KHRG #98-09 Part 4 of 5 (Dooplaya)

[khrg@xxxxxxxxx]

                    DOOPLAYA UNDER THE SPDC

          Further Developments in the SPDC Occupation 
                 of South-Central Karen State

     An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
            November 23, 1998     /     KHRG #98-09

*** PART 4 OF 5: SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***

[Some details omitted or replaced by 'xxxx' for Internet distribution.]  


                        Forced Relocations

"They don't force them [at gunpoint] but they order them to go and live 
at the relocation sites.  The villagers don't dare to go because they know 
that people who go and live there have to do forced labour and are 
beaten by the Burmese soldiers, and sometimes they are killed.  So the 
villagers always run away whenever they tell them to go and live at a 
relocation site.  The villagers from Thay Pa Htaw had to relocate to Po 
Yay.  Because of the relocation many of the villagers fled and several 
villages were destroyed.  Now the Thay Pa Htaw villagers have returned 
to Thay Pa Htaw village and are staying there again.  In Kya In area, 
near [Kya In] Seik Gyi, the Burmese relocated villages like T'Ka Kee 
and Kalay Kee. ? Now nobody is living in Kalay Kee village because the 
Burmese already forced them to move, and there is also nobody in Toh 
Kee.  The villagers are now all spread out.  Nobody is there."  - "Saw 
Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih K'Baw village, central Dooplaya, describing 
what he saw on his July-September 1998 visit to central Dooplaya 
(Interview #5, 9/98)


In January 1998, many Karen villages in the far south of Dooplaya were 
forced by SPDC Infantry Battalion #230 to relocate to Thanbyuzayat and 
Three Pagodas Pass.  Meh K'Naw, Meh K'Wa, Htee Kay, Htee Klih Thu, 
Lay May, Htee Po Yu, Ah Pa Lone, Lay Po, Hsing Pyay, Kwih Prer Htee, 
Maw Po and other villages were given 3 days to move, after which several 
houses in each village were burned and Meh K'Naw and Htee Maw Keh 
villages were burned completely.  Suffering from lack of food at the 
relocation site, the villagers finally managed to get permission to return
to 
their villages, but they now have to pay extortion money regularly to IB 
230 and go on rotating shifts of 3 days' portering labour.  Anyone who 
cannot go must pay 1,000 Kyats.

In the latter part of 1997 several other villages in southern Dooplaya were

forced to move to Taung Zone (a.k.a. Lay Noh) and Anand Gwin (a.k.a. 
Noh Chut Neh) along the road from Thanbyuzayat to Three Pagodas Pass, 
and to Kaneh Kamaw and Gker (a.k.a. Beh Hla Mu) near the Ye-
Thanbyuzayat road.  


"They haven't ordered us to relocate yet, but they have already relocated 
villagers from below our place [downstream] to places near their camps 
alongside the road.  I know of 3 villages that have been relocated.  Wah 
Pa Theh and Gru Mer were relocated to Gker [a.k.a. Beh Hla Mu], and 
Way T'Lay was relocated to Kaneh Kamaw. ? They wrote a letter to 
Kwih K'Saw Si [village] which said, 'If you don't relocate in 7 days we 
will burn down your village and persecute the villagers.'  They didn't say 
where to go, they just demanded that they not stay in their village any 
more.  All the Kwih K'Saw villagers left their village when they received 
the letter and went to wherever their relatives were living."  - "Saw Win 
Than" (M, 50), xxxx village, southern Dooplaya (Interview #2, 4/98)


Several villages in the Kya In Seik Gyi area of western Dooplaya, such as 
T'Ka Kee, Toh Kee and Kalay Kee, have been forced to move and the 
villagers have scattered.  In central Dooplaya, many pockets of remote 
villages were forced to move, such as K'Lah Lay, Dta Ri and Htee Po 
Ghaw, which were forced to Dta Nay Pya.


"Before we fled they forced the villagers from such places as K'Lah Lay, 
Dta Ri and Htee Po Ghaw to go and stay in Dta Nay Pya together and 
build their own houses there.  Villagers who were staying outside the 
villages in their farmfield huts were forced to move into Bu Kler village. 

