they must collect their given quota with no excuses]." - "Saw Daniel" (M, 70), Dta Greh village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #41, 7/99)

Another challenge to farmers is the SPDC’s restricted movement policy for villagers. In order to prevent villagers from being able to contact or supply the KNLA, the military has instituted a policy that villagers must obtain permission to leave the village. All villagers who plan to stay in their field huts must carry a permission letter from a commanding officer or the SPDC village head. Any villager caught outside the village without such a letter is assumed to be affiliated with the KNLA, and may be interrogated, tortured, or even killed. This policy affects farmers with fields far from the village, since they are no longer allowed to stay overnight in their field huts, which farmers traditionally do during most of the labour-intensive growing season from July to November and at various other times during the rice cycle. If they must return to their villages every night they lose a substantial amount of time which they could be devoting to their fields. Restricted movement is a main complaint among farmers who are faced with the dire choice of neglecting their fields or being arrested. With or without a permission letter, if they are working in their fields when an SPDC or DKBA patrol comes by, they are often grabbed as porters.

"They didn’t allow the villagers to stay in the farmfield huts. They told us to dismantle our farmfield huts and not to keep them. They said if you keep the field huts, the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA soldiers] will come to stay and rest there. The village head went to talk to them, but we had to take them down. They didn’t even allow us to tie our cows there. They told us that if they saw us staying in the farmfield huts they would shoot us dead. They think we are all Kaw Thoo Lei. … The Kaw Thoo Lei never come and the Burmese said they didn’t see Kaw Thoo Lei, so the villagers said, ‘You don’t see them and you still force us to dismantle our farmfield huts. If we go to the field to harvest our paddy, what will we do? Where will we stay? We have no place to stay.’ The Burmese said to stay under the shade of the trees and bamboo." - "Saw Ler" (M, 36), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #29, 8/99)

"They dislike people going out to find food and vegetables. They force the married women to stay together [in the village]. They make us stay just in the village, and if we can’t find any vegetables in the village we have nothing to eat. You can’t sleep in your field hut near your crops or gardens. We have to come back and sleep in the village within the same day. They haven’t written [passes for villagers] yet." - "Saw Kee" (M, 21), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #11, 9/99)

"If they see the villagers in their huts or fields without passes, they capture them. You can sleep there [in your field hut] for 3 days if you want to, but after that the village head needs to write a permission letter again." - "Naw Hser Paw" (F, 28), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #26, 8/99)

Many people have been holding out in or around their villages just hoping to bring in a reasonable harvest this year. However, a villager from the hills of T’Nay Hsah township told KHRG that SPDC troops came in early November while people from his village were harvesting their fields. The farmers fled, and the troops gathered all the paddy they had already harvested into stacks and then burned it, then planted landmines around the fields to prevent the harvest from being completed. On attempting to return to finish their harvest, 2 farmers stepped on mines and were killed and the interviewee was wounded. This type of SPDC activity has also occurred in other Karen districts further north, and could be a final gesture intended to drive the villagers out of their fields and homes. The few villagers who have remained near their homes with the expressed purpose of waiting for the harvest are now forced into hiding, not daring to complete their harvest and unsure where to go next. Most of those who previously fled to the border with Thailand hoping to return for the harvest are now too scared to do so, and remain in a similar state of anxious indecision.

"The Burmese closed the way to the fields, and last year there was no rain. We couldn’t plant the paddy so we got no rice. We planted the paddy this year, but we don’t know yet if we will dare to harvest the paddy at harvest time. We dare not go back to harvest because we will die. I think that if I dare to go back I will go alone and leave my wife and children here. I am very afraid." - "Maung Shwe" (M, 36), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #19, 8/99)

"The owners were harvesting it, and when they arrived the owners ran. Then they went and gathered it [the paddy they had already cut] in one place and burned it when they were about to leave. They gathered the paddy from P---’s hill field as well as some paddy from other villages and some sticky-rice; they gathered it from 6 hill fields and 4 flat fields, 10 fields altogether. … Then they laid landmines around there so the villagers wouldn’t dare go back. On the day when we went to check on things, one of us was wounded by a landmine. Altogether two people have stepped on landmines. So after that no one has gone back." - "Saw Lay Mu" (M, 33), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township; when he tried to return to the fields in mid-November 1999 he was wounded by a landmine and his friend was killed (Interview #1, 11/99)

DKBA

"They fired guns continuously and children were running and crying. They fired guns before they arrived in the village, and when they arrived on the hill they fired their guns, and when they entered the village they fired their guns again. They frightened all the women in the village, and they laughed at the women who ran with trembling feet. That is their manner and way of thinking." - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #32, 8/99)

The DKBA in southeastern Pa’an District, though under-manned and poorly equipped, have stepped up their campaign to intimidate villagers in order to cripple the KNLA. Founded in December 1994 by a monk named U Thuzana with the backing of the SLORC, the DKBA holds its largest support base in Pa’an District, headquartered at Myaing Gyi Ngu (Khaw Taw) on the Salween River in northern Pa’an District. [For a more comprehensive background on the DKBA, see "Uncertainty, Fear and Flight", KHRG #98-08, 18/11/98.] The DKBA is known as the ‘Ko Per Baw’ (‘Yellow Headbands’) by villagers because they always wear yellow coloured scarves. The number of their troops is difficult to estimate, but there are probably between 1,500 and 2,000 soldiers at present thinly spread throughout Pa’an, Dooplaya, and Thaton Districts. The DKBA has not received cash salaries from the SPDC in 3 years and they receive very little rations or ammunition, but in some regions their troops are better equipped than in others. It was rumoured that at the end of 1998 the DKBA’s rations would be completely cut off by the SPDC, but this has yet to occur; a likely explanation is that the SPDC holds the threat of cutting off support over the DKBA as a means of coercing them to follow SPDC commands. Due to their limited provisions, the DKBA continues to operate in the area by demanding food and money from the villagers. Their lack of support from the SPDC and the tenuous relationship between them has motivated the DKBA to seek out profit-making ventures. In addition to regular extortion from villagers, the DKBA runs checkpoints on major roads demanding money from all passing vehicles, and is deeply involved in the logging business. They forbid logging except for their own purposes, then force villagers to cut logs which they sell primarily to Thai businessmen.

