Full Text of Interviews #1-45

Some details have been omitted, blanked out or replaced by ‘xxxx’ for Internet distribution.

This document is an Annex to the Karen Human Rights Group report "Beyond All Endurance: The Breakup of Karen Villages in Southeastern Pa’an District" (KHRG #99-08, 20/12/99). It contains the full texts of Interviews #1-45 with villagers in and from the region, which are quoted and referenced in the above-mentioned report. These interviews were conducted by KHRG field researchers with villagers who have fled to Thailand to become refugees, villagers stranded in camps of internally displaced people in Burma because Thai authorities will not allow them to cross the border, and people in hiding around their home villages. The interviews included here were conducted between April and November 1999, and additional background was provided by incident reports gathered by KHRG researchers in the region and KHRG interviews conducted in the months preceding that period. Most of the interviews are with people in and from T’Nay Hsah, Myawaddy and Kawkareik townships of southeastern Pa’an District, though there are some interviews with people living slightly further north in Dta Greh, Hlaing Bwe and Lu Pleh townships, and one interview with a woman from far to the east in Mon State whose husband died as a porter in eastern Pa’an District. For a detailed description and analysis of the situation in the region see the main report. Photographs which relate to the situation described in this report can be seen in KHRG Photo Set 99-B (18/8/99). Order documents sent to villages by SPDC and DKBA units in the area can be seen in "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-B" (KHRG #99-03, 19/4/99) and "SPDC and DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 99-C" (KHRG #99-06, 4/8/99).  For a map of the region, refer to KHRG's map of Karen Districts, or for a more detailed map of Pa'an District, see KHRG's Pa'an Map.

Notes on the Text

All numeric dates in this report are in dd/mm/yy format. In the interviews we have translated as ‘paddy’ the term for rice which has been threshed and winnowed but still has a husk, and ‘rice’ to mean husked rice ready for cooking. It takes about 2 baskets of paddy to make 1 basket of rice; villagers usually store it as paddy and only pound or mill small quantities into rice at a time. 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. ‘Set tha’ is forced labour as messengers and ‘errand-boys’ for the soldiers. Villagers often refer to the KNU/KNLA as Kaw Thoo Lei, the DKBA as Ko Per Baw (‘Yellow Headbands’), and SPDC troops and officials as ‘the Burmese’. SPDC officers often accuse villagers of being ‘Nga Pway’ (‘ringworm’); this is derogatory SPDC slang for KNLA soldiers. Villagers’ exclamations such as ‘Pwah!’ and ‘Der!’ are transliterated in the text as they are pronounced. Where necessary for clarification, explanatory text has been added in italics in square brackets.

Contents

[click on any topic to go there, or view the report sequentially]

I.  Introduction

II.  Table of Contents

III.  Terms and Abbreviations

IV.  Index of Interviews and Field Reports

V.  Map 1: Karen Districts

VI.  Map 2: Pa'an District

VII.  Interviews

 

Terms and 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
Kaw Thoo Lei   The Karen homeland, also used as slang for KNU/KNLA
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
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
nga pway        ‘Ringworm’; derogatory SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA people
T’Bee Met       ‘Closed-eyes’; DKBA slang for KNU/KNLA people
set tha              Forced labour as messengers and errand-boys

Index of Interviews

This index summarises the interviews used in this report. The full text of the interviews follows this table. The interview numbers correspond to those used in the quote captions in the main report which goes with this Annex. All names of the interviewees have been changed. In the summaries below, village names are only included if the interviewee has already fled the region. FL = Forced Labour, FR = Forced Relocation, LM = Landmine.

Interviews

NAME:      "Saw Lay Mu"            SEX: M                AGE: 33                Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married, 2 sons aged 1 and 4
ADDRESS: xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                                 INTERVIEWED: 11/99

["Saw Lay Mu" was interviewed in hiding in his home area.]

Q: Do you know the unit number of the Burmese soldiers who came to your village?
A: There are 50 Burmese soldiers, but I don’t know their battalion number.

Q: What did they do when they came to your village?
A: They ate all the pigs and chickens and they took some paddy with them for their rations. They also gathered much of our paddy together in one place and burned it, and they laid landmines around the paddy which was left [in the fields] so that people couldn’t dare reap it to get food. [This occurred during the October/November 1999 harvest.]

Q: Where did they gather the paddy from to burn it?
A: It was not from the paddy storage barns, it was from the hill fields. The owners were harvesting it, and when they arrived the owners ran. Then they went and gathered it [the paddy they had already cut] in one place and burned it when they were about to leave. They gathered the paddy from P---’s hill field as well as some paddy from other villages and some sticky-rice; they gathered it from 6 hill fields and 4 flat fields, 10 fields altogether. The owners [of the fields] are Po Kway, Po Gyi, Tan Pya, Po Lu Kay, Po Tad, Po Ko, Kyat Han, Po K’Law, Po Ka Hser, Po Ket and Hsah Mu. Some of them lost 5 baskets of paddy, some lost 3 or 4 baskets. Then they laid landmines around there so the villagers wouldn’t dare go back. On the day when we went to check on things, one of us was wounded by a landmine. Altogether two people have stepped on landmines. So after that no one has gone back.

Q: Who was wounded?
A: Kyaw Htoo. He is 28 years old. I was also injured with him. He was wounded at T---, near Po Kyat Han’s farmfield hut, and then he was carried to L---. That morning he wanted to go and tend his hill field and he asked me to go with him and check the path. So I went and was checking [with a stick] along the way, but the landmines were buried beside the path. He was following me, he turned and stepped off the path and a landmine exploded. I turned and looked and saw him running without one foot, and I called to him, "Don’t run!"

Q: Does he have a family there?
A: His mother is already dead, but he has a wife and 2 children. They can’t do anything to live, they just stay like that.

Q: You said two people stepped on landmines, so who was the other?
A: The other person is Pa Klu, he is 17 years old and single. He stays there with his parents.

Q: When did they step on the landmines?
A: The first [Pa Klu] was wounded on the 7^th [of November]. I know because the Burmese left on the 6^th, and the next morning he went back and stepped on the landmine. The other [Kyaw Htoo and himself] was on the 12^th [of November], just a couple of days ago.

Q: Did you have a medic or any medicine there?
A: We have a medic but we don’t have any medicines, only Para [paracetamol]. Ah! If we’d had enough medicines, I don’t think those two would have died.

Q: How long did the Burmese soldiers stay around there?
A: They came on the 30^th and stayed for a week, then they left on the 6^th [of November].

Q: Why did they come to your village?
A: I heard from Pu B--- that they will come and set up a camp there and build a motor road, at Ta Doh Ghay Hta. They will make a road from Meh Pleh Toh to Kah Hta.

Q: How many people can’t go back to their fields?
A: There were 11 families making their living from those fields. They are from xxxx [his village] but they were working fields in the hills there, and they have farmfield huts there. They dare not go and work there again now.

Q: Did they lay any landmines right in the hill fields?
A: Yes, they did. I don’t know about other places [villages], but they laid them all around the areas nearby. After two people stepped on them people didn’t dare go back again. Now those people are staying in xxxx, but they think they won’t be able to stay and they can’t buy rice to eat, so maybe they will go to Beh Klaw [refugee camp in Thailand]. For now they are helping other people, they get a basket of paddy from their friends and survive like that.

Q: How many pigs and chickens have you lost to the soldiers?
A: They ate 7 of our pigs, and so many chickens that we can’t count them all - more than a hundred. Even if they are too young or too small they eat them all. When we went back [to the village] we didn’t see any chickens. When people heard that they were coming, the villagers pulled their pigs and tied them all in the same place, and then people thought that if we saw or heard that they were coming near they would pull their pigs with them. But then they arrived suddenly and no one had time to untie and pull along their pigs, so the Burmese wasted no time in finding them. They came, they beat them all to death and they ate them. There were Bu Tah’s 2 pigs, Tan Pya’s 3 pigs, and 2 pigs from my younger sister’s house.

There are so many chickens they’ve taken that we can’t tell about it all, because some families lost 10 baskets of chickens [hens together with their chicks] and some lost 8 baskets of chickens. Each house also had 2 or 3 cocks, and we couldn’t find any of them when we went back.

_____________________________

NAME:        "Naw Hsah Paw"          SEX: F             AGE: 47           Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:      Married with 2 sons and 2 daughters aged 4-18
ADDRESS:    xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                            INTERVIEWED: 11/99

["Naw Hsah Paw" was interviewed in hiding in her home area.]

Q: How many times have the Burmese soldiers come to your village?
A: Ah! How could I count that? This year they always come, but they just enter and go out again. Last year they set up their camp there and we had to carry water for them. Those troops were #116 [Battalion], and we had to carry water and find firewood for them until we were nearly dead. Their commander is Lah Thin, and the Battalion Commander is U Lat Aung. Their Division is from Mandalay, but I can’t remember which Division it is. Usually there are about 70 soldiers in their camp. The Battalion Commander who beats people a lot is A---. He beat the village head of T--- [village] named Pa M---, and we heard he also beat a longtail boat driver named S---, Saw A--- from Sghaw Ko, and K--- when he was carrying things by longtail boat, and many other people. He beat and abused a lot of villagers.

Q: Did Commander A--- do anything else?
A: Later he took all the porter fee money [for himself]. I would guess that all that money collected by all the [Army] groups would have been 700,000 Kyat during the 3 months that he was staying in the camp. For each month our village had to give 14,000 Kyat for each of 2 people [to not send 2 porters], so we gave them 70,000 Kyat in 3 months. He took the money from every village. Our village is only small, he demanded more from the bigger villages. From Ker Ghaw he collected for 6 people [porters] at 12,000 Kyat each, 6 people from Tee Wah Blaw, six from Tee Law Thay and six from Sghaw Ko tract, all at 12,000 each. He just took money, not people [he didn’t want the porters, it was just an excuse to demand money; in total, the 5 villages listed had to pay a total of 316,000 Kyat per month for ‘porter fees’ alone, not counting other fees]. There are other village tracts too, like Pah Klu tract, Loh Baw, Meh Pleh Wah and so on as far as Tee Wah Klay and Day Law Pya. He also beat people, and a lot of villagers from our village ran away.

Q: What did he say when he beat people?
A: He said that people didn’t listen to him when he asked for porters. He demanded porters [in addition to the fees] but how could you find them for him right away like that? He should specify a date and time for us. Not all the village heads arrived together [when called to supply porters], only Pa xxxx and Daw xxxx, so he beat Pa xxxx and he fell at the foot of the mango trees. Daw xxxx told him "Captain, don’t do that, he’s not a new Chairperson, he has been Village Chairperson for a long time. Why do you treat him like this?" And he shouted at her, "You don’t need to tell me, Mother!" Later he said to her, "I argued with you under the mango trees, Mother", and she said, "I can’t forget that because you were wrong, but we can’t do anything because we have no horns so you can do to us as you please".

Q: Did he ever capture people as porters?
A: Yes, they captured people a lot. Sometimes he demanded 10 people or 30 people from each village, took the money for that all for himself and then still called for loh ah pay. He demanded people as well as money. Sometimes when they were going to patrol to Meh Pleh and come back he took more than 10 villagers from our village.

Q: Did he ever eat the villagers’ chickens or pigs?
A: The village heads of all the village tracts had to kill a pig for him once every 4 days [by rotation]. That group never runs out of pork in their camp. When they were staying in the camp we had to send them 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb] of pork every 4 days.

Q: Did they ever try to rape women in your village?
A: Not in our village, but we heard that Battalion #120 from Moh Ta Ma near Moulmein came and raped women in Taw Oak. Those troops shit into people’s mortars [for pounding paddy] and cookpots. There were a lot of people who had to face this in Pah Klu; the married women there said that you dared not open your cookpots because they were full of shit, and so were their [rice container] tins.

Q: Do you know the name of their commander?
A: I don’t know because they didn’t stay in our village, they just came and stayed one night and I said to him, "Son, don’t shit in our mortars." He asked me, "Where did you hear that?" and I told him, "I heard from Meh Pleh that you shat in their mortars." A lot of Meh Pleh villagers ran to escape, and Naw P--- told me "When they are drunk they come into your house with no shirts or pants on, and my husband was running around and my children were crying loudly". People wanted to go and report all this to the Division, but the Meh Pleh camp commander wouldn’t allow it.

Q: Is it just their ordinary soldiers who do these things?
A: Both their leaders and their private soldiers do it, because their leaders are no good and it is like rain dripping down from the roof of the house [the example of the officers trickles down to the men]. People say "When the head goes, the tail is pulled along" [a Karen proverb]. I told them we would go to their battalion base at Moh Ta Ma to do our own shit, and I told them, "You have very rude habits! You should know a toilet, can’t you tell a toilet from a mortar or a cookpot?" He said, "Mother, who told you this?" I told him I heard it when I was in Meh Pleh, and all the married women in Pah Klu were also talking about it. They did it in Pah Klu just for spite.

Q: Do they do things like that in your village?
A: They don’t do stupid things like that in our village because we dare to stand up to them. Whether it’s the right time or not we tell them straight, and we go to meet them before they do stupid things so they can’t do it.

Q: Did any of the troops ever make you build roads or other things?
A: U xxxx [#xxx Battalion] ordered us to build a motor road between Ker Ghaw and Kwih Lay, but the headwoman told him, "I won’t walk on this road so I don’t want to do it, because we would need petrol to use it. If you want to use it, come and build it yourself", and they came and built it themselves. Some villagers had do work for them clearing the road and cutting the scrub.

Q: When the villagers were working for them did they provide food?"
A: Aye!! When we were building their camp we had to take our own food, our own rice and our own water. They forced us to work and we had no time to rest.
Her husband: Each day someone has to go for set tha [messenger labour] and has to sleep there. We had to build a small hut and sleep alone there.
A: Yes, men have to sleep there in the camp.

Q: Do you want to talk about any other problems in your village?
A: I couldn’t tell about all the torture we have suffered since the [SPDC] camp was set up and the Ko Per Baw was founded. At first people said that if the Ko Per Baw arrived in the village there would be no more taxes, so we hoped they would come. Oh my Lord! All of our cows and bullocks were already gone. When the Burmese enter the village they are like the wildcats who clap their hands while the forest is burning [because it flushes out the prey]. If they want a handspan, they demand an armspan. So I told them, "Der! Son, when I was staying down in the town, each Battalion and Division that was going to go up patrolling at the frontline was given fees to pay porters and rations for porters. But now you come and demand it all from us, so how can we survive because we don’t even have enough for ourselves?" Then he said "What can I tell you, Mother?" Even if we don’t have enough food for ourselves, if they demand food we have to give it to them and we can’t do anything.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw help at all?
A: They can’t do anything, and if we ask them they say, "Our footprints are not as big as theirs and we don’t dare rebuke them strongly for that". So they just deal with them gently and softly.

Q: How do the Ko Per Baw treat the villagers?
A: They don’t beat us, and if they get angry and scold us we dare to talk back to them, because they are our own nationality, whether they are big shots or small fry. But before we had [DKBA commander] Moe Kyo, and he was more rude than all the others. When he was staying in the village he burned down our stocks of straw, and he laid landmines and our villagers had their legs blown off. Po Hla Paw lost his leg to one of Moe Kyo’s mines, and Saw Kho stepped on one but his leg was not blown off. He didn’t dare beat our villagers, but we heard that he beat people in other villages.
Her husband: In Ker Ghaw, when he gave an order he wanted people to come at once, and if they didn’t arrive at once he fired a machine gun.
A: Der! The houses were full of holes.
Her husband: So people didn’t dare stay, some fled the village and fled up and down.

Q: Where is Moe Kyo now?
A: People told me that he stepped on a landmine at Paw Mo Baw, and some said that he died but others say not yet. I was very happy when I heard that he was dead, but when some people said that he is alive and they saw him I thought, "Ah ah!! My Lord, if he is still alive what will we do?" Our village is small, but he demanded porters. He said, "My son’s mother-in-law, I don’t ask much of you but it is emergency loh ah pay, so give me 15 people." And after we gave them to him, some have been gone for months and years [died as porters] so we can’t do anything. How can we replace them when they are all we have?

_________________________________

NAME:       "Saw Tha Wah"          SEX: M           AGE: 32           Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married, 5 children aged 10-15
ADDRESS:   xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                         INTERVIEWED: 11/99

["Saw Tha Wah" was interviewed in hiding in his home area.]

Q: How many times have the Burmese arrived in your village this year?
A: This year they’ve arrived nearly 10 times. When they come they don’t chase our things, but they ask for pigs and chickens and every time they eat our chickens, and one pig each time. They also took a chicken that Naw T--- was keeping for aw kheh [offerings to spirits].

In the month of October their commander’s name was Captain H---, and the troops were from #207 [Battalion]. They came and said that they will behave peacefully. They came and said that they will gather all the villagers together and do good things. They said that we must not stay in the forest, that we must all come back and stay together in the village and then they wouldn’t beat or torture us. Then after the villagers came back to stay together in the village, they gathered 30 villagers and forced them onto a truck, and forced them to go with them back to the Moei River [as porters to the Thai border]. All of them were from our village. One of them died by stepping on a landmine, not on the way but on the way back. He died when he ran to escape at Thay K’Yah.

They forced us to labour continuously, as guides and also as porters. Even if we had no money we still had to give money, and sometimes we had to give both money and pigs. The last time they arrived they demanded porters but we didn’t dare give them any people, so we gave them 30,000 Kyat in cash instead. That group was #77 [Division]. It was during October.

Q: When they demand people as porters and people can’t go, how much money do you have to give for each person?
A: It is 500 Kyat per person per day, and each person has to go [or pay] for 5 days. If we give them the money for the whole month, it is 15,000 Kyat just for porters [to avoid portering from the whole village]. Every unit that has arrived in the village has demanded that.

___________________________

NAME:      "Pati Lay Wah"            SEX: M           AGE: 47            Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married, 2 children aged 4 and 8
ADDRESS: xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                          INTERVIEWED: 11/99

["Pati Lay Wah" was interviewed in hiding in his home area.]

Q: How many times have the Burmese arrived around here?
A: The Burmese have arrived here three times already this year. They came looking for people who are staying outside the village. When they arrived in the village they ate a pig, the village secretary’s pig. They also stole people’s cookpots and chickens. They stole 2 aw kheh pots [special fancy pots for making offerings to spirits] from Po Ngan’s house, a cookpot from Po Aung Toh, and they stole a saw and two cats from Po Pee Lay. Then they demanded chickens, and if people didn’t give them they threatened them with guns.

Q: Which troops are these?
A: Their number is [Battalion] #207, and their Company Commander is T---. There were 80 soldiers, 100 altogether including the Ko Per Baw with them. The Burmese Company #x Commander is Captain xxxx, and the Ko Per Baw commander is Saw Y---. One of Captain xxxx’s soldiers with 3 chevrons [a Sergeant] from the Artillery group looted 3,000 [Kyat] in cash from K---. He didn’t ask for it; when she wasn’t in her house because she had gone to carry water, he took it from her bag. Then she asked the village head to go and ask for her money back, and he went to ask and got it back. They didn’t punish him at all after he gave that money back.

Q: What about the latest group who arrived on November 16^th?
A: They were not the same, they were from #77 [Division]. Their commander is Bo K---. There were 28 soldiers and 2 Ko Per Baw with them. They just came quietly and didn’t catch any porters. They just asked, "Do you have any Nga Pway [‘ringworms’, derogatory SPDC slang for KNLA] around here, and do they ever pass through here?" People told them, "Sometimes every 10 days, sometimes every 2 or 3 days". Then they only stayed one night and went back, and they only asked for 5 milk-tins [just over 1 kg] of rice.

