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KHRG Report - FALSE PEACE



FALSE PEACE
Increasing SPDC Military Repression in Toungoo District of Northern
Karen State

FULL TEXT :
http://metalab.unc.edu/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg99/khrg9902a.h
tml

An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
March 25, 1999 / KHRG #99-02

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

This report describes the current situation for rural Karen villagers in
Toungoo District (known in Karen as Taw Oo), which is the northernmost
region
of Karen State in Burma. The western part of the district forms part of
the
Sittaung River valley in Pegu (Bago) Division, and this region is
strongly
controlled by the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) military
junta
which rules Burma. Further east, the District is made up of steep and
forested hills penetrated by only one or two roads and dotted with small
Karen villages; in this region the SPDC is struggling to strengthen its
control in the face of armed resistance by the Karen National Liberation
Army
(KNLA). In the strongly SPDC-controlled areas, the villagers suffer from
constant demands for forced labour and money from all of the SPDC
military
units based there, and from the constant threat of punishments should
their
village fail to comply with any order of the military. In the eastern
hills,
many villages have been forcibly relocated and partly burned as part of
the
SPDC s program of attempting to undermine the resistance by attacking
the
civilian villagers. Here people are suffering all forms of serious human
rights abuses committed by SPDC troops, including random killings,
burning of
homes, the systematic destruction of crops and food supplies, forced
labour,
looting and extortion.

In order to produce this report, KHRG human rights monitors have
interviewed
villagers in the SPDC-controlled areas, the hill villages, and the
relocation
sites, as well as those hiding in the forests and some who fled to
Thailand
to become refugees. Their testimonies are augmented by incident reports
gathered by KHRG human rights monitors and Karen relief workers in the
region, and by SPDC order documents which have been sent to village
elders.
To see more order documents and photos which relate to the abuses
documented
in this report, readers should see the KHRG report "SPDC Orders to
Villages:
Set 99-A" (KHRG #99-01, 10/2/99) and KHRG Photo Set 99-A (March 1,
1999).
These are both available on the KHRG website
(http://metalab.unc.edu/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive).

This report consists of several parts: this preface, an introduction and
executive summary, a detailed description of the situation including
quotes
from interviews, and finally the full text of most of the interviews and
field reports upon which the report is based.


Notes on the Text

In the interviews and the situation report, all names of those
interviewed
have been changed and some details have been omitted where necessary to
protect people from retaliation. The captions under the quotes in the
situation report include the interviewee s (changed) name, gender, age
and
village, and a reference to the interview or field report number. These
numbers can be used to find the full text of the interview or field
report in
the final section of the document. All SPDC order documents which are
duplicated or quoted here can be found in the KHRG report "SPDC Orders
to
Villages: Set 99-A" (KHRG #99-01, 10/2/99).

The text often refers to villages, village tracts and townships. The
SPDC has
local administration, called Peace & Development Councils, at the
village,
village tract, township, and state/division levels. A village tract is a
group of 5-25 villages centred on a large village; for example, Baw Ga
Li Gyi
village tract has over 10 villages and its administration is in Baw Ga
Li Gyi
(Kler Lah) village, which has over 300 households. A township is a much
larger area, administered from a central town. The Karen National Union
(KNU)
divides most of Toungoo District into two townships: Taw Ta Tu in the
south
and Daw Pa Kho in the north. In Burmese, Taw Ta Tu is called Tantabin
and Daw
Pa Kho is called Than Daung. The official townships used by the SPDC do
not
correspond to the Karen townships; in this report we have used the
townships
as defined by the Karen, though usually referring to them by their more
familiar Burmese names. In this region most villages and towns have both
a
Karen and a Burmese name, and both appear in this report depending on
which
are used by the villagers. Some examples are shown below.

 Burmese Karen
Toungoo
Tantabin
Than Daung
Baw Ga Li Gyi
Baw Ga Li Lay
Yay Tho Gyi
Yay Tho Lay
Bu Sah Kee
Naw Soe
Si Keh Doh
Saw Wah Doh
Law Bi Lu
Kyaut Pon
Dtay Sein Taung Taw Oo
Taw Ta Tu
Daw Pa Kho
Kler Lah
Wah Tho Ko
Kaw Thay Der
Klay Soe Kee
Bu Sah Kee
Naw Soe
Si Kheh Der
Hsaw Wah Der
Law Bi Lu
Ler Ko
Kaw Soh Ko

Villagers refer to Baw Ga Li Gyi as Kler Lah, Baw Ga Li Gyi or simply
Baw Ga
Li. In the interviews villagers often refer to  loh ah pay ; literally
this
is the traditional Burmese form of voluntary labour for the community,
but
the SPDC uses this name in most cases of forced labour, and to the
villagers
it has come to mean most forms of forced labour with the exception of
long-term portering. The villagers also often mention  last year ; if
the
interview occurred in late 1998, this means prior to the rainy season,
or
October 1997 to May 1998. All numeric dates in this report are in
dd/mm/yy
format.