"The people who went out and found money on the black market [selling goods, sometimes back and forth across the border] came back and then they [the Burmese and the Ko Per Baw] demanded their money. Before we came here my husband won 50,000 Kyat in the lottery at the same time that our child was sick. Then the Ko Per Baw asked for that money to rent video equipment, so he didn’t get any Kyat for himself. Before my husband left the village he had traded cattle once or twice and the Ko Per Baw knew about it, so when they captured him along the way they stole his money, and now he is in debt for one million Kyat." - "Naw Kyaw" (F, xx), Pah Ka village, Dta Greh township (Interview #33, 8/99)

"The DKBA soldiers came to stay in my village. They are planting landmines to protect their logging, and they are shooting at each other, so we dared not stay." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

"They never collected them [fees] before, but now they have started to. From our village of 30 houses they collected 400,000 Kyat. I don’t know and didn’t ask what they would do with it. Last time they came and asked us through the village head, and the village head gathered us and told us that the Ko Per Baw were demanding it so we had to give it to them. He asked us if we could or would pay them, and if we didn’t want to pay them we had to go and leave the village." - "Saw Kler Eh" (M, 30), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #16, 9/99)

Most of the DKBA soldiers are not former KNLA members, because most of the KNLA soldiers who originally formed the DKBA have already deserted back to civilian life or defected back to the KNLA. Most of the DKBA soldiers are former villagers, some of whom were previously loosely connected to Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO, a wing of the KNU) village militias, who have joined during the 5 years since the DKBA was founded. The DKBA forces do not usually get along well with the SPDC Battalions, but in this area they often work together, patrolling together and often camping side by side in villages. SPDC Columns in the area almost always have a few DKBA soldiers with them to act as guides, round up villagers as forced labour, and point out villagers as suspects. Both armies demand fees and forced labour from villagers in the area, though in both cases the DKBA’s demands are more sporadic and unpredictable; for example, an SPDC Company demands fixed amounts of money weekly or monthly, while a DKBA group may demand nothing for 2 or 3 months and then suddenly demand 100,000 Kyat all at once. Villagers have reported to KHRG that the DKBA requires them to porter, usually carrying rations to troops in neighbouring villages or outposts, and the soldiers have forced them to walk in front of the columns as human minesweepers. As a result, most civilians despise the DKBA as much or more than the SPDC, and often speak of the two groups as one.

"Our village is small, but he demanded porters. He said, ‘My son’s mother-in-law, I don’t ask much of you but it is emergency ‘loh ah pay’, so give me 15 people.’ And after we gave them to him, some have been gone for months and years [died as porters] so we can’t do anything. How can we replace them when they are all we have?" - "Naw Hsah Paw" (F, 47), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township, talking about demands for porters by DKBA commander Moe Kyo (Interview #2, 11/99)

"They [SPDC] used to come but they don’t come any more, now that the DKBA has started controlling the village. Only the militia stays in the village now, but they are working with the Burmese. The DKBA patrol the village, but they rarely force us to work. The Burmese forced us all the time. In the past the Burmese burned the villagers’ rice barns, but since the DKBA started patrolling I haven’t seen them do it. Before the DKBA came we had to flee quite often. The Burmese arrested porters, so we had to flee or they forced us to work and beat us. Now the DKBA have camps at Lar Ni and Kaw Say Ko. They forced us to go and build the camp, as well as a pagoda and their bunkers. We walked for one day and slept there for 2 or 3 nights, then came back. The DKBA want to kill their enemies, but they haven’t killed any villagers. Since the DKBA came the situation has improved, but if they meet us they also treat us badly." - "Saw Maw Hla" (M, 30), Maw Goh village, Lu Pleh township (Interview #43, 7/99)

Because most of the DKBA soldiers are Karen, can speak the villagers’ language, and even come from some of the same villages, some hope that the DKBA will treat them more mercifully than the SPDC, but the DKBA in this region have been known to be equally if not more ruthless than the SPDC in their treatment towards villagers. The DKBA has a tenuous relationship with the SPDC, relying on them for rations but in most cases openly distrusting and even hating them; their economic dependence on the SPDC creates an artificial alliance that manifests itself in cruelty towards villagers. Most villagers respond to them in the same way that they do to the SPDC—with fear and compliance—and many speak of a deep resentment for the DKBA because they are Karen people abusing fellow Karen. In Pa’an District villagers have tried to complain to the DKBA about the injustices suffered under the SPDC’s occupation of their villages, hoping that the DKBA will act as an ally on the villagers’ behalf. They usually have little success winning sympathy; for example, when the village head of Pah Klu pleaded with the DKBA to help stop the raping of village women and extensive looting, she was turned over to the SPDC and savagely beaten. While patrolling with the SPDC, DKBA soldiers have been witnessed torturing and killing innocent villagers accused of having KNU connections, as well as shooting farmers who run from the troops.

"They can’t do anything, and if we ask them they say, ‘Our footprints are not as big as theirs and we don’t dare rebuke them strongly for that’. So they just deal with them gently and softly." - "Naw Hsah Paw" (F, 47), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township, describing the reaction of DKBA soldiers when the villagers ask them to intervene with the SPDC (Interview #2, 11/99)

"But during the time when they came and beat people the Ko Per Baw were involved with them. Not one of the Ko Per Baw opened their mouths when they saw the Burmese beating people and shooting people dead." - "Pu Than Nyunt" (M, 55), B’Nweh Pu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #15, 9/99)

"We had to go for both of them [the DKBA and the Burmese] because they are staying in the same place. They didn’t hire us, they just came and captured people. Sometimes the Burmese came and ordered it and if the place was near, we went with them. But when the Burmese could not capture people because the villagers ran to escape, the Ko Per Baw came and captured villagers. Since the Ko Per Baw had never captured villagers before, the first time the villagers just stayed in their homes and the Ko Per Baw captured them and handed them to the Burmese." - "Naw Kyaw" (F, xx), Pah Ka village, Dta Greh township (Interview #33, 8/99)

