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KHRG #98-08 Part 4 of 6: Pa'an dist
- Subject: KHRG #98-08 Part 4 of 6: Pa'an dist
- From: khrg@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 02:47:00
Subject: KHRG #98-08 Part 4 of 6: Pa'an district
UNCERTAINTY, FEAR AND FLIGHT
The Current Human Rights Situation in Eastern Pa'an District
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
November 18, 1998 / KHRG #98-08
*** PART 4 OF 6 - SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***
[Some details omitted or replaced by 'xxxx' for Internet distribution.]
__________________________________________________________________________
Portering
"They captured me when I was working in my paddy field near Pah Klu.
I think it was one month ago. They called to me, 'Uncle, come here
quickly or we'll shoot you dead!' I was very afraid so I ran over to them,
and they forced me to carry things for them. The DKBA soldiers caught
me, but there were some Burmese soldiers with them too. They captured
many people around that time. They made me carry shells - eight shells.
I don't know the proper name of that gun, but the shells were so big and
heavy that I couldn't stand up with them on my back unless someone
helped me or I put them up on higher ground first before shouldering
them. Then on top of that they also loaded one gallon of oil, a bag of
pumpkins and a chicken. ? They gave me no rice. After carrying for
two days I still hadn't eaten rice, so I ran to escape near Ker Ghaw. The
soldiers didn't have any rice to eat either. I'm speaking the truth, I'm
not lying to you! They didn't hit me because I was a new porter [i.e. he
hadn't been with them for long so he still had strength enough to carry],
but they hit the older porters and kicked them with their jungle boots. I
wanted to say 'Don't do that' when they kicked the other porters but I
was afraid that then they would hit me too. Whenever they said 'Uncle,
run quickly' I had to run with the heavy things on my back. ? One
night they forced us to walk all night. We had to climb the mountains
and we had no sleep. When we arrived in Sgaw Ko in the morning they
still didn't let us sleep, they only let us take a short rest and then we
went
on again." - "Saw Kweh" (M, 31), Thay Maw Gu vill., southern Pa'an
dist. (Interview #9, 8/98)
Though portering is a form of forced labour, it is considered by the
villagers to be in a category of its own. It is without question the most
dreaded form of forced labour, and it is on the increase in eastern Pa'an
district due to the current SPDC military campaigns against the KNLA and
the villagers in the Dawna Range. Villagers from southeastern and central
Pa'an district are being taken more and more regularly to haul supplies on
short trips between local SPDC camps, and also to go along with military
columns on longer trips into the Dawna. Women are being used more and
more frequently, because the men dare not go and the villagers hope that
the women will be treated less brutally, though this also creates the
possibility of rape. Villagers can generally avoid a 5- to 7-day shift of
portering by paying 3,000 to 5,000 Kyats or by hiring someone to go in
their place, but very few subsistence farmers have any money anymore due
to the incessant demands placed on them. Not only the SPDC, but the
DKBA and occasionally the KNLA take villagers as porters; however,
with the KNLA it is generally for short times and with no physical ill-
treatment, and with the DKBA there is generally no physical abuse unless
they are part of an SPDC column.
"I had to go more times than I can count. That began when they
arrived in our village a year ago. They would demand one or two people
each time and later we would have to rotate with new porters. We had to
porter for 3 to 6 days each time. If people couldn't go they had to pay
money to hire a porter to go for them. It cost 100 Kyats a day to hire
someone." - "Pa Shwe" (M, 29), Po Ti Pwa village, northern Pa'an district
(Interview #1, 9/98)
Porters with SPDC columns are treated brutally and fed little or nothing.
Villagers forced to go as porters in Pa'an district are treated much the
same
as operations porters in other areas; saddled with heavy loads, kicked,
prodded and abused if they are too slow, beaten if they fall, and left to
die
or killed if they become to sick or weak to continue. In most cases they
are released at the end of the trip, but in other cases they can only go
home
if they escape.
"Most of the time I had to carry bandoliers full of bullets for the
medium machine gun. I had to carry 6 bandoliers full of bullets for the
medium machine gun as well as 6 [mortar] shells as big as this. When
they put all of it on my body I had a very hard time just standing up.