Abbreviations

SPDC = State Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
PDC = Peace & Development Council, SPDC local-level administration
         (e.g. Village PDC [VPDC], Village Tract PDC, Township PDC
[TPDC])
SLORC = State Law & Order Restoration Council, former name of the SPDC
until
Nov. 1997
KNU = Karen National Union, main Karen opposition group
KNLA = Karen National Liberation Army, army of the KNU
DKBA = Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, Karen group allied with
SLORC/SPDC
IB = Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers
fighting
strength
LIB = Light Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers
fighting strength
Na Pa Ka = Abbreviation for SPDC s Western Military Command from Rakhine
State
Viss = Unit of weight measure; one viss is 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds
Bowl/Pyi = Volume of rice equal to 8 small condensed milk tins; about 2
kilograms / 4.4 pounds
Kyat = Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat at official rate, 300+ Kyat at
current
market rate
loh ah pay = Forced labour; literally it means traditional voluntary
labour,
but not under SPDC


Table of Contents

Preface
 .....................................................................
Abbreviations
 ..............................................................
Table of Contents
 .........................................................
Map 1: Toungoo District within Burma  ................................
Map 2: Toungoo District detail
 ...........................................
Introduction / Executive Summary ......................................
SPDC-Controlled  White  Areas and  Peace  Villages .................
   Military Strategy
 ........................................................
   Restrictions and Punishments
 ..........................................
   Crop Quotas, Forced Labour Fees and Looting ......................
   Forced Labour as Porters and at Army Camps .......................
   Forced Labour on Roads
 ................................................
   Education, Health and Landmines .....................................
   The Struggle to Survive
 ................................................
Outlying Villages: The  Black  Areas
 .....................................
   Forced Relocations and Village Destruction .........................
   Shootings and Killings
 ...................................................
   Landmines
 ................................................................
   Forced Labour
 ...........................................................
   Looting and Extortion
 ..................................................
   Destruction of Belongings, Crops and Food Supplies ...............
   Survival in Hiding
 .......................................................
Future of the Area
 .........................................................
Field Reports and Interviews ...........................................
Copies of Original Orders in Burmese ...................................
 1
2
3
4
5
6
8
8
10
13
17
20
23
25
26
26
30
32
33
34
35
37
40
43
96



Introduction / Executive Summary

 Toungoo District (named Taw Oo in Karen) forms the northern tip of
Karen
State, sandwiched between Karenni State to the east, Shan State to the
north,
and Pegu Division to the west. The vast majority of villagers in this
region
are Karen. Many live in small, difficult to access villages in the very
steep
and forested hills covering most of the district. Further west, the
hills let
off into the gentler terrain of the Sittaung River valley near Toungoo
town.

For two to three years now the villagers in the western plain of the
district
have faced heavy burdens of forced labour on roads, army camps and the
Pa
Thee dam project, while some of their villages just east of Toungoo town
were
forcibly relocated to make way for the dam. Things have been even worse
for
the hill villagers in the east of the district, as over the past two to
three
years the SLORC/SPDC has steadily increased its troop presence in this
previously inaccessible area. Several villages in the region were
destroyed
to force the people to move to SLORC/SPDC-controlled areas, and
villagers
throughout the hills of Tantabin (Taw Ta Tu) township were forced to
build a
road from Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah) to Bu Sah Kee, opening up much of
southeastern Toungoo District to the SPDC Army. Several Army camps were
subsequently established along this road, at Kaw Thay Der, Naw Soe, Si
Kheh
Der and Bu Sah Kee. The new road is not passable during rainy season, so
villagers have to do forced labour as porters carrying supplies to and
from
all of these Army camps, then they have to do forced labour rebuilding
the
road after every rainy season. They also face regular demands for Army
camp
labour from these units, and suffer from regular looting and extortion
of
money.