"The Ko Per Baw are staying on the east side of the village and the Burmese are staying on the west side. They stay separately, but they work together. When the Burmese go anywhere, the Ko Per Baw have to go with them. The Ko Per Baw have to spy for them and go in front of the Burmese." - "Saw Nya" (M, 60), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #37, 7/99)

"She [the village head] complained to the Ko Per Baw leaders at Ko Ko and the Burmese beat her very badly. It was after we fled here, because the other group that came after us told us. She was telling the truth, but they didn’t like that. She said that the Burmese are raping women and stealing belongings. The Burmese beat her with a stick because they accused her of complaining to the Ko Per Baw about what the Burmese have done. She only reported it to the Ko Per Baw, but they cooperate with the Burmese so the Burmese found out, and they beat her. They accused her of being an informer and they tried to kill her." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township, describing what happened when the village head complained to the DKBA about abuses by the SPDC (Interview #20, 8/99)

A widely feared DKBA commander named Moe Kyo [Burmese for ‘Lightning’] has encouraged his troops to generally terrorise villagers and destroy those villages he suspects of having KNU liaisons. He and his troops move throughout much of the Dawna region. Between February 10^th and 14^th 1999, a DKBA group commanded by Moe Kyo burned 56 houses in the 4 villages of Tee Bper, Dta Wih Ko, Dta Greh Ni and Tee Pa Leh in Dta Greh township after accusing the villagers there of being ‘relatives of KNU’. These troops also burned all the family paddy supplies they could find and the piles of rice straw which are used as fodder for the cattle. The villagers have fled into hiding in the forests. Three villagers interviewed by KHRG said they had heard that Moe Kyo recently died from stepping on a landmine, but this report is still unconfirmed. Another notorious DKBA commander in the area is named Chit Thu, also known as Dter Gweh [Sgaw Karen for ‘Rainbow’], who commands the ‘Special Battalion’ of DKBA Brigade #999 and issues many of the orders. These commanders earn their ruthless reputations because despite occasional skirmishes with the KNLA, they—like the SPDC—spend much of their time driving people out of their villages, interrogating and torturing villagers, demanding forced labour and extorting money, with the dual aims of supporting their own operations and destroying the KNLA’s support base among the villagers.

"Yes, the DKBA shot 6 people on the 10^th of July [1999] in Tee Hsah Ra. I was sleeping at night but I heard it, though I didn’t go and look. It was near my house, only a 2-minute walk away. They came at night to shoot people in the fields, then they came back [into the village] to shoot people in the houses. They shot them because they accused them of casting spells over people. But they were villagers, just simple people who cannot do magic or cause harm to people, but only work in the fields. They didn’t belong to the opposite side [KNU], they only worked in the fields…. The DKBA [officer(s)] came to look after this happened, but they didn’t say anything about it. They didn’t accept the fact that they had killed them, and so they’re trying to say that it was an accident, that no one killed them. They are going to make the case disappear and make peace between each other. Commander Maung Chit Thu’s soldiers killed them, but he told us it was an accident. But he knew about it because his soldiers had to get permission from him to arrange it, since if he doesn’t give permission they can’t do anything." - "Pa Po Doh" (M, 24), Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township (Interview #39, 7/99)

"When Moe Kyo arrived in our village he said that if the people [KNU] attacked them, they would burn down the whole village. He said he would shoot dead all the villagers and burn down all the houses. That is what Moe Kyo said and his soldiers repeated to us. They burned one sugar cane field and also some huts and straw. You can’t count all the huts and gardens which they’ve partly burned. The people who do things like that have envious and jealous hearts, and resent all the people." - "Saw Maw Htoo" (M, xx), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #34, 8/99)

"Before I came here, the people told me the name of the commander was Lin Yone, and people called him "Moe Kyo" [Burmese for ‘lightning’]. Now he is dead from a landmine. Their chief commander’s name is Dter Gweh [also known as Chit Thu]. His troops were shooting between Pah Klu and Loh Baw village. They had a camp in the village. I know because I saw their place and dug the bunkers. At that time the Burmese soldiers also came up and worked with the DKBA. After that, most of the DKBA left the village to go and fight, so few were left." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

"They surrounded my daughter’s house where I was sleeping, and they interrogated us about whether any Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA] were there and if they had laid landmines. The Ko Per Baw were angry and threatened us that they would come and shoot into our wives’ vaginas." - "Pu Than Nyunt" (M, 55), B’Nweh Pu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #15, 9/99)

Education and Health

"…they close the school when the children go to work [for forced labour]. If the parents have time to go, we go, but if we have no time, our children must go instead of us. The teachers get a salary from the governor, so they can’t do anything about it. They are supposed to get 1,500 Kyat each month but sometimes they only receive 1,500 Kyat for 6 months." - "Saw Maw Hla" (M, 30), Maw Goh village, Lu Pleh township (Interview #43, 7/99)

Among the villagers’ many burdens, demands for forced labour and heavy fees are the main factors preventing children from receiving a proper education. Children are often required to fulfil a forced labour shift in lieu of their parents, who must tend the fields to earn enough food. In Pa’an District villagers have reported that children as young as 10 years old are called on to carry water and rations for both SPDC and DKBA troops. Throughout Karen State, the SPDC military places Burmese teachers in villages as a way of phasing out Karen language instruction and cultural history. In some areas the government pays the Burmese teachers’ salaries, though they are notoriously underpaid and sometimes receive no money at all for months at a time. In some areas of Pa’an District villagers must pay the Burmese teachers’ salaries at a level disproportionate to their own income, while Karen teachers—if they are allowed to teach at all—work on a volunteer basis. In addition, villagers are expected to supply the Burmese teachers with a rice ration. The military even forced villagers in Dta Greh Township to pay for the materials and labour to construct a Burmese school for their children. The greatest irony is that many school-aged children are forced to work for the Burmese instead of attending school, yet their families must pay monthly fees and rations to support the village teachers. If this trend continues much longer, a generation of children in Karen State will lack an education.