Then they also put many more small things on top, like cooking oil and
other things that I couldn't see. ? (T)hey hit the other porters often. I
saw it. I saw them beat the porters' faces often." - "Saw Kaw Ghay" (M,
31), villager from Myawaddy township now internally displaced
(Interview #6, 8/98)
"We villagers were having to pay taxes and fees, and on top of that we
had to go to be porters and forced labourers too. The village headman
was always asking us to go, and we had to go. I had to be a porter for
the Ko Per Baw. They ordered the village headman to call the villagers
to go. They told me I'd have to go for only one day, but then I had to go
for five days. I had to carry food and cookpots. Two pots, plates, rice
and other food like oil, onions, garlic and chillies - I think it must have
weighed at least 10 viss [16 kg/35 lb] because it was very heavy." - "Pa
Kloh" (M, 28), southern Pa'an district (Interview #8, 8/98)
"They only gave us a messtin-lid of rice to eat [about half of a small
plate]. We didn't get enough, but there was nothing we could do about
it. In Ker Ghaw the headman asked them, 'You forced these people to
be porters, why don't you give them any food?' So then they ordered
that headman to give them rice for the porters." - "Saw Tha Wah" (M,
42), Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district, describing how he had to go
as an SPDC porter in July (Interview #13, 8/98)
Even when SPDC units obtain porters on regular rotations from villages in
their area, they still catch anyone they encounter along their way and use
them as porters. Villagers are extremely afraid of portering, and they
know that almost all male villagers encountered by patrols in eastern Pa'an
district are taken as porters. This is why village men usually run as soon
as they see an SPDC patrol, and the soldiers usually open fire on any
villager they see running. Many villagers are killed in this way.
"If they asked the village headman to give them two porters then the
village headman gave them two porters, but they still captured other men
from the village to be porters. They released the captured porters only
when they wanted to release them." - "Pi San San" (F, 50), Taw Oak
village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #18, 9/98)
Because of the current military operations in Pa'an district, the SPDC is
also taking people in Kawkareik town to be porters. Usually they look for
visitors to the town. Similarly, they are currently stopping passenger
cars
along the Myawaddy-Kawkareik road and taking passengers off the cars to
be porters. According to people who have often travelled this road
recently, they do not take everyone from every car, as they know this
would cause everyone to stop using the road. Instead they only take one or
two men from every few cars. Usually they look for people who do not
have proper documentation and use this as an excuse to arrest them, then
take them as porters. As is always the case with porters, the family is
not
notified and has no way of knowing what happened to the person, nor are
they compensated if he or she is wounded or killed.
"The Burmese didn't arrest everyone in the car. Sometimes they arrest
one or two people and sometimes they let one or two cars go free. ?
They don't want people to know they are arresting porters like this. If
they arrested everyone on all the cars, they know the people who come to
Thailand won't dare return to Burma. Now people say that the Burmese
aren't arresting people to be porters, but they are always arresting
people. They capture people to be porters every day because people are
travelling every day. If people aren't going up they're travelling down,
and if they're not coming down they're going up. So they can arrest
people every day." - "Pa Ler Wah" (M, 30), Kaw B'Naw village, Pa'an
district, describing how the SPDC grabs people as porters off the public
cars between Kawkareik and Myawaddy (Interview #33, 8/98)
__________________________________________________________________________
Landmines and Human Mine Detonators
"His name is Pu K---. He's over 50. He stepped on the mine between
Kwih Lay and Taw Oak, on the hill called Ther Ko Kaw. Then later his
wife stepped on a mine near the same place, and she was killed. At the
time that she stepped on the mine nobody dared go to look, because
many Burmese soldiers were staying around there. When I went to look
later, first I just saw one of her slippers all torn apart and the other
one
in good shape, then I saw her head and her body on its side, with just a
piece of her sarong, some cloth and a blanket." - "Maung Nyunt" (M,
40), Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district, describing how his wife's
father and then her mother both stepped on landmines; her father lived but
his leg was blown off (Interview #15, 8/98)
Landmines are being used extensively throughout the area by all parties to
the conflict, the SPDC, DKBA, and KNLA. In eastern Pa'an district the
SPDC is primarily using Burmese-made anti-personnel mines marked
types 'MM1' and 'MM2'. The MM1 is a cylindrical mine which looks
much like the American-made M76, and in fact the SPDC troops still do
lay some old American M76 mines along with their MM1's. They
sometimes mount the MM1 on a post at waist level in long grass or scrub
and rig it with a tripwire; in this way it will kill the villager who trips
it
and possibly several others rather than just blowing off his or her leg.
The
M76 and MM1 are very powerful. The MM2 is modelled on a cheap
Chinese-made mine which is flat, round and partly made of plastic;
however, the Burmese version is made of metal. The SPDC troops also
have some of the Chinese-made version. The KNLA used to have some
American M76 and some Chinese mines, but for the most part they are
now using homemade mines of their own design. KHRG currently has no
information on the types of mines being used by the DKBA, but the
villagers insist that the DKBA is laying mines as well.
The KNLA generally lays its mines slightly off the pathways but
sometimes right on the path; they always make a point of notifying local
villagers of which routes are mined and whether the mines are on the path
or not, though this often proves insufficient as villagers continue to be
blown up by KNLA mines. The SPDC and DKBA lay mines
indiscriminately on pathways, around farmfields and in abandoned villages
without notifying anyone. Villagers' cattle are regularly killed by these
mines. When a villager's cow steps on an SPDC mine, the owner must
keep quiet because if the SPDC finds the owner he is fined "to pay the cost
of the landmine". DKBA commander Moe Kyo has also been accused of
doing this in southern Pa'an district.
