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Internally Displaced People and SPD



Subject: Internally Displaced People and SPDC Death Squads

An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
February 15, 1999 / KHRG #99-U1


Nyaunglebin District: Internally Displaced People and SPDC Death Squads

Nyaunglebin (known in Karen as Kler Lwe Htoo) District is a northern
Karen region straddling the border of northern Karen
State and Pegu Division. It contains the northern reaches of the Bilin
(Bu Loh Kloh) River northwest of Papun, and stretches
westward as far as the Sittaung (Sittang) River in the area 60 to 150
kilometres north of Pegu (named Bago by the SPDC).
The District has 3 townships: Ler Doh (Kyauk Kyi in Burmese), Hsaw Tee
(Shwegyin), and Mone. The eastern two-thirds of
the district is covered by forested hills dotted with small Karen
villages, and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)
operates extensively in this region. The western part of the district is
in the plains of the Sittaung river basin; here there are
larger villages of mixed Karen and Burman population, and this area is
under strong SPDC control. For several years now
SLORC/SPDC forces have tried to destroy Karen resistance in the eastern
hills, largely by forcing villagers to move and
wiping out their ability to produce food. Many villages in the parts of
these eastern hills bordering Papun District have been
destroyed since 1997 as part of the SPDC campaign to wipe out Karen
villages in northern Papun and eastern Nyaunglebin
Districts (see "Wholesale Destruction", KHRG, April 1998). According to
reports by KHRG monitors in the region and
interviews with internally displaced villagers and new refugees, the
situation continues to worsen for villagers in eastern and
western Nyaunglebin, particularly with the recent creation of SPDC ?Dam
Byan Byaut Kya? death squads.

Finding itself unable to suppress Karen resistance activity in the
eastern hills of Nyaunglebin District, in early 1997 the
SPDC (then named SLORC) began a campaign to wipe out all Karen civilian
villages in the hills. Where villagers could be
found they were ordered to relocate westward into the plains; where they
could not be caught, their villages were shelled
without warning, looted and then burned to the ground, while villagers
found afterwards were shot on sight. In 1997 KHRG
compiled a list of 35 villages in Shwegyin (Hsaw Tee) township alone
which had been completely destroyed. Most villagers

fled into the hills to live in hiding in small groups of families while
trying to grow small patches of rice, and many others
moved westward as ordered into the plains, either to stay with relatives
or to garrison villages along the main roads as the
SPDC troops had demanded.

Many of the people who moved into the plains have now fled back into the
hills, and some have been interviewed by KHRG
monitors. They say that they returned to the hills because they could
not survive in the plains; they had no land to plant,
there was no paid labour to survive on, and they could not face all the
demands for forced labour and money from the
SPDC troops. Some had died because they were not used to the water and
the illnesses in the plains. In the end they fled
back into the hills, even though they knew their villages had been
destroyed, that they would have to live in hiding and that
they would be shot if found by SPDC patrols. Now they join the thousands
of Karen villagers who have lived internally
displaced in these hills since 1997.

In the hills the villagers are hiding in small groups of a few families
in high valleys and other remote places. They try to grow
small patches of rice but have little or nothing to eat; most meals
consist of a small amount of rice or thin rice gruel,
combined with salt or chillies if they are lucky enough to have these,
and some forest leaves or sour cucumber soup (which
just consists of cucumber boiled in water with a bit of salt; cucumbers
are grown among the rice in hill fields). As in many
other areas, much of the already small rice crop was destroyed by the
lack of rains early in the season and the plague of
insects brought on by the drought.

SPDC patrols come through the hills as often as 2 or 3 times per month,
burn any rice storage barns they find, shoot at
villagers they see in the fields or the forests, and burn any shelters
they find. When they find belongings they loot them and
destroy whatever they don?t want or can?t carry, even smashing the
bottoms out of cookpots. From September to November
1998, before the rice was ready to harvest, SPDC patrols went through
many of the hillside ricefields they found pulling up
the paddy plants by the roots, stomping them down with their boots or
cutting them with machetes and threshing the grains
off onto the ground. Then in November 1998, SPDC patrols opened fire on
groups of villagers harvesting rice on at least 3
separate occasions, in Tee Nya B?Day Kee, Thaw Ngeh Der, and Tee Mu Hta
villages. When an SPDC patrol opened fire
on villagers harvesting paddy on 21 November in Tee Nya B?Day Kee, a
villager named Saw May Lay tried to run with his
9-month-old daughter in his arms, but he was hit by shrapnel in the legs
and one arm, while the baby was killed after having
one leg ripped off and the other broken by fragments of the same shell.
Several other villagers were also seriously wounded
by bullets and shell fragments in these attacks.

