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KHRG Report; April 23, 94





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       A REPORT BY THE KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

Karen Human Rights Group
PO Box 22
Mae Sot, Tak 63110
Thailand
(email sent to the KHRG at strider@xxxxxxxxxxx will be forwarded)


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MORE SLORC ABUSES: THATON & PA'AN DISTRICTS
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
April 23, 1994


The following accounts were given in interviews in late March
and early April 1994.  As several of the interviews were conducted
in villages well inside Burma, the names of those interviewed
have been changed and the names of their villages omitted for
their protection.  All names in their stories are real, though
some have been omitted.  Despite all the SLORC's international
propaganda, nothing has improved for these people.  Furthermore,
no SLORC "ceasefire" would improve things for these people, because
history shows that every SLORC "ceasefire" to date has been used
as cover to triple or quadruple the concentration of SLORC troops
in the ceasefire area, and it is the SLORC troops, not military
battles, which are causing the suffering of these villagers. 
In fact, by allowing SLORC to increase troop concentrations a
"ceasefire" would only increase the suffering of the villagers,
particularly in terms of slave labour, forced portering (soldiers
who aren't fighting still need ammunition and supplies), extortion,
looting, and theft of money, food, livestock, and land.

Please use this report in any way which may help end the suffering
of these villagers; however, to prevent possible brutal retaliation
in the areas affected please ensure that it does not fall into
the hands of any SLORC representatives.
_________________________________________________________________

NAME:     Naw Eh Wah          SEX: F         AGE: 31   Karen farmer
ADDRESS:  Pa'an Township, Thaton District
FAMILY:   Married with 2 children

At the beginning of March, my nephew was away from the village
driving cattle.  He was 13 years old, and that was his job.  I
waited for him to come home but he never came, so we knew the
SLORC must have captured him on the way, tortured him and killed
him.  We went looking for his body but we didn't find it, so then
we held a funeral ceremony for him.  Then after 4 or 5 days some
villagers went to cut firewood in the forest far from the village
and they found his body.  They couldn't bring it back because
it was already decomposed, but they could see that the SLORC had
badly burned the back of his neck and tortured him.  Then the
SLORC had sharpened a bamboo stick, shoved it through his anus
and up through his body, like they would skewer a fish.  He was
only 13 years old.

At the beginning of April [other witnesses verify the date as
April 1 or April 2, 1994], SLORC troops came to the village and
ordered a few of us to follow them to their camp.  When we got
there we saw P-- all tied up, and the SLORC asked us, "Do you
know this man?  Is he a soldier or a villager?"  We said, "He
is a villager, not a soldier."  They asked if we were sure, and
we said yes.  Then they said, "If he's a villager, we'll let him
go now", and they untied him.  Then the officer said, "I'll ask
you a question.  Tell me the truth, not a lie".  When we promised
to tell the truth, he said "A day or two ago some Karen soldiers
passed through.  Tell me who they were."  We said we didn't know,
and he asked, "Were they Chit Thu's troops?".  We knew they were
Chit Thu's troops, but we just kept saying we knew nothing, so
he said, "I know very well that about 10 of his men have been
around here and they have a walkie-talkie.  I know everything,
so don't lie to me.  Go find out for yourselves, then come back
and tell me."  So we went away, then later we went back and said,
"Yes, you were right, there were 10 of them."  Then he said, "I've
captured 4 men and I have them tied up.  You must tell me if any
of them are your villagers, and I'll let them go if they are."
 Then we followed him.  We arrived at a stream in a ricefield.
 The commander called out, and on the other bank SLORC soldiers
came out with 2 men tied up.  As soon as I saw them I said, "Oh!
 I know them very well."  The first was Maw Na, and the second
was Maw Toe Aung.  We sat on a paddy dike and the soldiers let
the two men sit not far from us.  The Column Commander asked,
"Mother, are these your villagers?" and I said "Yes, they're my
villagers".  He said, "You say they're villagers but they had
guns with them".  I said, "I know them very well, and they have
no guns.  Maybe other people just asked them to keep or carry
the guns for them.  If you don't believe me then come to our
village and I'll show you their parents, wives and children."

Then they brought out another man, Maw Lay.  They had him tied
up and dragged him along.  They didn't let him stay there long
before they dragged him away again, and he just looked at me.
 I told him in Karen, "Don't tell them anything."  Then we all
stood up and started walking, and Maw Lay and the others were
following behind me.  Maw Na was right behind me, and he said,
"Aunty, it looks like we will die now."  I asked if they had said
anything that would make the soldiers kill them and he said no.
 I said "If not, then they can't just kill you for doing nothing
wrong, and I'll also do my best to stop them killing you."  As
we arrived at the camp, the Column Commander said "Look at these
men - they're not villagers, they're spies."  He showed me a
backpack with bullets and shells in it.  There were two kinds of
shells: one was big with a tail on it, and the other was small. 
There were also many bullets and one hand grenade.  He said all of
it belonged to the 4 men.  I told him, "That's not true - it's not
theirs."  Then he got angry and didn't say anything, he just went
away and spoke to the Battalion commander while a soldier guarded
us.  Later on they let me and the other woman go back to the
village.  After we got back, they fired 6 shells after us at the
village.  Later they killed all of the 4 men in secret and never
told us anything.  They'd just captured them that morning, and that
night they killed them all.  I think they shot them, because
afterwards some people went and found their bodies and said they'd
been shot in the temple.
_________________________________________________________________

The following account was given in an interview with the wives
of the 4 men who were arrested and killed by SLORC on April 1
or April 2, 1994.  They are all from Pa'an Township, Thaton
District, but the village name must be omitted for their
protection.  Their names have been changed, but their husbands'
names are real as given.

NAME:     Naw Paw Lwee   SEX: F         AGE: 27   Karen farmer
FAMILY:   Wife of Maw Na, age 30.  2 children, one girl and one
boy.

NAME:     Naw Gay Htoo        SEX: F         AGE: 30   Karen farmer
FAMILY:   Wife of Maw Toe Aung, age 40.  3 children, one girl and
two boys.