Q: Did the troops who came before them look for porters?
A: The troops who came before gathered the villagers and told them, "You don’t need to go and stay elsewhere, we won’t capture porters so come back and stay in your houses. Even if you are now staying in other villages, come back and stay here again." Then they couldn’t demand any porters, so he [the officer] told me to guide them. On the way they met with another villager and they called him and made him be a guide as well. His name is Saw L---, he is 30 years old from xxxx. When they arrived at L---, he [the officer] said, "That’s not right, I told you to go that way but you have taken us a different way!" So they beat me once there, and he hit the other guide with his pistol and punched him 5 times.

Q: Who is this officer?
A: I know him, his name is T--- and he is Company Commander. He released us when they got to S---.

___________________________

NAME:      "Saw Than"         SEX: M            AGE: 43             Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married, two daughters aged 3 and 5, one son aged 1
ADDRESS:   xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                   INTERVIEWED: 11/99

["Saw Than" was interviewed in hiding in his home area.]

Q: How many times have the Burmese troops come here?
A: Since rainy season, the first group that came was #118 [Battalion], then #120 [Battalion]. After #120 had been there for 2 or 3 days, #118 went back [to their base]. The troops from #118 didn’t do anything when they came, but the troops from #120 demanded and ate people’s pigs and chickens. If they couldn’t get it by asking, they pointed guns at people and people were very afraid. So some people fled to other places. Ah! You can’t count the chickens, goats and pigs which they have eaten. In xxxx village they have eaten 50 or 60 goats and 40 or 50 pigs, but not really big ones - most of them weigh 7 or 8 viss [12 kg / 26 lb], or 10 viss. #120 [Battalion] also started to trade in logs and trees.

Q: How many soldiers are there?
A: #118 had more than 100 soldiers, nearly 200. #120 has 60 or 70 soldiers. One of their leaders is Captain Toe Aung. The #120 troops killed a villager named Du Lay Loh. They didn’t tell anyone when they captured him, and then they killed him the same day. Later people found his body in a hole and buried him. They didn’t tell any of the village elders why they killed him.

Q: Do you know other villagers who have faced them?
A: I know that they beat the driver of a longtail boat when they saw him at Ker Ghaw. His name is L---. He was beaten by Captain Toe Aung.

Q: Did they do other things?
A: They came and demanded people’s belongings and threatened people, and the married women are all afraid of them. If they can’t get things by asking then they point guns at people, so people are afraid of them and some people have gone to stay in their farmfield huts, while others have gone away. There was also one Auntie whom they didn’t like, so they ordered her to go to Ker Ghaw, and when she arrived there the Ko Per Baw arrested her, hit her once or twice and sent her to Ko Ko. She said that they beat her along the way, and her whole face was swollen. Later her brother-in-law and a monk went to give them gifts and they released her.

Q: Do people dare to face the Burmese when they come?
A: Most people do not stay in the village when they are coming. Most people have already left the village. More than a hundred people fled to Beh Klaw [refugee camp in Thailand]. People were leaving day after day. They started leaving in July and August. First they went to stay in their farmfield huts, then they went on further.

Q: Don’t the Burmese know that they are leaving like this?
A: Some of the Burmese know, but those Burmese didn’t say anything when people were leaving because if they stopped them then they wouldn’t be able to steal the villagers’ things so freely [once the people leave the soldiers can easily loot their homes and livestock]. They saw people carrying rice and charcoal to their farmfield huts but didn’t say anything about it.

Q: When did the #120 troops go back?
A: They went back [to base] at the end of September after staying in the village for a month.

___________________________

NAME:      "Taw Lay"          SEX: M                 AGE: 41             Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 3 children aged 5-14
ADDRESS:   Kwih Lay village, T’Nay Hsah township                  INTERVIEWED: 9/99

[When interviewed at the end of September 1999, "Taw Lay" had fled his village to the Thai border but could not cross because Thai troops were not allowing new arrivals, so he was living with a group of displaced people on the Burma side of the border.]

Q: When did you arrive here at xxxx? [the camp of internally displaced people on the Burma side of the border with Thailand]
A: I arrived here at least three weeks ago, before 9-9-99, but I can’t remember exactly.

Q: What happened in your village that persuaded you to flee here?
A: The Burmese Army came to our village and said they were going to force us to Ker Ghaw. They did not give us a deadline to move, but it looked like we would have to start moving by the next morning. On that night my family left our village. We did not want to go to Ker Ghaw because the Burmese told us our village was small [i.e. remote] so we couldn’t go for forced labour every month. They wanted our whole village to stay in Ker Ghaw to be closer to their camp.

Q: Which Battalion came to the village and told you they would drive you to Ker Ghaw?
A: Light Infantry Battalion #207, more than 100 soldiers. They were a new group that came to the camp, and they patrol like a mobile column. Usually Battalion #118 stays in the camp, but this one came from the lowlands.

Q: What happened to the other families in the village?
A: When I left the village in the evening the whole village hadn’t moved yet, but the next morning the whole village was planning to move. There were 51 families in the village. After the Burmese told them to move, the village heads talked to them and I heard that the villagers came back to the village. I don’t know the situation there now, but I heard that the Burmese have talked to the village head, M---.

Q: Which villages do they plan to relocate, and where will they move to?
A: In the beginning they told us that Kwih Lay, Pah Klu, and Taw Oak will move to Ker Ghaw, and the other villages of Thay K’Dtee, Thu Kee and Loh Baw would move to Tee Wah Blaw. I heard that they will move them so that they can guard them, and they will order the villagers to reap the paddy and give it all to them. But they have not moved yet. I am not sure, but I heard that people came back and stay in Kwih Lay again because the village head and the monks discussed it with the Burmese.

Q: What will the villagers do who do not want to relocate to Ker Ghaw?
A: Der! They told us that they will move all of us and that the people who do not want to go will be forced. They said that our village is too small to be able to afford porters and forced labour like big villages. Before they moved us, though, a battle occurred between Ker Ghaw and Kwih Lay. They forced villagers to carry their injured, then they detained them and kept them one night in the cell. They collected some villagers from Ker Ghaw, and five villagers from Kwih Lay had to carry. Their names are M---, who is around 20 years old, K--- who is around 30 years old, A--- who is 20, M--- who is 20, and P--- who is around 40. There were 6 Burmese soldiers who were wounded and 4 who died.

Q: Did the Burmese ever enter your village before?
A: Yes, the Army stayed in Ker Ghaw and came to our village sometimes. Usually when they entered the village they were looking for the village head to demand villagers for loh ah pay and portering. Sometimes they demanded porters for one month, sometimes for 5 days and sometimes for 1 week. Then the village head had to arrange for the porters. They usually gathered 3-5 people from our small village and if they demand 3 people for a week, 3 people have to go. The villagers went to porter because we dared not disobey. If you did not go you had to pay money: 2,500 Kyat for 5 days, or 500 Kyat per day. I had to porter 4 times already during this rainy season when people started working in the fields, and I also had to pay money when I could not go.

Q: What did you have to do when you went to porter?
A: One time the Burmese were going from Ker Ghaw to Pah Klu and I had to carry bullets, shells, and rations for them. They forced us to carry 5 shells each, and they weigh more than 10 viss [16 kg/35 lb]. I carried it because I was afraid. There were 3 of us from Kwih Lay and around 40-50 villagers from Thay K’Dtee, Toh Thu Kee, and Ker Ghaw. We had to walk two days and sleep at Pah Klu for the whole month [they had to make repeated 2-day trips throughout the month and stay at the Pah Klu Army Camp]. We had to carry our own food, but it was not enough food for me. They fed us only one bowl of rice mixed with yellow beans, which smelled very bad because they boiled it in plastic overnight. They never let us rest while we carried, and sometimes they beat the porters. One time in Pah Klu I saw them do this to one of the porters whom I knew from T--- village, named Maung A---. He dared not cross the river with his load, so the soldiers kicked him and he fell into the river. When he came back to the bank of the river on the side where the soldiers were, they kicked him again. They were from LIB #120 under Column Commander Than Aung and Company Commander Saw Toe Aung.

Q: What were the living conditions like for the porters at Pah Klu?
A: We slept under the school building at Pah Klu and they guarded us during the night. If we got sick, they didn’t care for us. The village head arranged for us to porter in turns, so when your time was up people took your place. That is why no one died on that trip.

Q: Who had to go for loh ah pay in your village?
A: If the village is small they collect more than 10 people for loh ah pay, but if it is a big village they collect about 30 people. The village head calls for one person from each house. In our village the women have to go too. My wife had to carry water for the soldiers when they needed it. Even children as young as 7 had to carry water and small things over the short distance between Kwih Lay and Ker Ghaw. They made people as old as 50, with grey hair, porter too. All of us had to carry their loads of rice, milk, pepper, salt, and other food to Meh Pleh. Sometimes we would go for the day, but sometimes we couldn’t come back in one day so we had to sleep there also. We also had to bring our own food because they didn’t feed us enough. The soldiers forced us to build their camp, dig their bunkers, and make fences.

Q: How many days did you usually have to go for loh ah pay?
A: When we arrived we worked until midday, then we took a rest and started to work again in the afternoon. If they demanded us for 5 days, we had to sleep there at their camp in Ker Ghaw.

Q: Did the soldiers ever loot your livestock when they entered the village?
A: Yes. I was with them when they entered Pah Klu village, and their Company Commander Saw Toe Aung and his column ate a lot of pigs, goats, and chickens. The Privates chased down and shot about 30 pigs to eat, and to dry the meat so they could carry it later. They didn’t pay for it, they just ate it.

Q: Did they ever eat your livestock?
A: Yes, they looted in my village also. They caught my chickens and ate one of my pigs that weighed over 10 viss [16 kg/35 lb]. They asked me for a pig, but I said "I have only one pig, so I can’t give it to you". Then they said that they had arrived without anything to eat, so he shot it and they ate it. The village head, T---, went and complained to them, but they did not give us money for that.

Q: Which Battalion was it that shot your pig?
A: I know they are LIB #207. They slept in our village.

Q: Do the soldiers ever try to sleep with women in the village?
A: Yes, in xxxx the village headwoman named xxxx always has to go and sleep with Saw Toe Aung. She is about 50 years old.

Q: Do they have sex?
A: Der! They would have sex because she has to go and sleep with him in his bed and there are just the two of them that sleep in the same place. If he calls her to sleep with him, she always has to go.

Q: Have any villagers been killed by the Burmese?
A: At the time when they entered Pah Klu while I was with them as a porter, I heard that they killed a villager from Pah Klu named Du Lay Loh. People said that he was angry because he found out that they had raped his wife, who is mute. The Burmese called him outside and killed him. He was maybe 40 years old. His wife’s name is Naw Mu Ga and she has no children. They didn’t compensate her for his death; they did nothing and gave her nothing.

Q: When you worked the wet paddy field in your village, was it enough for you?
A: When I was working my wet paddy field we could plant 4 baskets of paddy, so if we had a good rainy season we got 200 baskets of paddy and it was enough. We had to give to the Burmese when they entered the village if they demanded rice. If they arrived and their food was gone, they demanded food from the villagers and we had to give it.

Q: Do you have a quota that you have to give to them every year?
A: This year they announced that the government will gather all the paddy that we get from the fields, and then we have to go and buy it from the government. According to them, Pah Klu and Kwih Lay are ruled by them so they have the power to do this. For example, if the villagers would sell each other a basket of rice for 500 Kyat, we will have to buy it from them for 250 Kyat [i.e. the SPDC will force them to pay half of market price to get their own rice back].

Q: Do you have to pay other fees for loh ah pay or for portering?
A: For loh ah pay and portering they demand 2 villagers from each village or 20,000 Kyat per month [in addition to other forced labour demands]. This is every month, and if you don’t send the money you have to go yourself. Usually people from our village and Thay K’Dtee give money because people dare not go, but we know villagers in Kwih Lay who went because they didn’t have money to give. You had to stay at their camp and carry their baskets and loads by their side.

Q: Are there any landmines around your village?
A: In Taw Oak the DKBA set up a lot of landmines at the top of the village and beside the bank of the river. Just 2 months ago 2 women stepped on landmines when they were going fishing. One of them named Nga Bla Ree died; she was about 30 years old. The other one lost her leg; her name is Y--- and she is over 30. She still stays in the village. Her brother came here and said that they didn’t take the pieces of shell out of her leg, and no one sent her anywhere.

Q: Why did they set up landmines near the village?
A: I don’t know what their aim is and I can’t guess.

Q: Did many villagers flee the village and come with you here?
A: Before I came here I heard a lot of villagers discussing coming here. At the time when I fled and came here I came with one family from Pah Klu. Now they are staying on the other side of the Moei River [in Thailand], and they earn money by hiring themselves out for daily work.

Q: What are your main reasons for fleeing?
A: They have guns but we do not have guns, so we cannot defeat them. They have guns so they forced us to work whether we wanted to or not. Even if we didn’t want to leave we had to leave, because we couldn’t tolerate it anymore. I am very upset. We are farmers and we work in our paddy fields; if we were allowed to we would only work in our fields.

Q: Would you like to go a refugee camp?
A: I will go. First we thought that we would go to the camp, but we heard that the Thais do not allow people to go to the camp, so we would have to stay here. We stayed like this for a while and some westerners came and took our photos and then sent us a one month ration.

Q: Would you like to go back to your village?
A: Yes, I will go back if we have peace there, but now I can’t go back and I dare not.

________________________

NAME:       "Saw Ghay"               SEX: M                  AGE: 36             Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:     Widower with 3 children aged 14-17
ADDRESS:   Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township                       INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Saw Ghay" fled to Thailand in 1997 and stayed in a Karen village right on the border, but was forcibly repatriated by Thai troops in September 1999 and is now staying with a group of internally displaced people just on the Burma side of the border.]

Q: How long have you been around here?
A: I have stayed around here for 2 years since I left my village.

Q: Why did you have to flee your village and go to stay at xxxx [a Karen village on the Thai side of the border]?
A: We dared not stay there because the Burmese made us do forced labour, and if we couldn’t do it they kicked and beat and tortured us. Then they forced us to porter so that some people stepped on landmines and died. They forced the people who couldn’t carry to keep carrying, and if they ran to escape they were shot dead. Also they collected a lot, and even if you are poor and have no food you have to give money to them. If you didn’t give it they would abuse and torture you in many different ways. So we dared not stay and fled here.

Q: So now you are staying at xxxx?
A: Now I still stay at xxxx, but just a few days ago people forced us to move back to this side [Burma side of the border]. Last month some Thai villagers who are friendly with us came and invited us to work in their fields for hire. So we went to the other side to work, but we come back and sleep here.

Q: Who forced you to move?
A: The [Thai] police. They came just a few days ago and told us, "You can’t stay here anymore and you have to go back and stay there." They forced us to move within one day, so people separated into groups and ran. We stayed on the bank of the river until our Karen leaders here told us to come back and build our huts here, and they took care of us.

Q: Are there more people from your village here?
A: We don’t have new arrivals from my village because they have all gone to Beh Klaw [refugee] camp already. They dared not stay and face all of the demands and torture, so they fled here, too. Some villagers still stay there because they are working on their paddy fields and can’t leave. But after they finish working more villagers will flee here.

Q: Did the Burmese have a camp in your village?
A: They didn’t set up a camp in the village, but they have their camp on the hill at Boh Tan Kee, about one furlong [200 yards] from the village. They enter the village once a week to demand the villagers’ livestock. They come to eat the cattle and buffalos, and they do not pay.

Q: How did they torture people in your village?
A: I saw many people who were killed, and they cut some people’s ears while they interrogated them. They slit the ears of this man from Taw Oak named P---. When I met him they had beaten and tortured him until his shit fell down his pants. They cut his ears with a knife. They captured him while he was sleeping in his house in the village. When people were sleeping at night time, the Burmese came out of the forest and captured people. So they called down all the people and touched them with their guns, and people were afraid and followed them. They beat and kicked and tortured the people who they thought were strange until their urine and shit came down.

Q: Were you ever beaten by them?
A: They didn’t beat me, but I had to porter for them to Tee Hsah Ra. It was last summer in Water Festival month [April 1999], when we had gone back home. I started to carry at Taw Oak because I went to sleep there. I was staying with my daughter, and my youngest daughter was sick that night. Then they came out of the forest, they entered the village in the night and the dogs didn’t even bark at them. They arrived and fired their guns for a while. He captured me and touched me with his gun. He wouldn’t even let me urinate, he ordered me to go so I had to go. Some people who could run to escape didn’t need to go, but the people who they captured in the group all had to go. If you had 2 or 3 people in your family, they all had to go. They beat and kicked the people they captured before us. Then they went to Tee Hsah Ra, and they forced us to send them there. They forced me to go and carry bullets and shells for them. I had to carry a big 3A gun, the long kind. It must have weighed 30 viss [48 kg/105 lb], because I had to carry it but I couldn’t even lift it over onto my other shoulder. They fed us rice and we ate it with pounded chillie paste, while the soldiers cooked [meat] curries for themselves and ate them together. But all the porters had to eat was pounded chillie paste. They forced us to go between them and they walked in front of us. They guarded us at the place where we slept because they worried that the porters would run to escape. We couldn’t dare run to escape because they were sleeping around us.

Then they released us, but we were afraid to go back because they had set up a lot of landmines on the way, so we had to follow the way that we had come. We asked some villagers who work in their hill fields to show us step by step. We went back to sleep in Tee Hsah Ra for one night, and then we came back here.

Q: Did anyone die while portering?
A: They killed many people on the way when they came up here last year, but I don’t know their names. I didn’t see it, but there is still a bad smell along the whole way. I heard it from my nephew who escaped from portering and now stays in Tee Hsah Ra; his name is L--- and he is 20 years old. They killed both Burmese and Karen that time, including villagers from Tee Hsah Ra, Meh Pleh, and Kway Sha.

Q: Are you afraid to stay here?
A: Right now we dare to stay here, but if people send us to the refugee camp we will go. If the Burmese come and shoot at us, we’ll have to run to the other side of the river, and when the dry season arrives [in November/December] we dare not stay here because we will be afraid of the Burmese again. [The troops are less mobile in the rainy season.]

_________________________

NAME:     "Pu Tamla"             SEX: M            AGE: 60+                  Karen Animist farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 5 children aged 20-30, one already died
ADDRESS:  Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township                       INTERVIEWED: 9/99

[When interviewed at the end of September 1999, "Pu Tamla" had fled his village to the Thai border but could not cross because Thai troops were not allowing new arrivals, so he was living with a group of displaced people on the Burma side of the border.]

Q: How old are you?
A: Almost all my hair is grey, and I can’t tell you exactly but I think nearly 100 years old. How about you look at me and guess how old I should be? Maybe I am around 90. You can tell I am 95 years old.

Q: When did you come to stay here?
A: I came here in July, over 2 months ago, and stayed at xxxx. All of my family came here. My family and B---’s family and C---’s family came at the same time.

Q: Why did you leave your village?
A: Because the Burmese tortured and oppressed us. My daughter and grandchild stepped on landmines and died, so we dared not stay. If we had stayed longer, all of them would die because they tortured us a lot. My daughter stepped on a Ko Per Baw [DKBA] landmine and died 2 rainy seasons ago. She was 20 years old, and her name was Naw Sher Pa. They set up landmines at Kwih Baw Nee, not so far away, about one hour’s walk. They set them along the villagers’ path to trap their enemies. She died on the path and we went to see her. She had gone with her friend and her older sister, but her sister just got a wound on her leg under her knee. My daughter and my two-month-old grandson and a guest from Tee Hsah Ra village died right away. The guest was named Naw Shu, and she was around 50. They were coming back to the village at the time. It was at the time when the Burmese came to attack this side [to attack the KNLA east of the Dawna Mountains, near the Thai border] that my daughter was killed by a landmine.

Q: Was your daughter married?
A: She had a husband and two children. The other child stays with me now, and her husband comes back and looks after it sometimes.