The displaced villagers are always fleeing from one place to another to
avoid the patrols. Some villagers say they won?t
build a proper shelter with a raised floor until rainy season, because

in dry season the SPDC patrols are almost certain to
find and burn it. They have no change of clothing and few or no
blankets, and have to sleep around fires in temperatures
which can drop to 10 degrees Celsius or lower at this time of year. They
have no medicines and speak of treating gunshot
wounds by applying sesame oil after saying incantations. When
interviewed one villager sent out a plea for help with
supplies of rice, cookpots and medicines, saying that other things they
can make from the forest but not these. These
villagers don?t dare go down into the plains for fear of arrest as
?insurgents?, and it is difficult or impossible for most of them
to get to Thailand because they would have to pass through all of
northern Papun District, where SPDC troops have
destroyed even more villages and are patrolling to shoot villagers on
sight. However, a small group of just over 100
refugees managed to make this difficult journey with the help of the
KNLA and arrived in Ban Sala refugee camp in Thailand
on 10 January 1999. Many of these were from Ler Wah and Tee Mu Hta
villages of Ler Doh township, both of which were
shelled and burned by SPDC troops in November 1998. The troops also shot
at the villagers and burned the entire rice
supplies of many families in these villages, giving them little option
but to flee for Thailand.

                               ?Dam Byan Byaut Kya? Death Squads

Since October 1998 a new type of SPDC battalion has been formed in
Nyaunglebin district, apparently with the specific
purpose of carrying out extrajudicial executions: the ?Dam Byan Byaut
Kya? death squads. Many details about this Army unit
still remain vague because the only information thus far available comes
from villagers in areas where they operate; the
information presented here has been compiled by KHRG from piecing
together consistent bits of data from interviews with
human rights monitors and villagers in and from the region.

The name ?Dam Byan Byaut Kya? means ?Guerrilla Retaliation? unit, and is
the name they have told to villagers in several
places. In Mone township they are also known as ?Sa Sa Sa Dam Byan Byaut
Kya?; the prefix ?Sa Sa Sa? (or ?Sa Thon Lon?,
for ?Three S?s?) is the abbreviation for DDSI (Directorate of Defence
Services Intelligence), which is Burma?s pervasive
Military Intelligence headed by SPDC Secretary-1 Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt.
Some villagers claim that this group was ordered
created by Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt himself and that they remain under his
direct command, though we have no confirmation of
this. However, they do operate independently of the local Operations
Command and Strategic Commands, and are often
referred to as ?A?Htoo Ah Na Ya A?Pweh?, meaning ?Special Authority
Force?. Based on the composition of the unit and its
function, it is very likely that it was formed by special order from
Rangoon, and may remain under Rangoon?s direct
command.

According to the information available, the unit was formed by selecting
the ?bravest?, in other words the most brutal, 5 to 12
soldiers from each of the many Infantry and Light Infantry Battalions
operating in the region, most or all of them being

Corporals and Sergeants, and assembling them into a special battalion of
200 to 300 troops under the command of an
officer named Bo Maung Maung from Infantry Battalion #351. The unit is
divided into 3 groups: ?Mone Thon Mone Daing
Dam Byan Byaut Kya? (?Monsoon storm guerrilla retaliation unit?),
?Galone Dam Byan Byaut Kya? (?Garuda guerrilla
retaliation unit?), and ?D?Pyet Hleh Dam Byan Byaut Kya? (?Sweeper
guerrilla retaliation unit?). They usually operate in small
patrols of 5 or 6 men, scattered in several villages but focussed on the
plains east of the Sittaung River and the
westernmost reaches of the hills. Many people call them the ?short
pants? because they do not wear Army uniform; they are
usually in short pants and T-shirts or in non-standard camouflage
clothes, and carry non-standard weapons such as AK47
and AR assault rifles (the SPDC Army standard is the much more ungainly
G3 or G4, though China has recently given them
the ability to produce new assault rifles which look like an AK47 but
use NATO-standard ammunition). They operate
independently, are not answerable to the local Operations Commanders,
and when they are present around a village other
SPDC troops are notably absent.

