The Prachuab Man Refugees: Nowhere

[brelief@xxxxxxx]

	Apology

Our computer in the office has been in trouble for some months and that is
why we can send these reports to our campaign groups for democracy, Burma
interested groups and individuals, very late.

However, all events mentioned in the reports are equally true of current Burma.

Therefore we hope the following information will be useful in helping the
international community to halt SLORCs human rights abuses and to promote
internationally recognized human rights in Burma.

Thank you.

The Human Rights Foundation of Monland
PO Box 11
Ratchburana, Bkk 10140
Thailand

+ = + = + = + =

No group is more deserving or more in need of a computer to carry out its
vital work on behalf of the oppressed in Monland.  

Should you wish to contribute to this worthy cause, please contact:

Burmese Relief Center?Japan at brelief@xxxxxxx

With metta,

 - - - - - - - 

Human Rights Foundation of Monland
Human Rights Report, November 1997

The Prachuab Man Refugees: Nowhere to Run

Unsafe Situation and Spontaneous Repatriation

Due to decade-long civil war in southern part of Burma, many ethnic Mon.
Karen and Tavoyan displaced persons fled into KNU and NMSP or other ethnic
armed forces control areas to escape from war or human rights abuses
committed by government troops. Last about 4-5 years ago, the fighting
between SLORC and the ethnic armed forces such as KNU's 4th Brigade, NMSP's
Mergui district had intensified and about over 2,000 ethnic Mon. Karen,
Tavoyan displaced persons have sought a safe haven inside NMSP Mergui
district control area. In November 1996, according to NMSP-SLORC ceasefire
agreement, some part of NMSP control area would have to transfer to SLORC
and the NMSP must withdraw from the area. Some NMSP senior commanders
dissatisfied on this decision and took a coup in district headquarters. This
breakaway group called themselves as "Mon Army, Mergui District (MAMD)". The
displaced persons have also remained under the protection of MAMD.

In April, 1997, the SLORC's offensives against the KNU and MAMD have
intensive and many Mon villagers in Mergui district area were displaced and
about one thousand of them fled into Thai territory. The offensive that
advanced to MAMD was jointly operated by local SLORC troops from LIB No.
224, No.358 and No. 432 which were under the command of Coastal Region
Military Command of Major-Gen. Sit Maung. In launching the offensives,
Brigadier Aung Khin led this military joint operation. On 18-19 April, this
operation could occupy some bases of ABSDF and KNU in the north part of MAMD
headquarters. On 23 April, the operation turned head to MAMD bases. On 26
April, the SLORC troops could occupy one base of MAMD troops and then
hundreds of refugees poured into Thai territory. On 27 April, the SLORC
troops burnt down Chaungchi village and then retreated back to Murntaing
where they have a temporary base.

However the fighting inside the area was not ceased down and the SLORC
troops had attempted to occupy more KNU, ABSDF and MAMD bases. Because of
the constant fighting inside Burmese territory, Thai authorities allowed the
Mon and other ethnic refugees who fled from Chaungchi area, according to
Thai government's policy. About 400 refugees were allowed to encamp inside
Thailand in a place about 5 kilometers far from borderline called
"Nongyaplong". Thai authorities also allowed the aid agencies for survival
assistance to refugees and other international organizations for visit.

In May, the fighting was intensive and more refugees fled into Thai
territory. On 18 May, after SLORC repeated offensives, many refugees fled
into Thailand group by group. Many of them did not join and stay inside the
camp and disappeared inside Thai territory, because they distrust the Thai
authorities. However, some of them came and stayed in the camp. The
temporary camp population grew up to 800. The MSF also helped those refugees
with medical care and the MNRC also helped them with basic foods.