Q: What happened to your elder daughter who was injured?
A: The Ko Per Baw [DKBA] did not look after her, so people from here sent her to the hospital. They cut off her leg under her calf. She can walk now because people made a foot for her. She stays at someone’s house on the Thai side, and she married someone in Thailand. I don’t know if he is Thai, where he is from, or what his name is.

Q: When this happened, were you staying in the village?
A: We dared not stay because the Burmese oppressed us, so we were working and surviving in the jungle. When the Burmese attacked our place and came with guns to abuse us, I moved to the jungle. I stayed in my hill field hut, about 5 furlongs [1 km] from my village. We always had to go to find food in our village. We went back to find tobacco, betel leaf, and vegetables.

Q: Have you known of any villagers that the Burmese have killed?
A: Yes, in Pah Klu. They shot one villager dead under his house, but I can’t remember his name. It was 3 years ago. In May [1999] they killed one villager named Saw Eh Kway. They met him on the road and captured and killed him. He stayed at Taw Oak and was 25 years old. They thought that he was a soldier, but it was not true, he was really a villager but just a bit abnormal [mentally handicapped]. The Ko Per Baw [DKBA] killed him when they saw him along their way.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] stay in the village?
A: Yes, they cooperate with the Burmese. They abuse the villagers, and people fear them when they make threats against people. They capture the villagers and torture and beat them, and the villagers can’t tolerate it so they leave the village. They demand people to carry things. The Ko Per Baw [DKBA] force villagers to go portering, to carry paddy and rice for them. They had to carry to Kler Baw Kloh [site of the DKBA camp] from Taw Oak. They demanded 4 or 5 people, and sometimes 10 or 15 people, every month. They accuse the villagers of portering for Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA] whenever Kaw Thoo Lei demands it, but not for them - so the Ko Per Baw say that the villagers must be Kaw Thoo Lei themselves.

Q: If you didn’t go, could you give money?
A: Yes, villagers have to give money if they can’t go. Some who dare not go have to hire others for 300 Kyat a day. People carry each day and go and sleep there at night. In the next morning they come back to the village.

Q: What if people are too sick to go but also have no money?
A: Der! If they have no money they have to go in person. They beat the people who don’t go and then they charge them money. But if they are not well, the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] can’t do anything about that. Sometimes they forgive you and sometimes they don’t.

Q: Do you also have people who go for portering?
A: Yes, loh ah pay is just one day of carrying rice, and if you go for 7 days it is portering, and then you are replaced. For 7 or more days you pay 1,500 Kyat [if you don’t go], and they collect 10 or 15 porters. They take more money depending on the quality of your house.

Q: When you stayed in the jungle, did the Burmese or Ko Per Baw [DKBA] ever arrive at your place?
A: Yes, the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] arrived one time and touched us with guns. The Burmese were also involved. When they arrived at the hut, they pointed their guns and ordered us, "Don’t run away." We dared not run because they were close to us. Then they said, "Have you seen T’Bee Met?" ["Closed-eyes", DKBA term for Karen soldiers] I said I hadn’t seen them. They started to frighten me and said that the day before they had passed through our area. I told them that they hadn’t come, but they continued, "Uncle, tell the truth. If you do not tell the truth you will face many problems." So I told them the truth that they had not come, and then they pulled me down toward the path, and when we arrived on the path they asked me again, "Do they [KNLA] come often?" I told them, "We haven’t seen them", but we were lying to them because some people from here were our friends and sometimes they did come. They told me again, "Tell the truth", and they kicked me one time on my back and slapped my face twice. I fell down into a gully. We said, "They do not come often. Sometimes once a month or once a week." Then they didn’t beat me anymore, and they released me and told me to go up to the house.

Q: Do you know the name of the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] who beat you?
A: Yes, I know him. His name is K--- from Ker Ghaw. He is a commander and has 3 chevrons [sergeant]. He came with ten people, but I don’t know what [battalion] number they were. Three Burmese soldiers came with them, but the Burmese didn’t do anything, they just pointed at me with their guns. They didn’t beat my family, just me because I am the head of the family. They shot and killed one of my hens. They burned down the hut of B--- where soldiers sometimes stay, then W---’s hut because it was a soldier’s hut. We were staying with Karen soldiers, but I was staying far away from that hut.

Q: Do you know what the plans of the Burmese are?
A: I have not heard about it because they didn’t tell us, but now they are coming up more and more to trade their logs.

Q: Did you have many problems on the way here?

A: We couldn’t carry all of our things, and we had to sleep on the path with the children and babies. I slept one night on the way, and we came with soldiers. Karen soldiers brought us.

Q: Now how do you get rice?
A: People provided rice for us, so we eat it. We also hired ourselves out to earn 100 Baht to buy one big tin of rice.

__________________________

NAME:       "Naw Paw Htoo"           SEX: F            AGE: 27             Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 1 child aged 6
ADDRESS:   Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township                         INTERVIEWED: 9/99

[When interviewed at the end of September 1999, "Naw Paw Htoo" had fled her village to the Thai border but could not cross because Thai troops were not allowing new arrivals, so she was living with a group of displaced people on the Burma side of the border.]

Q: Can you tell me why you came here?
A: Because when we were staying there we couldn’t meet their demands, and also it was difficult for us to get enough food. We fled here to hire ourselves out and to stay with our parents.

Q: Do you have any relatives still staying in Taw Oak?
A: One of my aunts was still staying in Taw Oak, but she went down to stay at xxxx. She wants to come but she can’t because her mother’s legs are in pain and the Burmese shot and killed her husband. My aunt has 3 children and when we fled here she said that they will come, but they have not come yet.

Q: Why did the Burmese kill her husband?
A: He went into the forest to find some vegetables to eat, but he didn’t know that the Burmese [LIB 331] were staying along the path waiting for them, so he went down to enter the village and when the Burmese saw him and his friend, they shot the two of them dead. My uncle’s name was Per Ta Lu and he was 32 years old. His friend was Pa Mu Dah, who was only 15 years old.

Q: How did you know that they had shot them?
A: We knew it because they came carrying their bodies in blankets and bags. They said that they made a mistake by shooting them, but they were dead already, and these dead people were villagers. They were carrying vegetables when the soldiers shot them dead. They did not accuse anyone of anything because they had not shot Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA], they had shot villagers.

Q: What type of things did the Burmese demand from you in the village?
A: Ah hoi! They came and looted money from us. The Burmese collected money for their nation and after that they ate it. They collect fees for portering, loh ah pay, and other charges. Our village is small with only 30 houses, so they collect over 20,000 Kyat per month, but that is only enough for porters’ fees so they charge for other things too, like loh ah pay. It is a lot. They come and collect it once a month, usually 25,000 Kyat.

Q: Do you have a village head in Taw Oak?
A: Before we had one, but now I think that the village head ran away already. The village head always changes once a year. The villagers elected xxxx.

Q: How many people did they collect for loh ah pay, and what did people usually have to do?
A: For loh ah pay they demanded people once a week, sometimes for 5 or 6 days at a time. Sometimes it was 5 or 10 villagers who had to go at a time, then others would replace them. If they [the soldiers] were staying nearby and if there were many of them, it was once a week, but if they went back [to their main bases] it got better. They have camps at Meh Pleh and Kway Sha and come up to stay in our village sometimes. They are Battalion #331, there could be 300-500 soldiers because when they came there were so many in the village and outside the village, too.

Q: Did they collect fees if people couldn’t go for loh ah pay?
A: Der! All of the villagers have to give, and the people who can’t give have to sell their rice and paddy to give money to them. Each family has to hire someone for 1,000 Kyat or more per time; some families have to give 2,000 Kyat. They don’t care about young or old people; young and old all have to go. They force children as young as 10, and some people who go are 50 or 60 and have grey hair already. Some people who went came back and told us that they hadn’t eaten for 4 or 5 days. As for me, I was afraid and I didn’t go, also because I am a woman and mostly men go. In our village other women have gone, but I never went.

Q: Did they ever beat people who went to work for them?
A: Yes, we had people who were beaten by them a lot. They beat P--- when he went to carry for them for loh ah pay and portering. They beat and kicked him because he didn’t have enough food and couldn’t follow them. The soldiers get good enough food so they can walk quickly, but he had to carry a lot of bullets in a basket that weighed about 20 or 30 viss [32-48 kg/70-105 lb].

Q: Did any villagers die while portering?
A: Yes, we had one villager from our village who died, but I don’t know his name.

Q: What do they do when they enter the village?
A: When they enter the village they eat pigs and hens, and they come and steal all the villager’s belongings. They don’t ask for it, and if they ask the owner and the owner doesn’t give it to them they kill it for themselves and nobody dares to complain. If you talk back to them they point their guns at you. They ate one of my hens but I dared not say anything to them. I stayed quiet, and their commanders also scolded us the way they do. Der! The privates and their commanders eat together. They eat the villagers’ pigs and chickens and they don’t pay for it.

Q: What about the villagers’ rice?
A: They demand and collect one big tin of paddy, and if people don’t give them one big tin they have to give half of one. If the villagers don’t give at all they step into the house to get it and pound it. Under the house villagers have a big mortar [a large wooden bowl for pounding rice; the pounder is attached to a log levered in the centre, operated by stepping on and off the opposite end]. They pound it by themselves and we dare not say anything. I don’t know if they have their own rice or not, but they loot it from the villagers and pound it themselves.

Q: Have they beaten any villagers in Taw Oak?
A: Yes, they beat and tortured a villager named P---, who is around 30 years old. The commander ordered it and the privates beat him. They accused him of being Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA] and working with them. He was never Kaw Thoo Lei, and he told them that but they did not accept it, so they sliced his ears. They beat him horribly with a stick in the village, and we dared not go to look because we were staying outside the village. Now he is not strong enough to carry anything.

Q: Have they ever killed any villagers, besides the ones who died while portering?
A: Yes, I have just 2 brothers and 2 sisters and one of my brothers was shot to death by the Burmese. They killed him in April 1997. At the time he didn’t know that the Burmese were waiting on the way, so he was coming back to the village with his friends and some children. One child’s leg had been broken and she walked slowly, so they were still walking late at night. They were coming back at night and the Burmese were staying along the path through the mountains. The Burmese shot at them and two of them died. The other one’s name was Naw K’Nu [a woman]. All in all there were more than 10 people with them: Naw K’Nu, her husband, their children, my brother, and three of his friends. The Burmese captured all of them after they shot the two.

The Burmese didn’t say anything afterwards, because they couldn’t do anything since he was shot already. Maybe they could have done something, but the Burmese are like that - they shoot first and think later, and you can’t bring people back to life. After the people ran away, they took the belongings that they had left. My brother’s friend was with his wife, and she was shot. They took all the woman’s belongings, like shirts, clothing, pots, and other things.

Q: What happened to the people they captured?
A: They captured them and beat them while they interrogated them because they had been coming back at night. Then they took them to Thay K’Yah, and after that they released all of them, including the 3 children.

Q: Did your brother have a family yet?
A: Yes, he had one child but it died. Now his wife has gone to stay in xxxx [refugee] camp. My brother was 21 years old when he died.

Q: What happened to the family of the woman who was killed, Naw K’Nu?
A: Her husband was there too, and after she was dead for a year her husband was captured by the Burmese again and they killed him, too. Now one of their children stays with her grandmother at xxxx, and another stays in xxxx [refugee camp], but the youngest one died of illness. After the child was dead, the Burmese captured their father [Naw K’Nu’s husband] and killed him. His name was Maung Thaw Pay and he was 35 or 36 years old. He died 2 years ago, at the same time that the Burmese killed my uncle.

Q: Why did the Burmese kill your uncle?
A: They accused him of being this and that, but he was not anything. The Burmese had already shot and killed his wife. They shot him and then they beat him to death.

Q: Did you also have Ko Per Baw [DKBA] in your village?
A: When I left my village the Ko Per Baw were not in the village, but after I fled here people said that they came and stayed there.

Q: How many families in Taw Oak have fled and come here?
A: I don’t know right now how many [Taw Oak] families are staying here, but I think around 10-15. Many people are fleeing to come here continuously. We are many families, some stay here and some went to stay at xxxx [refugee camp].

Q: When did you arrive here?
A: I arrived on the 13^th of May [1999]. I left the village when the Burmese weren’t in the village, because they don’t like us to go out and they don’t allow it. We fled secretly. I slept 2 nights along the way. We had to cross the main road of the Burmese and look carefully as we went.

Q: Now are you having problems with the Thais at xxxx [across the river on the Thai side of the border]?
A: Just recently people told us that the Thais would come and drive us out and we had to run. I was staying on the other side of the river [in Thailand] to hire myself out for money. I get 50 or 60 Baht per day to buy rice to eat. But somebody told us to run from the Thai soldiers, so we had to run back here [to the Burma side of the river]. It was on the 15^th or 16^th of August when they said that we were disorderly and had to move.

Q: Why did they ask you to leave?
A: I don’t know, they just told us that because a lot of people had fled there [to Thailand] it was causing trouble, and they ordered the villagers to move back. They came and stayed for 3 or 4 days, and when they left we went back, too. They don’t want us to stay there. When we first arrived back there they didn’t know about us, but after a while more and more of our friends came. Now they know about it, so they drove us back here again because a lot of people came to stay there. They said it is messy so we had to move. They said, "Don’t come and stay here for a long time" because it is their land.

Q: Did you get food from anyone since you’ve been here?
A: Some people [foreign relief organisations] came and provided a rice ration for us twice already.

Q: What is your decision? Will you stay here or go to the camp?
A: Der! It is up to my community where we will go. We will stay here and go across [to Thailand] to work and earn money like this, and if they come we will run back here, and come and go like that.

Q: Do you know of anyone who has gone into the refugee camp?
A: At the time when I arrived here none of the people who came with us went to the refugee camp.

Q: What about the first group that arrived?
A: Yes, they went to the camp, but we haven’t heard about them yet.

Q: Are you worried about the Burmese Army coming through here?
A: Der! We have to think about it whether we stay here or not! We will have to worry in the dry season [starting in November]. If the situation is not better by then we will run again, but I don’t know where to run to.

__________________________

NAME:       "Saw Lay Htoo"           SEX: M            AGE: 42            Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 1 child aged 1 year
ADDRESS:   xxxx village, Hlaing Bwe township                             INTERVIEWED: 9/99

[When interviewed at the end of September 1999, "Saw Lay Htoo" had fled his village to the Thai border but could not cross because Thai troops were not allowing new arrivals, so he was living with a group of displaced people on the Burma side of the border.]

Q: Can you tell me why you fled and came here?
A: We could not work and earn our living because the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] and the Burmese tortured us and forced us to do labour. If people couldn’t go for them they kicked and beat them, and sometimes killed them. They shot to kill the people who ran away, so we dared not stay and fled here.

Q: Have you ever had to porter?
A: I never went to porter for the Burmese or Ko Per Baw [DKBA]. I dared not go because I always used to follow the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA].

Q: So you cooperated with Kaw Thoo Lei?
A: Yes. I didn’t register but I always followed T--- [a KNLA commander]. We started this work together, but after the Burmese attacked us we ran separately and divided. It’s been 2 or 3 years since I left to go to T--- and stopped following Kaw Thoo Lei.

Q: Did you ever fight in a battle?
A: Yes, battles occurred 6 or 7 times, but not for long, just half a day and sometimes only in the morning for an hour.

Q: Did you see the Burmese abuse any villagers in the areas where the battles occurred?
A: Yes, they beat them a lot, and they accused the villagers of supporting Kaw Thoo Lei, so they beat the village head. If they saw the villagers’ pigs, hens, and cattle they killed them and ate them all in many different ways. What’s more, they beat the owners. In the plain area [west of the Dawna Mountains] they beat all of the villagers who live near to places where battles have occurred. One battle occurred at Kaw Suh, near Ler Dah, only 20 minutes’ walk from Ta Plaw Pu. It happened between the villages. There were only a few soldiers from the Karen side, so they shot for a while and then ran away. I was involved there too, and when the Karen soldiers ran and shot at them, one or two of them were wounded and they were upset about this. So they accused the Kaw Suh villagers of feeding Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA]. They killed two women because the Kaw Thoo Lei had shot at them. They weren’t village heads. They were married women, and they ran from fright when the Burmese arrived. They shot 5 or 6 cows at the same time; it was not a mistake, they aimed at them and shot them. The Karen soldiers had already run far away from the village, but the Burmese came to shoot the two women anyway. They were around 45 years old; one of them has 4 children and the other one has 2 children.

Q: Did you hear of Burmese soldiers killing porters while you were in that area?
A: Yes, in xxxx [his home village]. They were Htay Htay Po, Pa Lone Tin, Pa Kyaw Wah, Sah K’Lin, and Pa Oo Ngeh. The Burmese killed all of them because they couldn’t carry their loads when portering. They couldn’t walk, so they fell down and the soldiers kicked them. They stabbed them and beat them to death; they didn’t shoot them dead.

Q: Do you know the battalion number of the Burmese troops or their commander’s name?
A: I don’t know their number or commander’s name, but they are staying in Paw Ye Bu camp and they are patrolling there. They patrolled and captured people in the areas of Pah Hta, Naw Boh Tat Kyaw, T’Nay Kaw, Paw Ler, Kyet Tu Ree, and Noh Mya Leh villages.

Q: Do you know the place where the Burmese killed them?
A: One man whose name was Pa Saw Wah was killed at T’Nay Kaw Paw Ler near xxxx. Pa Noh was killed at the foot of Paw cliff, and Saw K’Lay was killed at T--- camp. It is just a 2 hour walk from xxxx.

Q: How much weight did the porters have to carry?
A: It was about 30 or 40 viss [48-64 kg/105-140 lb]. They forced them to carry bullets and shells, also food like fruits and vegetables that they saw and put in their baskets. They had to carry their boots and socks too, just because they want to break you down. If you can’t carry it they beat you.

Q: When did you leave xxxx?
A: It’s been 3 years already. I left xxxx and stayed at Ker Ghaw for a year and worked on a hill field in the summertime. After that Moe Kyo [a DKBA commander] attacked us so I couldn’t stay there, and I went to xxxx and got married. Last year during the rainy season I dared not stay at xxxx anymore, so we fled here.

Q: Who is Moe Kyo?
A: Moe Kyo is the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] commander, and he is very rude. He has the duty to control the area of Ker Ghaw and Taw Oak. I don’t know the number of his troops because I dared not get close to them and I never faced them. I don’t know how many people are involved there because they are spread throughout that area.

Q: Do the Burmese have a camp in Taw Oak?
A: They don’t have one, but the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] always stay there. They don’t have a camp, but they stay with the villagers. Some of their wives and children are staying there, too.

Q: Did you ever go portering for the Karen [KNLA]?
A: I went portering only twice; we went in turns and just stayed at the top of the hill [as sentries]. They required the village to help.

Q: What would happen if the Ko Per Baw or the Burmese found out about that?
A: Aung! They kill you at once if they find out.

Q: Did you see them kill any villagers because of this?
A: Yes, they were working on their hill fields on Taw Oak mountain. Ko Per Baw from Moe Kyo’s troops accused them of contacting people [KNLA], but they hadn’t made contact with them because they are always afraid and wouldn’t dare do it. But those soldiers killed 6 or 7 of those villagers.

Q: Was it after this that you decided to flee?
A: Yes. We were afraid to come here so we had to flee secretly. You can flee into the jungle during the daytime when they aren’t being careful. I didn’t carry anything, only the shirt on my body. I left the rest there. We slept at someone’s hut at the foot of the mountain and came here [the Burma side of the Moei River] the next morning. I arrived here on April 30^th 1999 and we stayed at xxxx for the whole month. Now we have built a hut here.