NAME:     Naw Tee Kuh         SEX: F         AGE: ?    Karen farmer
FAMILY:   Wife of Pa Boe, age 43.  3 children, all girls.

NAME:     Naw Lah        SEX: F         AGE: 29   Karen farmer
FAMILY:   Wife of Maw Lay, age 34.  2 children, both boys.

It was 119 Battalion of #33 Division.  They captured our husbands
away from the village.  Not all at the same time - 2 of them were
going fishing when the SLORC captured them, and the other two
were going to the forest to cut bamboo.  They took a cow along
with them to the forest to feed, and when the SLORC captured them
the soldiers killed that cow and ate it.  Our husbands had nothing,
no guns or ammunition.  They were just civilians.  Not far from
our village, Karen soldiers left some guns and ammunition that
were no good anymore in jackary huts [huts used for boiling
sugarcane juice into hard jackary] in a field.  We didn't know
about it at all until afterwards.  The SLORC found these things, so
then they captured our husbands and called them Ringworms [a
derogatory SLORC name for Karen soldiers].  The men who were going
fishing were on the other side of the hill from the jackary huts
when they were captured, but the 2 who were going to cut bamboo
were 3 mountains away.  That's very far, not close at all.  First
the soldiers captured the fishermen and said, "These are your
guns".  Later they found the men cutting bamboo, and even though
they were far away they accused the four of them of being part of
the same group, and said the men had just split up.

The soldiers called the village head to go see them and talk to
them, but then they just locked our husbands away and wouldn't
let the village head talk to them.  The SLORC said, "Old man,
your villagers are good, but now look at them, they have guns.
 Can you still say they're good?"  The old man said, "Yes, they're
good men.  They're not Karen soldiers."  The officer said, "We
can't believe you anymore, old man, because we've found out they're
Ringworms."  The headman said, "If you don't believe me then come
to the village and I'll show you."  Then we could do nothing.
 They just killed them all.  We know because we heard the gunshots
in the evening when it started getting dark.

The next morning we went halfway to where they'd been shot and
asked a woman there what had happened.  She told us, "The SLORC
said they just let the men go so they could go home for the
festival" [the Buddhist water festival, April 13-16], so we just
went back home.  But by the next morning we were sure they were
dead, so we went to try to find where they were buried.  We found
the tracks of SLORC soldiers' boots going into the forest, so we
knew this was the way and we followed the tracks.  We found Maw
Na's slippers so we kept following, and we could see signs in the
dirt of how they'd dragged the bodies.  We knew they must be buried
around there, so we stepped on the earth until we found a soft
place, and that's where we found the bodies.  They'd buried two in
one hole and two in the other.  Their hands were still tied behind
their backs.  The only marks on them were bullet holes.  Two of
them were shot in the back of the neck, and the other two in the
temple.  Maw Na had a bullet hole in one temple and the bullet
came out the other side.  As for Maw Toe Aung, the bullet had
blown out the top of his head.  The SLORC did this secretly, and
never told us they were dead.
_________________________________________________________________

NAME:     Saw Win Gate         SEX: M   AGE: over 50        Karen
Buddhist, farmer
ADDRESS:  Hlaing Bwe Township, Pa'an District
FAMILY:   Single

The SLORC commits so many abuses against Karen people.  The SLORC
comes and arrests people, beats them and says they're "Ringworm",
even though some of them are sick and weak.  This dry season they
arrested one man, tied him up, hit and beat him and said "You're
Ringworm".  This man was from Ta Nay Bleh village.  I don't know
his name - he came to our village to cure his sickness and stayed
with his nephew who lives in our village.  The SLORC captured
both him and his nephew, tied their hands behind their backs and
tortured, beat and hit them, then they took them away to their
camp and tortured them a lot.  The village heads from our village
and Ta Nay Bleh village went to the camp and swore that the men
were just villagers, and then they were released.  The soldiers
say "If you are real villagers then just stay in your village.

 We won't hurt you unless you make trouble."  So now all the
villagers don't dare go anywhere, just stay in the village.  If
you're just walking outside the village and you see SLORC, if you
try to run they call and say "Don't run, we're good men", but if
you stop then they capture you and make trouble.  The soldiers beat
people in my village all the time.  I myself was beaten once when
the soldiers came and accused my friend Tha Dee of being a Karen
soldier.  I tried to plead for him, and then they slapped both of
our faces very hard again and again.  My friend Tha Dee is about 20
years old, and he is just a civilian.  Three months ago, the SLORC
captured a man in our village and said, "Is he a villager or a
Ringworm?"  He was just a villager.  They tied him up with rope and
tied the rope around his neck until he almost died, then they took
him back to their camp.  The villagers had to go plead for him
to get them to free him.  His name is Saw Eh Gay, age 20.  Also,
I knew a villager named Kya Nay Pawt, and they shot him.  That
was 2 or 3 years ago.  He was from Da Greh village but he usually
stayed in a hut at his farm.  One evening his friends asked him
to stay in the village but he said, "I left my animals loose to
feed so I have to go back".  He went back to sleep in his hut,
then in the middle of the night the SLORC came into his hut and
woke him up.  Some villagers who they'd already captured were
there and saw the whole thing.  Kya Nay Pawt woke up and saw the
SLORC, and they shot him in the leg.  He tried to get up and run,
but he couldn't and fell down, and then the soldier just walked
up to him, pointed a gun at him and killed him.  They shot him
in the back of the head where he had fallen.  We heard the gunshot
from the village.

They order villagers to go work for them and to be porters, and
if you don't go when they ask then they come arrest you and take
you by force, both men and women, even children.  You have to
carry their shells, rice and rations.  We have to go for one day,
the whole day, and we only get back in the evening.  Sometimes
when there's fighting they come and capture all of us and we have
to go carry their things.  Some have to go for 10 days, or more
than 2 weeks.  Porters have to carry up through Maw Po Kay, and
back through Kawkareik, in Pa'an District.  There are 30 houses
in my village, and about 10 of us have to go at a time.  Most
of the men don't dare go as porters because men porters are
tortured
very seriously.  But women are not treated quite so badly, so
it is mostly women who go as porters from our village.