Battalions operating in the area include SPDC Infantry Battalions (IB)
#26,
30, and 48, and Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) #535 and 707, all under
the
Southern Regional Command, and LIB #234 from the Western Regional
Command.
Their troops rotate every 4 months, and the Battalions are regularly
changed;
IB 39 was there in 1998 but was replaced by IB 48. There is one
Strategic
Command (usually consisting of 3 Battalions) from the Na Pa Ka, which is
the
Western Regional Command based in Arakan (Rakhine) State of western
Burma,
and there have been reports of troops from the Rangoon Military Command
in
the area as well. The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) is active in
the
hill areas of most of the district, performing guerrilla operations,
harassment and ambush of SPDC columns. The Democratic Karen Buddhist
Army
(DKBA) and other SPDC proxy armies are not present in the region.

Like in other areas, the SPDC forces try to undermine the KNLA
activities by
targetting the villagers. Most villages which do not have an SPDC camp
and
are not along vehicle roads have been ordered to relocate; more than 10
villages have been ordered to move to Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah) alone
since
the beginning of 1998. Rather than move as ordered, most people still
stay in
their villages or the surrounding forests, dodging the SPDC patrols
which
come through the area. Those who moved as ordered were provided with
nothing
at the relocation sites and could only build small bamboo huts in which
to
live. Unable to farm or earn a living and with no support, many of them
have
fled back to the forests around their villages. People found hiding in
areas
around the outlying villages and villages which are perceived as
uncooperative have been treated brutally. Villagers found in their
fields in
outlying areas are either grabbed to be porters, shot dead or brutally
executed and robbed on the spot. On 17 January 1999 troops from IB 48
opened
fire on a group of villagers sitting talking in their betelnut
plantation
near Wah Paw Pu, wounding two and then executing them with a bullet in
the
head. On 16 January 1999 an SPDC column shot dead a 16-year-old boy and
knifed to death a 60-year-old man on finding them tending cardamom near
Htee
Hsah Bper village, and after killing them brutally mutilated the bodies
by
cutting off the boy s arm and carving off all the flesh on the old man s
face
with a knife. In mid-1998 an SPDC column was ambushed by KNLA troops
near
xxxx village [a  Peace  village] and responded by going into the
village,
calling out all the villagers, beating some and killing their livestock
in
front of them while taunting them to say anything. Hsaw Wah Der village
has
been ordered to move to Kler Lah since several years ago but has never
obeyed, so in May 1998 the church and all of the best houses in the
village
(those with wooden construction and metal roofing) were burned. This
village
has been burned many times over the years. Now some of the villagers
have
fled to Toungoo town, while others live in hiding in the forest, dodging
passing SPDC columns. Three years ago the villagers of Bu Sah Kee
settled in
the forest away from their village for fear of SLORC abuses, and they
are
still growing their hillside rice crops but fleeing further into the
hills
whenever SLORC/SPDC patrols come close. In response, troops from
Infantry
Battalion #26 went through their fields in September 1998 before the
harvest,
pulling up and cutting down their rice plants. All rice supplies found
in
outlying areas by SPDC troops are either confiscated or destroyed.

As a result villagers of Hsaw Wah Der, Bu Sah Kee, Klay Soe Kee and many
other outlying villages are now all displaced, living in their farmfield
huts
or the forests outside their villages and dodging SPDC controls which
come
through the area. They survive by trying to grow cash crops such as
cardamom
and betelnut, then travel to SPDC-controlled villages to sell it and buy
rice. The trip to the SPDC-controlled villages is dangerous; some have
been
killed or taken as porters when they encounter SPDC patrols on the way,
and
others have been arrested and tortured on arrival in the big villages.
However, even more villagers could find themselves in these
circumstances as
the SPDC continues to clamp down on the area.

Larger villages along the vehicle roads, such as Kler Lah (Baw Ga Li
Gyi),
Kaw Thay Der (Yay Tho Gyi) and Naw Soe, are under tight SPDC control and
have
Army bases adjacent to the village. These villages are known as  Nyein
Chan
Yay  ( Peace ) villages, in reference to an informal agreement existing
between the village elders and the local military that they will
cooperate
with all SPDC demands and in return will not be forced to relocate or
have
their houses burned. The leaders of these villages receive constant
demands
for  porter fees  and other forms of extortion money, food and
materials. The
Army also sends regular demands for porters, and to avoid sending people
on
long-term frontline portering duty the villages have to pool their money
and
pay labour agents to hire itinerant labourers from Toungoo town to fill
the
Army s demands. However, even after paying all this money the villagers
regularly have to go for ad hoc forced labour portering Army rations to
outlying camps; women often do this forced labour because the men fear
that
they will be held for several months if they go. The villages also have
to
provide rotating forced labourers for Army camp labour and as
messengers. All
vehicles transporting goods or passengers to and from Toungoo have to
pay
bribes to all of the SPDC checkpoints along the way. This causes the
price of
rice to be 1,000 Kyat more per sack in Kler Lah than it is in Toungoo,
and
has also led to a shortage of transport because some drivers have left
to
find work elsewhere. Villages which are slow in complying with demands
for
money and forced labour are threatened with having their people and
vehicles
prohibited from travelling to Toungoo, or with having their homes
burned,
despite their designation as  Peace  villages.