Q: Have you had any problems since you’ve been staying here?
A: The only problem is that sometimes the Thais come and chase us [when they cross the river into Thailand], so we always have to run. I don’t know if they are Thai police or Thai Army, but people are frightened and always tell us to run. They are around 10 soldiers and they sleep on the other side of the river. All of them wear a uniform. They told us that we can’t go and stay there because we don’t have Ta Gaw Koe [a Thai ID card]. So we couldn’t stay at xxxx, and we came back and built our huts here. After that the leaders here went and told them something, I don’t know what, and since then we can go back and work there. We hire ourselves out for 60 Baht [per day] to pull up beans for them. If we didn’t do it we wouldn’t have food to eat so we have to do it. We buy rice in M---. They [the Thais] like it a lot if we buy things there.

Q: Did the Thais ever say that you couldn’t go to the camp?
A: We haven’t heard them say that yet, but I don’t know because I don’t understand Thai language. Nobody among our villagers understands their language so we can’t do anything. If they allow us to stay [in Thailand] we will stay, but if they force us back we will go. They told us to go away and stay at other places for one or two days, but then if they leave we can go back and stay there.

We stayed here for 3 or 4 days and heard that the situation was not so good, so we went back and stayed there [the Thai side] for a while. And after the situation gets better we come back and stay for a while, then go back again. We come and go and come and go like that. In the daytime we go back to the other [Thai] side and hire ourselves, stay for one or two days, then come back and sleep here for one or two days. If they [Thai police/Army] will come in the next few days we get a message before they come.

Q: Did anyone provide you with a ration?
A: Yes, we got it twice already. We got enough rice and salt, and we can say that we are lucky for getting it.

Q: Are you afraid to stay here?
A: Yes, we are afraid sometimes and worry that the Burmese will attack us. We have to fear the Burmese. On the Thai side we have to fear the Thais also. We have to avoid them if they come to that place, but they do not stay for long, sometimes only for a few hours and then they go back.

Q: Do you fear that the Thais would abuse you if they caught you?
A: They do not do like that, but if they arrested us they would interrogate us and drive us back to this side. They tell us "Go back to the other side" and "Go stay in Burma".

Q: If you could decide between going back to your village or staying in the refugee camp, what would you do?
A: I would have to reach an agreement with my friends because I am part of a community here, and if all of them go to the camp I will go, but if they stay here I will stay here too. Wherever they keep us I will stay. I can’t tell [what my friends will do] because they haven’t finished being interrogated yet by the people who came to ask them questions. I will see what happens to my friends, I won’t go anywhere alone. As for me I want to go back to Burma if there is peace, but my country does not have peace, so I won’t go back yet.

________________________

NAME:       "Saw Kee"             SEX: M             AGE: 21             Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with no children
ADDRESS:   Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township                INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Saw Kee" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: What happened in your village that made you want to come here?
A: The Burmese came to stay at Ker Ghaw when they went to the Lay Ta Play and Ko Ko areas to look for porters. The village head went around the village and told every family to come to a meeting. He said, "Now the Burmese have arrived, so my dear children, if you do not want to be a porter, wrap up your sarong around your legs and run as fast as you can." The village head dared not hand us over [to the Burmese], so we ran. Because our village is on the frontline, the Burmese often needed porters when they came before. So when they stayed at Meh Pleh they came up and told us, "Today you have to go for loh ah pay at Tee Hsah Ra". We asked for how many days and they said just one. But we had been gone one week already and they hadn’t released us. Then some people went to tell the village head, but when the village head tried he couldn’t get us back. So we ran to come back home, but on the way from Tee Hsah Ra some of us stepped on landmines. We arrived in the village, but we dared not go back to stay in our houses so we stayed in our farmfield huts. We stayed there and asked our wives and children to send rice secretly because we dared not enter the village.

Q: What did you have to do for them?
A: We had to build roads between their camps. Also we had to make roofs and floors from split bamboo. We built their huts room by room like compartments, in rows along the outside walls [of the barracks] so if they have meetings they can sit down in the open space in the middle and talk.

Q: Did you have to do other kinds of work for the Burmese?
A: We had to carry rice from Meh Pleh to Ker Ghaw. We would go and come back in the same day; it is just a day’s walk. They followed us because if they didn’t we would run to escape. If they ordered 20 people to go we had to send 20 from Ker Ghaw. If people didn’t want to go, they had to go anyway because the Burmese dislike it when people don’t go. I always had to carry to Ko Ko and back to Ker Ghaw. Ah! It is very far.

Q: Did they feed you enough food, or did you have to bring your own?
A: We ate their rice. When we stayed in the villages they fed us plenty. They always ate chicken but they always fed us rice and yellow beans day after day, never different.

Q: Did they ever pay you for the work you did for them?
A: They didn’t hire us, they forced us to work without paying us. We had to work for the whole week. If we didn’t go they didn’t like it. This last time they couldn’t get it [enough labour], so they chased us. We ran in the evening; we told them that we would go to visit one or two villagers in the village, then one or two of us escaped, but the other people couldn’t run. They captured me because I left the farmfield hut with a friend to see my wife in P---. I was carrying 50 cobs of corn that I hoped to exchange for rice. When we arrived there, the Burmese also arrived at the house where we were staying drinking alcohol. They arrived and asked us, "What are you doing?" and we told them we were staying there. One of them asked if we were soldiers and I said, "I am not a soldier, I am a worker." They called, "Come down here", so I went down.

First they called down 3 of us; the other one lives in P--- and we know each other. His name is Pa xxxx and he is over 20, the same age as me and my dear friend. He is married with two children already, but one died. The Burmese didn’t tie him up, just the two of us. We held our tongues and didn’t tell anything. They questioned me in Burmese, but they can speak a bit of Karen and I understood some of it. He asked me, "Maung xxxx, where are you from?" and I told him "I stay at T---." [Where his farmfield hut is.] He said, "What do you do there, and where do you keep your gun?" He told me that I wasn’t telling the truth, so he kept me tied up with rope. After they had kept us tied up at that place for 4 or 5 hours, he said, "Tie them separately." The rope was 40 handspans long, but it wasn’t long enough for him so he untied a rope from someone’s pig and tied me on the back with that rope, too. They tied my friend to me so we were like a ball. You don’t need to ask how tight it was. I couldn’t sit down so I didn’t know what to do. As for my friend, when the Burmese tied him he shouted out and they threatened him with a gun and told him, "Be quiet. You are real Nga Pway [SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA]." We told them, "We are not Nga Pway, we are workers and if you don’t believe us, go look at our huts." Pwah! Then we couldn’t do anything, so we told the other villagers to go and tell the village head that the Burmese had us tied up. We had done nothing wrong.

Q: Who were the soldiers who tied you up?
A: I know their commander’s name. He is P--- and the person in charge along with him is T---. They are Karen and they speak Karen, but from the lower part [the plains of central Burma]. Their Battalion number is 102, and I looked and saw 44 [Light Infantry Division] is on their [shoulder] patches. They came in 3 groups together, and there were more than 300 soldiers the time that they captured me. After they captured me they told us, "You have to go with us to be guides." And I thought it was okay for us to be guides, that there would be no problems, so I kept quiet and didn’t say anything. We stayed with them and after 6 days we asked, "Won’t you let us go?" and they told us, "We won’t let you go back yet." Der! We stayed at P--- village because they did not go anywhere else. They didn’t touch us with their guns, but they kept us tied very tightly.

Q: What happened after you called for the village head?
A: After the village head arrived they untied us and kept us in someone’s house. I don’t know whose house it was but it was in P--- village, and we slept there for 6 or 7 days. One night when we were still sleeping, before dawn when the cocks were crowing, they called my friend: "Maung Kyaw! Maung Kyaw!" [Not his name, just roughly "Brother!"] I woke up and so did my friend, but they just called my friend and he scolded me, "Only one of you wake up!" I said, "Why? What are you going to do to my friend? Will you kill him?" He said, "We will ask him to show us the way." They came back and waited for us, and there were 10 unarmed soldiers with my friend and a village head. I woke up and they asked me to cook rice and prepare a basket of cookpots. Then they told me to go along and show them the way, so we separated into groups and my friend and I didn’t see each other. Before the day had dawned we had already left for the mountains towards L--- stream.

Along the way they called out to people to carry rice for them. As for me, I had to carry two backpacks that weighed 25 viss [40 kg / 87 lb]. I thought "Pwah!", but I carried them and moaned about it. They called people out of the farmfield huts, and people had to follow and go with them. People were working their fields so they were staying in their field huts. They captured people continuously, but I couldn’t tell how many people came along because I was going in front to show the way and there were more than 300 soldiers.

Q: Did they point guns at those people?
A: They didn’t touch them with guns, they just called them over and people came easily. If they disagreed they would touch them with their guns. They also took all the chickens along the way. We went and went until we arrived at L--- stream, at the huts of some people who were working their fields. We arrived at L--- stream and they asked me, "Maung Kyaw! Where is this?" I told them, "L--- stream". Then they said, "There are a lot of huts here", and I told them there are more than 10 field huts there because it’s the place where people work their fields. They asked "Are there any more huts?", and when I said no, they looked up the mountain.

Q: When did they release you?
A: I had to carry until L--- stream, but they didn’t release me at that time. We came to the last hut at L--- stream and he asked me, "Do you have any place to go?" I said, "Yes, we stay in T---", and I told him that if he wanted to go I knew the way, but that I was afraid. He asked me, "What are you afraid of?" and I said, "There are a lot of landmines and also Karen soldiers there." He asked their names, but I said I didn’t know their names because I work the fields so how could I know a soldier’s name? Then they went and found two hunting guns, and they came back and asked me what kind of guns they were. I told him "Those guns are used when hunters go into the mountains and shoot birds and wild pigs". He asked if I was sure, and I said yes, and he told me that this kind of gun can be used to shoot and kill Burmese [soldiers]. So they demanded 2 chickens for each hunting gun. They charged the owner of the guns, but there were only married women there because when the villagers saw the Burmese their children and husbands had run away. In the past Karen soldiers lived in the huts, so no one dares to face the Burmese now. They didn’t leave their soldiers’ guns, only their hunting guns in the soldiers’ huts. On the way there were many Karen soldiers’ huts and I was very afraid.

Q: How many days did you have to carry and guide for them?
A: I had to carry for 10 days, but still they didn’t let me go. They forced me to carry to other places until they got to Lay Gaw. I told him I didn’t know how to go to Lay Gaw. Then two groups [of soldiers] met up in the same place at L--- stream. I also met my friend and I asked him which way he had gone, and he said he went to the other side of the river. Then I slept there overnight and they asked me to show them the way to my hut in T---. There were ten of us, and they forced me to carry one backpack and one big sack of rice. I showed them the way to T---, then I stayed there until the afternoon when they went back. Then I had to go with them again and I asked, "Won’t you let me go?" and they told me, "We will not let you go because there are some more places to go."

So I slept with them that night and in the morning they started again along the same way. At T-- they went up to the huts carrying their guns and demanding chickens. The married women were afraid and told them "Take it, take it". I always had to carry it, and there were a lot of chickens in my backpack. They went to other huts and took pumpkin leaves and pumpkins, and filled my sarong with things. They asked me if Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA] lived there and I said "Kaw Thoo Lei don’t stay here, and if they did before then they ran already." They asked how many people had been there, and I told him not so many, only 3 to 5 because they do not have many people. I told him this, and then he issued an order for the village head of Tee Wah Klay, and wrote it in a letter with red ink. There along the path to Tee Wah Klay people had come and laid landmines, which were very obvious and they [the SPDC troops] knew all about them. They knew and told us that 3 people had come to lay landmines. Then he asked a villager from T--- to send the letter, and the villager went to Tee Wah Klay. He came back and said that while he was looking for the village head he met with Kaw Thoo Lei, who wouldn’t allow him to see the village head. He [the SPDC officer] couldn’t do anything, so he came to me because I can speak a little Burmese and questioned me. He asked me why the village head hadn’t come and why the villager had said the Kaw Thoo Lei wouldn’t allow him to come. Ah!! Because he said these things my head became heavy. He questioned me: "Why did Kaw Thoo Lei not allow the village head to come here?" I said I couldn’t guess since I hadn’t gone.

Because the Kaw Thoo Lei hadn’t let the village head come, they [the SPDC officers] went and ordered a big gun [mortar] with 3 shells from L--- stream, and they came and carried it to T---. I didn’t carry it, but a Black Karen [Muslim] who was a porter came and carried it. I followed them with only one backpack. He asked me if I could fire the gun, and I said, "I can’t fire it because I’ve never seen such a thing before, and it is very tall and long." After that they set it up. They fired 3 shells [at Tee Wah Klay village] and then went back to L--- stream. Our 10 days were finished and they should have released me. I told the village head that we had already finished our days so we would go. But they didn’t release me and asked me to stay for one more night. He told the village head that he would release both of us for 2 chickens. They released us at L--- stream in the morning after eating breakfast. We went back and stayed at home for a while, but then we heard that the Burmese would drive us out [force the village to relocate]. We also didn’t have any rice left. Usually people from P--- go to Meh Pleh and Kway Sha, and then come back and sell rice. But the Burmese didn’t allow us to take the rice into the village, they confiscated it so we had nothing to eat. So we fled here.

Q: In your village, did the Burmese tax and collect fees from the villagers?
A: Ah! If they saw a house with a tin roof, they collected at least 5,000 Kyat per month. I don’t know what they do with that money. People can’t stay [in the village] without giving to them. If you have chickens or cows you have to sell your livestock. They collect 5,000 Kyat from villagers who have belongings, but from people like me they collect 2,000 Kyat per month. They always collect, but for what I don’t know.

Q: Do the DKBA ever come to the village and collect fees?
A: The Ko Per Baw always stay there. The name of the commander is Pu Lay Yo. He never collects money because he stays in the village. The people who collect money are the Burmese.

Q: Do the soldiers steal livestock from the villagers?

A: They come and demand pigs from the village head, and the village head always has to pay for them. They never buy livestock. The village head gets money from people like us. He collects 200 or 300 Kyat from every house. When he gets together 20,000 or 30,000 Kyat he buys pigs and kills them to give to the Burmese. We eat nothing from it.

They have also stolen chickens and pigs that cost 400 or 500 Kyat. They didn’t even tell their commanders, they just stole them in the night. The Burmese are strange, because few of them ask but many steal.

Q: Did they ever steal from you?
A: Ah! You don’t need to ask! They stole 2 cocks, one of my hens whose eggs were hatching, and 2 other chickens - 5 in all. They stole it and we saw them do it, but we dared not stop them and say "Hey, don’t take my chickens!" so they ate them.

Q: What happens if they don’t get the livestock?
A: They don’t like it if people don’t give to them so we need to give. Even if we can’t give it we have to borrow it from our neighbours, then pay it back once we find money. This costs us as much as the porter fees, and that is very heavy.

Q: Would they threaten villagers who did not give them money or livestock?
A: They don’t threaten us with guns, but they stole some chickens from the married women’s houses, and the women went to tell their commanders what they had done. The commander gathered the soldiers together and interrogated them, saying he would reimburse the women for it if one of them had done it. No one told the truth though, because if they had replied honestly he would have beaten his soldiers. So we couldn’t do anything and things stayed the same.

Q: Where do the Burmese have their camp?
A: They always have their camp in Ker Ghaw but there are usually only 20 or 25 soldiers there. Sometimes they would arrive with 300 or more. They call their camp Ker Ghaw P’Hee Klah and it is on the bank of the Meh Pleh river.

Q: Do you know if any soldiers have ever raped village women?
A: In Ker Ghaw they have tried to sleep with married women whose husbands and children dared not stay and fled the village. I don’t recall the married women’s names, but they are Ker Ghaw villagers.

Q: What about soldiers beating villagers?
A: They do not beat the villagers in Ker Ghaw because the village head is very strict. We don’t have villagers who are beaten, we just have to go as porters continuously.

Q: How did you have to flee?
A: I fled secretly so the Burmese would not see me. If the Burmese knew about it they would shoot us with guns. I went to my field hut in the daytime with my wife and child.

Q: Do they allow the villagers to go outside the village?
A: They dislike people going out to find food and vegetables. They force the married women to stay together [in the village]. They make us stay just in the village, and if we can’t find any vegetables in the village we have nothing to eat. You can’t sleep in your field hut near your crops or gardens. We have to come back and sleep in the village within the same day. They haven’t written [passes for villagers] yet.

Q: How long did it take you to get here?
A: I fled and slept 2 nights at the Moei riverbank, where we got help from Kaw Thoo Lei. They gave us each 32 milk tins of rice from our Grandfathers [KNU leaders]. Before we arrived here we slept on the Thai side at xxxx for 7 days. When we arrived there our leaders arranged things for us and foreigners came to take pictures and gave us enough food. At xxxx they provided us with mats, clothes, rice, oil, fishpaste, chillies, and a mosquito net. We got very good food. I have been here for 23 days. Ah! It is better here, you don’t even need to ask.

__________________________

NAME:       "Pa Noh"             SEX: M            AGE: 45               Karen Animist farmer
FAMILY:      Married with 3 children
ADDRESS:    B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township    INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Pa Noh" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: When did you arrive at xxxx [refugee camp]?
A: I arrived here more than 10 days ago.

Q: Why did you leave your village?
A: We couldn’t tolerate the forced labour by the Burmese anymore. They forced us to carry water, go as porters, and do all kinds of forced labour, like fencing their camp, clearing roads, and ploughing for them. They didn’t give us anything for that. They also ate our pigs and we had to pay for that [to compensate the pig owners], and we had to buy them batteries too. So we could not take it anymore and left our village.

Q: Where did you have to work for them?
A: At Lay Wah Ko and at Seit Lay Pu, at B’Naw Kleh Kee camp. They are from Battalion #357 and from LIB #2. They are divided into two groups; there are about 20 soldiers at B’Naw Kleh Kee, and the other group stays at the top of Lay Wah Ko.

Q: How often do you have to work for the Burmese?
A: It depends on their needs. Usually they demand 4 or 5 people, but if they need more they demand more and if they need less they only demand a few. Sometimes for set tha [forced labour at the Army camp as messengers and other miscellaneous errands] they demanded 7 people and we had to work every day. We went for the whole day to make fences for them at Lay Wah Ko. People who go for set tha have to carry water for them, whether it’s at B’Naw Kleh Kee camp or at Lay Wah Ko camp. If there’s no rain we always have to carry water for them. You can’t stay there without carrying water for them. They order the village head to go to their place and s/he has no choice but to go.

Q: What will they do if you don’t go to carry water?
A: Der! They will do something! They always beat people, it’s because of their beatings that we didn’t dare stay there.

Q: Who has to do forced labour?
A: The youngest are children, as soon as they can work. Children who are over 10 years old. The oldest who have to go and make fences are old enough to be grandparents. Women too. Recently P--- worked for them and she is over 50. My wife and children had to carry water for them, they couldn’t avoid it.

Q: Did they guard you while you were working?
A: They did not guard us, but they came to look at us sometimes as they forced us to work. The children who couldn’t speak Burmese were beaten, but people who could speak Burmese weren’t beaten. I saw them beat Pa N--- with my own eyes. They slapped his face. He slapped him twice with his right hand. He told him he was stupid because he couldn’t speak Burmese. Pa N--- is married, he is from B’Naw Kleh Kee.

Q: Did they feed you, or did you bring your own food?
A: I had to bring my own food. The only time we could rest was while we were eating the food that we brought.

Q: Did they give you anything for working?
A: No, they didn’t give me anything.

Q: Could villagers pay a fee if they did not want to work?
A: If you didn’t want to go you could give 500 Kyat per day. If it is not urgent for them you can give money, but if it is urgent they take people and we can’t pay [to get out of it].

Q: Do you know of anyone who was tortured by the Burmese troops?
A: Yes, we heard that they beat a person from P---. His name is Maung T---, he is more than 40 years old. It was 3 months ago. He is an old village head, and he argued with the Burmese [soldier] so he slapped him. He ordered the village head to buy alcohol for him, but the village head wouldn’t do it so he slapped him twice on the back of his neck.

