An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
October 18, 2000 / KHRG #2000-P2

[Some details have been blanked out or omitted for Internet distribution.]

The photos and descriptions below comprise Photo Set 2000-B, which shows some aspects of the human rights situation in Karen areas of Burma. This set consists of photos taken and gathered by KHRG since the publication of Photo Set 2000-A in February 2000. The photos in this set were taken in Papun, Nyaunglebin, Pa’an and Dooplaya Districts of Karen State and eastern Pegu Division, and a few were taken in Thailand (click here to see a map of the districts included in this set). They have been divided under 5 headings: ‘Forced Labour’, ‘Landmines’, ‘Village Destruction and Internal Displacement’, ‘The Internally Displaced at Ler Baw Gher’, and ‘Forced Repatriation of Refugees’. Brief synopses are provided below under each topic heading. More detailed information on all of the regions mentioned is available in KHRG documentary reports, several of which are referenced in the text below. For a broader spectrum of photos covering a wider variety of topics and regions, please see also Photo Set 2000-A and our other previous photo sets.

This list does not attempt to give a comprehensive picture of the human rights situation in these areas; for more information on the situation, see the reports referenced in the summaries included below.

SPDC    State Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
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
DKBA   Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, Karen group allied with SPDC
IB         Infantry Battalion (SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LIB       Light Infantry Battalion (SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength

Forced Labour

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Forced labour is probably the most systematic abuse inflicted by the SPDC, and the one which is foremost in the mind of villagers throughout the country. As though it were not enough that villagers are given nothing and treated brutally during forced labour and often die as a result, it also takes them away from their livelihood and leaves them not enough time to grow a crop or earn a living, and it strips them of whatever money they have in the form of ‘fees’ to avoid some of the forced labour so they can do their own work. Demands for many kinds of forced labour come from many different Army camps and SPDC authorities at the same time, so most villagers end up paying high ‘fees’ to avoid some of the forced labour but also going for forced labour on regular occasions. The forced labour takes many forms, including portering for the Army, building and maintaining bunkers, trenches, defenses and barracks at Army camps, doing sentry duty at Army camps and along roads, farming for the Army, building and maintaining roads and other infrastructure, and many others. This set only contains a few photographs of forced labour; for more extensive coverage, see the Forced Labour section of Photo Set 2000-A and previous KHRG photo sets and read the descriptions in our regional reports and summaries.

As more and more SPDC columns head into the Karen hills to wipe out all hill villages not under direct Army control, they need large numbers of porters to carry military supplies and the food and valuables they loot from the villages before burning them [for more on these campaigns see below under ‘Village Destruction and Internal Displacement’, and other regional KHRG reports]. With most of the villagers in these areas fleeing into hiding in the forests, they are beginning to rely more on civilians rounded up in the towns of central Burma, and on convict porters. More and more convict porters are beginning to appear with SPDC columns in Karen State, from prisons as far afield as Moulmein, Mandalay and Lashio. A few of those who have escaped are shown in the photographs below. They are serving sentences for anything from curfew violations to murder, but once taken as porters they are often kept until they escape or die, regardless of when their sentence ends. One of the escaped convict porters told KHRG he had been pulled from the prison just weeks before the end of his sentence and sent for what he soon realised was to be an indefinite period of portering. The SPDC has now further formalised this process by creating what are known as ‘Won Saung’ porter battalions or porter-gathering camps, which are essentially transit holding camps for convict porters. Hundreds of convicts are brought to these holding camps behind SPDC lines in the ethnic states, and SPDC Columns can then take as many porters as they need when they head out into the remoter areas. When interviewed, escaped convicts have described ‘Won Saung 1’ and ‘Won Saung 2’ near Pa’an town in central Karen State, and another Won Saung camp near Thaton in Mon State, but there are almost certainly others elsewhere. Once taken as porters, the convicts are treated with unrestrained brutality, and it is not uncommon for one or more of a group of convict porters to die each day along the way.