"We have a Burmese school with 4 grades. One teacher they gave us, two are from the west of Burma, and one is from the village. Two are paid by the Burmese government and two are Karen volunteers." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

"I couldn’t send them to school. I had no money. It would cost 1,000 Kyat to send the oldest one. When her friends went to school and came back home, she could learn ‘Gka Gyi, Ka Kway’ [‘A, B’; letters of the Burmese alphabet] from them." - "Naw Bway" (F, 29), Pa Noh village, Kyaik Mayaw township, Mon State (Interview #27, 8/99)

"One is a Karen teacher and one is Burmese. I don’t know if the Burmese give them money or not. I don’t understand and I can’t guess. The villagers have to help them by paying with rice. They collect one bowl [about 2 kg] and 10 Kyat from each house per month. Even if you don’t send them to school, you have to give." - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #28, 8/99)

"Once I saw them ask the villagers to build a school. The villagers also had to pay to build it, and if it wasn’t finished by a certain time they said they would fine us. Even if they do something good like that, the villagers have no time to rest. It may have 7 or 8 Standards [up to Grade 7 or 8]. The schoolteacher is from Rangoon. For one year they [the villagers] pay the teacher 10-20,000 kyat." - "Saw Nya" (M, 60), Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #37, 7/99)

Health care in the villages is in an equally poor state. Some villages have a Karen or Burmese medic qualified to administer basic first aid, but the majority have no medical facilities or supplies at all. If villagers are seriously ill or hurt they have to be carried many kilometres to the nearest clinic, usually in the closest sizeable town. When villagers are injured while doing forced labour or portering, they seldom receive proper medical attention. If the SPDC or DKBA does help them to a nearby clinic or hospital, they are usually left there to cover their own medical expenses. At Myawaddy Hospital, several villagers have reported being forced to leave after their money runs out, even if they are not yet healed. No treatment is given without full payment. Villagers often accrue substantial debts to remain in hospital until their health returns, especially landmine victims whose recovery is typically lengthy.

"We have a medic but we don’t have any medicines, only Para [paracetamol]. Ah! If we’d had enough medicines, I don’t think those two would have died." - "Saw Lay Mu" (M, 33), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township, talking about 2 villagers who stepped on landmines in November 1999 after SPDC troops mined their fields (Interview #1, 11/99)

"After I got injured, my friends carried me to the Burmese. They looked at me, then took me to [Battalion] #356, then sent me to Ra Ma Tee [Myawaddy hospital]…they didn’t take care of me…They helped [pay for] only one injection. When I stayed in the hospital they didn’t give me any money. I had to spend my own money and eat my own rice because they didn’t feed us. I stayed there for over a month before the water festival last season [April 1999]. I spent 45,000 Kyat in the hospital." - "Saw Lah Baw" (M, 31), Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township; both his legs were blown off when he stepped on a landmine while doing forced labour cutting wood for an SPDC bridge project (Interview #28, 8/99)

"I arrived at the other side of the river, I didn’t know that the Burmese had arrived. … I was outside the village, but they were inside the village when they shot at me. The young man from my village who had come with me ran from behind me and passed me. The Burmese shot at him but hit my leg instead, so I fell down. They didn’t come to look at me, and they went away. I was left alone for a while until I saw a young woman who was coming back from gathering firewood. I told her to go back and tell my son to come and get me. … When I arrived at Ker Ghaw, they gave me 3,000 Kyat and told me to go to Myawaddy Hospital. How would 3,000 Kyat be enough? I stayed there for 10 days and they took care of me while I still had money, but when my money ran out they stopped taking care of me. When it was gone, I had to go back to my village again. Then I asked people to treat it with traditional medicine and holy oil. I can’t stand up yet because it is painful." - "Pu Dta Ler" (M, 50-60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #45, 4/99)

Forced Relocation

"I couldn’t stay near my place because they are going to stir up our place. I heard them say that they are going to drive all the villagers out to the same place. They didn’t tell us where or when they will drive us out, but they said that they would. They will gather and force out all of the villagers that are living around Meh Pleh Toh. They will block every path that passes or goes through Meh Pleh Toh until nothing can move, even food and other things. I heard that they will make trouble for people who stay in the mountains, that especially if they see men they will kill them at once. Our village head alerted us. If they see them, they will shoot dead all villagers as far as they can see." - "Saw Baw" (M, 29), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #24, 8/99)

Forced relocation of villages has become the chief means by which the SPDC military exerts control over villages which are not fully under its influence. In the past the Army has primarily targeted villages with past or present connections to the KNLA, villages located within KNU-controlled territory and/or too far away to supervise in regular patrols from an SPDC Army camp, and villages who have resisted SPDC demands for forced labour and extortion fees. In late 1998 KHRG reported that the SPDC Army had issued an order that villages between Taw Oak and Kyaw Ko would be forcibly relocated to Ker Ghaw, Kwih Lay, or Kyaw Ko at the end of the rice harvest. While some villagers scattered or moved, most managed to hold off from being relocated. However, SPDC columns have been acting directly to enforce the forced relocations since August 1999. One of the final relocation sites is indeed Ker Ghaw, the site of a DKBA Army camp, where the villages Kwih Lay, Pah Klu, and Taw Oak are now being forced to move. The villages Thay K’Dtee, Toh Thu Kee, and Kyaw Ko are being relocated to another site at Tee Wah Blaw, where SPDC columns temporarily camp while patrolling the area, and where they may be planning to establish a permanent camp once they have relocated all villagers. SPDC troops also destroyed all of the villagers’ farmfield huts in the area of B’Naw Kleh Kee village right in the middle of the rice-growing season when villagers need to live in their farmfield huts. SPDC Light Infantry Battalions #310 and #120 have occupied the area of Pah Klu and Taw Oak villages, and Light Infantry Battalions #9 and #2 have occupied the area of Ker Ghaw and Kyaw Ko villages.