On 24 May, due to intensive military offensives by SLORC and precarious
situation to defend the area, the MAMD troops contacted SLORC to surrender.
On 25 May, the SLORC held an occasion of surrendering ceremony for MAMD and
the MAMD troops also agreed to give many hundreds of arms to SLORC. Then the
SLORC officials also ordered MAMD leaders to  organize the refugees inside
Thai territory to return their former villages for another ceremony to show
that the villagers in the border area also welcome the surrender of MAMD.
SLORC officials also promised to villagers that they may help in developing
the border area and provide a lot of profit to poor villagers.

Anyhow, soon after the surrender, the SLORC troops took bases in all former
villages of the displaced persons and began building military camps. All
refugees were afraid to be repatriated, but Thai authorities explained them
they must be returned because the situation inside Burmese territory was
safe and no more fighting. The refugees, who have experience about the human
rights violation of SLORC knew how they must be treated after return and
stay under the rule of military regime, had refused to return and requested
for longer refuge inside Thai territory.

On 29 May, some MAMD officials arrived at the temporary camp and organized
the refugees to return to their former homes. According to officials, SLORC
had promised them that they would develop the area with education, health
assistance and other services. In the meeting, most refugees insisted that
they would not like to return former villages because the Burmese troops
setting up their bases. But according to MAMD officials, SLORC officials
Major-Gen. Sit Maung, met with Thai military officials to arrange for the
return of the refugees.

On 30 May, Major-Gen. Sit Maung officially met with Thai military officials
from Ninth Division and they agreed to send those refugees back. On the
following days, the SLORC and Thai military officials made many visits to
the temporary campsite and put more pressure on refugees for a return to
Chaungchi area. At the end, after several rounds of talks and intensive
pressure, the refugees had no choice except to return. If they stayed inside
Thai territory, they must be arrested as "illegal immigrants".
(photo: The houses in Chuangchi village were burnt down into ashes by the
SLORC troops)
(photo: The refugee influx into Thai territory to escape war and human
rights abuses)

On 6 June, a spontaneous repatriation was conducted by Thai authorities.
They also invited Bangkok based UNHCR to participate in a low profile
monitoring of the repatriation and
did not allow the UNHCR to inquire the detail situation in their homes and
real desire of the refugees whether they would like to return or not. While
the repatriation was conducting, about 200 refugees disappeared and fled
into deep inside Thai territory. The process of repatriated to some refugees
was anyhow succeeded.

Abuses after Repatriation

It was not the end of the story. After the refugees returned and stayed in
their former villages, they were ill-treated and blocked by the army from
moving into Thai territory again. All entrances of the village were made
into check-points by the SLORC troops and the villagers could not leave. But
some villagers tried to flee into Thai territory in secret ways.

Later, by using the secret ways, more villagers fled into Thai territory
again. According to escapees, the SLORC has conscripted forced labour from
the whole village to build their military encampment. In each village of
Chaungchi area, the SLORC had planned to build their military bases and soon
after the arrival of villagers on Burmese territory, they were consistently
forced to work for the military. The SLORC officials ordered village headmen
to take responsibility to bring the villagers to the worksites. The
villagers have been forced to work with daily basis and if refused, they
were severely punished.

Most of the village headmen were the main leaders who refused to return when
they were in Thai territory and the SLORC forced them to take responsibility
to build bases as revenge. The daily work in the military camps were
clearing grass, digging earth, making fence, building barracks and etc.,.
Every able-bodied person including women and children in the villages has
been forced to work. The SLORC officials promised to provide six months
worth of rice to the refugees, but only the small amount of one week worth
of rice provided at the end of June.

(Photo: The Mon refugees in a temporary shelter inside Thai territory, in a
place called Nongyaplong")

When they arrived in villages, the refugees did not have any opportunity to
re-build their
houses or make farms for survival because they were busy with work for the
military. If the villagers disagreed with the military, they faced severe
punishment. The SLORC officials organized some villagers to be their agents
and checked opinion of the villagers. The villagers could not trust each
other as they did not know who were agents. If anyone planned to escape and
was revealed, people feared punishment and death. Thus, the villagers are
staying in constant fear of most terrible circumstance.