Just recently they slapped the face of one of my friends, and it was bruised for quite a long time. His name is Pa S---. He is 40, I think almost 50 years old. I don’t know why they slapped him. They didn’t tell us anything, they just came and tied him up and slapped him. They don’t like people to complain to their battalion commander, so we could only talk to them, and they told us nothing.

Q: Did you or other villagers have to porter for the Burmese?
A: I always had to porter when they patrolled around the area. I carried pots and bullets, as much as 30 viss [48 kg / 105 lb] of weight. They did not hire us, they just made us go for 5 days. They didn’t patrol very far, only to Tee Wah Blaw and Kway Sha, and then they returned in the same day to B’Naw Kleh Kee. They did not release us, though, so after we returned to the village we had to stay with them for five days. We couldn’t go home, we just had to stay beside them. If you asked to go back they didn’t let you because they said that if they needed us urgently they wouldn’t be able to collect us again right away. If they needed to move we had to leave immediately and carry their loads.

Q: What were the conditions like when you were portering?
A: They didn’t give us a good bed to sleep on, so all seven of us had to sleep under people’s houses. They fed us when they ate, but their food was quite good, different from ours - as for us, they just fed us beans. They guarded us and kept just a small gate open if we needed to get out. We had to ask [permission] to go out, and they followed us because they worried that we would run to escape. If we had run, they would’ve shot us dead. They put a time limit on bathing, so we had to bathe like ducks, "plin plin pa plin plin pa" [sound of a duck bathing, just splashing some water over its back] while they guarded us, and then go back. We had no medicines, and they didn’t give us any.

Q: Did you have pay any other fees besides the money for loh ah pay?
A: They collected money, for example we have to pay for their batteries and pork. We had to collect money recently so that they can eat pork twice a month. For each month that costs each family 1,000 Kyat or more. Including everything, like porter fees, batteries for their torchlights and radios, and monthly set tha fees, each family has to give 3,000 Kyat or more. We have to give that every month because they demand it every month. If we don’t give it to them they just glare at us. You can’t stay there without giving, so you have to give all you can.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw also make you porter for them?
A: Now the Ko Per Baw don’t patrol, but if they come back to the village we sometimes have to carry for them.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw collect any money from the villagers?
A: Yes, they collect money. Just recently Maung Chit Thu, the Ko Per Baw commander, charged the villagers in B’Naw Kleh Kee 70,000 Kyat. They charged the villagers because a soldier ran to escape and took his belongings. He [Chit Thu] never comes but he commands his soldiers to come. They are Brigade #999 and they stay at Ko Ko.

Q: Did the Burmese or Ko Per Baw ever loot your rice or paddy?
A: If the owners are not in the house, the Burmese take it and they change it with their own rice because theirs is not delicious. They don’t ask, they just take it.

Q: What about your livestock?
A: They asked for it and said they would buy it from us, but they only paid some of the price. For example, if they took 10 or 20 viss of pork they would pay the price for only half of one viss of pork. One viss costs 500 Kyat but they would only give us 250 Kyat. The villagers have to make up for the rest. We also lost many goats. The Burmese ate them so they were lost, and even if you complained to them you would get nothing for it. They do not allow us to complain directly to their battalion commanders, so we have to ask them. We complain to them and if they do not agree, it’s finished.

Q: What do the villagers do who cannot tolerate the situation anymore?
A: A lot of villagers want to come here, but we have to flee secretly. If we do not go secretly, we fear that they will stop us, because they dislike it.

_______________________

NAME:       "Saw Mo Aung"              SEX: M              AGE: 39         Karen Buddhist/Animist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 2 children
ADDRESS:   Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                           INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Saw Mo Aung" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: Why did you flee to xxxx [refugee camp]?
A: Der! Because the Burmese oppressed us and we couldn’t tolerate it anymore. They came and ate our pigs and chickens, they looted the rice and paddy from every house and then shit in people’s containers and bowls. We could do nothing. They didn’t ask for it, they just took it and pounded the paddy themselves. Then they sold it to the villagers, and the villagers didn’t have food so they had to buy it. One bowl [about 2 kg] of rice was 50 or 100 Kyat. They took 4 or 5 baskets of paddy from L---’s house. From other women they looted rice and touched the women with their hands. Then there was only a bit of rice left, and they shat in it and then left.

Q: What did they take that belonged to you?
A: They ate more than 10 of my chickens and took 5 of my new pots. They didn’t give money, they just took it and it was lost. They didn’t ask because I wasn’t in the house. We dared not stay when they came, because when they arrived they started to capture porters right away, so I ran. If they capture you they don’t release you for 3 or 4 days, and I had been captured before so I didn’t dare stay.

Q: Do both Ko Per Baw and the Burmese loot your livestock?
A: The DKBA steal the villagers’ belongings and demand tea and tobacco. Sometimes they also collect [money] for batteries to use in their radios. The villagers give it to them because they can do nothing else. They are better than the Burmese because people can speak their language, so some women dare to argue with them. They don’t get angry with the women, but talk to them in a friendly way. But the Burmese are stupid, because even when they catch a goat and the owner shouts at them, they do not turn to look in the owner’s face. They just catch the goats and chickens and go away. We see them walking in the night, and we think that they are walking around to steal things. They walk and shine their torchlights behind the paddy storage, and the villagers’ chickens are lost.

The Ko Per Baw demand [money] sometimes, too. We had to pay off both the Ko Per Baw and the Burmese, we have to pay off everyone. When we sold a cow we got more than 10,000 Kyat, and we were able to pay them off two or three times before all that money was gone. This year we had to buy rice [to survive, since the Army took their crop] and we also had to pay them off. Just before I came here they [SPDC troops] were collecting 2,000 Kyat [from each family], but we didn’t want to pay so we fled here. They collect 2,000 Kyat once a month from each house. They told us that it is for porters’ fees, and since villagers dare not go to porter, they give money. If [the Burmese] can’t get it, they trouble the village head. They beat him, so the village head has to come back and ask the villagers again until they can raise the money. Then we take it to the village head, and he takes it to them. The village head has no time to rest.

Q: Did they loot the villagers’ paddy?
A: They did not ask to buy it, they looted it from the owners. The owners saw it but dared not say anything, and if they [the soldiers] were carrying their guns the women were afraid and said, "take as you will". They took it and put it in sacks that hold 3 big tins each [50-kilo rice sacks], then they pounded it themselves with the villagers’ mortars. Then they walked into the village and sold it for 1,000 Kyat per sack. Some people bought it, because if people didn’t buy it they couldn’t live. Some people can’t [afford to] buy it but others can. People bought it to eat because in the village there is rarely enough rice, so we have to go down to buy rice from the plains. The Burmese came to stay in the village, and then the Ko Per Baw took the Burmese rice while it was on its way, and didn’t send any of it on to them. [The DKBA stole a Burmese Army rice ration shipment.]

Q: You mean the Ko Per Baw stopped the rice from going to the Burmese?
A: Yes. I don’t know why, but they aren’t friendly with each other. The Burmese can’t do anything about it, so they take it out on the villagers. The Burmese are very rude and worse than the Ko Per Baw.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw stay in the village also?
A: The Ko Per Baw stay at Taw Oak, but sometimes they come to Pah Klu. They don’t hire us, they just force us to stay with them to cook and carry water. I don’t know the name of their battalion, but it could be 999 [Brigade]. There are many of them who stay on the hill, maybe around 100. We call that place Paw Mu Baw Lu Ko. They are the soldiers of Maung Chit Thu, who is also called Tee Dah. The last time they came to our village and Taw Oak village, the soldiers [KNLA] attacked them. They had taken someone’s goat, and when they were cooking it the soldiers [KNLA] shot at them and they had to leave the goat behind. All of the Ko Per Baw ran and one of them died.

Q: Did you ever go to porter for the Burmese instead of paying the fees?
A: Once I had to carry their loads for them to Lay Gaw. I carried a basket of medicine for over a month. They did not hire me, they captured me in the field at Pah Klu while they were coming from Kyaw Ko. I was taking a walk in the village. I had just come to the football field when the Burmese arrived, but I dared not run. They didn’t tie me but told me to collect people [other porters]. I told him, "I am trying to find some, but I cannot get anyone". He told me that I had to try again to find them and he let me go. I went to find people at Paw Toh, but when people saw me they all ran, so I couldn’t do anything and turned around to come back. He said, "How many people did you get?" and I told him, "They ran away already". He said, "Arr! So you will come and carry for us." They told me it would only be 5 days and then they would release me when we returned to Pah Klu, but then they did not let me go. Then they told me they would release me when we got to Taw Oak. While we were travelling between Pah Klu and Taw Oak, people [KNLA] had set up trip mines, and 6 or 7 soldiers got injured. They shifted our loads and gave me one of the wounded to carry. I carried him and we arrived at their camp in Kyaw Ko. Then they gathered us and sent us to sleep in Kwih Lay village, and they guarded us while we slept at someone’s house. They said they would release me when we arrived at Ker Ghaw. The next morning they arrived at Kwih Lay with the wounded man and we carried him to Ker Ghaw, then we put him into a truck to send him to Meh Pleh Kway Sha.

Then they said they would release me when we arrived back at the camp. Back at the camp I asked him, "Won’t you release me now?" but he said he wouldn’t release me until we arrived back at Pah Klu. Aer! He always said this, but I had to wait again and stay with them for 3 days until we arrived at Pah Klu. In Pah Klu he told me, "If we find someone to replace you then I will release you". But how could we find someone to replace me, when people were always running to escape from them? They looked and got 4 people to replace us from Pah Klu, but they just added them to us to make 7 porters in total. They didn’t release any of us, and we all went to Taw Oak. Then he called the village head and told him to come and replace us, so 3 people came and he put them together with us and released none of us. We stayed there for many days and he asked us to find containers for water. I asked him what he would do with the containers, and he said, "We will climb up onto the hill for 5 days, and after that we will come back". On the hill there was no water, so we had to take water with us to drink. Even when they asked us to find something they followed us everywhere. They never let us go alone so we couldn’t hide or run to escape. The next morning we got water containers from the villagers and started climbing up Taw Wee [mountain] at 2 p.m. We climbed and climbed and passed over the mountain, then arrived at Maw Kee and Tee Ko Kee, then kept going for 5 more days. After a week we arrived at the vehicle road to Lay Gaw and we heard "DEE, DA, DEE, DA". People were shelling us and I thought "If I have to die, maybe my time is up and I will die now". It was coming from everywhere. Then he told us to take our food to the foot of the cliff, and after we ate he told us to climb up on the cliff. We stayed there for a night and went down to the lower part the next morning. We went down in front of Law Gaw at La Law Daw Tee Klah, but I don’t know where I was exactly because it was very far from Klaw Kloh. We didn’t eat rice a single day for a week, only yah plo [the trunks of wild banana trees] until their rations arrived. Then I had to carry again for 5 days. One [Army] group went back under control of the Battalion Commander, so we guarded his rear for 5 days until his group arrived at Tee Kaw Taw. Then our group went back and walked for the whole day until we arrived, very hungry, at Thay K’Yah.

Q: Did they feed you enough food while you were portering?
A: We were starving because they didn’t give us enough rice, and many people cried and cried. The group who carried the big shells were fed like this [holding out his hand], but the shells were heavy and they were exhausted and not strong enough to walk. They fed us twice a day, but it was not enough for us because they started early in the morning and we weren’t fed until 10 a.m. Then we ate again at 4 p.m. For 5 people they spooned out just enough rice to cover the lid of the pot, then divided it into five and fed you. It was about the same as 2 eggshells full of rice and a spoon of beans, so it was not enough for us. I asked for more but we couldn’t get anything more. If we asked for more again and again they glared at us, so we dared not stay close to them. They had enough rice to fill them, but the porters did not. I told him, "Der! You do not feed us enough, so we cannot carry for you", and he told me, "Don’t argue with me. I feed you well enough already." Then I said, "Yes, it is delicious to eat rice with beans, but it is too little." When you carry loads like that you become more hungry and tired, but if we ate like them we would not have been hungry.

Q: What did you have to carry?
A: Pwah!! How many viss?! When I carried it for a while on my shoulders, the blood couldn’t flow to my hands and both of my hands turned very cold. The load I carried must have been 30 viss [48 kg/105 lb]. I had to climb up a very high mountain and down the steep part. I went up and down for over a month, and when I returned home I was so sick I nearly died.

Q: Did they give you medicine?
A: They gave me medicine, the kind that does not make you sweat but makes you happy to walk. In Kywe and Ta months [around April 1999] there was no shade in Lay Gaw, but because of our medicine we were not sweating. I don’t know what kind of medicine it was, but when I arrived in Maw Pleh the people told me that you need a certain kind of medicine to counteract the medicine I had taken. But they didn’t give us that one, so I became very sick.

Q: Where did you sleep at night?
A: The place where they gathered the porters to sleep was different from theirs. Sometimes we slept on the bare ground, but sometimes we had to sleep on a slope. They dug to make flat ground to sleep on, but we didn’t need to dig to make it flat. We cut wood and bamboo and made posts to lean our bottoms against, and we slept like that. But sometimes the mosquitoes bit and we did not have enough time to sleep because we were slapping mosquitoes until morning.

Q: Did they guard you?
A: Yes, they stayed around us. One of them had sentry duty and did not sleep, but watched us while the others slept among us. They kept their loads beside them. If we wanted to urinate or defecate we had to ask permission. They followed us and while we were shitting they looked at us and pointed their guns at us with their fingers on the trigger. They didn’t allow us to go any further, just to squat there like that. They didn’t allow us to go to the toilet in groups of 4 or 5, only one or two.

Q: Were they afraid that you would run away?
A: They told us not to run because there were a lot of landmines, and also we didn’t know where to run to because we didn’t know where we were. They said that if I stepped on a landmine they wouldn’t bury me but would shoot me dead and throw me in a valley. If you listened to them you were afraid, so we dared not run. If we had been in the areas around Loh Baw or Pah Klu I would have run, but since we were in the Lay Gaw area I didn’t know which way to run because I’d never been there before. During the time we were there 3 porters ran to escape, but they were killed by landmines. People said that they were from Maw Toh Ta Lay and had been porters for over a month. They ran in the daytime when they told the Burmese that they were going to carry water. Because they had stayed [with the soldiers] a long time already the Burmese believed them, but they escaped and got killed by landmines.

Q: Did the villagers also have to do loh ah pay for the Burmese or DKBA?
A: I didn’t go because I dared not go, but other people went to do loh ah pay at Ko Ko. They had to carry rice, beans, and oil from Ko Ko back to Taw Oak. For a long trip like that, 1-2 days, they made each man carry one big tin of rice, and 2 women had to share one tin.

Q: Do they force children and older people to go too?
A: Pwah! They are as young as 15 and as old as 40, because the villagers who are 50 or 60 couldn’t go.

Q: How often do they force you to go?
A: If their rations run out we always have to carry, but if they still have rations they don’t force us to go. They never pay us to go.

Q: Do you know if the Burmese have beaten any villagers?
A: I heard about one named Du Lay Loh in Pah Klu. He had no children, and his wife can’t speak. He worked in trading logs, and when they saw his reports and files they interrogated and beat him. After that they slit his throat and killed him. The other person in Pah Klu who was beaten by them was an owner of a boat named Saw H--- who carried rice to sell in the village. While he was coming back the Burmese met him on the way, stole his rice and beat him. The women shouted for the Ko Per Baw to vouch for him, and if they had not gone the Burmese would have killed him.

Q: Did they beat anyone else?
A: I didn’t see them beat any others, just that they threaten the villagers. They know that the villagers fear them, so they just try to get things that way. They demand porters and if they don’t get them they do something to the village head, and the village head scolds the villagers. So if the village head comes to you, you have to try your hardest [to give what’s demanded], and if you can’t then there’s nothing the village head can do.

_________________________

NAME:      "Saw Tha Suh"                SEX: M             AGE: 45           Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 3 children aged 6-15
ADDRESS:  Tee Wah Klay village, T’Nay Hsah township                   INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Saw Tha Suh" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: Why did you flee and come here?
A: The problems were the fees and collections we had to give to the Ko Per Baw and the Burmese, and also the carrying and work we did for them.

Q: Did you ever have to carry for them?
A: Der! People who can carry have to carry a lot but I can’t carry. But even so the Burmese tied me and beat me one time at Tee Wah Klay village. I was carrying paddy to my house, and when I arrived he came up into the house and demanded alcohol. I told him that we didn’t have any alcohol. He called me down to the ground with two of my friends, and then he told me that whether I found it or not he would tie our hands behind our backs and also tie our legs. Der! He accused me of being a Karen soldier. They saw that I had only one foot, so they couldn’t tie it. They tied the hands and legs of the other two with me and demanded that we lie down, but because I couldn’t do it quickly they kicked me once on the back with their big boots. They hit my chin with the butt of a gun, then they punched my friend and split his forehead open. He is from N--- and his name is W---. The soldier said that the landmines were ours, not other people’s. They dislike and do not allow people to go to talk to them [KNLA]. But that afternoon a monk talked to the commander for me saying "He is not a soldier, he is a villager." When his commander called him back he released me. They released me at 3 or 4 o’clock, 6 hours after they captured me. Then they pulled me through the village.

Q: Did they ask you to porter for them after that?
A: They didn’t ask me but they asked me to set up traps [sharpened bamboo booby-traps] and dig them into the ground.

Q: Did they ever force you to work day labour?
A: Before when their camp was near our village, they forced us to do labour a lot. Now that they stay at Po Win and Kyaw Kyo their camps are not so close, so we don’t need to work for them. In the past we had to dig bunkers and make fences and gates.

Q: Did they hire you or force you
A: They did not hire us. The first time we also had to bring our own food, but the next time they fed us enough. It was usually just men but if we had to carry their loads and deliver their ration rice at the same time, both women and men had to go.

Q: Did the Burmese ever collect money from the villagers?
A: Yes, each month they collected 2,000 Kyat or more from each house. I don’t know what they do with the money.

Q: What about the Ko Per Baw?
A: The Ko Per Baw collected 1,000 Kyat a month [per house] also. They ordered the village head to send it to them. Before I came here they collected, but because my legs aren’t so good I can’t find any money, so I gave 500 Kyat, and after that I fled here right away.

Q: Did they steal food or belongings from you?
A: They ate 6 of my chickens and one big tin of rice. They also took a hammer and a machete.

Q: Do you think it is worse when the Ko Per Baw or the Burmese are in the village?
A: Both are bad but with the Burmese it is too much. If we didn’t give to them, they would become angry and beat us and tie people up.

______________________

NAME:      "Pu Than Nyunt"            SEX: M               AGE: 55                Karen Animist farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 6 children
ADDRESS:  B’Nweh Pu village, Dta Greh township                             INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Pu Than Nyunt" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: Why did you leave your village?
A: We fled because the Burmese tortured us and forced us [to do things]. The Burmese were staying in Tee Wah and ordered us to go there, and when we arrived they grabbed us and pulled us to go along with them. There were a lot of people and we told them we dared not go to the landmine areas. Then they started to beat us.

Q: Do you know the unit number of the troops that beat you?
A: I don’t know because this group of Burmese were new arrivals and they replaced the other ones very recently. Their Commander is named Aung Aung; he is the Company Commander but I don’t know the Battalion.

Q: Where did they beat you?
A: He slapped me once on my face and pushed my chest once, then he hit the back of my neck and knocked me down. After I stood up he grabbed me again but he didn’t beat me.