They force us to do a lot of other things too.  We have to send
food to them and carry it in our carts.  Usually the men are
carrying food to them in carts, while the women have to carry
things on their backs and climb all the hills along the way.  This
dry season I had to take food on my cart to Baw Ye Pu, and when I
got there I saw many, many, 400 or 500 other carts together there. 
All of them had to carry rations and supplies to the soldiers.  I
had to send food to Baw Ye Pu and also to Ler Pu.  I've had to
do this 6 or 7 times, and it was trouble because they made us
do it through the middle of the day when it's very hot.  Our cow
couldn't continue in the heat, but the soldiers forced us to keep
going quickly - so then our cow just stopped, and they yelled
and cursed at us.  They order us to go dig trenches and things
for them, and if you can't go then they force you to go.  We have
to cut bamboo, cut down trees, dig trenches, and build their
houses.

 The worst thing is building fences for them - it took us over
one month to make fences around their whole military camp.  They
forced us to make 3 fences all parallel to each other and plant
sharpened bamboo sticks in the ground in between.  We had to cut
the bamboo ourselves and carry it to the camp to make their fences.
 We had to build them section by section, and there were people
from many villages there working together.  It was really hard
work, and they were always yelling at us to hurry.  We all had
to take our own food and walk there every day.  At the camp we
have to do exactly what they say or they would beat us.

They also order everyone, especially the women and children as
young as 10 years old, to guard the road.  While they are there
they are supposed to watch everyone who goes along the road and
report it to SLORC.  But we are all Karen so even while we're
guarding we don't report on all the villagers going by, but when
the SLORC finds that out then we have to pay them money.  We have
to go continually, in 3 day shifts.  But that's finished for now,
because they've finished sending their ammunition and supplies
to the frontline for this season so they've closed the road. 
Quite a few SLORC trucks explode on the road, but not near our
village.  When they explode the SLORC demands 20,000 or 30,000
Kyat from the villagers.  Sometimes there are 2 or 3 small villages
near the explosion, so if SLORC demands 20,000 or 30,000 then
those villages all have to collect the money and pay it.  The
Karen soldiers lay the mines.  We know there are still some around
because we saw them being planted, but we say nothing.

This dry season we had to build a bridge across the Da Greh River
for SLORC.  We had to cut down many, many trees and then they
ordered us to carry them all to build the bridge.  One time they
ordered me to carry the logs and I almost died - they're so heavy,
and even though they're much too heavy for you to carry you just
have to keep carrying anyway, for as long as you can.  They have
5 or 10 people working at this all the time.  The soldiers force
everyone they meet to come and do it.  I'm not in very good health
so it's very hard for me - I have a lung disease.  But even if
you have a disease or handicap they don't care, they just order
you to do it so you have to.  They build this bridge to send all
their military supplies, because the river is deep and has a sandy
bottom, so their trucks can't cross.  Every rainy season the river
floods and destroys the bridge, so once every year they make us
rebuild it.  It takes us 1« to 2 months every year.  Around our
village there used to be many trees, but because of this bridge
there are now only a few left.  The SLORC has also cut down every
tree in our village, like our coconut trees.  [The soldiers
sometimes
do this just to steal the fruit, and sometimes as a deliberate
measure to increase the destitution of the villagers so they have
nothing to give the Karen Army].

We have to send people to them every day.  Every day!  Each family
spends about 10 days of every month working for them.  The camp
commanders are always changing, and every time a new commander
comes he makes up new things for us to do.  As soon as one job
finishes, they call us for another job the next day.  The headman
can't plan it in advance, so we just have to gather round every
day and decide who has to go.  People like me who often work far
from the village don't have to go as much, but for those who are
always in the village, it's every day.  The soldiers are from
28 Battalion, and from 44 Division.  Last year we had 338
Battalion,
but they were replaced by 28 Battalion.  338 Battalion was better
- this 28 Battalion is very bad.

One serious thing they do is whenever our animals go near their
camp and they find out, they kill the animals and eat them.  Then
they say it's not their fault, it's the owner's fault.  They've
already killed many of the cattle and buffalos in the village
this way.  When the soldiers shoot animals and eat them, they
don't ask for money compensation as well because if they do then
the villagers will know who shot their animals.  But some of the
animals go near the SLORC camp, step on their landmines and are
killed.  Then the soldiers eat the animal, and not only that but
they order the animal's owner to come to their camp and demand
money as compensation for the cost of the landmine!  They demand
400 or 500 Kyat, sometimes over 1,000 Kyat.  So now when this
happens, we don't go to the camp - we just say we don't know who
owned the animal.  I haven't lost any cattle, because I keep them
in another village.  If I kept them at home they'd always go
towards the camp because that's where the food is, and they'd be
killed.

The soldiers order us to send them our chickens and things and
we send them, but even so they still come to the village and take
whatever they want, and if you don't have what they ask for then
you have to give them money instead.  Some people talk back to
them when they take things and say, "Don't take that!", but others
don't dare.  They order us to send 4 or 5 viss [6.4 to 8 kg.]
of chicken at a time, and just before I left the village we were
having a Buddhist festival [water festival, April 13 to 16, which
is Buddhist New Year] and the SLORC ordered us to send 40 viss
[64 kg.] of pork.  We had to send it quickly, because if we hadn't
they would have made trouble and we would have missed the whole
ceremony.

We have to pay porter fees monthly, 100 Kyat per month per family.
 We also have to pay "courier fees" of more than 10 Kyat every
month, and slave labour fees - these are 25 or 50 Kyat every day
you can't go for slave labour.  If they capture you to be an
operations
porter [long-term portering during fighting] and you refuse to
go then you have to pay a lot.  People are terrified to go as
operations porters so we have to hire others to go in our place
for 150 or 200 Kyat.  I can't go as an operations porter because
I can't carry the loads.