Photos #1, 2: Klaw Maw village, just west of the hills in Kyauk Kyi township, Nyaunglebin District, late 1999. The villagers are forced to break rocks and carry them in sacks to forced labour sites where Buddhists, Animists and Christians are all being forced to build pagodas for the local DKBA and SPDC troops. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #3: Klaw Maw village, just west of the hills in Kyauk Kyi township, Nyaunglebin District, late 1999. Villagers taking a break during forced labour to build a sentry hut, which is half-constructed on the right. This particular hut is being built to guard the bridge. The villagers are forced to build such huts every few hundred metres along the road, then they must do rotating 24-hour shifts of unpaid forced labour as unarmed sentries guarding the road. Then if any opposition activity occurs near the road, their village will be blamed and punished. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #4, 5: A 46-year-old Karen man from Mandalay who was 2 months from the end of a 1-year prison sentence for possessing a stolen bicycle when he was taken from Mandalay Prison to Karen State to be a porter for SPDC frontline troops. He escaped in Pa’an District in early June 2000 after 10 days of heavy portering, during which he says he and the others had to carry supplies and food looted from villages and were forced to dig foxholes and pound the looted rice for the soldiers. He witnessed soldiers abusing villagers, and described to KHRG how he and other porters were kicked, beaten, slapped and verbally abused by SPDC soldiers who told them, "As far as we’re concerned, you’re already dead." The photos show wounds on his back and shoulders from carrying heavy loads in bamboo baskets. He has a wife and 3 children back home who do not know that he is still alive. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #6, 7, 8: Six prison convicts who were taken from prisons throughout Burma to be porters in Karen State but escaped in early June 2000 in two separate groups. They all described to KHRG their extremely brutal treatment at the hands of the soldiers. All but one of them are Burman, and in Photo #6 they are still in prison uniform. In Photo #8, three of them show the scars on their backs from carrying heavy loads in bamboo baskets. The porter in the centre in the latter two photos was quite ill when he escaped and when these photos were taken. Most of them have wives and children at home who do not know that they are still alive. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #9, 10, 11, 12, 13: Eight prison convicts who escaped in June 2000 while being used as frontline porters by SPDC Light Infantry Battalions #706 and 708 in Dooplaya District of Karen State. Ranging in age from 20 to 34, they were in prison for crimes ranging from curfew violation to drug use and murder. They all described being treated brutally while portering; SPDC troops normally treat convict porters especially brutally and keep them beyond the end of their sentences, until they either die or escape. The papers they hold show their prison numbers, which have been blacked out to protect them. In photos #11, 12, and 13, they point to some of the (circled) wounds on their backs, shoulders and heads from carrying heavy loads in bamboo baskets and from beatings. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

Landmines

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Landmines are a rapidly worsening scourge in several parts of Burma, particularly in Karen State. Research done by Non-Violence International for the Landmine Monitor (part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines) estimated that there were more landmine casualties in Karen State alone in 1999 than in all of Cambodia. As a landmine hotspot, researchers now place Burma second only to Afghanistan in all of Asia. Villagers throughout Karen State are beginning to speak more and more about their fear of landmines, and there are few villages now which have not lost people to landmines. Most of the victims die before they can reach any proper treatment, but hospitals on both sides of the Burma-Thai border are seeing greatly increased numbers of landmine victims this year.

In Karen State, landmines are used heavily by the SPDC Army, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). Most of the victims, however, are villagers. Almost none of the mines are mapped, and although the KNLA tells villagers which pathways they have mined, many villagers continue to be killed by KNLA mines. Worse yet, SPDC forces often round up villagers and force them to march in front of Army columns as human mine detonators, and since 1998 SPDC units have taken to landmining villages and crop fields in areas where they are trying to capture or kill internally displaced villagers. For more information on landmine use and the mines themselves, see the Landmines section in Photo Set 2000-A, photos #P1-P6, P29, and N21 in Photo Set 99-A, and photos #42-44 in Photo Set 95-A. Additional information is also included in the KHRG reports "Beyond All Endurance" (KHRG, December 1999), "Uncertainty, Fear, and Flight" (KHRG, November 1998), "Dooplaya Under The SPDC" (KHRG, November 1998), "False Peace" (KHRG, March 1999), "Caught in the Middle" (KHRG, September 1999), "Starving Them Out" (KHRG, March 2000), and "Death Squads and Displacement" (KHRG, May 1999).