"I heard that the Burmese would drive all the villagers to a relocation place. They said they would force ten villages. The name of the villages are Thi Wah Pu, Toh Thu Kee, Pu Wee, Tee Wah Klay, Meh Pleh Wah Kee, Day Law Pya, and Po Thwee Mu. They will surely force them to Ker Ghaw. As for us, the DKBA already tried to force us to Ker Ghaw one time, but we didn’t go because our monk pleaded for us." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

"…the villages like Thay Wah Pu and Wah Klu Pu and others are all going to be forced down to the lower places, maybe to Ko Ko. Then they will send their Army to that place so there will be one Army unit to guard every village. … we heard it from the Ko Per Baw secretly. They said that 2 Divisions of Burmese Army troops will come here. A unit of troops will guard each village. All the villages: Toh Thu Kee, Thay K’Dtee, Loh Baw, Pah Klu, Tee Wah Klay, and Wah Klu Pu they will move to a place near Ko Ko, but we don’t know where exactly because they did not tell us where. Then they will guard us." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

"I heard that the villages of Day Law Pya and Meh Pleh Wah Kee will move along with Pah Klu village if there are still people in these villages. They will force us to Ker Ghaw, according to a villager from Loh Baw. Der!! We were afraid that they would drive us to the lowlands [the plains to the west] and make us go among the landmines. The Loh Baw villager told us ‘They will force us together’, but I was not optimistic about this because I worried about the landmines. I heard people say that they would start driving us out after this month." - "Saw Nyo" (M, 50), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #25, 8/99)

The DKBA also came through the Meh Pleh Toh area to warn villagers that two SPDC Light Infantry Divisions are planning to clear all villagers there before the end of this year. They told the villagers that they will be forced into the centre of the villages, where they will be guarded by soldiers. According to KNU sources, troops from as many as 5 different SPDC Light Infantry Divisions have been sent into the area for an operation to run from August to December 1999, intending to subjugate the area with a special focus on clearing landmines by using villagers as human minesweepers. The operation seems to be a final push to obliterate the KNU hold on the Dawna mountains in the southeastern part of the district. In B’Naw Kleh Kee villagers were ordered to dismantle their houses and field huts which could later be used as KNLA shelters. The Army made it clear to all villagers in the are that anyone remaining in the relocated villages after the deadline passed would be shot on sight, no questions asked.

"They already forced them down [out of the hills] one time, then the villagers pleaded with them and they allowed them to go back. They will force them to Meh K’Neh village near the main road. We think that they forced the villagers away because recently the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA] came to shoot them and they were angry, so they forced the villagers out in order to starve the Kaw Thoo Lei." - "Pi Ghaw Paw" (F, 51), Meh K’Neh village, Myawaddy township (Interview #40, 7/99)

"Htee Klay village and all the villages at the foot of the mountains were all forced to relocate before I came. The reason was because their villages are at the foot of the mountains, so the Karen soldiers could stay there, and sometimes they shot at the Burmese soldiers who went near them. They forced them to move to Noh Ta Bweh and Klaw Kla, or to other villages near the foot of the mountains. They gave the village heads an order on paper saying they had to relocate within 15 days. They could take along their houses and things." - the father of "Nan Paw Oa" (F, 18), xxxx village, Kawkareik township (Interview #42, 7/99)

The motivating factors behind the forced relocation of villages are firstly to eliminate the possibility of KNU contact with villagers, thereby weakening their hold on the district, and secondly to concentrate the population of villagers so that they can conveniently be drawn upon for forced labour and portering. Once relocated to sites close to Army garrisons, villagers can no longer escape forced labour shifts, and the Army relies on them to work rice fields confiscated by the military. Villagers are not given any rations, and in many relocations they are forced to hand over their own rice to the Army and then receive a small ration of it back every few days. If they are lucky they can get passes to go and farm their own fields, but these passes usually require them to return by sunset and their fields may be too far away. The restricted movement policy also prevents them from foraging for food away from the site. KHRG has spoken with several villagers who have also expressed great fear of being used as human minesweepers if they live in close vicinity to the soldiers. Rumours of the dangers and threat of starvation at the relocation sites have reached villagers who have yet to leave their villages, and these stories persuade many to flee rather than relocate or wait for soldiers to forcibly move them. As of late August, Pah Klu village was entirely empty save for a few families and monks at the monastery, because all villagers had chosen to flee before the ordered deadline. For many villagers who have struggled to remain on their land, the relocation order is the last straw in a series of abuses. Most are choosing to head for the jungle rather than wait to be forcibly relocated to an Army-controlled site.

"They said they would drive us all out of the villages in the Meh Pleh Toh area. When I stayed with them, the Burmese told me themselves that they were ordered to clear the place and drive the villagers to a relocation site. I asked them, ‘Where will you force us to go?’ and he told me, ‘I don’t know. You have to ask the commander.’ I had to stay with the soldiers who arrested me, and they joked together. I said to them, ‘If you drive us to a relocation site, we will have no rice to eat.’ He said to me, ‘I don’t know, because we were ordered to do it, so we have to. We wouldn’t do it if we weren’t ordered to do it.’ They are Karen people." - "Saw Lah Ku" (M, 21), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #18, 8/99)

"When we fled there were only one or two households left, but they already took their belongings to their huts in their fields. We have a lot of villagers staying in the jungle now, but I don’t know how many exactly. Just a few villagers arrived here, and the rest ran to K--- and to T---. Some also arrived at D--- [on the Thai border]." - "Saw Nyo" (M, 50), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #25, 8/99)

"I heard that the Burmese would drive us out so we dared not stay and came here. I don’t know when or where because they didn’t tell us. Also I don’t know how many villages they will drive out. They just said that if we are still staying in the jungle [i.e. in remote villages] then we are surely feeding the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA]. They say that if they drive the villagers from the area, they will starve the Kaw Thoo Lei. I think that they will drive out all the villages. We stayed in the jungle at our fields. If they drive us out, they will drive out all." - "Maung Shwe" (M, 36), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #19, 8/99)

Flight and Internally Displaced Persons

"We didn’t bring anything with us when we fled, just only the clothes we were wearing. I couldn’t bring other things because I had to carry my 3 year old son. No one knows what the Burmese will do because if they see people in the mountains they shoot them dead, and if people stay in the village they force them to do ‘loh ah pay’. We couldn’t do anything. I think all of the villagers left the village after I left; there were 17 households left and I think all have fled to the jungle." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