We grow crops but as soon as they're ready the SLORC just comes
and takes it all away, so people don't want to plant anything
anymore because they know they'll never get to eat it.  We also
have to sell them 4 tins of rice per acre.  Last year I got 200
tins and I had to sell them 20, and if the rice is worth 100 Kyat
then the SLORC only pays 50.  But if you won't sell it to them
they just come to your house and take all the rice you've got,
so we have to sell it to them at their price.  Sometimes they
demand more rice than we have, and we have to go buy it at another
village and give it to them.  We just have to find food day by
day wherever we can.  Most people have stopped planting rice close
to the village so SLORC can't take so much of it.  We have our
ricefields very far away, but even there sometimes we still have
to run from SLORC.  If they see you while you're working in the
field, they just grab you and take you to work for them, so we
can't get enough time to do all the work in our fields.  Some
people make a living taking cattle and other things to market
for the owners, but then they lose everything to SLORC along the
way.  Then they don't dare come back because they can't repay
the owner, and they have to go and find a living somewhere else.

SLORC hasn't ordered our village to move yet, but they don't let
us go too far from the village.  There are many people who've
come from other areas to stay in our village [people displaced
from areas where SLORC is even worse], but now SLORC has ordered
them all to go back.

There is no fighting around our village right now, but we don't
know what may happen tomorrow or the next day.  Even without
fighting,
right now the situation is 3 times worse than ever before.  We
always have to do so much labour for them, every day.  The big
village of Da Greh used to have 400 or more houses, but now only
about 200 are left.  30, 40, 50 or more families have run away
from the villages around us.  Most of them have gone to stay in
the refugee camps.  More are still planning to move out, but as
for me, I'll have to stay there until I die whether I can bear
it or not, because I'm too old and weak to walk much.  I have
to stay to take care of my old mother.  Most of my brothers and
sisters have already gone.
_________________________________________________________________

NAME:     Naw Say   SEX: F         AGE: 39   Karen farmer
ADDRESS:  Pa'an Township, Thaton District
FAMILY:   Married with children

Hello nephew, we're glad to see you come and visit us from
Manerplaw,
we appreciate it and I'm glad to see you're in good health.  We
live here in our village and the situation is very hard for us
here now.  Do you know why?  Because of the SLORC military, they
come and oppress us and make life hard for us.  The troops who
stay at the camp order us to help them, so all the men and women
and even any children who are big enough to work have to help
them.  If they demand bamboo, we have to give them bamboo.  If
they order leaves [for roofing], we must get them leaves.  If
they demand firewood or food, we have to give it to them -
everything
they ask for.  By food I mean rice, vegetables, fruit, even
chickens
and meat.  We have to give them everything, and they don't give
us anything for it.  They eat for free.  If they have all the
food they want, their faces look happy, but if not then their
faces become angry and you can tell they're going to make trouble
so you must hurry and give them even more.

If any porters escape, they demand payment and we have to pay.
 Not money, but pork - they demand 10 or 20 viss [16 to 32 kg.]
of pork, which is worth about 3,000 Kyat.  More than that, our
village is very small, only 17 or 18 houses, and they demand 2
porters at all times.  Some villagers can't go as porters so they
have to pay money: 100 Kyat for one day, so if they're ordered
to go for 5 days that's 500 Kyat.  That's a lot, it's too much
for us because we can't get money here.  But if we want to be
left in peace we just have to pay them the money.  M--- village
is nearby and has only 4 or 5 houses, but SLORC demands one porter
from them.  Think about that!  Only 4 or 5 houses, and they have
to give one porter for 5 days, then another for 5 days, and so
on!  The men don't have any time to stay home and work.  They
also order women to go to their camp one day out of every two,
and if we don't show up even once the soldiers write us an order
warning us to go.  They're always sending us orders, so neither
men nor women have any time to work to survive, and it's very
hard for us to live.  Our whole village is brokenhearted by this
and we all want to run away to somewhere else but we can't, so
we have to live in poverty here.  We can't do anything about this.

The soldiers are very happy when we give them money because we're
too sick to go as porters.  But when porters escape they are very
angry, and we have to give them chicken, pork, rice, and whatever
we have.  Even if we don't have these things we have to find them.
 Sometimes we have to buy them from other villages and give them
to the soldiers.  Then back in the village we have to total how
much we all spent so we can divide it equally, and sometimes
quarrels
break out because of this.  We also have to send women as couriers
for them, one woman every day.  If a woman doesn't go then SLORC
gets very angry, but nobody wants to go because these are hard
times and we have to support our families, so the women end up
arguing among themselves: "This is your turn - you have to go",
"But I don't want to go!", and so on.  In the end we just have
to go.  These problems are not only in our village, but in every
village.  So in what way are you going to help us so we can live
peacefully?

There's just too much to tell!  We have to sweep the road [for
mines] every day, all the women are blind from all the dust
sweeping
the road all the time.  All the women and children big enough
to work, starting at 7 or 8 years old, have to go do this every
day, then every night all the men have to sleep along the road
as "guards".  The men have to sleep on the ground unless they
build a special shelter.  The women and children are very busy
sweeping the road every day, and families in the village who only
have one daughter have a hard time, because the mother and daughter
have to go on alternate days or else there would be nobody left
to work at home.  Then if any mine explodes the soldiers accuse
the women of laying the mine while they sweep!  The soldiers pull
their hair, slap their faces, then kick them.  They don't care
if they're old, young, or even children - they just do whatever
they want.  Just think about the women and children having to
do this every day while the men have to go work to produce food,
and you'll see why we can't get enough food anymore.  The soldiers
are always out looking and listening for people.  If they hear
the bamboo bell of a cow or buffalo they follow it because they
know the owner will be following, and then they capture the owner.
 The owners of the animals don't know anything, they just walk
along behind their animals singing a song and then suddenly they're
captured by SLORC to be porters.  Then no one tends the animals,
so they wander into the ricefields and eat the rice and trample
it and the farmer loses part of his crop too.  It's wrong!  The
Burmese don't even try to fight their enemies, they just come
to oppress the villagers.  I'll tell you about it, nephew.  We
ask them, "Son, why don't you fight your enemies?  You only fight
us", and they answer "Because we don't find our enemies here,
only you, so we fight you.  If we ask you where our enemies are
you never tell us, even though you know everything."  That's wrong,
but to them it's right.