The villagers couldn't find work there and they couldn't work their land 
anymore.  They were given no food but had to find food for themselves, 
so they asked the Burmese if they could return to their villages to farm.  
The Burmese agreed to let them go and now they have gone back to 
their villages."  - "Saw Htoo Po" (M, 25), Meh T'Ler village, central 
Dooplaya (Interview #3, 9/98)


The general practice has been to force small and remote villages to move 
to larger villages which are more directly under the control of SPDC 
troops.  In many villages, particularly in central Dooplaya, orders were 
issued for all villagers living in houses or farmfield huts outside the 
villages to move into the centre of their villages.  In southern and
western 
Dooplaya some of the relocations have not been rescinded, but many of 
the villagers in central Dooplaya who were forced to relocate were later 
allowed to go back to their villages after complaining that they could not 
farm or earn their living.  Even so, villagers who live in remote areas or 
out in their fields are always at high risk of being caught as porters or
shot 
by patrolling SPDC troops.  Relocations continue to be ordered 
sporadically whenever and wherever KNLA activity flares up.  In areas of 
southern and western Dooplaya where villagers cannot get permission to 
return to their home villages, they have no choice but to try to find a
living 
at relocation villages or in the villages of their relatives.  This is
extremely 
difficult, because these places tend to be quite strongly SPDC-controlled, 
often even having an SPDC base right at the village, so the relocated 
villagers are used all the time for forced labour and have trouble paying
all 
the extortion fees levied on them.


"The villagers in Kaser Po Kler also came to stay in Saw Hta.  They 
didn't dare stay in Kaser Po Kler any longer because the Burmese were 
forcing them to stay right in the village so they were afraid.  The 
Burmese aren't forcing people to relocation sites but they don't allow the 
villagers to stay outside the villages or in their farmfield huts.  They 
force them back to stay in the village."  - "Ko Sein Aung" (M, 21), Saw 
Hta village, central Dooplaya (Interview #1, 9/98)


                  Internally Displaced People

"(M)y guess is that there are more than 100 families of villagers living 
there in the jungle [just in the xxxx area].  They began living in the 
jungle when the Burmese first arrived, over a year ago.  The Burmese 
know they are in the jungle and they go looking for them sometimes, but 
the people always hide themselves.  Each family keeps 4 or 5 shelters in 
different places.  When the Burmese come near one of their shelters they 
run to another shelter, and when the Burmese move on toward that 
shelter they run to the next one of their shelters. ? Each family works 
two or three fields in different places.  Every time the Burmese 
commander orders his soldiers to go out, the villagers in the jungle must 
run away."  - "Saw Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih K'Baw village, central 
Dooplaya, describing what he saw on his July-September 1998 visit to 
central Dooplaya (Interview #5, 9/98)


At least several hundred families remain internally displaced in central 
Dooplaya, not daring to go back to their villages but afraid to run to 
Thailand.  Most of them are villagers who could no longer bear the burden 
of rotating forced labour but had no money to pay to avoid it, while some 
are villagers who fled the initial SLORC/SPDC offensive to the forest, and 
are afraid that if they return to their villages now they will be arrested
and 
suspected of contact with the KNLA.  Some of these families already fled 
to Thailand once but were forced back by Thai troops; some of them were 
among the group which was shot at and terrorised by Thai troops at Thay 
Pu Law Htwee in November 1997 (see "Strengthening the Grip on 
Dooplaya", KHRG #98-05, 10/6/98, for further details).  There are also 
scattered families of internally displaced villagers in the south of
Dooplaya 
near the Three Pagodas Pass-Thanbyuzayat road, who fled the forced 
relocations of villages in the area in late 1997 and early 1998 and are now

living in the hills.  Several thousand people from southern Dooplaya have 
fled southward to Mon-held areas since the occupation in early 1997, and 
some people continue to flee in that direction.


"When the Burmese started to come to their villages they fled together to 
Thay Pu Law Htwee.  But then the Thai soldiers threatened them by 
shooting their guns at them, so they were afraid and went back to stay in 
the jungle.  Now they stay in the jungle because they don't dare come to 
Thailand again.  They are afraid."  - "Saw Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih 
K'Baw village, central Dooplaya, who spent time with the displaced in 
central Dooplaya in August 1998 (Interview #5, 9/98)

"They didn't destroy our homes but they took any food they found in our 
houses, such as salt, Ajinomoto [MSG seasoning] and shrimp paste.  
They took everything they found.  They also took rice, though they left 
some behind for the owner.  All the men ran to the jungle.  Only the 
women and children stayed in the village.  All of the villagers from xxxx, 
about 6 families, are still living in the jungle.  The Burmese soldiers
told 
them to go live in Kyo G'Lee or K'Neh Thay Po Lay."  - "Pa Boh" (M, 
38), xxxx village, eastern Dooplaya (Interview #9, 9/98)


In central Dooplaya it is very difficult to remain hidden for internally 
displaced people, as the terrain of the central plain is easy for SPDC
troops 
to move around, and in some areas there is not a lot of forest cover.  The 
SPDC regularly issues orders for these people to return to their villages, 
but they dare not for fear of arrest.  They stay in small groups of
shelters in 
the forest, fleeing from one shelter to another every month or two when an 
SPDC patrol comes near their shelters.  Each family has 4 or 5 shelters and

2 or 3 small ricefields, scattered in different places so that they can
keep 
ahead of SPDC patrols.  Because they always have to move, they have 
difficulty growing or obtaining enough food, and they have no access 
whatsoever to medicines.  Many of these people have already died of 
disease, particularly children and the elderly.