The SPDC’s operation to clear villages and undermine KNLA activity in southeastern Pa’an district has resulted in thousands of villagers fleeing to hide in their farmfield huts or in the hills, where they risk arrest or being shot on sight by SPDC forces. At first they try to hide outside the village and return whenever SPDC columns are not around, but more and more SPDC troops are now basing themselves in the villages so many people are staying outside their villages permanently. Many of them are finding it too dangerous to do this for long and they have no more food, so a steady stream of refugees has been heading for the Thai border. A new flow of villagers began in mid-August; the first groups were allowed into existing refugee camps in Thailand, but by the end of August the Thai Army began blocking them, leaving them stranded at makeshift and vulnerable sites on the west bank of the Moei River, just on the Burma side of the border. The villagers have fled secretly, travelling through heavy rains along washed-out and treacherous pathways which can best be compared to mudholes, making it almost impossible to cross the Dawna mountains. Shelter along the way is scarce, as is food and medicine. Villagers from areas further from the border often have to resort to car travel, which is expensive and requires paying off every DKBA and SPDC checkpoint along the way. Because of these factors, flight during the rainy season is avoided at all costs, so their decision to face these dangers testifies to the desperate situation facing them in their villages. Flight is the very last option for Karen villagers, who cannot imagine living far from their fields or outside the village network.

"We have to pay money if we dare not go, and if we can’t give money we have to run. If we run we don’t need to pay because the village head can’t find us when we run into the mountains. People who live in the village have to give it, and the villagers who don’t want to give it have to run and stay in the mountains like my family. I had to run because I had no money to give, and we just didn’t have enough money to buy food." - "Saw Baw" (M, 29), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #24, 8/99)

"In the past there were 40 households, but the villagers all fled. Now there are only 15 households left in the village." - "Naw Mu Mu Wah" (F, 50), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #30, 8/99)

"We arrived here 4 days ago with 4 families, and another 3 families are arriving today. If we came in front of the Burmese, they would not have allowed us to come, so we had to come secretly. They would have arrested us and tied us up. If they can’t catch you and you run, they shoot to kill. The Burmese always came to shoot the villagers who stay in the village, so we always had to flee. You must flee. If you didn’t flee and they captured you, they wouldn’t release you." - "Maung Shwe" (M, 36), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #19, 8/99)

"We had to come during the rainy season so we had many problems on the way. We got sick and had no medicine and not enough food. We slept in the mountains for 5 days and arrived at the Moei River on the 6^th day. We stayed at Tee Ner Hta for one day, then came here." - "Pa Kyaw" (M, 40), B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #22, 8/99)

"On the way I had to pay for car fare, but I had no money left. I had only 1,000 Kyat left and I didn’t have a citizen card, so I dared not come here. They asked me to pay 1,000 Kyat in Tha M’Nya, so I had to give it all to them. I had only little coins left. I asked my Aunt for a little money for car and boat fare. When I arrived at Myawaddy, it was all gone. On the way my children didn’t get rice to eat." - "Naw Bway" (F, 29), Pa Noh village, Kyaik Mayaw township, Mon State (Interview #27, 8/99)

The actual number of those who have fled is impossible to estimate because most remain inside Burma, hiding in the jungle near their villages and struggling to survive by planting hill fields and foraging for food. Of those who have braved the dangerous journey to Thailand, only some have been able to cross safely into refugee camps. At the end of 1998 over 2,000 refugees arrived at the site called Meh La Po Hta, on the Burma side of the border, after the SPDC burned 5 villages; now their population has swollen to over 5,000 as people continue to flee from eastern Pa’an District. They remain there in a state of fear, unable to return to their villages after the SPDC Army destroyed the rice harvest. The current flow of villagers from southeastern Pa’an District began in mid-1999. The first 37 families from five villages including Pah Klu, B’Naw Kleh Kee, Htee Wah Klay, Htee Law Thay, and Day Law Pya were admitted to Beh Klaw refugee camp, while others made it to Huay Kaloke refugee camp. However, at the end of August the Thai Army and police stopped new arrivals from heading to the camps, telling them they would have to go back across the border. Since then over 500 people have gathered at two main sites on the Burma side of the Moei River: Law Thay Hta, across the river from the Thai Karen village of Dta Lah Oh Klah (35 kilometres north of Myawaddy and Mae Sot), and Tee Ner Hta, across the border from Beh Klaw refugee camp.

"Most people have already left the village. More than a hundred people fled to Beh Klaw [refugee camp]. People were leaving day after day. They started leaving in July and August. First they went to stay in their farmfield huts, then they went on further." - "Saw Than" (M, 43), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #5, 11/99)

Although some are staying on the Burma side of the river by choice, still hoping to return home for the harvest if the situation improves, many refugees interviewed by KHRG have said that the Thai authorities have pushed them back across the border when they tried to enter Thailand. The majority of the 500 villagers at those sites expressed desire to the Thai Army to enter a refugee camp, but they claim that the soldiers refused them access to the camp and forced them to return to the Burmese side of the river. Over 70 families who had arrived at Tee Ner Hta tried to enter Thailand in August and were not allowed to go to a refugee camp, so they tried to stay around the villages on the Thai side of the border but were then ordered back across to Tee Ner Hta by the Thai Army in late August. They had no option but to remain at Tee Ner Hta. The SPDC forces soon discovered their location and heavily shelled it in early September, at which point they scattered in different directions in the jungle. Some of them managed to join those presently at Law Thay Hta, though the whereabouts of the majority are still unknown. There are additional reports that more than 80 other families have managed to enter Thailand and are currently seeking admission to Beh Klaw refugee camp, though their future remains uncertain.

"Their [SPDC] aim is to destroy our Karen nationals until we disappear. I heard this from the village head, who said it is because the Karen villagers who stay in the mountains and work the hillfields are all considered as their enemies. If they see women they rape them, and if they meet men they kill them. It is better to stay in the village but there is too much forced labour there. The village head told us, ‘If you cannot stay here anymore and need to go you can go, because there are people who will look after you’." - "Saw Baw" (M, 29), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #24, 8/99)

In September there were 61 families (244 people) clustered at Law Thay Hta, most of whom arrived between four and eight months ago. The majority of these families are from villages in the area around T’Nay Hsah and Myawaddy townships. With their food supply rapidly dwindling or already exhausted, the villagers decided to cross in late August/early September to the Thai Karen village of Dta Lah Oh Klah to work as hired farm labour with the intent to buy rice. In early September they set up a temporary camp near Dta Lah Oh Klah, but remained there only 5-6 days before the Thai Army discovered their location and forced them to cross the border again, on the grounds that their "camp" was illegitimate. In the move back to the Karen side, at least six families disappeared into the Thai illegal labour market or attempted the dangerous journey back to their villages. In the days of early September, SPDC forces patrolled the border area near Law Thay Hta, and the villagers once again fled to safety in Thailand. That time they dispersed in the area around Dta Lah Oh Klah, taking day labour jobs and staying in surrounding villages. Again the Thai Army discovered them and forced them back to the Karen side once the danger of attack by SPDC forces had passed. Soon after this, the SPDC Army and KNLA engaged in fighting north of the villagers’ location. Warned by the KNLA of an imminent SPDC attack, the villagers again crossed to Thailand on September 25^th, returning to the Karen side on September 28^th when KNLA soldiers warned them they were in danger of re-discovery by Thai authorities, and because the imminent threat of attack by SPDC forces was over.