Q: Why did he beat you?
A: Der! He beat us because they ordered us to walk through the landmines, but we dared not cross there. They told us to go in front of them, but we dared not go. But they would shoot or kill us somehow [if they didn’t], so we were afraid and ran away. There was a Burmese soldier who can speak Karen very well named Maung Nyo, he used to be a Karen soldier before he went and joined the Tatmadaw [SPDC Army]. He said that if people came along the paths at night, they would shoot all of them dead. L--- told us about that.

Q: Did you ever have to porter for the Burmese?
A: I always had to carry before. I carried bullets and shells when they patrolled to Wah Mi Klah, then went back to Tee K’Haw, then came to this area along the path to Ler Pu. They collected 5 men per village and after 3 days we were replaced. It [his load] must have been over 10 viss [16 kg / 35 lb], at least four 78 shells and six 81 shells [78 mm and 81 mm shells, for the 3-inch and 81mm mortars respectively]. I carried the same weight as one basket of rice. They didn’t give us anything and they told us that they would torture us until we break while we tried to earn our living. And they do it like that by turn until they abuse us in every way.

Q: Did they ever beat any of the porters?
A: I didn’t see that when I was there, but they slapped our faces.

Q: Did they feed you enough food?
A: Der! At first they fed us enough food like they ate. And if we slept in a house we had a good place to sleep. They didn’t guard us because they were close to the people [the previous group of soldiers had a decent relationship with the villagers], but the other group that replaced them treated us like dogs. They beat two people. They tried to force them to be messengers but they wouldn’t go.

Q: Can you give them money instead of going?
A: You can’t give the Burmese money for that, and people always have to go in person. Sometimes they ate pigs or goats and villagers had to reimburse [the owners] for that.

Q: Did they collect money from the villagers?
A: Recently they did not collect money, but in the past they asked the village head to collect for them because there were a lot of people. Each house had to give 30 or 40, sometimes even 50 Kyat. We had to pay for them to eat. They took chickens from people who had them, and every time they arrived they asked [for livestock] and people had to give. Sometimes they asked, but sometimes they shot them to eat. They didn’t pay for it. They took them to their commander.

Q: Did they eat other things in the village?
A: Paddy and rice. They demanded it often and we always had to give. Last year we had only a small amount of paddy and rice [the crop was very bad]. For every basket or big tin of rice we ate, they looted one basket or big tin. We had to collect rice for them too, and Pa N--- from the Ko Per Baw told me to complain to them so I did, but they didn’t respond. He said that they would give it back to us because he is the one who takes care of their rations, but they gave us nothing. I know that the name of the chief commander of the Burmese is Pu P’Na Wah, and he has to send rations to all the soldiers, including the Ko Per Baw.

Q: Did they take any other belongings of the villagers?
A: They took everything that they saw, like gallon jugs and containers and as much as they could carry. Someone from Gkah Deh said, "They are like gorillas, even if they see pumpkins or pumpkin leaf they take it, and if they see just one aubergine they take it and put it in their basket and you can’t keep it." Even if they saw half a knife [a broken machete] they would take it. Just recently they went and took O---’s saw, and when he went and asked for it back the Burmese pushed his chest with the butt of a pistol and slapped him once on the face. But the Ko Per Baw don’t take people’s belongings like that. After I fled our belongings like pots were left in the house, so I think they are already lost. They ate 2 or 3 of my chickens. Sometimes they asked us but sometimes not. Some privates are disobedient and stupid, and they eat everything unlike the commanders. Mostly the commanders ask before they eat.

Q: Did the Ko Per Baw and the Burmese cooperate to abuse the villagers?
A: Ko Per Baw soldiers were not involved with the Burmese this past hot season [March-May 1999]. But during the time when they came and beat people the Ko Per Baw were involved with them. Not one of the Ko Per Baw opened their mouths when they saw the Burmese beating people and shooting people dead.

One evening more than 30 Burmese came to Paw Gaw Ko with 4 Ko Per Baw soldiers. They stayed at Law Mi Kyo for one night, and there was one company with 10 soldiers staying in B’Nweh Pu. They surrounded my daughter’s house where I was sleeping, and they interrogated us about whether any Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA] were there and if they had laid landmines. The Ko Per Baw were angry and threatened us that they would come and shoot into our wives’ vaginas. They met with 7 people. The youngest child was 6 or 7 years old. They released them before sunset, and they released me last. They made me follow them to Paw Gaw Ko, and they pulled S---’s parents to Tee K’Haw. First they told us that they would have a meeting and they told Saw K---’s father and I to "go and listen to the meeting". But they did not have the meeting that night, and they asked us to sleep for a while. Then they told us, "Move, move! We will go back to the house." But the Burmese did not go to our house. They went to the mountains and we had to go in the night through the bush and scrub, and we carried as we walked. Der! They did not feed us rice. After they released me I ran away because I dared not stay, because if I stayed longer the situation would have become worse.

Q: Did they force children to carry for them?
A: The children are so small that they did not force them. Mostly they forced people aged 20-30 like B--- and K---. They forced people to carry loads of rice often from Taw Naw Ko down to Ka Teh. It took one day of walking, and then we slept one night there and came back. All of the porters were men. When we had to carry their rations it was not just for one day, and we had to carry them from the car road. They did not pay us. They did not feed us either, so people who couldn’t go without food had to take some rice with them.

They forced porters to build their huts and gardens at Wah Mi Klah. People also cut trees and bamboo and dug covers and built small huts for a camp. The porters were mostly from B’Nweh Pu and Meh La Kee. Just a few were from Meh La Hta. We went for 3 days and then rotated.

Q: Where did you sleep when you had to porter?
A: At their place there is a big monastery where all the people slept. They had sentries for security, but not to watch workers. I don’t know what they would do if we escaped. They would probably fine us. If people didn’t finish their 3 days, they were fined. They fined us 2 or 3 viss of chicken or pork. People had to give this because all of us were afraid. When they forced us to work sometimes they would slap our faces and we couldn’t do anything, like K--- from Meh La Kee who had his face slapped twice. As for me, he hit me once here, another time there, and twice he pushed me hard so I fell down. I was carrying a backpack, and he grabbed the backpack and pushed as strongly as he could. Der! He beat me because they forced us to walk and show the way but we dared not go in front of them. People had planted landmines there! I told him that people said there are landmines there, so we dared not go there anymore. If our legs disappeared, we would have nothing. One of my son’s legs was blown off by a landmine. It was a Ko Per Baw landmine that had been planted a few years ago. But the soldiers only said that some people had warned us, so why were we so afraid? But they dared not go either, because they worried that their own legs would be blown off. I dared not go, but they went step by step. We thought it would be suicide to go like that. If I stepped on a landmine, maybe I would die or my legs would be blown off, so my life would be useless.

Q: When did this happen?
A: Just one month ago, because after they beat me I ran here.

______________________

NAME:       "Saw Kler Eh"                SEX: M            AGE: 30                Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 4 children, eldest is 6 and youngest is newborn
ADDRESS:   xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                                  INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Saw Kler Eh" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: Why couldn’t you stay in your village?
A: I couldn’t stay in the village because the Ko Per Baw entered the village and captured one of my friends named P---. After they captured him they interrogated him about Karen people who stay around there, what they do and how many people do it. He answered that T---’s father, S--’s father, G--- and I are all involved, so all 4 of us ran away and dared not go back to the village. After that everyone knew we were soldiers because the Ko Per Baw showed up a lot and told people that we kept guns and landmines and bullets and things like that. So the Ko Per Baw asked people to find me, but I dared not go back, and now I don’t know what they would do to me if I did. I ran far away from them and realised that nothing would change, so I fled here. First I fled alone, but my wife and children dared not stay so they followed me later. They couldn’t carry anything, not even any food, because we have 4 small children. I came the way of Gray Hta, not Ker Ghaw.

Q: Was P--- DKBA?
A: P--- was on the Karen [KNU/KNLA] side. He is not a soldier, but sometimes when the Karen entered the village they called him because he stays in those areas. He stays in the same village as us, but now P--- is with the Ko Per Baw. Now he might be DKBA, so he dares not come up here because if he did people would give him what he deserves.

Q: Do you know anyone in the DKBA?
A: I know the Column Commander for the Ko Per Baw, he is named M---. They stay at Y--- among the banana trees, but I don’t know their battalion number. I know another soldier named P--- who stays at T---.

Q: When the DKBA enter the village what do they do?
A: If people do not make them aware of anything, they do nothing but come and demand food. Sometimes they demand a pig, then go back once people have given it to them. Sometimes they demand money from the village head and he has to give it to them. They collect 300 Kyat from each house and the village head has to find and buy [a pig] for them. Sometimes they came and ate from my house, and took my rice and chickens. Sometimes they steal in the night, they stole things like our cocks that sleep beside the toilet [back behind the house].

Q: Do they collect other fees besides money for pork?
A: They never collected them before, but now they have started to. From our village of 30 houses they collected 400,000 Kyat. I don’t know and didn’t ask what they would do with it. Last time they came and asked us through the village head, and the village head gathered us and told us that the Ko Per Baw were demanding it so we had to give it to them. He asked us if we could or would pay them, and if we didn’t want to pay them we had to go and leave the village. The reason they demanded it was because of P---’s story. They asked for money and said that if we didn’t give money to send a gun instead. And if we didn’t have a gun, we could send 2 buffaloes.

Q: Did the Burmese also come to your village to collect money?
A: The Burmese sometimes come to the village, but not often. I never heard about the Burmese collecting money in the village, but if porters didn’t go for them they would ask for fees. They demanded 9,000 Kyat per month from the village. If you can’t give money, you have to go, and if you didn’t go they would come and trouble you. Maybe they would charge us or beat the village head. I’m not sure what they’d do, but we don’t want them to come. They go to see the village head when they enter the village and demand pigs or chickens. Sometimes they give only half the price of the pork, like 500 Kyat for a pig worth 1,000 Kyat. The villagers have to pay for the other 500 Kyat.

Q: Do the villagers usually go to porter for the Burmese or for the DKBA?
A: In the beginning I went for them, but since the people [KNLA] started patrolling, I never had to carry for them. If the Burmese demanded porters, villagers would go for the Burmese. If the Ko Per Baw demanded it, they would go for the Ko Per Baw. They aren’t hired but they have to carry for them for 5 days. The Burmese column comes and goes sometimes to Klaw K’Dtee where the Ko Per Baw stay. In the rainy season it is not good because sometimes you are wet the whole night. They didn’t give enough food, and they guarded us [while sleeping]. They didn’t let us bathe.

Q: What is the age of people who go to porter in your village?
A: They are between 25 and 40 years old. They didn’t force younger people to go. It is only men who have to go, not the women.

Q: To your knowledge, did they ever beat or torture villagers?
A: I didn’t see them beat anyone in my village, but sometimes I heard from other villages that it happened. We aren’t aware of their names, but we heard it from people in K’Ma Hta and Meh Ta Mu villages. The person who beat and tortured them was Ko Per Baw and his name was Khin Than Seit. He slapped their ears, smashed their chests, then kicked their sides with his boots. One man was over 40 years old and died a few days later.

Q: Did the Ko Per Baw ever threaten villagers?
A: Yes, they threatened us when they called people down [from their houses] to question them. They lifted up people’s hands and legs and touched them with guns. I don’t know the name of the one who touched me because it was during the night, but he is Ko Per Baw. He pointed at me with an AK-47 [assault rifle] and said, "Don’t run away. If you run I will shoot you dead. When people call you, come down quickly. If you walk slowly and take it easy, I will shoot to break your legs." I had just woken up but I wasn’t really awake yet because it was night time when they called us. They didn’t beat us but gathered us all together in a big group.

Q: In your village did you have to go for loh ah pay?
A: Yes, in the past we had to build their camp at Klaw K’Dtee. We cut down bamboo and trees for fences, made fences, planted gardens and made huts for them. Each time there were 5 people who went to build for 3 days. Sometimes people went to build for the Ko Per Baw and sometimes for the Burmese. They didn’t pay us, and people had to bring their own food like salt, peppers, and rice with them. In my case, [KNLA] headquarters did not like me to go and build for them and they told me, "Don’t go, just let other people go." Because they told us this and discussed it with the village head, 4 of us didn’t go. If they called us, we followed them [KNLA], because they relied on us and we also relied on them. They also left equipment for us.

Q: When did you flee the village?
A: I can’t recall, but after I left my village I slept at D--- for one night and at K--- for 3 nights. Then I slept at Gray Hta one night, and I have been here for 3 days already. So I fled to come here on Sunday.

________________________

NAME:        "Saw Ghay Htoo"             SEX: M               AGE: 28            Karen Buddhist/Animist farmer
FAMILY:      Married with 1 child aged 1 year
ADDRESS:    Suh Hta village, T’Nay Hsah township                                INTERVIEWED: 9/99

["Saw Ghay Htoo" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: Why did you flee and come here?
A: When we stayed in the village the Burmese demanded money and loh ah pay. There were so many fees and I couldn’t pay because we have a baby. I didn’t want to pay either. Der! We didn’t have paddy or money to buy paddy. If we got only 1 or 2 baskets of paddy it was not enough for us, and we had no money to find or buy it.

Q: How much did they charge you?
A: They did not ask us directly, they went to the village head first, then the village head collected it from us. Each house had to give 400 Kyat once a month. They did not tell what they would do with it. Some months they collected 6,000 or 7,000 Kyat from each house. If people couldn’t give it, they borrowed it from others and gave it.

Q: Did the Burmese also demand labourers for loh ah pay?
A: They demanded 1 or 2 people from each village for loh ah pay or for carrying loads, and if people didn’t go for them they charged money. Pwah! They had to carry bags and rice, about 10 or 20 viss of a load. Pwah! Even if we couldn’t carry it, we had to because we are so poor and we couldn’t explain to them. Since I came back [from Thailand] and stayed in the village again, they forced people to do labour at Plaw Lah Kyo. The Burmese camp is at Plaw Lah Kyo, just one day’s walk away. The people had to go and cut bamboo and build storage huts for rice and places for them [SPDC soldiers] to stay. They did not give money to those people who built for them, but they fed them. For some it was not enough, and not good either. People went for a day and then they let them go home at 5 o’clock in the evening. Then if they demanded people again, others would go instead.

Q: Did the Burmese guard the workers?
A: They did not guard them. But when we went to porter if you wanted to go to the toilet they didn’t like it and you had to do it in front of them. Sometimes 3 of them sat on the ground, waiting and watching us. Some had guns but just had them laying there on the ground because they worried that porters would run to escape. If one of the porters ran, they would come and charge the village one pig weighing 10 or 12 viss or something like that.

Q: Did you ever have to porter for them?
A: Yes, sometimes we had to carry if they entered the village and the village head asked us to carry. We would go to Plaw Lah Kyo for three days. They did not pay us, but the village head required us to do it and we worked for free. Sometimes we had to carry along our own food also. They did not feed us enough and the food was not so good. Q: What did you have to carry for them?
A: I had to carry rice once and the other time I carried bags. There were 3 of us and we went for 3 days. If we didn’t carry for them the village head would scold us because it was our turn. So the village head called us and scolded us and said that if we didn’t go we had to pay money. But we have no money to reimburse them because we just work our hill fields and we can’t afford it.

Q: Did they ever beat or torture you?
A: They didn’t beat me either time I carried for them, but sometimes they scolded us. Sometimes when we couldn’t do what they demanded they would scold us, but we didn’t understand what they said, so we did not know what to do.

Q: Did they ever come to steal things from your house?
A: Sometimes when they couldn’t ask for [livestock] from the village head they would shoot it with a slingshot and take it. They didn’t ask first, and they didn’t give money for it. Even when the women scolded them, they didn’t care. In my house they came and ate often. They asked, but if they couldn’t get [chicken], they caught it and ate it. They didn’t give anything for it.

Q: Did the Ko Per Baw come to your village?
A: Yes, they arrived. I don’t know their names or where they are from. When I was old enough I went and worked for someone in the upper place [Thailand], then I came back and stayed for two years in the village and got married. Then I fled to come here because I didn’t like to stay there. Sometimes you have no food and you have to find it and buy it, but then they demand things from you and you don’t want to give and can’t give. When the Ko Per Baw came to the village, they ate our food but they only paid half the price for the things that they ate. They didn’t loot or force us to work though.

Q: Have you heard about a DKBA commander named Moe Kyo in your area?
A: Yes, I heard that he camps up there. I don’t think he beats anyone, just scolds them. He also burned down some people’s gardens and huts. He burned down all. The fire spread into the field when the paddy was there, so it means all of the belongings and stored paddy were burned after their huts burned. People had 5-10 baskets of paddy in their paddy storage barns, and when they burned the storage barns all the paddy was burned too.

Q: When did you flee here?
A: I fled from my village on a Friday, but I don’t know the date. I’ve been staying here for one month already.

___________________________

NAME:      "Saw Lah Ku"                 SEX: M              AGE: 21                 Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married, no children
ADDRESS:  Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                                  INTERVIEWED: 8/99

[When interviewed "Saw Lah Ku" had fled his village and was hiding on the Thai side of the border across the river from a group of internally displaced people at Tee Ner Hta, a vulnerable site near the border with Thailand. This site was later shelled by SPDC forces and the internally displaced villagers scattered.]

Q: What happened when the Burmese came to your village?
A: They came and shot to kill people. When the Burmese arrived within sight, you couldn’t run or they would shoot you. If we heard that they were coming when they were still on the other side of the river, we could escape.

Q: Do you know of anyone whom the Burmese killed?
A: Yes, they shot and killed one villager named Maung Tin Hla from Pah Klu. It happened last year in the dry season. I know they’ve also killed others, but I’m not exactly sure whom or how. The last time when they came, over one month ago, they killed Du Lay Loh. I heard that they cut his throat. I dared not go back and see it because I am afraid of the Burmese.

Q: Do the Burmese stay in the village now?
A: We heard from the group that is arriving now that they are coming back to our village again now. At the time that we ran and came here, the Burmese had gone back to Ker Ghaw, Meh Pleh, and Kway Sha. If the Burmese had been staying in the village we wouldn’t have dared to escape. The DKBA aren’t staying in Pah Klu, but they are staying in Taw Oak and they come to our village sometimes.

Q: Were you staying in the village when the Burmese came?
A: I was staying in our farmfield hut at a place we call T---. The Burmese considered us as rebels. There are about 40 or 50 huts in T--- because the villagers all work their flat fields there. The villagers who have one field have one hut.

Q: When the Burmese came to your village, did they eat the villagers’ livestock?
A: Yes, recently the Burmese have eaten a lot of the villagers’ poultry. For every pig the owner eats, the Burmese eat 3 or 4. The Burmese said, "The villagers will breed poultry for us. When we come, we will eat it all." When they came to stay in Pah Klu they stole the villagers’ pigs at night and nobody knew. Each pig weighed 10 viss [16 kg / 35 lb] or more, and they beat them to death. They didn’t let their commander know, and the villagers dared not complain. I don’t know the name of the villagers they stole from; I just heard from the village elders that they stole pigs.

Q: If the villagers go to complain to the commander, what will the Burmese do?
A: I don’t know. They will give some kind of problems to the villagers. The villagers dared not complain when they took rice from us. We just have to live with it.

Q: Did the Burmese ever arrest you or other villagers?
A: They arrested me last month when I came back to Pah Klu. I went back to get rice to eat. When I arrived at the village, they came at the same time and I had no time to flee. There is a river but I can’t swim. I dared not flee. When they arrested and tied me up, my spirit nearly died. They tied me while they were holding their walkie-talkies and aiming a gun at me. I couldn’t speak. They didn’t beat me, but they interrogated me. They didn’t shout at me because I could go along and give directions for them [as a guide]. They arrested me with two of my friends, but they released one named K---. The other is my best friend, Pa xxxx, and he is 21 or 22 years old. He is married and had one child but it died. They arrested us and tied us up, then they accused us of being Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA], but we told them that we are not Kaw Thoo Lei and they shouldn’t kill us. Then they forced us to go and give directions [serve as guides] for them because they don’t know the way in the mountains. I went carefully along the way. If you didn’t know the way, you would lose half your leg. We had to go with them for 7 days in the hills with landmines. We dared not go, but if we didn’t go they would have shot us with their guns. We were afraid but had to go. We didn’t step on any landmines and we guided them through the mountains. My best friend took them to L---, and I took them to T---. We didn’t see each other because we had to give directions to two groups of soldiers. They were going in two columns of about 300 Burmese soldiers.