On June 21, the SLORC officials called a meeting with the villagers and
ordered them to complete the encampment as soon as possible. They also
instructed the villagers to bring their own tools and food from their homes.
At the end of meeting, a villager asked them not to use every villager on a
daily basis and to allow some of them to work in re-building house and
clearing land for farms. While he was proposing his opinion, one official
hit him with water glass and warned all villagers not to make any complaint
to the military. They were also warned that to eat the rice distributed by
military and work for the military, if they did not, they would be severely
punished.

At the beginning of July, numerous villagers were arrested and SLORC
attempted to force them as frontline porters in their offensives against the
KNU bases situated nearby. About 15 men from Huayphak and 10 men from
Chaungchi were arrested as frontline porters and they were forced to carry
ammunition and supplies along the military operation. This military
offensive was operated by LIB No. 358 and No. 224. Many of villager porters
were beaten and were also used as mine-sweepers in advancing to KNU bases.

For instance,

One villager from Huayphak area, Nai Tinny Shein (42 years old), was fit by
a mine and his left leg was cut, when the SLORC launched offensives against
KNU's 4th Brigade. The villager porters brought him back to the village, but
the military did not provide special treatment for him. He was transferred
to a Thai hospital and his family has to pay for all costs of treatment. He
has five children altogether and the military  did not give any help to his
family after his leg was injured. 

Besides the conscription of forced labour in building the military
encampments and forced portering to the frontline, the villagers were also
forced to build the roads to connect from one SLORC base to another. On 13
July, the whole villagers from Huayphak and Chaungchi areas were forced to
build the road from Huayphak to Chaungchi. Some villagers from Chaungchi
were also forced to build the road from Seik Mon to Murntaing 
(see map).

After the refugees were repatriated in June, there was no follow-up
monitoring conducted by Thai authorities who took responsibility sending
them back, or by international organizations especially UNHCR.  Despite the
fact that no community reconstruction assistance was provided, they were
inhumanely treated by the military. Due to the consistent forced labour and
other abuses, the villagers had tried to flee into Thai territory again.

No Welcome Situation inside Thai Territory

Starting from July 12, the villagers from Chaungchi, who were recently
repatriated, fled into Thai territory group by group. They came by secret
ways, where the SLORC have no checkpoints, with their whole in dark
mid-night. They twisted the way and climbed the mountains, slept in jungles
for some nights, and then reached a number of Thai owned plantations inside
Thai territory. . But they were not allowed to stay in those plantations and
were drove out by the Thais. About 400 refugees have reached Thailand's
former campsite area "Nongyaplong" again during the period of July 12
through July 20.

They were not, however, given protection by Thai authorities as they had
been before. When they reached the Thai border area, the Thai authorities
did not allow them to regroup and they were sent to a number of Thai owned
plantation in the area by some officials but unofficially. They were accused
of being illegal immigrants and threatened with deportation to Burma.
Actually, they were recognized as refugees who were repatriated by Thai
authorities recently and were insisted that if there was no fighting, they
were not refugees and no shelter for them in Thai territory.

Among those refugees who could speak and understand Thai language, easily
fled deeper inside Thailand and sought refuge and job for their survival. On
July 18, about 200 refugees, including women and small children, were
arrested by Thai border police. The police chief involved was from the
district of Nongyaplong and former shelter area. They were not detained, but
rather given three hours to gather their belongings and travel to an area in
Thai territory situated right at the borderline. In such a location they
were readily accessible to attack from SLORC troops. Because of the fear
this created, almost all of them had fled seeking haven deeper in Thai
territory. They left if they remained where they were. the SLORC troops
would seek them out and kill them for having left in the first place.

On July 21, SLORC's LIB 358 Commander Col. Tun Wai came into Thai territory
and discussed with Thai border authorities the subsequent deportation to
Burma of those escapees. The Thai authorities told the SLORC commander that
the escapees had been already returned to the border area. Naturally, this
heightened the fear of the escapees. 