All of the villagers interviewed by KHRG expressed a desire to enter Beh Klaw refugee camp, but insisted that the Thai Army had denied them access to the camp and forced them to re-cross the border twice. The villagers stranded on the Karen side of the border have little choice but to continue on in their present situation, waiting and hoping that Thai authorities will allow them entry to refugee camps. In statements to Non-Governmental Organisations and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) the Thai Army has denied blocking access to the refugee camp to any new arrivals, but this contradicts the testimonies of many of the villagers themselves.

The refugee camps in Thailand are already full beyond capacity, but the Thai authorities are determined to further decrease the number of camps through camp consolidations, and they flatly refuse to consider the possibility of creating any more space for refugees - instead, they state that it is time to begin planning the forced repatriation of the refugees already in the country. Therefore they do not want to allow any new refugees, regardless of the situation in Burma. The UNHCR is currently holding closed-door negotiations with the Thai Army and government on the future of the refugees, but refuses to disclose any of the content of these negotiations to the non-governmental organisations who work with the refugees. Most agencies, including the UNHCR, say that they are not allowed to cross the border to see or speak to the internally displaced stranded on the other side. Meanwhile these families have little or no food and medicine and are in great danger of attack by SPDC forces who regularly patrol the area. Frightened of both the Burmese and Thai Armies, and protected by only a handful of KNLA soldiers, they are holding out for the unlikely scenario that the persecution in their villages will abate, or that the Thais will admit them to refugee camps.

"The [Thai] police. They came just a few days ago and told us, ‘You can’t stay here anymore and you have to go back and stay there.’ They forced us to move within one day, so people separated into groups and ran. We stayed on the bank of the river until our Karen leaders here told us to come back and build our huts here, and they took care of us. We don’t have new arrivals from my village because they have all gone to Beh Klaw [refugee] camp already. They dared not stay and face all of the demands and torture, so they fled here, too. Some villagers still stay there because they are working on their paddy fields and can’t leave. But after they finish working more villagers will flee here…Right now we dare to stay here, but if people send us to the refugee camp we will go. If the Burmese come and shoot at us, we’ll have to run to the other side of the river, and when the dry season arrives [in November/December] we dare not stay here because we will be afraid of the Burmese again." - "Saw Ghay" (M, 36), Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township (Interview #7, 9/99)

"The only problem is that sometimes the Thais come and chase us [when they cross the river into Thailand], so we always have to run. I don’t know if they are Thai police or Thai Army, but people are frightened and always tell us to run. They are around 10 soldiers and they sleep on the other side of the river. All of them wear a uniform. They told us that we can’t go and stay there because we don’t have Ta Gaw Koe [a Thai ID card]. So we couldn’t stay at xxxx, and we came back and built our huts here. After that the leaders here went and told them something, I don’t know what, and since then we can go back and work there. We hire ourselves out for 60 Baht [per day] to pull up beans for them. If we didn’t do it we wouldn’t have food to eat so we have to do it. We buy rice in M---. They [the Thais] like it a lot if we buy things there." - "Saw Lay Htoo" (M, 42), Ler Dah village, Hlaing Bwe township (Interview #10, 9/99)

"…they just told us that because a lot of people had fled there [to Thailand] it was causing trouble, and they ordered the villagers to move back. They came and stayed for 3 or 4 days, and when they left we went back, too. They don’t want us to stay there. When we first arrived back there they didn’t know about us, but after a while more and more of our friends came. Now they know about it, so they drove us back here again because a lot of people came to stay there. They said it is messy so we had to move. They said, ‘Don’t come and stay here for a long time’ because it is their land." - "Naw Paw Htoo" (F, 27), Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #9, 9/99)

Future of the Area

"When I was trying to find my husband, T--- told me to go and find him for them, and if I couldn’t find him he was going to kill me and my children and my mother. Myself, I thought if he wants to kill me then kill me. Being a villager is the very worst, so if he wants to kill me, go ahead. I would be happy to die." - "Naw Ther Paw" (F, xx), xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township; T--- is a local DKBA officer, and his troops later shot her husband dead (Interview #32, 8/99)

There are no indications that conditions will soon improve for the villagers of southeastern Pa’an District. The brutality of the current SPDC offensive indicates their commitment to eradicating the KNLA’s presence in the area, but the KNLA has always been strong in this area and it is very unlikely that the SPDC could succeed in this objective. The KNLA, furthermore, has vowed never to surrender, and reports from KNLA soldiers in the field and independent sources suggest that morale is good despite being under-manned and ill-equipped. The guerrilla tactics of the KNLA, including landmine warfare, still manage to deter the SPDC and DKBA from completely controlling the district. There is no indication that any of the parties to the conflict will cease laying mines, and their proliferation is a serious and growing concern; when interviewed by KHRG, villagers from the region now speak of landmines as one of their greatest fears and concerns, which was not the case 2 to 3 years ago. Most local SPDC units fear KNLA landmines as much as villagers do and therefore try to keep their patrols to a minimum, but when ordered to clear villages they mobilise in large numbers and seize villagers to walk in front of them. Villagers depend on the KNLA to alert them about SPDC columns passing through, and in return villagers continue to provide the KNLA with necessary supplies and porters, whether voluntarily or by coercion. In the past six months the SPDC and DKBA have collaborated in the area with the resolve to purge the KNLA by waging war against innocent villagers. So far they have spared no one.