"?they [DKBA] lay landmines, and they burn down our field huts, our
haystacks and our bullock carts too. Our cattle stepped on their
landmines, and then they fined the cattle's owner for the price of the
mine. Moe Kyo [a DKBA officer] did that." - "Pa Weh Doh" (M, 47),
Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #14, 8/98)
"?the SPDC Army and the DKBA came and stayed together in this
area and put landmines close to the villages and around the villages.
Whenever somebody's cattle stepped on the landmines, the owner had to
pay them money for the price of the landmine. Therefore the owners of
the cattle who had stepped on the landmines kept quiet because they
were afraid that the SPDC soldiers would find out. Some people had 5
or 6 cattle but all have been killed by landmines." - report by KHRG
monitor in southern Pa'an District (Interview #11, 8/98)
"Last year two villagers were killed by the landmines. KNLA
landmines. They knew where the landmines were because the KNLA
had told them, so they went safely, but just before they came back the
KNLA laid more landmines. They didn't know about the new landmines
and they were killed." - "Pu Ler Muh" (M, 58), xxxx village, northeastern
Pa'an District (Interview #26, 4/98)
If a villager trips an MM1 mine which is mounted at waist level with a
tripwire, he or she will almost certainly be killed, possibly along with
others. When villagers step on buried mines, the general result is that
the
leg is immediately blown off around the knee or higher, and the other leg
is badly wounded by shrapnel. In addition, the person walking behind
them is frequently hit in the face with shrapnel and blinded. This effect
is
so common that one villager, in describing a porter whose leg had been
blown off, said that, "The Burmese were carrying him, and the blind
porters were holding on to the others and following". Villagers in the
area
are more and more frequently being maimed or killed by the mines of all
sides in the conflict. They step on the mines when heading to their
fields,
fleeing to the hills or to Thailand, going from village to village, or
returning to their destroyed villages, which are sometimes booby-trapped
by departing SPDC troops. Due to the difficulty of getting to medical
help, many of those who step on the mines bleed to death.
"I stepped on a landmine on the 28th of February this year. It was a
landmine of the Burmese or the Ko Per Baw. I know it was theirs
because I heard them talking about it when they came to our village
later. ? It was on the path to our field. I was going to get thatch for
the
roof of our house. ? My foot was blown off when I stepped on it, and a
piece of the landmine even hurt me here on my other leg, you can see it
here! After that my uncle and aunty sent me to the hospital among the
Burmese [in Myawaddy]. ? I had to stay in the hospital for 12 days, and
then the doctor forced me to go home even though my leg was not well
healed. Some pieces of the landmine are still in my leg and they give me
pain sometimes. They just cut off my leg and then forced me to go
home. When I stepped on the landmine I was 8 months pregnant. I was
in the hospital for 12 days, then came home and after 9 days in my
house I gave birth to my daughter. It was too early to give birth, she was
not even 9 months in my belly." - "Naw Muh Lah" (F, 23), Sgaw Ko
village, southern Pa'an District (Interview #7, 8/98)
"From our village only my sister stepped on a landmine. A villager
from Wah Mi Klah stepped on a KNLA landmine as well. His name is
Kyet Po. Many villagers stepped on landmines. Some stepped on the
mines when they fled for Thailand and others stepped on the mines
when they went to look for their cattle and buffalos." - "Pa Li Kloh" (M,
21), Tee K'Haw village, northern Pa'an district (Interview #3, 9/98)
With so many landmines in the area, SPDC and DKBA columns
throughout eastern Pa'an district are now consistently forcing some of
their
porters to march in front of the column as human mine detonators and
human shields against ambush. Around the villages of Sgaw Ko, Pah Klu
and Taw Oak in the southeast, they even take people specifically for this
purpose in addition to people to carry their loads. In these villages they
have repeatedly made specific demands for women to march in front of
them, and have occasionally even made women carrying small children do
this. Villagers from Taw Oak village report that at least 6 people from
their small village have died in the past year from landmines, particularly
from forced labour as human mine detonators. In Sgaw Ko village in late
July or early August, an SPDC patrol demanded that a group of women
from the village go with one of their patrols to detonate mines, but the
village headman would not allow it so he went in their place. His name
was Bo Meh Tah, and he was 41 years old with a wife and 4 children.
Between Sgaw Ko and Pah Klu he stepped on a mine and was killed.
"Battles occurred sometimes. The battles were between the DKBA and
the KNLA. They would use me as their cover - they forced me to go in
front of them. They captured the villagers to be porters and forced them
go in front of them because they did not dare to go in the front. If the
villagers wouldn't go in front of them they beat the villagers. The man
who hit me was Corporal Thin Ga Jut. There were 4 or sometimes 7
other porters like me who were also forced to go in front by the DKBA."