Photos #14, 15: A woman who says she is about 19 years old from Tee Law Thi village in southeastern Pa’an District, married with one small child. She stepped on a DKBA landmine while out looking for dogfruit, lost her left leg and was horribly wounded on her right leg. She was later treated by field medics and carried to a refugee camp in Thailand. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #16: Saw D---, a Karen villager in southeastern Pa’an District whose left leg was blown off by a KNLA landmine when he was doing forced portering for SPDC troops in 1998. After the explosion the SPDC troops left him lying on the path. Later two villagers came along and he asked them to carry him to the nearest village, but they dropped him and left him in a ricefield when they had to flee an SPDC patrol that saw them and opened fire on them. In the end he had to pay 20,000 or 30,000 Kyat himself to get treated in the nearest hospital. Saw D--- can no longer work well in the fields and is supported by his 3 sons and 2 daughters, who tend people’s cattle for money. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #17, 18: Villagers from a village in southeastern Pa’an District who lost legs to landmines while portering for SPDC troops who were heading to attack refugee camps in Thailand in 1998. The man in Photo #17 lost his leg while forced to porter for SPDC troops heading to attack Hway Kaloke (Wangka) refugee camp, and the man in Photo #18 lost both legs when forced to porter for SPDC troops going to attack Beh Klaw (Mae La) refugee camp. The SPDC later claimed that both of these attacks were carried out by DKBA troops acting independently, but the testimonies of villagers and refugees prove otherwise. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #19, 20: Men from two villages in southeastern Pa’an District who lost their legs to KNLA landmines while doing forced portering for SPDC troops near their village over the past two years. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #21: In mid-February 2000, a KHRG researcher found and dug up this SPDC landmine on a hillside path near Yah Aw in central Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. It is a Burmese-made MM2 anti-personnel landmine, laid by Light Infantry Battalion #5. The path is mainly used by internally displaced villagers in the forest. For more information and photos on the MM2 landmine, see KHRG Photo Set 2000A (Photos #5-1 and 5-2 under ‘Landmines’) and KHRG Photo Set 99A (Photos #P1 and P2 under ‘Pa’an District’). [Photo: KHRG researcher]

Village Destruction & Internal Displacement

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Faced with SPDC abuses and demands for forced labour and money which they can no longer bear, villagers throughout Karen regions have fled into the hills. In areas such as Papun and eastern Nyaunglebin Districts, the SPDC has decided to destroy all villages which are not under the direct control of an Army camp, and in these two districts alone close to 200 hill villages have been systematically destroyed since 1997. Rather than move to SPDC-controlled sites where they know they would go hungry and be used constantly for forced labour, the villagers in these areas have chosen to hide in the forests and survive however they can. The SPDC has responded by sending Army columns to burn what remains of their villages, seek out and destroy their crops and food supplies, and shoot villagers on sight. In 1998 and early 1999, many villagers in Papun and Nyaunglebin districts were gradually moving back nearer to their villages and farming their own fields, but then in October 1999 the SPDC sent in more Battalions to wipe them out. Deliberately timing their operations for the rice harvest when the villagers would be visible in groups in the hillside fields, more than 30 SPDC Battalions sent columns into the hills which shot villagers in the fields, destroyed some of the crop and landmined the remainder of the fields. Shelters were burned and the ruins of villages were landmined.