The SLORC orders women to go as porters, and if they don't go
then the soldiers come and arrest them, take them away to jail
and bind their hands and feet.  Women have to leave their children
at home and go to the camp to carry things.  The soldiers say
it will just be for 1 day, but then keep them there for 2 or 3
days, and their children get hungry and start crying because they
want to eat.  Some of the women aren't allowed back until late
at night, and then they have to start cooking because they haven't
eaten all day.  Sometimes we have to go as porters in rainy season,
and along the way the rivers are flooded and we have to swim across
with our loads.  One woman from our village was carrying for them
in rainy season, and while crossing a flooded river she slipped
and fell over in the current.  She couldn't swim and she had a
load so she just sank, and her friend grabbed her by the hair
and had to pull her out to save her.  When they ask for porters
and we don't send them, the first time we get a letter, then we
get a second letter, then for the third warning they send a letter
with charcoal, chillies, and a bullet inside.  Most villages often
receive the bullet, charcoal and chillies.  We just received it
once, and I went directly to the camp commander and said "Son,
what does this mean?"  He said, "Oh, it's very easy - the bullet
means we'll kill all you villagers, the charcoal means we'll burn
down the whole village and the chillie means we'll cook all your
animals into curry."  He told me, "If we set your village on fire
then everyone in your village will have to flee, including you,
Mother, and then everything you leave in the village becomes ours.
 The only thing I forgot was to put an onion in together with
the chillie."  They're mad, these Burmese! They're just wrong,
they're wrong!  But me, I'm getting old so I can't fight and shoot
them.  If I do anything against them it will have to be slowly,
bit by bit.

Now SLORC 84 Battalion of 99 Division has a camp at the village.
 I know some of the officers' names [these have been omitted to
protect the village].  In December [1993] 84 Battalion was making
an operation to the south and they did many bad things and killed
many villagers.  They killed 2 people in Noh La Plaw village
(Burmese name Ye Aye), one person in Pwo village (Burmese name
Thaline Kayin), one person in Kru See (Burmese name Kyaun Sein),
one person in Pwa Ghaw (Burmese name Pa Lan Daun) - I don't
remember all the village names, but they killed people in almost
every village.

 They killed 2 people in Baw Tha Pyu, a father and his son-in-law
who just went to cart their rice from the fields.  The SLORC saw
them along the way so they killed both of them.  They kill people
senselessly.  If you think carefully about that, nephew, there's
no sense to it.  If they found those 2 men with guns in the forest
together with Karen soldiers, they could kill them.  But now they
just find people coming back from their farm on a bullock cart
and kill them.  That hurts the people very much, so all the people
are afraid.  To get food we have to clear fields and plant rice,
but now we dare not do this anymore.  We can't work so we can't
improve our lives, and it's very hard for us.  84 Battalion slept
one night at Noh La Plaw, and the soldiers ordered one woman there
to sell them a goat to eat but she said, "I only have a small
kid and its mother, so if I sell the mother what will happen to
the kid?  How can I get any more goats?"  The soldiers said, "Oh,
don't say anything, we'll just eat both of them."  She refused,
so that night while she slept they killed both the mother and
the kid and ate them.  In the morning she saw that they were gone
and asked the soldiers if they did it, and they said "No, maybe
they're just lost somewhere".  The SLORC soldiers don't come to
search for their enemies, just to destroy things, make trouble
and oppress the villagers.  Last rainy season [mid-1993] 99
Division
was fighting near Twee Pa Wih Kyo [Sleeping Dog Mountain], so
they ordered village elders to come, one, two, or three elders
from each village.  They put them in a small house that fits 8
people and tied their hands and feet so they were all standing
facing each other, 4 in each side of the hut.  The elders asked
them "Why are you doing this?", and the soldiers said "Don't you
know?  Because the Ringworm [a derogatory SLORC name for Karen
soldiers] shell us here, but every time we ask you about them
you say you don't know anything.  That's why you're here."  Some
of the women elders who were tied up there needed to breastfeed
their babies, and some had brought their children along.  After
feeding them they just had to put their babies down to sleep in
the dirt.  That's how 99 Division treats people.  Now we have
heard that these 99 Division troops will go home, but 33 Division
will stay.

When their trucks explode the SLORC puts all the blame on villagers
even though it has nothing to do with us.  The SLORC's enemies
do that, not us.  SLORC comes here to find their enemies, so their
enemies find them too and blow up their trucks, but then the SLORC
orders the villagers to pay for the truck.  We explain to them,
"Son, we didn't plant the mine, your enemies did, but when your
truck explodes you come to us.  Why does this have anything to
do with us?"  They answer, "People of your own nationality did
this because they don't love you, so you have to pay for it. 
They know that if they do this you'll have to pay, so why do they
do it?"  I told them, "Because you came out here to fight them,
so of course they find a way to fight back, but then you oppress
us by demanding compensation from us".  He answered, "That's not
oppression.  We don't oppress you.  We can't find them and make
them pay for it, so we come to you instead, and then maybe they
won't do it again."