"People are still living in the villages which are near the [Thai] border, 
but there are no people in the villages starting from Dta Broh and Kay 
Lu Nee.  There are no people in Dta Broh Kee.  There are people in 
K'Yeh Theh and Yaw Ka Daw.  Their area is mined and the Burmese 
control them.  There are also mines around Yan Day Ya and there are 
people living there."  - "Saw Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih K'Baw village, 
central Dooplaya (Interview #5, 9/98)

"Those in the jungle are not so healthy because they have no medicine 
with them.  They suffer from malaria, oedema, abscesses, dysentery, 
diarrhoea, headaches, 'dee klih law' [symptomised by grotesque swelling 
of one or both testicles], gastric pains, belly pains, numbness [quasi-
paralysis brought on by severe Vitamin B deficiency], ringworm and 
many other illnesses.  Of course, they die from the illnesses sometimes.  
Both children and adults have died because there is no medicine."  - 
"Saw Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih K'Baw village, central Dooplaya 
(Interview #5, 9/98)


                     Problems for Farmers

"They [the villagers] can't stay in their field huts because when they go 
to their farms they must get a pass that only lasts for one day's work.  If

they don't have a pass then they [SPDC soldiers] treat them as their 
enemy. ? The villagers had to give the Burmese some rice even though 
they [the soldiers] already received some rice from town [their rations].  
Now in Kyaikdon area they have taken some fields.  The Burmese are 
supervising these confiscated fields and forcing the villagers to work 
often on the fields.  The Burmese have established a paddy plantation at 
Kyaikdon but it is the villagers who have to do all the work on it."  - 
"Saw Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih K'Baw village, central Dooplaya, 
describing what he saw on his July-September 1998 visit to central 
Dooplaya (Interview #5, 9/98)


Even farmers living in their villages are having a lot of difficulties
under 
the SPDC occupation.  Throughout all of Dooplaya other than the DKBA 
areas in the east, the SPDC has placed tight restrictions on farmers to
make 
sure they cannot support the KNLA in any way.  In central Dooplaya, 
families who used to live in their farmfield huts or houses far from the 
village have been ordered to relocate into the centre of their villages, 
which makes it extremely difficult for them because their fields can be 2 
hours or more on foot from the village.  Compounding this, all villagers 
are not allowed to leave their villages without an SPDC pass.  In some 
areas, the pass requires them to return before sunset even if their fields
are 
a long distance away, while in other villages they can get a pass allowing 
them to spend only one or two nights in their farmfield hut.  Rice farming 
is labour-intensive, and it is difficult to tend a crop and protect it from

animals while only being allowed to stay in the farmfield hut for one or 
two nights at a time during growing season.

When they go to their fields they are only allowed to take a very small 
amount of rice, in order that there be no way they could give any to KNLA 
troops.  This is so tightly restricted that farmers usually can't even take
as 
much as they would normally eat; when doing physical labour Karen 
farmers eat a lot of rice, but the SPDC limits them to taking as little as
one 
milktin (about 200 grams) of uncooked rice for a day, no more than half 
what they would usually eat.  Once in their fields, even with a pass they 
are at high risk of being shot on sight by SPDC patrols or captured as 
porters.  In addition to all of these problems, the shortage of rain in the

early part of the 1998 growing season has destroyed much of the crop; 
without enough rice to eat and facing constant demands for extortion 
money and labour for SPDC troops, life will be very difficult for farmers 
in Dooplaya over the coming year.


                           Education

"No children are going to school because the Burmese came and 
destroyed all the schools.  If the situation is good the children can go to

school."  - "Pu Meh Thu" (M, 70), xxxx village, eastern Dooplaya 
(Interview #15, 9/98)


All of the former village schools throughout Dooplaya which were 
operated by the villagers themselves or by the Karen National Union 
(KNU) have been forced to close down under the SPDC occupation.  The 
SPDC has only set up a few schools in major villages such as Azin and 
Kyaikdon, but few children outside these villages have access to these 
schools, particularly young children.  People in outlying villages, and 
particularly those who are internally displaced, are afraid to send their 
children away to schools in large SPDC-controlled villages.  As a result, 
most children in Dooplaya are no longer able to go to school.  