The troops have specially sought out the villagers’ stocks of paddy (rice still bearing the husk) which they keep in small storage barns in the forest. On finding these paddy barns, the troops loot as much as they want, then dump the remainder on the ground and sometimes set it alight. They have also cut down the fruit plantations and other trees of the villagers. The aim is to deny all food to the villagers so they will have to come out of the hills, and then theoretically the resistance forces would have no means of support. It is the villagers who are suffering, however, not the resistance forces. Since the SPDC operation destroyed most of last year’s harvest most of them have been going hungry, living on boiled rice soup and whatever forest vegetables they can find. They live with an ear to the ground, always ready to flee whenever SPDC patrols come near. Even so, many of them are still being shot on sight and many more are dying of disease as the SPDC operation continues. Desperate to cling to their land and afraid of what might await them if they try to flee to Thailand, 30,000 or more of them in this one region alone are still struggling to survive in the forested hills. For more information, see KHRG Commentary #2000-C2 (17/10/00), KHRG Information Update #2000-U1 (25/4/00), and an upcoming KHRG report expected to be released in December 2000.

Photos #22, 23: Village scenes: a villager ploughs a flat paddy field in southeastern Pa’an District at the beginning of the rainy season in mid-2000, and a woman works a mortar for pounding paddy into rice. Survival is getting much more difficult for villagers in this area under the burden of SPDC demands for labour, money, food and materials. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #24, 25, 26: Saw Aw Hta village, Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. These photos were taken in March 2000, not long after many of the houses and paddy storage barns had been burned by SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #5. The villagers fled into hiding in the jungle. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #27, 28: A villager from Tee Tho Hta village, Nyaunglebin District, stands in the burned remains of his own and another bamboo house 2 weeks after they were burned on March 24^th 2000 by Column 2 of SPDC LIB #6, commanded by Than Oo. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #29, 30: A banana plantation in Tee Tho Hta village, Nyaunglebin District, deliberately destroyed on March 24^th 2000 by SPDC LIB #6 as part of their campaign to destroy villagers’ food supplies. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #31: A villager looks at one ‘big tin’ of his rice, dumped into a streambed by SPDC LIB #6 troops on March 24^th 2000 when they burned his house near the Tee Tho Loh river, Nyaunglebin District. The burned remains of his house can be seen in the background. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #32, 33: In Photo #32, a villager stands in the ruins of his house in Tee Tho Kee village, Nyaunglebin District, burned by SPDC troops from LIB #6, Column 2, in late March 2000. In Photo #33, the same villager stands in his hillfield near the village, also burned by the same troops. He had already cut it and left it to dry, but after being burned off too early like this the field will not be usable for planting rice in the rainy season, and he will not be able to grow a crop. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #34: A rice-pounding mortar in Tee Tho Kee village, Nyaunglebin District, deliberately burned by SPDC LIB #6 troops in late March 2000. Villagers use these mortars to pound the husks off their paddy to make rice. The burned stump in the photo is the large wooden bowl of the mortar; the long bamboo pole holds a heavy wooden pounder, and is levered by stepping on and off the far end of the pole. (See Photo #23 of a paddy-pounding mortar in functioning order.) [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #35: The owners of the burned mortar in Photo #34, now living displaced in this shelter in the forest. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #36: Burned remains of a bamboo house in Maw Kee village, southern Kyauk Kyi township, which was burned and destroyed by SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #6 in early 2000. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #37, 38, 39: Villagers from Tee Tho Hta village, Nyaunglebin District, return to try to salvage some paddy from their paddy barns, only to find that they were burned along with their houses in late March 2000. The SPDC LIB #6 troops dumped the paddy on the ground, then burned the barns and set the paddy alight. Large piles of paddy do not burn well, but smoulder like this for days or even weeks. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #40: A villager from Meh K’Dtee village, Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, tries to salvage some of his paddy, still smouldering after SPDC troops dumped it out of his paddy storage barn and set it alight in early April 2000. All the people of the village are in hiding in the forest since SPDC troops from Infantry Battalion #88 came and shot people dead on sight and burned their houses and rice stocks. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #41: In mid-April 2000, a villager from Meh K’Tee Hta village, Nyaunglebin District, tries to salvage some of the paddy laying underneath his paddy barn after it was dumped on the ground by troops from SPDC IB #80. The barn had 90 baskets (over 1,000 kilograms/2,200 pounds) of paddy in it, which is now scattered on the ground all around. The young green shoots visible in the photo show that some of it has already gone to seed. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #42: A villager in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, tries to salvage some paddy from his storage barn after SPDC troops found it and emptied it all out on the ground in February 2000. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #43: Paddy from a villager’s storage barn in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, dumped on the path by SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #6 to destroy it in February 2000 (the golden grains visible on the ground are the paddy grains). [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #44: Villagers from Tee Tho Hta village, Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, spend the night in a hastily erected shelter on a mountainside at the end of March 2000, after SPDC troops destroyed their village and continued patrolling the area. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #45, 46: Internally displaced villagers from Tee Blah village, Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. When these photos were taken in March 2000, SPDC troops had burned their village and were still patrolling the area, so they were living in hiding in these shelters in the forest. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #47, 48, 49, 50: Displaced villagers from Ta Say Der village, Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, living in hiding in the forest in February 2000. During the harvest in late October 1999, SPDC troops from Light Infantry Battalion #5 of #66 Division came into their home area and began shooting villagers on sight and destroying the rice crop. A six-month-old baby and several other villagers were shot dead, leaving the villagers no choice but to flee into hiding in the forest with whatever they could carry. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #51, 52: Internally displaced villagers in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, in March 2000. They fled their villages after SPDC troops shot people harvesting rice, destroyed the crops and burned their villages. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #53, 54: Villagers from Saw Aw Hta village, Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, in hiding in their forest shelters in March 2000 after SPDC troops had burned their homes and paddy storage barns. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #55: A 60-year-old bachelor in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, who was left behind in a hut outside the village when the villagers fled because he was too weak to flee and has no family. The village has now been burned and destroyed by SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #5. When the photo was taken in March 2000, he was staying alone with nothing left to eat, and said he was basically waiting to die. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #56, 57: Internally displaced villagers from Maw Kee and Kyaw Mu Cha Day villages in southern Kyauk Kyi township, Nyaunglebin District, living in hiding in the forest in March 2000 after SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #6 destroyed their villages. Photo #56 shows a mother and daughter building a shelter, while Grandmother sifts rice to prepare it for cooking. On March 13^th, four days after this photo was taken, a patrol from SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #6 found this group of villagers and opened fire on them, killing 2 and wounding 4 others. The shelters were destroyed. The patrol was commanded by SPDC officer Kyaw Kyaw Soe. See also Photos #58-61. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #58, 59: Displaced villagers from Maw Kee and Kyaw Mu Cha Day flee yet again after Kyaw Kyaw Soe and his soldiers from SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #6 had shot some of them on sight and burned their hidden shelters on March 13^th 2000 (see also Photos #56, 57, 60, and 61). [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #60, 61: Some of the internally displaced villagers wounded in the March 13^th attack on their hidden forest shelters point to their wounds. Two villagers were killed in the raid by SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #6, and 4 were wounded. Photo #61 shows Naw D---, one of the wounded from Kyaw Mu Cha Day village, with her children and family belongings. (See also Photos #56-59) [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #62: Saw T---, age 62, from D--- village in Lu Thaw township, Papun District, interviewed in March 2000 after SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #10 had shot dead his child on sight. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #63: A 60-year-old couple from T--- village in eastern Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. They say that they had 8 children but all 8 of them have been shot dead by Burmese troops since the ‘Four Cuts’ policy against civilians began in the 1970’s. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #64: The last remains of villager Saw Eh Wah (male, age 57) from Meh Yeh Hta village after his children found his body and cremated him. He was shot dead on sight near his village on March 24^th 2000 by SPDC troops from LIB #6, Column 2, commanded by Than Oo and Aung Soe Win. Saw Eh Wah was a village farmer who was not involved in any political activity. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #65, 66: Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, February 2000. Internally displaced villagers improvise several classrooms of a primary and middle school in hiding in the jungle. They fled their villages after SPDC troops destroyed their crops and homes and shot people on sight. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #67: Villagers flee into hiding in southeastern Pa’an District at the beginning of rainy season in mid-2000, unable to comply any longer with all of the demands placed on them by the SPDC. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #68: A villager in the hills of eastern Pa’an District clears a hill rice field deep in the forest in May 2000. Normally Karen villagers rotate their hill rice fields, but fear of SPDC patrols is forcing the internally displaced to clear small patches to grow rice higher and higher in the hills. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #69: Village children study in an impromptu school set up by their parents in southeastern Pa’an District. Most children in Karen villages have no other opportunity for education, yet since 1999 SPDC military units in the area have been ordering all such schools shut down because they are not under State control. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #70, 71: Villagers from Kyauk Kyi township, Nyaunglebin District, flee through Papun District on their way to the Thai border in February 2000. They said they had fled their homes because SPDC troops had already shot many people dead on sight in their home area. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