There was a truck that exploded about the beginning of February
at Tah Paw, not far from a SLORC camp.  At the time I was on my
way home from Thaton town.  The mine destroyed the truck, so the
SLORC ordered Tah Paw village to pay 60,000 Kyat.  They didn't
want to pay, because their village only has 50 houses and they
can't afford it or get the money.  So the villagers just kept
quiet and hoped that the SLORC wouldn't bother to come get the
money.  But instead, the SLORC came into their village and shot
their guns beside and above all the people to frighten them. 
Then they started shouting, "If you don't pay the money we'll
kill all of you in this village."  All the women, men, old people
and children were afraid so they started collecting money among
themselves.  Some of them didn't have any money so they took the
rice they had for the next one or two months, sold it for money
and then gave it.  After paying, people had no food to eat and
had to find some way to get some food.  At the same time other
villages had to pay too:  Noh Aw Hla had to pay 50,000, Noh La
Plaw 50,000, Pwa Ghaw 50,000, Kru See 50,000, Pan Ta Ray 50,000
and Day Law Po 50,000.  For just one truck they asked this much
money - they are only coming here to do business.  How can the
people not get poor when they do this?
They also ordered money from our village and other villages around
us [names must be omitted] even though we are not close to Tah
Paw.  When I got home people in our village were saying "They've
ordered us to pay 50,000 Kyats - what can we do?"  We decided
that this isn't right, that we can't pay again and if we had to
pay it would be better to run away to someplace far away and live
there.  So we decided to go to their camp and tell them bravely
that we can't pay.  When we told the camp commander he answered,
"Mother, I don't know anything about this, my job is just to sit
in my office and follow orders from above.  I have to ask you
for everything we need, like leaves for the roof, firewood,
porters,
couriers, labourers and bamboo, but the truck has to do with the
military, not me."  I said, "But son, you are the military.  Think
about it.  The soldiers have asked us for so much money that we
don't have it, and the truck exploded far from us so this has
nothing to do with us.  Even worse, they said if we don't pay
they'll kill us all and burn down our village.  Is this the right
thing to do?"  Just then an 84 Battalion officer named Capt. Nyo
Soe Min came in holding 40,000 or 50,000 Kyat in his hand which
other villages had paid him.  He spoke suddenly, "Mother, what
are you talking about?  You don't need to talk, you just need
to pay us 50,000 Kyat.  I control the area here.  Whatever I ask
for, I have to get it."  So I said, "Son, this time we don't have
the money.  To pay would destroy all of us, so we can't."  He
said, "You have to pay.  If not, your whole village will burn."
 Then an officer from 302 Battalion in Ler Klaw came and said
he'd already warned villagers in his area that they would have
to pay if any trucks exploded.  I told him, "You're always asking
for money, so why don't you just kill everyone in every village
while you're at it?"  He said, "Okay, if you don't pay we will."

Then I went to their other camp [name must be omitted] and talked
to the camp commander, and he said "Mother, I'll help you write
a letter to the Battalion Commander - but don't give it to him
in my handwriting, just copy it down and then give it to him."
 He said to write, "Battalion Commander, if a truck explodes in
our area we'll pay but not if it explodes at Tah Paw."  Two days
later I went to the other camp and gave them the letter.  Since
then they've said nothing, but now another truck has exploded
in our area so we have to pay anyway.  This time they demanded
100,000 Kyat.  We can't give them 100,000, so we said we'll pay
50,000.  Now we and 5 other villages [the village names have been
omitted for her protection] have to pay 50,000 Kyat each.  Think
about that!  It's an awful lot for the villagers to pay.  [In
a village of 18 houses, this is almost 2,800 Kyat per family,
over US$450 at official rate  - a family would be very hard pressed
to make this amount in an entire year.]  It's very hard because
some villagers have no money and have to try to borrow from others,
and quarrels start because some can pay and some can't.  We had
to collect the money from house to house, and once we had enough
we had to go give it to them.  When we had 50,000 Kyat a group
of us went to their camp.  They didn't even give us a cup of tea
when we got there, just plain water.  They are very cruel.  I
didn't want to drink their water, but M---'s throat was very dry
so she drank it.  On the way home I said to her, "You must be
desperate, because even though they only gave you a glass of water
you drank it."  I refused to drink it because these Burmese are
very rude and cruel.

When we got home we said, "Now this problem has cooled down but
what will we do if we have to do this again?"  The only way is
to run away.  We'll have to run to the refugee camp and stay there.
 I said to the others "You only have some pots and plates so you
can say that easily, but I have cattle and buffalos so how can
I move?  We could sell them all, but then if Burma gets peace
later what can we do when we come back?  How could we buy our
land and animals back again?"  There's nothing we can do, we just
have to stay here and live like this.  Some people say "Oh, I
just want to die.  Life like this is unbearable, it would be better
to die."

There are also different SLORC troops from Strategic Command at
Lay Kay.  Their officer is Karen but he is very cruel, even worse
than the Burmese - like a crocodile.  I can't remember his name,
but if I could I'd like very much to tell you.  Lay Kay is a very
big village, with big houses with gardens and fences.  The night
after New Year's Eve [Karen New Year, 12 January 1994] the SLORC
said the Karen army came and shot at them, but it was a lie because
we know it was just SLORC troops shooting at each other by mistake.
 But they blamed the villagers and the next morning they started
treating them very badly.  They started shelling the village from
the camp, and the shells killed 2 pairs of cows that were attached
to bullock carts.  They also shelled Pya Way village, and when
the shells landed the novice Buddhist monks didn't know where
to run, so they jumped into a big water tank to hide.  After that
2 or 3 of them caught cold and then got sicker, and it took several
days for them to get better.  All the houses in Lay Kay village
had very good fences around them, and that cruel officer who is
Karen made everyone pull down their fences.  Later he found a
few houses that still had fences because their owners were away
at their farms, and he said, "Why do these houses still have
fences?
 Every house must pull down its fence."  Then he forced the other
villagers to pull down those people's fences and their houses
as well.  It's very hard for them to rebuild their houses all
over again.  This SLORC Battalion is from #33 Division.  Their
commander is Major Soe Win.

If villagers from Lay Kay travel outside the village and SLORC
sees them, they shoot them.  The people get wounded and it takes
a long time and a lot of money to cure them.  After shooting them
the SLORC doesn't help them or look after them.  Nearly a month
ago, there were 2 soldiers and one of them shot a young boy in
the stomach and wounded him badly.  The other soldier asked him,
"Why don't you shoot him again and kill him?", and he answered
"Because now his sister is in the way, and I just wanted to shoot
him, not her."  It was only a young boy, and he's still not better.
One month ago the soldiers in Lay Kay heard that there were Karen
soldiers in Khaw Po Pleh village, just 3 miles away, so they
shelled
the village from their Lay Kay camp.  Why didn't they go look
and find out if Karen soldiers were there?  But they didn't, they
just shelled the village.  How can they know where the shells
will hit?  They didn't hit any Karen soldiers because there weren't
any there.  They just wounded the villagers.  There was a man
from G--- village who had come to Khaw Po Pleh to buy pigs for
a memorial service for his dead mother.  A shell hit the branch
of a tree and exploded, and a shell splinter came and hit him
in the jaw.  He was seriously wounded and there is no clinic or
medic in Khaw Po Pleh so they couldn't cure him.  They wanted
to take him to the Burmese town, but at first they didn't dare
go because they were afraid the SLORC would stop them and say
he was a Karen soldier.  It was very serious, and he lost so much
blood I think he could only have had a third of the blood left
in his body.  There was almost no hope and we were sure he'd die
on the way to hospital.  But he didn't die; now he's still in
Pa'an Hospital but he can't speak any more.