People in the  Peace  villages have also had to do forced labour
clearing the
route for a new road from Toungoo to Mawchi, over 100 kilometres to the
southeast in southern Karenni (Kayah) State. A road already exists from
Toungoo to Kler Lah, and they are now continuing this road towards
Mawchi
along the route of an old pre-war road. Much of the actual road
construction
is being done with bulldozers, but villagers have been forced to do all
the
initial clearing of the road route by hand. Many farmers with fields
along
the route could not plant a crop in 1998 for fear of being taken for
additional forced labour by the soldiers along the road. Construction is
still ongoing and is far from complete, and there have been reports that
construction is also ongoing from the Mawchi end of the road using the
forced
labour of Karenni villagers.


SPDC-Controlled  White  Areas and  Peace  Villages

 "If battles occurred the Burmese came and beat and tortured our village
head. They accused him of having contact with the  tha bone  [ rebels ]
and
feeding the  tha bone ." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village
(Interview #1, 2/99)


Military Strategy

"The Burmese said that if they [KNLA soldiers] come to shoot at them
they
will force the villagers to move. Their commander, and sometimes
Sergeant
xxxx, often came to tell us that.   The Burmese commander also calls a
meeting once a week and one person from each house must go. At the
meeting
they said that the villagers have to carry things for them and that if
we
don t we will have to move or we will be fined." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F,
28),
xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)


For decades now the policy of the Burmese military dictatorship has been
to
undermine armed opposition groups by targetting the civilian populations
who
allegedly support them, and Toungoo District has been no exception. The
district is divided into SPDC-designated  white ,  brown , and  black 
areas.
 White  indicates SPDC control with little or no incursion by opposition
forces,  brown  areas are SPDC-controlled but opposition forces can and
do
penetrate and operate there, and  black  areas are either
opposition-controlled or cannot be effectively controlled by the SPDC.
The
western part of the district, which falls within Pegu (Bago) Division
and
consists of villages in the Sittaung River valley near Toungoo, is
considered
a  white area  by the SPDC; KNLA forces cannot easily penetrate this
area so
it is under complete SPDC control, and villagers have no option but to
submit
completely to SPDC authority or face harsh punishment. Villages along
the
access road eastward into the hills as far as Kler Lah, and some
villages
further into the hills along roads where there are SPDC bases, are
considered
 brown , and all areas in the hills away from the military access roads
and
Army camps are considered  black . Villages in  brown  areas face heavy
demands for forced labour and extortion by the military, particularly by
columns which go to patrol the  black  areas, and if there is any
failure to
meet these demands village elders can be arrested and executed or homes
can
be burned as though the village were  black . In  black  areas villagers
are
regularly tortured or killed on sight and villages are regularly
forcibly
relocated and burned.


"When the villagers don t obey them they enter the village, threaten the
villagers, steal their belongings and shoot their guns. That happened in
our
village 5 or 6 months ago. They fired carbines and G3 s [M1 carbine
rifles,
usually carried by officers, and G3 automatic assault rifles]. They didn
t
shoot any big weapons. Two of the bullets they fired came down through
the
roof of the church. When they were firing their guns some villagers were
afraid and said,  If you need us to do something for you, tell us and we
will
do it!  Some villagers fled to their farms and gardens. They said that
if we
didn t like them staying in their camp in Kler Lah they would shell the
village with large shells. They threatened us." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52),
xxxx
village (Interview #6, 9/98)


Whenever Burmese troops are attacked or otherwise suffer setbacks in the
 black  areas, they tend to retaliate in the easiest way possible: by
going
back to the  brown  villages and demanding cash compensation, arresting
elders, executing villagers, or burning houses. After suffering this for
years on end, having no control over it and seeing no end in sight, the
elders of many villages in the  brown  areas of Toungoo and some other
districts made their own informal agreements with local Burmese Army
commanders: they gave promises not to help the resistance forces in any
way,
to report on all movements and activities of the resistance forces and
to
fully and quickly comply with any and all orders of the Burmese Army,
and in
return they were given assurances that they would not be arrested, their
villagers would not be tortured or executed, their village would not be
forced to move and their homes would not be burned. Villages which have
made
such agreements are generally dubbed  Nyein Chan Yay  ( Peace ) villages
by
SPDC commanders. In Toungoo District this includes most of the villages
along
the road from Toungoo to Kaw Thay Der, such as Thit Say Taung, Kler Lah
(Baw
Ga Li Gyi), Ler Ko (Kyaut Pon) and Kaw Thay Der (Yay Tho Gyi).