"There was one schoolteacher there.  Then the government changed all 
the rules and made us teach only Burmese subjects.  They wouldn't 
allow us to teach in Karen language.  But that other teacher couldn't 
teach in Burmese [so he/she lost the job]."  - "Naw Ghay Wah" (F, 31), 
schoolteacher from Pa'an district who was ordered to move and become a 
teacher in Dooplaya after the SLORC occupation (Interview #4, 9/98)

"Before there was a school but after the Burmese came the school was 
destroyed.  My 18-year-old son has never been to school.  Before he was 
going to start going to school his mother died.  He was young and I 
couldn't do anything for him.  When he got bigger people asked him to 
join the army. ? He has been a soldier 3 times.  He was a DKBA soldier 
once for more than one year and had to go to Wah Lay but he was never 
in a battle. ? He was a KNLA soldier twice, the first time he served for 
more than one year and the second time he served for more than 3 years.  
But he never served for the Burmese.  The three times that he served as 
a soldier, it was demanded of him.  When he was a KNLA soldier the 
first time, the KNLA commander came and demanded that he be a 
soldier.  Then when he became a DKBA soldier, they came to his home 
and called him outside then made him join the army.  This time, now 
[still ongoing], the KNLA came and demanded he be a soldier for three 
years but now he is allowed to stay at home because he has already 
served a lot.  He was about 15 years old the first time he became a 
soldier.  After that he was tired, he didn't want to become a soldier again

but he had to."  - "Pu Tha Wah" (M, 66), xxxx village, eastern Dooplaya 
(Interview #13, 9/98)


In the SPDC schools only Burmese curriculum is taught; all is supposed to 
be taught in Burmese language and Karen language is not allowed to be 
taught, but as some of the teachers are Karen they often teach in Karen 
even though they are not supposed to.  In xxxx the Karen teacher was 
sacked by the SPDC authorities because he could not speak Burmese well 
enough, and this may have happened at other schools as well.  From 
March through May 1998, the SPDC held a primary school teacher 
training in Kya In Seik Gyi township for SPDC-authorised teachers from 
Dooplaya and other surrounding regions.  This was conducted under the 
'Border Areas Development Programme', an SPDC programme with 
support from United Nations agencies which mainly focusses on 
improving infrastructure for military access to the border areas and 
'Burmanising' the ethnic nationalities.  According to a Karen teacher who 
attended the training, the trainer was a Burman woman from Mandalay 
who constantly verbally abused the 31 Karens at the training and treated 
them as second-class citizens until they no longer wanted to be there.  The

trainees did not receive enough food and had to spend much of their own 
money to support themselves during the three months.  Then on returning 
to xxxx village, this Karen teacher and her husband both had their teaching

salaries withheld by local authorities until they couldn't survive and had
to 
flee to Thailand.  


"They called 8 people from Saw Hta area, including me, to attend the 
training in Leh Gu.  It was in March 1998.  I went to attend the training 
for 3 months in Leh Gu. ? They called it 'Border Areas Development'.  
Three months of special primary school teacher training.  It was in Kya 
In Seik Gyi township.  There were 31 of us from Karen State, 6 men and 
25 women.  I was the leader of the women.  At the training they spoke to 
us very harshly.  The border development supervisor was a Burmese 
woman from Mandalay.  She scolded us.  She told me, 'You people from 
Karen State, your bags are very small [i.e. you brought very little], 
haven't you ever been to a training before?'  We didn't want to go to 
their training!  But the soldiers ordered me to go, and they said, 'No 
need to take your things, everything is there'.  The woman scolded us 
because we didn't bring our sleeping mats and blankets.  We didn't dare 
talk back to her because she is a border supervisor, we all just cried.  We

talked to each other about how she thinks Karen people are lower class.  
She didn't scold the other nationalities [probably Burmans and Mons], 
only us. ? I was there for three months.  They gave us food twice each 
day. ? They gave us a very tiny cup of rice with a small piece of chicken 
for each person.  It wasn't enough to eat, so we had to buy food from the 
shops.  I took along 30,000 Kyats of my own money and it lasted me for 
the 3 months.  Some of the single girls had to spend 40,000 or 50,000 
Kyats. ? After I left the training I stayed in xxxx for two more months.  
After that we couldn't stay anymore in xxxx.  The monthly pay from the 
government is 925 Kyats but I never got it. ?  My husband never got his 
pay either, so we couldn't stay there.  He came and stayed with me and 
taught in xxxx, but he never got paid.  The villagers gave us some food, 
but the government didn't give us any food."  - "Naw Ghay Wah" (F, 31), 
schoolteacher from Pa'an district who was ordered to move and become a 
teacher in Dooplaya after the SLORC occupation (Interview #4, 9/98)