The Internally Displaced at Ler Baw Gher

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In September 1998 SPDC troops stormed an area in the eastern Dawna Mountains, near the Thai border in Pa’an District, and shelled and burned 5 villages without warning. The villagers fled across the border but soon returned and camped just on the Burma side of the Moei River, hoping to return to their crops and villages if the SPDC troops withdrew. The troops did not withdraw; instead, many more internally displaced people kept coming to join those camped beside the Moei River at Meh La Po Hta. By late 1999 the population had swelled to 5,000 and it had begun to look a bit like a refugee camp, with food and other supplies sent in from Thailand. The site was heavily encircled by KNLA landmines, but it was never safe from attack by the nearby SPDC Army units. Similar camps slightly further south at Tee Ner Hta and Law Thay Hta were attacked by SPDC units in late 1999, and the villagers there fled into Thailand. Eventually the inevitable happened - in March 2000, SPDC troops shelled Meh La Po Hta and all of the displaced people fled across the border into Thailand, but most of them opted not to enter refugee camps. Instead, in May they began crossing the border again and establishing a new internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camp at a site near Meh La Po Hta called Ler Baw Gher, where they were also joined by newly displaced people who had fled villages further inside Pa’an District. Ler Baw Gher was then briefly attacked by a passing SPDC column in early July 2000, causing the villagers to flee into Thailand yet again. Still determined to stay near their home villages, however, they soon crossed back again and are now re-establishing themselves once again at Ler Baw Gher, hoping they will not be attacked again too soon. The photos below show Ler Baw Gher as it was being established, and then just after the attack in early July. For more information on the background of these IDP camps and the people in them, see "Beyond All Endurance" (KHRG #99-08, 20/12/99) and "Uncertainty, Fear and Flight" (KHRG #98-08, 18/11/98).

Photos #72, 73: Ler Baw Gher camp for internally displaced persons shortly after the villagers began establishing it (see notes above). They were soon joined by more IDP’s newly fleeing villages further inside Pa’an District. The photos, taken in early June, show some of their basic huts. However, this camp was attacked just a few weeks after these photos were taken (see photos below). [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #74, 75, 76, 77: After the internally displaced villagers from Meh La Po Hta and other sites had re-established themselves at Ler Baw Gher (see Photos #72-73), they were again attacked by a passing SPDC column in early July 2000. The villagers had enough advance warning to flee across the river into Thailand, and then the troops fired M79 grenades and other small arms into Ler Baw Gher camp, entered it and tried to burn the houses. Heavy rains stopped the fires before any serious damage was inflicted. Photos #74 and 75 show two houses which the troops tried to burn, and Photo #76 shows a partly burned Counting Chart from the camp school. Photo #77 shows part of the camp after the attack. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #78, 79: A hole in the roof of one of the houses in Ler Baw Gher, caused by an M79 rifle-launched grenade. The second photo shows one of these grenades which didn’t explode and was found on the ground in the camp. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #80, 81: Villagers who fled Ler Baw Gher just before the attack take shelter on the Thai side of the border. A few days later they began returning to Ler Baw Gher. Now most of the villagers are staying there again, but still live under constant threat of attack. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