- "Saw Tee Kaw" (M), Pah Klu village, southern Pa'an district (Interview
#17, 9/98)
"All the village elders have fled. Now there are no more village elders.
The village headman from Sgaw Ko was killed when they forced him to
guide them. He stepped on a landmine and died. His name was Bo Meh
Tah. He stepped on the mine between Pah Klu and Sgaw Ko. That
happened only about 10 days before we came here." - "Pa Weh Doh"
(M, 47), Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #14, 8/98)
"? they ordered the women to go with them and walk in front of them.
The village headman knew that if the women went they would go with
their small children, and if they stepped on landmines the women and
the children would be badly hurt. ? so the village headman said, 'I will
go instead of you, because you women have small children to take care
of'. That village headman, who was 41 years old and had a wife and 4
children, stepped on a landmine when he was in front of the SPDC
soldiers and he died, but the SPDC soldiers never took care of his poor
family. The villagers look on him as a hero who died to save his
villagers, but none of them can help his family because every villager is
living in poverty and each family has a very hard time just surviving
themselves." - KHRG monitor in southern Pa'an District describing the
death of Sgaw Ko village headman Bo Meh Tah (Interview #11, 8/98)
Even if the villagers know which paths have been mined by the KNLA
they don't know the precise locations of the mines, and if they do or say
anything which indicates they know the route is mined, then the SPDC
troops will accuse them of being KNLA collaborators and torture or
execute them. In addition, the SPDC and DKBA troops do not know
where each other's mines are placed. In order to have people to send in
front of their columns, SPDC and DKBA units are demanding more and
more villagers as porters around Pah Klu, Sgaw Ko and Taw Oak villages
in the southeast. Right now, fear of being taken as porters and being used
to detonate mines is one of the major reasons villagers from that area give
for having fled their villages.
"The Burmese forced people in our village to be porters, and in other
villages they forced everyone, even the old women and the children.
They force people to go as porters and to go in front of them to clear
landmines. Many women and children have died when they went as
porters. ? Now the villagers who are still there are giving them money,
but if the soldiers go fighting they still gather the women and children to
go in front of them to set off the landmines. If the Kaw Thoo Lei
[KNLA] shoot at them the bullets will hurt the women and children, but
if we don't go in front of them they torture the villagers." - "Naw Lah
Say" (F, 25), Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #12,
8/98)
"When we had to go as porters they forced us to go in front of them and
they followed behind. Between Taw Oak and Sgaw Ko villages there are
landmines, so they didn't dare go first and they pushed us out to go in
front of them. We were lucky that time and didn't step on the mines." -
"Pa Weh Doh" (M, 47), Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district
(Interview #14, 8/98)
"They forced the villagers to go in front of them to detonate any
landmines that might be there, whether the people wanted to go or not.
The porters lost their legs that way. I saw a villager from the plains
whom the Burmese had arrested to be a porter who had lost his leg. The
Burmese were carrying him, and the blind porters were holding on to
the others and following [when one person steps on a mine the person
behind him is often hit in the face and eyes by shrapnel]. I saw 5 porters
with injuries but we dared not look at all of them." - "Pa Li Kloh" (M,
21), Tee K'Haw village, northern Pa'an district (Interview #3, 9/98)
"Every time they entered the village they forced villagers to go as
porters, and some villagers didn't dare go as porters. Some of those who
went as porters died, and some got wounded or lost their legs and hands.
Six people died as porters last year. Yeh Paw Ta, and Naw Hser's
mother. Naw Hser's mother was 54, and I don't know how old Yay Paw
Ta was, I think he was over 40. Also Naw Sghu, she was just over 30.
Dta Oh, he was 30 years old. And Naw Hser Paw - she was 18 years old.
Her husband's name is Hsa Ler Lah. She was carrying her small baby
daughter, who was only one or two months old. When she stepped on
the landmine she died together with her baby, and a girl and a boy lost
their legs - Ma Leh Kyo and Pa Roh. ? All of them were from Taw Oak
village. They also killed Pa Mu Dah, who was 15 years old, and Set Lay.
He was about 40. He was married with no children, but his wife is
pregnant. Another one they killed was Maung Thaung Ngeh. He was
30 and married. The Burmese killed his wife as well. Her name was
Naw Ga May, she was about 25. They had 2 children, both daughters.
They've killed all those people just this hot season [between March and
August 1998]." - "Saw Tha Wah" (M, 42), Taw Oak village, southern
Pa'an district (Interview #13, 8/98)
__________________________________________________________________________
- [END OF PART 4; SEE SUBSEQUENT POSTINGS FOR PARTS 5 AND 6 OF THIS REPORT]
-