"Recently, IB #48 went to the front line and some of them were shot.
Because
of this, when they came back they were very angry and threatened the
villagers. They beat the ducks and the chickens to death and then took
them
to eat. One soldier was shouting while beating the animals. He said,  I
am
going to do what I want to do to anyone who says anything to me.  Then
he
beat 4 ducks to death and asked the owner of the ducks,  What do you
want to
say to me?  The owner, Naw S---, answered that she wouldn t say
anything. She
was afraid." - "Saw Kaw Doh" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #16, 9/98)

"About one or two hundred soldiers from Infantry Battalion #48 arrived
on
September 10th from Taw Oo with 60 to 70 porters. Some of the porters
were
old and some were young. They carried ammunition, rice and other things
that
the military uses. The soldiers carried their rations and their guns.
They
stayed one night in the village. The soldiers tortured N---, a
22-year-old
unmarried boy, because they d been shot at. The Burmese Sergeant hit his
head
3 or 4 times and took his watch, a Seiko 5, then they tied his hands
behind
his back.   He robbed the villagers  things and then forced them to
leave. He
kept N--- tied under the house for half an hour and then demanded that
he
follow him to the Bu Ler Der road and to the betelnut gardens. They were
going to Bu Sah Kee village to send food to the operations commander.
After
keeping him tied up for a day and a night he forced him to go back. When
N---
came back to the village he said that the Burmese had tortured him." -
"Naw
Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)


Restrictions and Punishments

"[S]ometimes if battles have occurred in the hills of their area, they
don t
give permission to buy rice. They say that we are feeding the
resistance, so
the resistance is becoming stronger and shooting at them with guns. Now
they ve closed the path to carry rice [from Kler Lah], so it s not easy
for
those of us who stay in the hills to get food and we can t eat rice
regularly. Sometimes we eat rice once a day, and sometimes we don t even
have
enough rice to eat once a day." - "Saw Tee Muh" (M, 48), xxxx village
(Interview #3, 9/98)


In the past villages have been forced to relocate for any perceived
failure
to cooperate, or simply because they were close to the hills. A few
years ago
the villages of Zee Byu Gone, Sha Yi Bo, Taw Gu, Yay Sha and several
others
were forced to move to a site at Taw Ma Aye on the main north-south
road,
even though these villages were in SPDC-controlled territory on the edge
of
the Sittaung River valley. The people of these villages are still living
a
tenuous existence in the relocation sites.


"Sha Yi Bo, Zee Byu Gone, Taw Gu, Yay Sha and many villages around there
had
to go. All. They gathered us there and showed us the area where we had
to
live but they didn t give us food. We had to go back and work our old
fields,
but it was difficult and we couldn t get enough food to eat.   They gave
us a
pass for three days. Then we had to come back every three days to get
another
pass for another 3 days. But even during those 3 days, if their troop
patrols
saw you along their way they called you over and harassed you, so you
couldn t do your work." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village
(Interview #1, 2/99)

"Then they forced us to relocate from Zee Byu Gone, they forced us to go
and
live in Taw Ma Aye. We couldn t work in Taw Ma Aye, so we had to get
passes
to go back and work in Zee Byu Gone. Our children had no chance to go to
school because we didn t dare to leave them among the Burmese in Taw Ma
Aye
when we went to work in Zee Byu Gone, so we got passes for them as well
and
took them with us when we went to work. We had to go back and forth in
fear.
  I couldn t really work due to illness, but I had to work even if I was
groaning in pain because if you don t work you ll have nothing to eat. I
was
sick of working while I was ill. Even so, we could have survived if they
didn t disturb us, but then they forced us to move to Bah Yah Na Thee to
live
there. They forced us to move from place to place, and we had to keep
moving.
  There is no safe situation, it just gets worse and worse each day." -
"Naw
May Paw" (F, 46), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #2, 2/99)


The  Peace  villages are ordered to live under all kinds of restrictions
which make it difficult for many of the people there to tend their crops
and
earn a living. On the following page is a direct translation of a typed
and
signed SPDC order sent to several of them in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract
in
January 1998 [see the original Burmese copy on page 96; this order is
also
published as Order #T1 in "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A" (KHRG
#99-01,
10/2/99)]:

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