Forced Repatriation of Refugees

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Karen villagers continue to flee Dooplaya District of south-central Karen State because the SPDC is increasing the militarisation of the area, demanding increasing amounts of forced labour and extortion money, relocating any village not under the direct control of an Army camp, and routinely and arbitrarily torturing and abusing villagers and village elders alike. Towards the end of the 1999 harvest, all villages in Kya In township were ordered to hand over the entire rice harvest to the Army and then have it rationed back to them one day at a time, and all villagers were ordered to move into the centre of their villages. Unable to survive under these conditions, more and more people are fleeing into the forest, where they go hungry and are hunted by SPDC patrols until they eventually flee to Thailand. [For a detailed report on the situation in the area see "Starving Them Out: Forced Relocations, Killings, and the Systematic Starvation of Villagers in Dooplaya District" (KHRG #2000-02, 31/3/00).] In 1997 there was an outpouring of over 10,000 refugees from this region due to a major Burmese Army offensive, but after that the Thai Army strengthened its presence on the border. Since 1998, most new refugees who have crossed the border have managed to gain admission to Noh Po refugee camp, but many groups who have been stopped en route by the Thai Army have been summarily forced back across the border. Now increasing international scrutiny is making it more difficult for the Thai authorities to get away with this - so they have now set up ‘provincial admission boards’ designed to examine and usually reject refugee claims en masse, in order to legitimise the forced repatriations. The board members are drawn from the military, border police, National Security Council and local administration, none of whom know anything whatsoever about refugees or the situation in Burma nor have any training in refugee law. Their decisions are based more on orders from Bangkok than on the refugees’ cases; for example, the board in Mae Hong Son province at one point issued a blanket rejection of all 3,000+ refugees who had arrived in the province from mid-1999 through mid-2000, most of whom had fled the well-documented forced relocation and destruction of their villages, then suddenly reversed this decision several months later on orders from Bangkok after significant international political pressure had been applied. In most cases, the boards reject at least 80% of new arrivals out of hand, and they do not consider any cases individually.

Earlier this year the Tak province board rejected a group of 152 refugees comprising 29 Karen families who had fled the forced relocations, abuses and food confiscation in Dooplaya District and had been held in a ‘holding centre’ at Noh Po refugee camp pending the decision on their fate. After the rejection, despite active protests by foreign embassies and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Thai Army was ordered to force them back across the border at gunpoint. It was the middle of rainy season, the roads and pathways were slippery muddy swamps and it would be impossible to build a house back in Burma in these conditions, but the group was gathered on August 17^th 2000 at the Noh Po camp office, sent a short distance on 4-wheel drive trucks, then marched for 5 days through the hills and forced back across the border. Some of them have since fled secretly back into Thailand, and have reported that some of the children who were with them have already died. There are also as yet unconfirmed reports that some of the men were captured by SPDC troops and executed.

Photos #82, 83, 84: The 152 refugees set out from the Noh Po refugee camp office on August 17^th 2000, under supervision of the Thai Army. Foreign relief organisations had issued each of them some supplies and a thin plastic sheet to protect them from the rain. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #85: The next part of the journey was taken in turns on 4-wheel drive trucks. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92: The first day’s march. People were carrying whatever they could, there were many small children who often needed to rest, and the paths were slippery, dangerous, muddy or washed out, so going was very slow. As can be seen in the photos, some of the Thai soldiers sympathised with the refugees. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

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Photo #93: The first day’s march ended at this Thailand Karen village, where the refugees were allowed to sleep in the villagers’ houses. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

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Photos #94, 95: The second day’s march begins. Due to the difficult conditions, the rain and the regular need for the children to rest, the march went on for 5 days before the refugees were pushed across the border into the region from which they had fled just 2 or 3 months earlier. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

[End of Photo Set 2000-B]

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