The main function of these units to date has been to execute any
civilian even remotely suspected of present or past
connections with the KNU (Karen National Union) or KNLA (Karen National
Liberation Army). This connection can be as
minor as a distant relative in the KNU, or having given some rice to a
KNLA unit several years ago, or an unsubstantiated
accusation by anyone. The main intention is probably to strike fear into
all villagers of having anything whatsoever to do
with the KNU/KNLA. Estimates on the number of people executed since
October vary widely, from 30 to 80 or 100. Victims
have included Burmans as well as Karens, because many Burmans are
intermixed with the Karen population in the plains
and many Burmans in the area sympathise with the KNU/KNLA.

According to villagers in the area, when the Dam Byan Byaut Kya units
suspect someone they kill them without any
interrogation, often at night. Some have been shot, some stabbed to
death. Afterwards local villagers have been ordered not
to touch, cremate or bury the bodies. The troops have thrown some of the
bodies in the river, and have also on several
occasions cut off the heads of their victims after killing them. After
executing two farmers from Myeh Yeh village, the troops
cut off their heads and hung them along the path between Tai Kya Sai and
Ter Bpaw villages. The villagers were then
ordered to guard the heads to make sure no one removed them, under
threat that if the heads were removed those
assigned to guard them would be severely punished. Dam Byan Byaut Kya
troops have also been reported to burn houses,
shell villages and kill villagers simply on encountering them on
pathways or away from villages; for example, one Dam Byan
Byaut Kya unit found 4 Karen men and one woman from Twa Ni Gone village
staying at a hut with some rice while they
fished at a large pond, released the woman and executed the 4 men with
no questions asked. On Christmas Day 1998, a

Dam Byan Byaut Kya unit entered Bpaw Pee Der village and opened fire on
a group of young people playing volleyball
(volleyball tournaments are popular entertainment on Christmas), killing
Saw San Myint. The troops then cut off Saw San
Myint?s head, stuck a cheroot in his mouth and hung it along the path
toward Mone town.

One of the units responsible for some of the most brutal attacks is
commanded by Sergeant Shan Pu. This Sergeant was
reportedly interested in an 18-year-old schoolgirl in Lu Ah village of
Mone township, so she fled the village. In response he
threatened to kill her parents and the village headman if she would not
return and marry him, so she reportedly returned and
they are now married.

The activities of these death squads are frightening many people into
fleeing, not only those who have had close or distant
connections with the KNU/KNLA but also those afraid of being executed
for some false suspicion or for no reason at all.
Combined with the forced labour, extortion and other abuses already
being inflicted on the villagers of western Nyaunglebin
District, this threat has driven some people beyond the limit of their
endurance. Some of the Karens and Burmans from the
western plains of the district do not dare flee through the hills to
Papun District and the Thai border, so they have fled along
the main roads through the plains, southward to Kyaikto and Pa?an, then
eastward to Kawkareik, crossing the border from
Myawaddy to Mae Sot and ending up in Huay Kaloke (Wangka) refugee camp
far to the south of their area of origin. The
Thai Army has treated these new arrivals with great suspicion,
considering them as ?economic migrants?, particularly the
Burman refugees. On 29 January 1999, the Thai Army attempted to forcibly
repatriate all of the new arrivals at Huay Kaloke,
including those from Nyaunglebin District, but were convinced by
Non-Governmental Organisations and representatives of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to hold back
until the arrivals could be interviewed to
determine their status. The Thai Army has now completed these interviews
in the presence of UNHCR representatives, but
no decisions have yet been announced. There continues to be grave
concern for these refugees, particularly as the
UNHCR has given no guarantee that it will oppose a forced repatriation
if that is what the Thai Army decides to do.

Further details, interviews with the villagers affected and photographs
from some of these areas will be presented in an
upcoming KHRG report and photo set.