Last December [1993] the SLORC commander gave orders that many
villages would have to move - 4 or 5 villages would all have to
move into one place.  Our village and four others [names must
be omitted] were all ordered to move to W--- and become one large
village.  W--- is just a small, narrow place.  How can so many
villages move together with their animals and everything and live
in such a small area?  The soldiers from 15 Battalion (they've
gone away now) said, "Mother, we order you to move but that's
not our idea, we were ordered to do this by our leaders.  They
told us the villages must be moved by the end of December, and
if they are still there when a military column comes to check
after that, the soldiers must burn down the whole village.  But
before they burn it they'll do whatever they want, steal all your
things and treat you very badly, so we're warning you Mother,
you'd better move by the end of December."  After that many
villages
moved to where they'd been ordered: people in Ta Thu Kee moved
to Pwa Ghaw, Noh Aw Law village had to move, and so did Kru See.
 Before they moved they kept going to talk to the SLORC leaders
to prevent it, but it didn't work.  Before the end of December
#84 Battalion came to our village and said, "You'd better move
now or when a military column comes you'll face big trouble. 
Do as we say or when the next soldiers come they won't warn you
like this, they'll just take everything they want, destroy things
and burn down your village."  Then we started moving to W---.
 We thought we'd just have to stay there a short time so we just
built small huts, but 4 or 5 families built big houses out of
wood.  Then the soldiers suddenly ordered us to pull all our huts
and houses down, which would be terrible for the people who'd
built big houses because it would be very hard for them to rebuild
anything.  So we went to SLORC's Strategic Headquarters and met
with the officer there.  He showed us the list of villages which
had to move, and our village was on it.  He said all the small
villages have to move to big places [this is a SLORC tactic to
exert closer control over villagers and cut off support for the
Karen army].  I told him "It's very hard for us to go and live
in other peoples' villages and find work to survive - it's not
our place and it's very hard for us.  Then we moved as you ordered
and built houses, and now you order us to tear them all down.
 Don't you know it's hard for us to rebuild?  Please don't do
this, just let us go back home to our own place."  Then he agreed
to let us move back until he found out if his superiors would
allow it.  So we all packed our things and moved back, and so
far they haven't ordered us to move again.

Whenever the soldiers find a man they capture him and take him
away, blindfold him, hit and beat him, then make him carry their
things.  They have to suffer torture, and some of them die.  The
village head has to try to follow them and get them freed.  They
capture women, and the women say, "Oh son, I left my children
at home and now they need to be breastfed", but SLORC doesn't
let them go, they keep them for one or two days as porters.  They
are very cruel.  What would happen if we treated their families
the same way they treat us?  All the women want to go down to
the town to burn down all the SLORC houses and their whole city,
because that's what they do to us.  Why doesn't the Karen army
go to their town and burn down and destroy their things like the
SLORC does to us?  Instead, the Karen soldiers tell us, "If you
capture any SLORC soldiers don't kill them, just let them go and
even give them money if you can".  They don't know what it's like
for us to have to deal with them all the time.  I want to go and
tell the Karen leaders about this.

The soldiers can never run out of money because they have their
salaries and they also get so much money from us every time they
come, they steal food and everything and never pay for it, and
they get so much money when their trucks blow up.  But even so
they act like they're very poor, because when they come to the
village they take everything, even our pots, plates, spoons, knives
and cutting boards, etc.  They take all our knives, hoes, and
axes and sell them to other villages or trade them for alcohol.
 They sell 1 knife for 30 or 50 Kyat, or whatever price they want.
 They even take our clothing, even women's sarongs.  Karen men
wouldn't even touch a woman's sarong [it is Karen custom that
men never touch women's clothing items], but the Burmese don't
care, anything that looks nice they just take and put in their
backpacks.  Maybe some of them take all these things back home
to give to their wives, but some of them probably just sell them
so they can buy alcohol to drink.  They must make enough money
doing this to feed their wife and their whole family, and they
also have their salary.  All the SLORC troops do this -they're
all the same.  When the Karen soldiers come to the village it
is sad - they have so little, sometimes they just have to eat
their rice with salt.  We want to give them good food and curry
but when they come the SLORC soldiers have already been there
so we have nothing left.  If the SLORC comes to a house which
only has 1 hen with chicks they kill the mother and leave the
chicks to go crying - how can they survive?  The SLORC is very
hard and cruel, and our animals are getting fewer and fewer. 
When the SLORC comes into the village, all the people have to
run away and hide, but even the chickens and ducks run from them
too.  I have one chicken that disappeared every time they came
into the village, and every time I thought they'd killed it, but
then as soon as they left my chicken appeared again - this chicken
has done this 2 or 3 times now.  The dogs too, when they see SLORC
coming they bark and then run away, and the SLORC shoots at them.
 They even shoot at the dogs that don't bark.  There are many
dogs in the village, and they all know about SLORC.  Even the
animals can't live happily around them, so how can the people?

83 Battalion came to our village in November and killed and cooked
every animal they found.  Another group stayed at Shwe Oe village
for 7 days and ate everything, even the baby chicks and ducklings.
 There's a woman there [name must be omitted] whose husband was
a Karen soldier.  He bought 15 baskets of rice and food for her
when he left for the frontline, and then he was killed.  She was
only left with that rice and food, and then when 83 Battalion
came they took all of it and left her with nothing.  There were
only enough loose grains of rice left for one meal, so she cooked
it for her children and they ate it, then they had nothing.  Now
she and her children have no food - she asked her neighbours but
they all face the same problem, so now she and her children have
to survive day to day, scrounging whatever money they can get
to buy food from elsewhere.