They arrested villagers they saw along the way. They forced me to carry a military bag, which was very heavy. I hoped that the Kaw Thoo Lei would shoot at them because I wanted to flee, but they didn’t shoot. Then we arrived at the farmfield huts and slept one night at L---. The Burmese wanted to visit another flat field on the mountain, so they forced me to take them there. After that they returned to their place. I had to sleep and eat together with them. They are Burmese soldiers, but they can speak Karen. They wear #44 [Light Infantry Division] on their badges. The commander’s name is T--- - he is a Karen national but a Burmese commander. The next morning they called me to go again. I asked them often, "Won’t you release me?" but they told me that they wouldn’t release me unless they captured some Kaw Thoo Lei. I told them that the Kaw Thoo Lei are in the mountains, and he asked me how many there were. I said that there are only one or two people, not so many. They went out again, and I thought about how the Kaw Thoo Lei don’t like them and have planted landmines. Before daybreak we heard the explosions. Three Burmese soldiers died in 2 days because they stepped on landmines. After they stepped on the landmines, they released us at L---, close to T---. They fined us two chickens each, and then we went back to our farmfield huts.

After they released me, they went down to Pah Klu the same day and arrested another villager. He was Du Lay Loh, the one I told you about before. The Burmese went to ask the villagers from Pah Klu, "Is he Kaw Thoo Lei?", and the villagers answered, "No, he is not Kaw Thoo Lei." But the Burmese said the villagers were lying because they could see the villagers were afraid. Then I heard they would kill them all in the evening. Ah! I decided I would flee. The next morning it was raining, and we called each other and said that we would go to xxxx [refugee camp in Thailand]. But I didn’t arrive at xxxx, I just arrived at Tee Ner Hta and stayed there. Along the way we had no rice, but the people who stay on the bank of the Moei River are our friends, and so they gave us rice to eat. We slept with our children only one night on the bank of the river, and we had to ride the [KNLA] soldiers’ boat to this side.

Q: Did you hear of any plans to relocate your village?
A: They said they would drive us all out of the villages in the Meh Pleh Toh area. When I stayed with them, the Burmese told me themselves that they were ordered to clear the place and drive the villagers to a relocation site. I asked them, "Where will you force us to go?" and he told me, "I don’t know. You have to ask the commander." I had to stay with the soldiers who arrested me, and they joked together. I said to them, "If you drive us to a relocation site, we will have no rice to eat." He said to me, "I don’t know, because we were ordered to do it, so we have to. We wouldn’t do it if we weren’t ordered to do it." They are Karen people.

Q: Did they force the villagers to do loh ah pay also?
A: The Burmese also forced the villagers to do loh ah pay at Ko Ko. I never went there, but my friend went to work. I just heard from the other people who told me. They forced them to go 3 or 4 times a month for one day at a time. The villagers have to carry rice for them from Ko Ko back to Pah Klu. They force all the men and women to go. If the men dared not stay in the village [if there were no men there], they forced the women to go. They didn’t force the younger people to work, only people over 20 years old. They forced people over 40 who could carry one basket of rice, too. In one village if they set a quota for 10 people to go, then the villagers plan it out with the village head. The villagers who get sick talk with their friends and say, "This week I will go for you and next week you will go instead of me."

Q: Do the villagers have to hire people to go for them?
A: Only for porter fees. Some villagers dared not go as porters, so they hired their friends to go instead. They didn’t summon me, but we had to give rice. The Burmese look at the living situation of the villagers. From rich villagers they collect 5,000 Kyat per month. There are over 100 houses, so if you collect money from all the houses, you will get many thousands. If you cannot pay you have to borrow money from your friends.

Q: Do they also collect rice from the villagers?
A: Yes, they collect one basket of rice from each farmfield hut. We have to give one basket of rice regularly every month. Even if we have no rice to eat, we have to feed them.

Q: You said that the Burmese collect porter fees. Do the DKBA also collect fees?
A: The DKBA don’t collect money, but they force us to do loh ah pay. The villagers have to go and stay with them and cook rice and fetch water. They force us to do it once a month. As for the Burmese, they don’t even care if they force us to go twice or three times a month. The Burmese are always forcing the villagers to go.

Q: Did you hear of soldiers raping any women in Pah Klu village?
A: I heard they slept with women but I don’t know their names. There were 3 or 4 women and the people told me they were married. They are older than me. The Burmese soldiers went to the women’s houses; they didn’t call them [to the Army camp]. They couldn’t sleep with the women, but they could hold their hands and legs. At that time I was together with them because the Burmese had arrested and tied me up at the time when they slept with the women. They are the same troops who tied me. I didn’t see it because they kept me in another place and in the morning we heard the village head complain to their commander that his soldiers had slept with the women. They punished the soldiers, but they are still doing it.

Q: What do you think of the Burmese who came to your village? Do you think that they came to do good for the villagers?
A: They did not come to do the best thing for the villagers. They came to break the villagers. I do not feel good since the Burmese came to the village. I suffer always. I eat in the morning and have to think for the evening, then I eat in the evening and have to think for the morning. We have no food to eat and no money to pay the fees, and we could not suffer anymore. That’s why we came here.

__________________________

NAME:       "Maung Shwe"                SEX: M               AGE: 36         Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:      Married, 5 children under 12
ADDRESS:    Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                           INTERVIEWED: 8/99

[When interviewed "Maung Shwe" had fled his village and was living in a group of internally displaced people at Tee Ner Hta, a vulnerable site near the border with Thailand. This site was later shelled by SPDC forces and the internally displaced villagers scattered.]

Q: Why did you come here?
A: We dared not stay in the village, so we came here. When we went back to the village we didn’t get rice to eat because the Burmese wouldn’t give us rice and paddy. Look here, we have only one set of clothing each. We arrived here 4 days ago with 4 families, and another 3 families are arriving today. If we came in front of the Burmese, they would not have allowed us to come, so we had to come secretly. They would have arrested us and tied us up. If they can’t catch you and you run, they shoot to kill. The Burmese always came to shoot the villagers who stay in the village, so we always had to flee. You must flee. If you didn’t flee and they captured you, they wouldn’t release you. If you couldn’t carry while portering, they kicked you, and then if you still couldn’t carry, they killed you. That is all.

Q: Are the DKBA also staying in the village?
A: Yes, the DKBA and the Burmese are staying in the village. They came to stay in Pah Klu over one month ago. In the past they always came to stay, and last year they stayed for over one month. They come and then they go back to Ker Ghaw and Taw Oak because those villages are nearby. Sometimes they disappear for over a month and then come back again. The people said they are #44 [Division], but we didn’t dare go to them so I don’t know for sure. Sometimes there are 200 or 300 Burmese soldiers, and between 20 and 30 DKBA soldiers. I didn’t hear the people call the name of their commander [Burmese], but recently one unit came to stay in the village and I heard them call their platoon name "Daw Na" [also the name of the mountains in the area].

Q: While the soldiers were staying in the village, did you stay there also?
A: We dared not stay in the village. If the Burmese chased us, they captured us. I stayed near my field, not so far from the village. If we go one or two hours we would arrive at the village. Only the women dared to stay in the village, but not the men.

Q: What did the Burmese do when they entered the village?
A: If they saw you breed chickens, or if you had new clothes, they took all of it. You dared not complain to them, because if you did complain, they would touch you with their guns. You dared not move; you had to stay quiet. If you fled they shot to kill, so we dared not flee.

Q: Did they eat your livestock?
A: Sometimes they arrived at my place. The village head told them [denied permission to the soldiers to take villagers’ livestock], but behind the village head’s back they entered and shot to kill for themselves. They went under the houses and stole the chickens at night, but even in the daytime they shot the villagers’ goats and pigs.

Q: Did they ever arrest the villagers?
A: Last month the DKBA arrested me in the jungle when I was going to my hill field. They met me on the way and arrested me, but I don’t know why. They forced me to follow them and show them places. I dared not go because there are landmines, but I had to go. If I went and died, it would be all over. They forced me to porter. I had to carry baskets and pots - it was reasonable for me to carry, about 10 viss [16 kg / 35 lb]. I could not have carried ammunition as well. But it didn’t matter if I could carry it or not because I had to carry it.

Q: Did they also arrest other villagers when they arrested you?
A: There were many women who were staying in the farmfield huts, but they didn’t arrest them. They arrested 3 men and forced us to show them places [serve as guides]. One is Saw P---, who already went to stay in xxxx [refugee camp in Thailand]. He is over 40 or 50 years old. Another man people called "L---", who is the same age as me. I don’t know what they had to carry in their baskets. The DKBA took the villagers’ things, like clothes, and put them in bags and then in our baskets. We dared not look inside because they don’t like us to see.

Q: How many days did you have to serve as a porter?
A: I went halfway and stayed one night at Tee Po Lay Hta, then I fled from them in the daytime while they were cooking rice. I told them that I would go to defecate. They didn’t see me. If they had seen me, they would have shot me. I fled alone and my 2 friends stayed.

Q: Do you know the battalion number of the DKBA troops that arrested you?
A: I didn’t see their badges, I only saw that they wore scarves. At that time there were 12 DKBA soldiers who were staying in Taw Oak. I know that they called their commander "Moe Kyo, Moe Kyo".

Q: Where are the Burmese soldiers staying?
A: They went back to stay at their camp in Ker Ghaw.

Q: Do the Burmese also collect porters?
A: Sometimes they collect porters. The village head collects porters for them, but if the village head cannot do it they capture them. They collect 3 or 4 porters once a month and force us to go for 5 to 15 days. Then the villagers have to replace them. You have to flee when you get sick because if you don’t, they would make problems. Sometimes when the village head wasn’t watching them they made problems. Sometimes they [the Burmese] said they would change porters every 15 days, but then people had to go for one month before they released them. About 12 years ago when I was younger, they arrested me and took me to Bilin [a town in northwestern Mon State, at least 100 km in a straight line from his home area]. They tied my neck, hands, and legs with rope and tied me to a bamboo tree very tightly. I couldn’t do anything. I had to carry 6 shells, about 20 or 30 viss [32-48 kg / 70-105 lb].

Q: Did they feed you while portering?
A: They fed me a ball of rice the same size as one egg and no salt. If they fed you once a day, you were very lucky. They didn’t give water when portering. When you saw a big river, you could drink. I had to porter for one month, and I ate a lot of Naw Shar Lah [green leaves in the jungle]. I was so hungry. They made me go between them and they always touched my back with a gun. At that time I was the only one from Pah Klu. The other porters were from Taw Oak. They beat me and one porter from Taw Oak. His name is E--- and now he is staying in xxxx refugee camp; he is very old. The Burmese beat him with a pole at the monastery. They beat my head with the dull side of a knife and broke it open.

Q: Do they also collect porter fees?
A: Yes, all the villagers help each other and give to them. When they collect, if one villager can’t pay them the whole village gives to them. Recently they demanded 20,000 Kyat from each village per year.

Q: What about other kinds of taxes?
A: If they tax us, we have to give to them. We can’t stay without giving to them. Both the DKBA and the Burmese tax us. Last year they taxed us until we could not pay them. This year they taxed us too, and we couldn’t pay them anymore. That’s why we fled from them. They collected once a month from every house to buy their food. Each time we had to give 1,000 or more Kyat [per house], and sometimes they collected 2,000 or 3,000 Kyat. We had to pay the Burmese less than the DKBA; we usually had to give the Burmese 500 Kyat [each time]. They collected irregularly, twice or three times a month. They made problems for the villagers who could not pay. If there were villagers who couldn’t pay, each house would have to give until they collected 10,000 or 30,000 Kyat. The next time the villagers would have to find enough to pay them again. If the soldiers couldn’t collect porters, they gave problems to the headman, and the headman had to find them. This last time when they came to the village they ate all of the villagers’ rice. The Burmese have rice but they don’t want to eat their own rice, so they take all the villagers’ rice. They take the paddy from the villagers’ rice barns and mill it themselves. Who could dare complain to them? If you complain they would touch you with their guns. They took the paddy from the rice barn and threw it into the mill.

Q: Did the DKBA eat any of the villagers’ poultry when they came to village?
A: Ah, recently when they arrested me at Tee Po Lay Hta, the people had to gather poultry for them. They cooked it in the big pot. They caught the chicken at night from the huts; they took all the poultry from the farmfield huts when the owners weren’t there. I dared not go and count the chickens. They cooked the whole thing in the pot and ate it. They saw my big pot and took it. When I went to stay at my farmfield hut, I used only one pot. They took one of my shirts and then threw my rice on the ground, so I didn’t get rice to eat. I just had one bowl [about 2 kg] of rice there for myself. I stayed alone in the farmfield hut. They wouldn’t take things if they see that children are there, too, but if they see only men in the farmfield huts, they take. They also scattered the rest of my seed paddy, about one basket full.

Q: How did you find enough to eat if the Burmese took your rice and livestock?
A: I didn’t have rice to eat. Every morning I went back to Pah Klu and sometimes I got one bowl of rice. Sometimes I looked at my children crying because they were without rice. They had to stay like that. I didn’t get rice to eat many mornings and evenings. I just ate bamboo shoots. The Burmese closed the way to the fields, and last year there was no rain. We couldn’t plant the paddy so we got no rice. We planted the paddy this year, but we don’t know yet if we will dare to harvest the paddy at harvest time. We dare not go back to harvest because we will die. I think that if I dare to go back I will go alone and leave my wife and children here. I am very afraid.

Q: When the Burmese came to the village, did they shoot any of the villagers?
A: Last year when they entered the village, the DKBA shot and killed Tin Hla in his house while he was eating. They shot him with 3 or 4 guns at the same time. He was about 30 years old, the same as us. He was alone eating rice in his house, and they came and shouted and then shot him. It was in early summer when people were making the festival [Thingyan, or Water Festival, in mid-April].

Q: Did you hear that the Burmese were planning to relocate the villages?
A: I heard that the Burmese would drive us out so we dared not stay and came here. I don’t know when or where because they didn’t tell us. Also I don’t know how many villages they will drive out. They just said that if we are still staying in the jungle [i.e. in remote villages] then we are surely feeding the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA]. They say that if they drive the villagers from the area, they will starve the Kaw Thoo Lei. I think that they will drive out all the villages. We stayed in the jungle at our fields. If they drive us out, they will drive out all.

Q: Did you hear that the Burmese were raping women?
A: I don’t know. Recently people said that the Burmese troops who are staying in Pah Klu are raping girls, but I just heard about it. I didn’t see it. I heard that they sleep with the girls.

Q: Do you mean they force them to sleep with them, that they do not love each other?
A: Yes. I heard people talking about it in the village. The children dare not cry in the house because they [soldiers under the house] stab up through the floor with their daggers.

Q: Do you think that DKBA and the Burmese came to do good things in the village?
A: I am very afraid that they will come to do "good things" like that. I think that they have not come to do good things. I don’t know if the situation will get better. If our country gets freedom, I will go back. But Karen people said to stay here [displaced on the Burma side of the border] for the moment, and that they will plan a place for us [implying that they will arrange admission into a refugee camp in Thailand]. If they do not send for us, we don’t know where we’ll go.

__________________________

NAME:       "Pu K’Ner"           SEX: M               AGE: 60                  Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 6 children aged 5-22
ADDRESS:   Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                           INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Pu K’Ner" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: How many days ago did you arrive here [at a refugee camp]?
A: Two days ago. I slept 3 days along the way because it was very muddy [so the trip took a long time].

Q: Why did you flee and come here?
A: We fled because the Burmese oppressed us and we couldn’t stay there anymore. They took all of our belongings and ate all of our food, and we couldn’t work to get food. More than that, they rape our women and the women dare not stay. The men also dare not stay, so we came here with our whole family.

Q: How many families from your village fled here?
A: We fled with only 4 families, but now 21 families have fled here. When we got half way we met with other groups of villagers from Pah Klu. We dared not leave when the Burmese stay in the village, but we hid ourselves. We had to flee secretly with 1 or 2 people at a time.

Q: Were you staying in the village at the time?
A: I wasn’t staying in the village because I didn’t dare to, but my wife was staying in the village. I was staying in my farmfield hut, less than an hour’s walk away.

Q: Do you know the number of the Burmese Battalion who was staying in the village?
A: I didn’t know because I cannot read, but people have called them #118 [Light Infantry Battalion]. There are more than 100 soldiers there, and more than 100 in Taw Oak. They stay in the surrounding areas, too. They do not set up a place for themselves, they just spread and stay everywhere. They did not set up a camp, they just stayed at villagers’ houses and looted them. One of their Commander’s names was Kyaw Zay Ya, but I don’t know all of their names.

Q: What did they do when they entered the village?
A: When they entered the village they persecuted and tortured us. They came to have sex with our women and to steal the villagers’ livestock. They didn’t ask for it, they just caught it and if the owners argued about it, they touched them with their guns so we couldn’t do anything else.

Q: Did the villagers complain to their Commanders?
A: The villagers dared not complain to their Commanders because if they went and complained they would try to kill us. The villagers dared not complain because they’ve already tried to kill people like that at night, and they had to run away.

Q: Who did they try to kill?
A: My nephew Pa K---. He went to worship at the monastery and when he came back his wife told him, "Now the Burmese are asking people’s wives to have sex with them, and we can’t do anything". They are ordinary Burmese soldiers [not officers], and they asked to have sex with Pa D---’s wife, and also one time they asked to have sex with my wife. So the women dare not stay.

Q: Did the soldier rape your nephew’s wife?
A: She heard that the Burmese were coming but the rest of us did not, so her husband ran at night because they came to kill him so they could have sex with his wife. They couldn’t, because she can speak Burmese, so she spoke to them and avoided it while her husband fled in the night. Her name is Ma T--- and she is 30 years old. This was not a long time ago, only 10 days or so.

Q: Where are your nephew and his wife now?
A: He left the village already and she did also. She came here, and if you question her about it she will tell you about how all of the women dared not stay.

Q: Did they try to sleep with other women in the village?
A: They tried to steal women to sleep with, so the women had to gather and sleep together in the same house at night. They had to close the door tightly and each of the women had their own big knives. They dared not sleep at their own houses because the Burmese were staying in their houses, so 4 or 5 families would sleep together in one house. The men dared not guard them. Der! In the morning they would go back home. They asked my wife to have sex because she stayed with just one or two others, and she scolded and shouted at them. We dared not stay without many people. I cannot explain how great the fear was. I have a daughter who is a teenager, so I dared not let them meet her. Two or three years ago they didn’t do things like this, and my wife and I didn’t want to run too hastily. My wife is an especially strong woman and she faced the Burmese treatment until she couldn’t face them anymore. One time my wife visited me in the farmfield hut and whispered, "We have to move. We dare not stay anymore because now in the night we have to sleep in one big group with big knives." So people fled because they couldn’t tolerate the Burmese treatment. Now they have all fled.

Q: When you stayed in the village, did the Burmese collect for porters?
A: Yes, they collected. I always gave money for porter fees. Now people have to hire porters [to go in their place] for 3,000 Kyat because people dare not go for less than that.

Q: You had to pay even if you went yourself?
A: Yes, we had to give. People who do not go have to hire other people. They collect 5 people from our area, but some villages have to give more than that. They have to go for 5 days. After 5 days they release them and another group has to replace them. They need about 100 porters at a time, so they collect 5 people from each village. Other villages also have to go because they collect from every house.