When, finally, on July 23, a UNHCR official visited the area, only 20
families of over 80 population remained. Thai border officials misinformed
the UNHCR official by saying that the refugees were not recent returnees to
Chaungchi area and were illegal immigrants came from deeper inside Burma to
seek jobs.

(Photo: About 60 Prachuab Mon refugees were repatriated to Halockhani after
they were arrested by Thai authorities in Thai territory.) 

After the visit of UNHCR, the Thai authorities, the army from Ninth Division
and border police, met with the escapees and gave them three days to
voluntarily return to Burma. 
Following that "rest period", the Thai officials said that they would be
arrested, and detained for a month and then deported to Burmese territory,
Chaungchi area again. All of them refused to return to Burma and they have
since fled deeper into Thai territory becoming, in fact, illegal immigrants.

Thus, those who accepted the offer of repatriation with assurances by SLORC
to be provided with several development services and inadequate monitoring
of UNHCR, have been systematically shuffled from location to location,
placed in danger, forced into conscripted labour and have given up the
relative security of the original refugee camp for the uncertain and
hazardous status of illegal immigrants. They will, as have others before
them, be forced into hazardous, low-paying work under threat of arrest.

The Last Incident: The Repatriation to Halockhani Camp

Because of the human rights abuses and intolerable situation among the MAMD
members, the MAMD, itself, split each other in November. This split also
made the fleeing of the refugees into Thailand and they did not get any
protection from any organization.

Although the SLORC gave several kinds of promise for assistance under the
banner of border area development program before their return from Thailand,
only the consistent forced labour had been conscripted by soldiers.
Actually, the SLORC's (or SPDC's) border area development program was the
plan to build roads and military barracks in the border area. No machines
were provided in the construction and the villagers were constant suffered
as forced labourers to contribute manual labour on the daily basis.

When the SLORC conducted the conscription of forced labour in the villages,
its troops also encourage the MAMD to help them in conscripting the
villagers to be labourers in all constructions. Under the instruction of
SLORC troops, some MAMD members disagreed on their behaviour, but they have
no opportunity to complaint and kept silence. At the same time, top leaders
of MAMD were offered with business opportunity by SLORC and the ordinary
soldiers were getting more dissatisfaction on those top leaders. It was a
tactic of SLORC in breaking the unity among ethnic armed forces. Because of
unkind behaviour and consistent conscription of forced labour by SLORC and
additional disunity situation also created a rebellion among the MAMD group.
A coup without blood was happened in Huayphak area while SPDC troops were
taking permanent base in Chaung Chi area.

On November 16, a group of retired and ordinary Mon soldiers in Huayphak
area under the leadership of Maj. Sein Ala took a coup from MAMD again.
These soldiers took all arms left in the bases and brought it to another
place and declared to resume fighting against SPDC and MAMD troops. All
soldiers in Huayphak area joined with this breakaway group and moved to
other place. After coup, the situation of the villagers in the area became
very unsafe and they must be accused as rebel-supporters by the SPDC and
MAMD troops.

After the SPDC and MAMD leaders knew the incident happened in Huayphak area,
they prepared to launch an offensives in a hurry to Hauyphak area. Before
the reaching of SPDC and MAMD, all about 300 villagers, including women and
children, in the area fled into Thai territory by secret ways. They were not
allowed to walk along the way that connected Huayphak and Thai territory,
and twisted the way, climbed the border mountains, slept in the jungles and
entered into Thai owned plantation in the Thai territory. They spent for
nearly two days to reach into Thai territory as they could not use the
straight way that takes about one hour walk.

When they reached inside Thai territory, they were afraid the arrest of the
Thai authorities and then deportation, most of them continuously fled deeper
inside Thailand. About 60 villagers were arrested by the Thai border police
and detained for two days. Before the news of these escapees was flow, the
Thai authorities mainly, Ninth Division, arranged to repatriate them to
Halockhani, a Mon refugee camp on the borderline in Kanchanaburi Province.