Sometimes the soldiers order every village to give them 200 bundles
of jackary [a solid dark-brown sugar boiled from sugar cane juice].
 They say they'll pay and you have to carry it to their camp.
 Then they pay with old torn money, not good money.  We say, "Son,
how can I buy anything with this money?  Please change it for
a usable note", but they say "You can buy anything anywhere with
this money".  But the women know it is unusable, so some of them
just throw it away.  Also, villagers here have to buy things like
fishpaste, chillies and salt from the Mon traders who come up
to sell things.  So the SLORC give the Mon the jackary and tell
them to sell it for them in Be Nwe Kla village.  Once the Mon
sold 200 packets for them and brought back 2,600 Kyat.  They had
to give all that money to SLORC and the SLORC didn't give them
anything, even though they had a big profit and it had cost the
Mon to go by boat to sell the jackary.  Because of this the Mon
don't come anymore when SLORC is around, because they have nothing
left after SLORC does this to them.  I know one man who went to
sell his jackary at Be Nwe Kla, but the SLORC stopped him at their
checkpoint and forced him to pay one or two packets.  They have
many checkpoints, so before he even arrived at Be Nwe Kla all
his jackary was gone, and he just sat down and cried.  You could
never finish describing all the SLORC does to us - it's
never-ending.

In February they called a meeting at their Strategic Headquarters
at Lay Kay, and at least 10 villages around there all had to go.
 During the meeting the Strategic Headquarters commander told
everyone, "Next time you see the Ringworm come around, tell them
you want them to give us peace.  Tell them they must come to peace
talks.  If they give us peace then all of you can live in peace.
 If not, then you won't be left in peace.  Next time they come
tell them this."  [Note: this is basically a threat of continued
SLORC abuse of villagers if the Karen do not agree to the SLORC's
"peace" terms].  The villagers answered, "How can we tell them
that?  They'll just say it's you who won't give them peace." 
Then the commander said, "Oh, we'll give it to them, we will."
 But there's another side to this too.  As for me, I don't
understand anything about politics, but I still understand what
happens and what has happened.  The old people have told me about
it, right back to when Aung San made a speech and said that Burmese
and Karen must make peace.  But it has taken a long time and a lot
of fighting.  Since then we've followed the saying, "Give Burmese
one Kyat and Karen one Kyat".  As for me, I've heard about
Grandfather Bo Mya but I've never seen him.  I've just heard from
others that he said "If the Burmese give Burmese one Kyat and Karen
one Kyat, then we will have peace."  Then the commander said, "Not
only 1 Kyat, we'll give 2 Kyat!  Because in the beginning it was
only Karen and Burmese who ruled in Burma."  [Notes:  Aung San was
leader of the movement that secured Burmese independence from
Britain.  He is a hero of the Burmans, but his Burma Independence
Army (an ally of Japan) was guilty of widespread atrocities and
massacres against Karens and others during and after World War
Two.  Aung San was assassinated by Burmans in 1947 after promoting
ethnic harmony and federalism.  "Give Burmese one Kyat and Karen
one Kyat" is a slogan from the first Karen peaceful demonstrations
for equal rights in 1947, still promoted by the Karen National
Union.  General Bo Mya is President of the Karen National Union
and Chairman of the Democratic Alliance of Burma.]

So I said, "Oh, I know nothing about politics, but I only know
'Give Karen one Kyat and Burmese one Kyat'.  So as for me, if
you say you'll give it, then I'll put my hand on the table, and
then Karen and Burmese can rule equally in Burma, half the country
each.  But I think maybe not, because we can't be sure you mean
what you say."  He said, "Oh, don't worry about that!  Just tell
the Ringworms to tell Bo Mya that if they give us something then
we'll give them something.  By the way, did you know Bo Mya doesn't
live in Kaw Thoo Lei anymore, he only lives in other countries?
 [Kaw Thoo Lei is the Karen homeland, and this is a lie.]  So
it's easy for us to fight them now, and we'll make their area
smaller and smaller until we capture all of it!"  I answered,
"Oh, I don't know where Grandfather Bo Mya lives.  I only know
that we live here, whether you call it a Karen country or a Burmese
country."  After that he said, "Also tell the Ringworms that now
we will allow some private trucks on the road, so if they like
they can go to town and we promise not to hide our guns on the
trucks and capture them, and they can set up checkpoints and force
all the drivers to pay money like we do, and we won't bother them.
 The only thing you must make sure of is that no more of our trucks
explode, so every village must watch carefully to prevent this.
 Tell everything I've said to the Ringworms and we'll wait 3 days,
then come and tell us if they accept or not."  [Note: the promise
to allow Karen soldiers on the road is ludicrous, and is most
likely just intended as a crude trap which no one would ever fall
for.]

Later all the villagers gathered to discuss this, and even without
talking to the Karen soldiers the villagers agreed that we would
not accept the SLORC's proposal.  So 3 days later we went back
and told the officer just below the Commander, "We told them and
they didn't agree.  They said they will keep laying mines and
shooting at your trucks."  Then he said, "Oh.  If it's like that,
then you villagers will have to pay for it.  There's no other
way."  We said, "How can we pay?  The Karen soldiers do it, not
us.  How can we find the money?"  He answered, "Don't talk to
me about it.  Just pay, that's all we want.  We control every
village around here, so you'll just have to do what we say." 
The closer we look at SLORC, the more wrong are the things that
they do, and they're getting worse and worse.  They have their
own rules and policies, but everything they do is against even
the rules and policies they make themselves.

****************************************************************
The Karen Human Rights Group is a small and independent
organization operating out of Manerplaw, headquarters of the Karen
National Union (KNU) and Burma's democratic forces.

Although the KHRG relies on the logistical support of the Karen
National Union, the group is independent and apolitical and focuses
on human rights abuses in Karen regions.  Whenever possible, abuses
against other ethnic peoples in Burma are also reported.