                  Illness and Medical Care

"(M)any people are sick, they are coughing a lot.  Some also have 
diarrhoea.  They can't find any medicine.  Two people have already died, 
a 2-year-old girl died ten days ago and another child died about a month 
ago.  They both died of diarrhoea, which they'd had for almost two 
months.  They wouldn't have died if they'd had medicine.  In the past, 
children in Kyo G'Lee [area] who had medicine didn't die from this."  - 
"Pa Boh" (M, 38), xxxx village, eastern Dooplaya (Interview #9, 9/98)


Medical clinics formerly supported by various organisations and the KNU 
throughout Dooplaya have closed under the SPDC occupation, and very 
little medical help is available.  Even in the central village of Saw Hta 
(Azin) there is no proper clinic; villagers there were forced to pay for
the 
establishment of a clinic after the SPDC occupation and had to build it 
themselves, but even so they must pay to go there.  There are no doctors 
there, only one or two Karen-speaking nurses, and villagers who go there 
have to buy their own medicines.  The medicines are very expensive, and 
most people cannot afford to buy more than one or two tablets.  


"In Saw Hta the Burmese collected money from the villagers to 
establish a hospital and then forced the villagers to build it.  But when 
the villagers go to the hospital, when they're ill, they must pay.  They 
don't have enough medicine.  In Kalay Kee they also collected money to 
establish a hospital which the villagers then had to build, and there too 
the villagers must pay when they go to the hospital.  The medics are 
army medics."  - "Saw Day Htoo" (M, 40), Kwih K'Baw village, central 
Dooplaya (Interview #5, 9/98)

"Our whole family was sick, my husband, my children and myself.  
Medicines were very expensive.  We had to pay 15 Kyats for each 
capsule of penicillin.  To take medicine just one time cost 40 or 50 Kyats,

and if we had to take medicine 3 times a day we had to pay over 100 
Kyats.  We were living there in poverty, and if we'd stayed there any 
longer our children would have died and I would have died too.  We all 
had malaria. ? Last year one of my children died in xxxx.  She was 4 
years old and died of malaria.  When she was sick I sent her to Saw Hta, 
but they don't do malaria tests there, they only treat wounded soldiers.  
There is no medicine for our children.  We have to buy that and treat 
them ourselves."  - "Naw Ghay Wah" (F, 31), schoolteacher from Pa'an 
district who was ordered to move and become a teacher in Dooplaya after 
the SLORC occupation (Interview #4, 9/98)


Outside of the main villages in central Dooplaya, people have no access to 
medical help or medicines whatsoever unless they risk a trip to Thailand.  
In the eastern 'hump' of Dooplaya, villagers say that they've already run
out 
of money to buy medicines in Thailand so most people use roots and other 
herbal cures as their only medicines.


"(T)here are no clinics or doctors.  If they are sick they grind the roots 
of trees to make medicine.  Sometimes they go to buy medicine in Klaw 
Taw [a village just inside Thailand]."  - "Saw Muh" (M, 36), xxxx village, 
eastern Dooplaya (Interview #11, 9/98)

"I cough all the time and there is no medicine or hospital.  People here 
eat the roots of trees for medicine.  Some are healed by the roots but 
others aren't and remain ill."  - "Pu Tha Wah" (M, 66), xxxx village, 
eastern Dooplaya (Interview #13, 9/98)


No training is available for villagers who want to become medics, because 
the SPDC is afraid that they will use their skills to help KNLA soldiers. 
In 
August 1998, SPDC troops executed a 20-year-old Meh T'Lah villager 
named Maw Lu Bu because they caught him carrying some injection sets 
to treat the sick in his village.  They shot him dead on suspicion of 
carrying medicine for KNLA soldiers.


"The Burmese had exchanged fire with the KNLA, but no villagers were 
injured.  Then later they captured a villager on the path to Noh Pa Wah, 
and they saw some medicine in his bag so they shot him dead on the 
path. ? His name was Maw Lu Bu and he was about 20 years old.  He 
wasn't married yet.  They shot him when I was back there, not even a 
month ago.  They killed him near the pond between Meh T'Lah and 
Khaw Wah Kloh.  They killed him just because they saw medicine in his 
bag."  - "Pu Bway Doh" (M, 82), Dta La Ku villager from Meh T'Lah 
village (Interview #8, 9/98)


   - [END OF PART 4: SEE SUBSEQUENT POSTING FOR PART 5 OF 5] -