"They did not come to do the best thing for the villagers. They came to break the villagers. I do not feel good since the Burmese came to the village. I suffer always. I eat in the morning and have to think for the evening, then I eat in the evening and have to think for the morning. We have no food to eat and no money to pay the fees, and we could not suffer anymore. That’s why we came here." - "Saw Lah Ku" (M, 21), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #18, 8/99)

"I could support my family if we didn’t need to fear them, and if they didn’t disturb us. But in this messy situation, I had no time to work." - "Saw Baw" (M, 29), Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #24, 8/99)

"How can I feel when they come and rape our daughters and ask to have sex with my wife? And they loot all of our belongings and our paddy. Last year we could not plant paddy, so we have to buy paddy but then they come and take it. They don’t have any rations and their leaders don’t send them rice, only alcohol. So they eat all of ours." - "Pu K’Ner" (M, 60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #20, 8/99)

In the past Thailand has offered sanctuary to Karen refugees, but the villagers are the overlooked victims of the recently tense political situation between Rangoon and Bangkok. Following the armed attack on the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok in early October by a fringe group of Burmese exiles, Thai-Burmese relations soured, resulting in the Burmese closure of ‘legal’ border trading for 2 months. Beginning in early November, Thai authorities were ordered to round up all illegal migrant Burmese workers in Thailand, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and deport them to Burma. Thousands of these workers fit the international criteria for refugees but had joined the Thai illegal labour force because they could not or did not want to go into refugee camps. Many of them have been forced to return to their villages, many of which have been destroyed or relocated during the time they have lived in Thailand. This eliminated any possibility of earning a living to support their families, as jobs are few in Burma and do not pay enough to survive. Given the danger of return to their villages through heavily mined areas and SPDC/DKBA controlled territory, many workers were forced to pay huge extortion fees to stay in Thailand to Thai authorities, which sent them into debt, or flee into the jungle to avoid capture. Stranded on the border for weeks, most workers have now dispersed on the Burmese side or returned to factories in Mae Sot and other border towns, where they run the risk of re-arrest.

"The Burmese closed the way to the fields, and last year there was no rain. We couldn’t plant the paddy so we got no rice. We planted the paddy this year, but we don’t know yet if we will dare to harvest the paddy at harvest time. We dare not go back to harvest because we will die. I think that if I dare to go back I will go alone and leave my wife and children here. I am very afraid." - "Maung Shwe" (M, 36), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #19, 8/99)

This dry season does not bode well for Karen villagers in the area. It is very likely that most or all villages will be relocated by the SPDC Army, and those that choose not to go to the relocation sites will have to flee into the hills. Most, however, will not be able to survive there due to the landmines, poor nutrition and health standards, and danger of attack. The few left in their villages hesitate to leave their fields, which are their only source of income and food, but their families and friends at the Thai border report that many have been waiting until the end of the harvest before fleeing. This means that there will be probably be an increase over the next month in the number of people joining fellow villagers on the banks of the Moei River. Most will be unable to cross into the refugee camps because of current Thai policy, but the lucky few who manage to cross will either sneak into refugee camps and swell the already burgeoning numbers there, or attempt to find an illegal job somewhere in Thailand. The fate of these people depends to a large degree on the policy of the Thai authorities. The closure of the refugee camps and the recent move of two long-standing camps to a location far from the border are both ominous signs for those seeking sanctuary in Thailand. New arrivals will be forced to become unregistered refugees—and therefore receive no rations—hiding at Beh Klaw (Mae La), or attempt to reach Umpiem Mai, a new camp combining the old camps of Huay Kaloke (Wangka) and Maw Ker, which is also at capacity. However, Umpiem Mai is over 50 kilometres from the crossing point of refugees from Pa’an District, so it is almost impossible for new refugees to reach it without being stopped and arrested as illegal migrants by Thai authorities. Villagers inside Burma have heard rumours of full camps and pushbacks by Thai authorities, and are reluctant to make the dangerous journey without the assurance of refuge across the border. Meanwhile, the Thais are trying to appease Rangoon after the embassy crisis by mounting pressure on the UNHCR to speed up the repatriation of refugees, so even those in camps may soon be at risk of losing sanctuary.

"We couldn’t deal with the forced labour and fee collections, so we fled and came here for a better future. We still have people there who will come here. Some villagers still have their fields and are waiting to finish the harvest before they come. I came here alone but my wife and children arrived yesterday." - "Pa Po Doh" (M, 24), Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township (Interview #39, 7/99)

"If I go back to my village, I’ll have no rice to eat. My children have been working in the fields, but since there was no rain we didn’t get enough rice. My daughter has two small children, and my daughter-in-law also has two small children who are still breastfeeding. My daughter-in-law is ill in the hospital. When we are cured, we would like to stay here as refugees with all our children, but we don’t have any money to build a house." - "Pu Dta Ler" (M, 50-60), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township (Interview #45, 4/99)

"It is not easy to go back. It will be many long years before the situation gets better. I think it will not change for a while. Some people say that the situation will become peaceful, but that will not be easy. It made my heart unhappy that I had to work for them, which is why I came here. I couldn’t suffer anymore. After 2 or 3 years I’d had enough of working like that. The other villagers with fields and cattle want to come here too, but they can’t. The rich villagers have to stay because they cannot leave their fields and cattle, but we could come because we had nothing. But if all our people go back, I wouldn’t dare stay here alone." - "Saw Maw Hla" (M, 30), Maw Goh village, Lu Pleh township (Interview #43, 7/99)

"[when asked if he thinks the SPDC has come to do good things] I am very afraid that they will come to do ‘good things’ like that. I think that they have not come to do good things. I don’t know if the situation will get better. If our country gets freedom, I will go back. But Karen people said to stay here [displaced on the Burma side of the border] for the moment, and that they will plan a place for us [implying that they will arrange admission into a refugee camp in Thailand]. If they do not send for us, we don’t know where we’ll go." - "Maung Shwe" (M, 36), Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township; shortly after he was interviewed, the internally displaced camp where he was staying at Tee Ner Hta was shelled by SPDC troops (Interview #19, 8/99)

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