On 21 November, the NMSP and MNRC were informed by the Thai authorities that
those about 60 escapees were being deported to Halockhani camp. At night
time, those escapees Sangkhlaburi and the MNRC accepted them and resettled
in Halockhani camp. Before this repatriation, about 16 refugees from four
families voluntarily returned to Halockhani by their own arrangement.

Interview:

To realize how the refugees have suffered from spontaneous repatriation and
human rights violation inside Burmese territory, we also conducted interview
with an escapee who reached into Thai territory again in July.

Name: Nai Khaing 
Sex/ Age: Male/ (53) years 
Nationality/ Religion: Mon/ Buddhist 
Occupation: Refugee 
Native Place: Kyauktaung village, Boke Pyin township, Tenasserim Division 
Temporary Home: Chaungchi village, Mergui District, Tenasserim Division 
Interview Date: 24 July, 1997.

When did you arrive into Thai territory again? How did you come and are you
alone or with your whole family?

I came with my whole family and arrived here about 5 days ago. We could not
come along straight way that easily reach into Thai territory, and we
twisted the way in the north side of the mountains. We climbed the mountains
and slept for one night in forest and then climbed down into a Thai plantation.

Are you a returnee in June repatriation by the Thai authorities? Did you
really want to return to Burmese side of the border?

Yes, I was a returnee. Actually, we would not like to return but we were
afraid of being 
detained by the Thai soldiers and we didn't know how to stay inside Thailand
like other families. At the same time, we were also afraid about the new
military deployment of the Burmese troops in our village. We knew very well
about them. If they met us, we knew, they will use us as porters like in our
native village.

Many villagers disappeared while the Thai soldiers were bringing them with
trucks to Burmese side of the border. Some of them ever knew how to travel
inside Thailand and also knew sources where they could get jobs. Like me, I
never stayed inside Thailand and if I fled from the group, I must be
arrested by police. Though I didn't want to return but I did.

Why did you come back to the Thai territory again?

Soon after we reached in the village, all villagers were used by the
military and we have no to build our house or make farm. They used all men,
women, children in the whole village to build their military barrack and
forced us to build the road. Before we fled here, the soldiers also arrested
the villagers to use them as porters for Burmese Army in the frontline
against the Karen troops.

How did the soldiers force the villagers to build the military encampment?
And what kind of work you have to work everyday?

Normally, the Burmese commanders ordered to Mon soldiers to bring all
villagers to worksite. They also gave responsibility to village leaders to
manage and bring the needed labourers. Almost all villagers were conscripted
to work in building their military encampment. We went early in the morning
to the designated place and first, had to clear all trees and grasses to get
a plain ground. After clearing ground, they forced us to dig bunkers with 9
feet deep and covered with piece of wood and earth on it. We also had to dig
three long trenches inside the base compound and later build fences outside
of the camp. When I left the village, the rest villagers were forced to
build the military with hard-woods and bamboo. All villagers were forced to
cut and bring big pieces of hardwood from the forest

Did you have enough food while you were working for them? Or, did they
provide some foods for village?

No. At that time, they also use some villagers to bring rice from Murntaing
village, about one day walk from our village. When the rice arrived, they
took first for their troops and distributed very few amount to the
villagers. They also told the villagers that not to expect the rice from
relief agency and if they would like to eat rice they must go to Murntaing.
They provided us only about 10 days of rice supplies and we made rice soup
and ate it for several days before we fled.

Once, they also called a meeting with all villagers and asked to complete
their military encampment. One villager also request the soldiers to give
time to build houses and make farm. He was hit by a glass threw from the
commander. They also shout not to make any complaint and to continue
building military encampment if the villagers ate their rice.

When did you decide to flee from the village?

On 10 July, the soldiers also told the villagers that some of them will have
to carry ammunition and supplies for Burmese army in the offensives against
the KNU and other student groups. I don't know where the fighting was
happening. Many villagers were afraid of being arrested to be porters and
then I fled into my old plantation and stayed there. On the next day, my
sons and wife came and joined with me. Then, we decide to flee here.

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