Q: Was this 3,000 Kyat different from other fees you had to pay?
A: Yes. If people collected from us we always had to give. People who can’t give money have to sell something to get money. They sell their livestock. We have to pay 2,500 Kyat.

Q: Are most of the families still staying in Pah Klu, or have they fled by now?
A: Mostly people have left. Right now the people who stay in Pah Klu are monks and 3 or 4 families. But even they have already taken their belongings to the jungle and hidden them. Previously in Pah Klu the number of families including widows and orphans was more than 200.

Q: Do you have a village head?
A: Yes, her name is T---. She is between 30 and 40 years old. The villagers elected her, but now people don’t dare to remain as village head. People become village head for a month or a year. She is still village head because she was just elected when the rainy season arrived [June].

Q: Did they ever harm the village head?
A: She complained to the Ko Per Baw leaders at Ko Ko and the Burmese beat her very badly. It was after we fled here, because the other group that came after us told us. She was telling the truth, but they didn’t like that. She said that the Burmese are raping women and stealing belongings. The Burmese beat her with a stick because they accused her of complaining to the Ko Per Baw about what the Burmese have done. She only reported it to the Ko Per Baw, but they cooperate with the Burmese so the Burmese found out, and they beat her. They accused her of being an informer and they tried to kill her.

Q: Did they ever kill any villagers?
A: They killed one, Du Lay Loh, the villager whose wife can’t speak. They saw his notebooks in his house that record his work in trading wood and bamboo from last year. It was last month at night time. The monks and other villagers saw it, and the village headwoman saw it. They killed him at the graveyard next to the monastery. They pulled him to the cemetery and people thought that they would go to Ker Ghaw, but the village head said they killed him and buried him. He was around 30 years old. People dared not ask them anything.

Q: Was anyone else killed?
A: There was also the person shot while he was eating in his house. He was trying to run away when they shot him dead. Usually people run away from them when they shoot. That happened last year [i.e. before the rainy season, in the first half of 1999].

Q: Did the Burmese force you to do loh ah pay?
A: We had to do it a lot, wherever they had work going on. We had to build their camps, like the lower camp at Ko Ko. We carried rice and food and built their camp. We had to go once a week, and if we did not go we had to give money. If we did not go in person, one person from our family had to go instead. We had to sleep there at night because it is quite a long distance from the village to Ko Ko. We went on foot.

Q: Who had to go?
A: Both men and women had to go. Children also had to go; the youngest children that they forced to work were 10 years or older. They had to carry as much as they could. For the smallest ones, they made 2 children carry one big tin of rice [about 17 kg / 37 lb]. For adults, they forced them to carry one big tin of rice or more.

Q: What about people older than 60 or 70?
A: They forced them all. I always went - all the gray-hairs had to go. I had to carry rice, but for [longer-term] portering I couldn’t go and asked my son to go. A person from every family had to go.

Q: What other things did the Burmese collect in the village?
A: Every time that they came to the village they ate a lot. Before they arrived in the village we had to send 30 or 40 viss [48-64 kg / 105-140 lb] of pork for them, and when they arrived at Taw Oak, we had to send it right away. They eat as they like. Pwah!! They treat us awfully.

Q: Did you hear that they are going to drive out the villagers?
A: Yes, the villages like Thay Wah Pu and Wah Klu Pu and others are all going to be forced down to the lower places, maybe to Ko Ko. Then they will send their Army to that place so there will be one Army unit to guard every village.

Q: How did you hear about this? Did they tell you directly?
A: No, we heard it from the Ko Per Baw secretly. They said that 2 Divisions of Burmese Army troops will come here. A unit of troops will guard each village. All the villages: Toh Thu Kee, Thay K’Dtee, Loh Baw, Pah Klu, Tee Wah Klay, and Wah Klu Pu they will move to a place near Ko Ko, but we don’t know where exactly because they did not tell us where. Then they will guard us.

Q: Who told you this?
A: L---. He is a Ko Per Baw Commander, and before he was with the Kaw Thoo Lei. He comes into the village but he never troubles any villagers.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw come to the village often?
A: Previously, during the summer time they came but when the rainy season arrived they didn’t come, and just let the Burmese come to the village. They cooperate [with the Burmese]. They didn’t ask to eat, but they always collect for portering. They forced us to carry bullets to the areas of Taw Oak, Noh La, and Thee Doh Kway Kee. People who didn’t go had to hire others, 2,500-3,000 Kyat for 5 days. It is the same as the Burmese, but both of them ordered us to go for them.

Q: What about loh ah pay for Ko Per Baw?
A: Yes, they demanded it a lot if they had to build something. We had to build their camps at Ko Ko. They forced us to do labour the same as the Burmese.

Q: Did they plant landmines in the village?
A: During the night they sometimes encircled the village with landmines. They planted them surrounding the houses, and if they had sentry duty they planted them around themselves. They planted them surrounding Pah Klu village, but when morning came they took them out.

Q: How do you feel about the abuses the Burmese are inflicting on you?
A: How can I feel when they come and rape our daughters and ask to have sex with my wife? And they loot all of our belongings and our paddy. Last year we could not plant paddy, so we have to buy paddy but then they come and take it. They don’t have any rations and their leaders don’t send them rice, only alcohol. So they eat all of ours.

___________________________

NAME:       "Naw Paw Mo"             SEX: F               AGE: 42         Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 6 children aged 5-23
ADDRESS:   Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                          INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Naw Paw Mo" was interviewed in a refugee camp in Thailand just 2-3 days after her arrival there.]

Q: Why did you come here?
A: Because we were afraid of the Burmese. Der!! They were raping us and asking us to have sex with them so we were afraid, and also we had no food to eat.

Q: When did they ask you to have sex with them?
A: Der! Since they came and stayed in the village. After they moved out for a while we fled.

Q: Did many soldiers come at once to ask you?
A: He came by himself in the early evening. I did not know his name. I had friends in my house but the [village] men had all run to hide. There was a woman who was staying with me, but he disrespected both of us.
Her husband: Don’t think that they will respect us. They don’t even respect the monks.

Q: What did the soldier say to you?
A: He said, "A’Mo pay! A’Mo leh saun!" [literally: "Mother, give! Mother, a present!"] I asked him, "What kind of present?", and he came near to me so I was afraid. He said "A’Mo pay! Pay!" and I said, "Give what?", and I moved away from him little by little because I was afraid. I told him, "Go back. It is dark, go back." And I moved away from him. I spoke to him in Karen, but he spoke to me in Burmese. After I asked him to go back he went back.

Q: Were your children in the house?
A: No, I did not have my children in the house.

Q: Did you hear of them doing this to any other women?
A: Der! They stole sex a lot. They stole sex with one of my married friends. Her name is P--- and she is around 30 years old. She has a husband and he was sleeping, also she has two young daughters.

Q: Was it the same soldier as the one who tried to sleep with you?
A: No, he is not the same soldier. In the daytime he went to proposition her daughter, and I know that she was afraid, so I carried a big knife with me and called him down, and he came down from the house. I went because our houses are close to each other.

Q: So did soldiers just try to rape any woman in the village that they wanted?
A: People said that it was like that, but I don’t know if it’s true or not. They captured women and took photos with them. The women who are married but still quite young, they capture them and take photos with them. [To her husband:] Do you remember when we went to the monastery and we saw Ma T--- and Ma C--- there? [Two women, presumably being held by the soldiers.]
Her husband: Young women can’t even show themselves [in the village], because if they do they would rape them. That’s why women have fled.
A: He took the village headwoman to sleep with him, and he kept her beside him and slept with her.
Her husband: She doesn’t have her husband anymore [she’s a widow], but she has children.
A: The children go with her and stay with them. She has two children and one is 7 years old. I can’t tell what he does with her because he never lets her out, and she has to stay there both days and nights. If he went somewhere, she had to go with him day or night.

Q: Auntie, now are women staying in the village?
A: We do not have many women in the village now. They’ve gone to stay at other places.

Q: How do you feel about the soldiers raping and abusing women?
A: As for me they couldn’t rape me, but they did it a lot to my friends and my nieces, so I couldn’t stay anymore. I was afraid and sometimes our hearts become cold and sometimes hot [angry], and we couldn’t sleep until morning. In the night my heart and hands became cold with fear of them. My husband was not sleeping beside me.

Q: Uncle, do they wear soldiers’ uniforms or plain clothes when they enter the village?
Her husband: They wear soldiers’ uniforms when they patrol and they carry guns to frighten the villagers. They do it to torture and persecute the Karen nation.

Q: Have you heard about Sa Thon Lon or Baw Bi Doh [SPDC execution squads; see the analysis section of the report for background]?
Her husband: We heard about them but we could not figure out if these belong to the same group, because they are doing the same things as those groups.

Q: When they come do they bring their own rations?
Her husband: Instead of bringing their rations they eat the villagers’ food until the villagers cannot tolerate it anymore. Even if people have pigs, they ask to eat them, then later they just eat as they like and don’t even ask about it. They took all of our food and we could do nothing. They do not bring food, just come and eat with us where we’re going to eat. This troop of soldiers eats a lot of paddy per month because there are around 100 or 200 of them.

Q: What do they do if they see people working in the fields?
Her husband: It is not easy for you if they see you in the fields. If they come you have to avoid them even if you stay in the fields. You dare not keep your food in your house, because if they see it they take it all and you have nothing left to eat. They also loot the rice of the old men [even if they are present] and they can do nothing.
A: At my mother’s house, where 2 of my sisters were also staying, they [soldiers] came and touched them with guns and looted some rice. Then they threatened my sisters with a firebrand and cut up my mother’s bed. They didn’t burn them, but the fire was very bright under the house.

Q: Does your mother stay in the village?
A: No, she is outside the village. She stays together with my two sisters and my father. She is very old, maybe more than 60 or 70, and cannot walk. My father is 80 or 90.

Q: Is it better for them to stay outside the village?
Her husband: If they could walk they would have already come here. They asked me to come back and take them away. They want to come because the Burmese loot their food. They are old, and if we are not there and their other children are not with them and the Burmese loot their food, where are they going to get food?

_________________________

NAME:       "Pa Kyaw"             SEX: M                 AGE: 40           Karen Animist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 2 children aged 3 and 14
ADDRESS:   B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township          INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Pa Kyaw" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: When and why did you come to xxxx [refugee camp]?

A: I arrived here nine days ago with my wife and two children. There were 9 families who left the village together, but one family went to xxxx [another refugee camp] so now there are 8 families here. We came here because our enemies, the Burmese military and the chauvinist government, were oppressing us. The Army camped everywhere in our village, looted our livestock, and demanded that we do forced labour until we had no time to work for ourselves. Finally we had no food because they took it all, so we fled here.

Q: Do you know the name of the Company that stayed in your village?
A: The soldiers who came to our village were from LIB #2 in Division #44. They came a long time ago, many years already. They had two camps, one in the village with ten soldiers and one small one at the top of the village. It was always the same Division but they sometimes changed the Battalion. First Battalion #356 came and stayed for a year, then they went to Paw Baw Ko where there is a different camp. Battalion #357 replaced them in our village. Also the Ko Per Baw sometimes came to patrol our village, but they came for a short time, only 1-2 days, and then went back. They forced us to work for them. They told us that they were going to help Karen people, but when the Burmese forced us to do things and we told the Ko Per Baw they just looked at us and didn’t help us.

Q: What was your village like before the Burmese came, and what is it like now?
A: Before people moved to other places there were about 50 households, but now we have 30 or 40 households. There are only 25 houses that the Burmese can force to pay or demand labour from, because the other families are widows or orphans.

Q: What is the school in your village like?
A: We have a Burmese school with 4 grades. One teacher they gave us, two are from the west of Burma, and one is from the village. Two are paid by the Burmese government and two are Karen volunteers.

Q: What did the Burmese do when they entered the village?
A: When they entered the village the Burmese collected porters and other people for forced labour. Each month they demanded 5 porters to work for them, and if you could not go you had to give them money. We had to pay 2,500 Kyat per person for 3 days. They also demanded that for every 10 houses we send 4 people for set tha [forced labour as messengers and doing other errands]. We could never stop to take a rest. Someone had to go every day and if we could not go we had to give money, 800 Kyat per day. A group of villagers had to be there every day to porter, and we would take turns going in groups for 5 days at a time.

The village head has responsibility for all people who are sick and cannot go or pay the fee for portering. This is why no one wants to be the village head. Our last village head, D---, fled already, and nobody wanted to be the village head after he left. He was elected by the villagers to cooperate with them to solve their problems, but he did not want to cooperate with the Burmese. If the Burmese demanded things from the villagers which we couldn’t give, the village head had to take responsibility. The Burmese punish him if he can’t give them what they want. Sometimes they asked for money, but they would also beat him for punishment. My older brother was the village head and I saw the Burmese slap his face and head, just like they do to the villagers who go and work for them every day. His name is xxxx and he is 40 years old. The Burmese hit him when they were angry because they saw the villagers running from them, and when they asked the village head, he told them that they were running to escape from being captured as porters. So they punished the village head. This year at the start of the rainy season the Ko Per Baw ordered a village head to collect porters but he would not go at first and nobody dared to go. They arrested him and put him in jail for 2 or 3 days but he escaped. He is my nephew, only 20 years old. His name is Saw xxxx.

Q: What happens to the villagers who stay in the village and cannot run away?
A: The people who dare to stay in the village are captured by the Burmese. Many who try to flee have no food outside the village, so they must come back. When the Burmese are leaving the village, they capture the villagers as they like [to go with them].

Q: Do the Burmese collect fees in your village in addition to portering fees?
A: They demand to eat in the village as well. We have to find money to pay for 2 meals of pork per month, which is 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb] of pork each time, or 40 viss in total. One viss of pork costs 500 Kyat, so that makes 20,000 Kyat monthly just for pork. If we do not have pigs in the village we have to go outside the village to find them.

Q: Do the villagers have to go for loh ah pay also?
A: Yes, Battalion #356 demands that we do loh ah pay. They stay towards Thingan Nyi Naung, about 2 miles from B’Naw Kleh Kee. When we go we have to plough for them, plant paddy, and clear the roadsides [of scrub, grass etc.]. We also have to fence the camps which are in the village, and when the men are in their fields they order the women to do it. Men cut the bamboo and then women carry it back in the midday sun. Women must also carry water for them in the morning. They always demand that we go because they always have at least one kind of work for us to do; it is non-stop. We go in the morning and come back in the evening. Also we have to take our own food. One or two of them guard the people on the road, and if you take a rest they don’t like it and ask you to work faster. If you bring your own water you can drink at rest time. Some people in the village were kicked by the Burmese, too.

Q: What was your experience portering like?
A: I went many times to porter, and the last time was during the rainy season when I had to climb the mountains to Meh Pleh. It was the time to plant paddy and it was raining a lot, so there was flooding. I climbed up the mountain for 3-4 days from Sghaw Ko and B’Naw Kleh Klee to Dta Thu Kee. We had to carry many kinds of loads, and even if you were already carrying bullets and shells they gave you food to carry as well. It must have been more than 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb] because we could barely walk. They kicked you if you couldn’t carry it, so you wouldn’t dare tell them if you couldn’t carry it. We couldn’t take a rest except when they let us. Even if we were so tired that our sweat filled our nostrils, we could not rest or they would kick our behinds. One day one of us died and the Burmese told us he was their friend, but we didn’t know if he was Burmese or not. He got sick from the rain and not enough food or sleep. He didn’t have a shirt on, and they left him uncovered; we didn’t know if he was dead yet, but we knew he would soon die if they left him. We thought he was a villager like us, because we came from different villages and didn’t know everyone. I think if he was their servant they would have treated him and taken him with them; people said he was their friend but I can’t believe it.

Q: Who were the other villagers with you?
A: They captured 4 of us to serve as porters. The villagers’ names were Pa M---, who was between 50-60 years old, Pa P--- who is over 40 and Pa K--- who is over 50. They captured old and young alike - I was the youngest one. They captured 4 of us but they had demanded 5 people from our village. We didn’t avoid them because we are quite old, and also we thought that they would not capture us because we already gave them people from the village to serve as porters. It was Division #44 that captured us, LIB #201 or 202. There must have been over 200 porters, but I can’t guess the number of soldiers. We had to walk between the soldiers through the mountains. We ate what they gave us but we couldn’t ask for more if it was not enough for us. In the morning and in the afternoon they fed us, a cup of rice each time. They ate curry themselves, and sometimes if they gave you the curry soup [the liquid left over after they had eaten and the meat and solids in it] you had to settle for that.

Q: How did you get back to your village?
A: Sometimes they let people come back, but I ran to escape on the morning of the 5^th day after I did not get any food to eat. They didn’t see me, and they didn’t follow me. I ran alone for one day until I reached my village in the evening.

Q: Why did you decide to leave your village for good?
A: We left because we couldn’t tolerate the persecution anymore. We felt it from all sides. Even if we stayed in the village and used a flashlight at night, they would shoot us and not be punished for it [SPDC units regularly issue orders that villagers are only allowed to carry firebrands to light their way around the village at night, and that they will shoot at anyone carrying a flashlight]. This year before the rainy season they shot a villager named Pa B--- and his two friends who were looking after their elephants, but even then we dared not say anything. Whenever we had to go to porter for them and had no money to pay the fee, we worried that we would die. We dared not complain when they stole our chickens and pigs, or they would glare at us. When the owners weren’t in the houses, they took our belongings too. Then they demanded rice and told us they would give it back, but they didn’t. If they needed it they took it as they liked. If the owner wasn’t home when they came, they looted the paddy and carried it off to eat. If your paddy was gone you would starve. So we didn’t have enough, and we had to leave.

Q: Did you hear whether the Burmese were going to relocate your village?
A: We heard a long time ago that they were going to move our village because they wanted to stay in our village. They hoped that the villagers would leave, so they persecuted us until people really could not tolerate it. We didn’t have any more money for set tha [to avoid forced labour as messengers] and so we had to go in person. If we went for set tha and also portering, we would come back from set tha one day and the next day have to go as porters. Then we would porter for 3 days and there would be no replacement because they had come to our homes to collect people for set tha or loh ah pay already. So we had no time to do it all in person because if we went then we had to pay money too, and so we couldn’t tolerate it. We couldn’t work for them and still have time to work for our children, too. We didn’t know where the Burmese were planning to move the village to, so we didn’t ask permission and we fled secretly. We didn’t bring anything with us when we fled, just only the clothes we were wearing. I couldn’t bring other things because I had to carry my 3 year old son. No one knows what the Burmese will do because if they see people in the mountains they shoot them dead, and if people stay in the village they force them to do loh ah pay. We couldn’t do anything. I think all of the villagers left the village after I left; there were 17 households left and I think all have fled to the jungle.

Q: Did the Burmese ever rape the women in the village?
A: We heard that the Burmese were raping women in Pah Klu village. They raped one woman named xxxx, a widow. They raped her every night and they forced her to stay at their place. The villagers from there told us this story while we were coming here.

Q: What was the journey to xxxx [refugee camp] like from your village?
A: We had to come during the rainy season so we had many problems on the way. We got sick and had no medicine and not enough food. We slept in the mountains for 5 days and arrived at the Moei River on the 6^th day. We stayed at Tee Ner Hta for one day, then came here.

Q: Will you go back to your village?
A: I don’t dare go back. If the situation becomes peaceful and if our whole Karen Nation goes back then we will go back too, but if they do not go back we will stay here like this. The Burmese come and say they will guard and protect our village from the disturbance of the Kaw Thoo Lei, but instead they guard us and persecute us.

__________________________

NAME:       "Saw Po Doh"                SEX: M              AGE: 36                Karen Animist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 3 children aged 4-10 years old
ADDRESS:   B’Naw Kleh Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township                    INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Saw Po Doh" was interviewed after arriving at a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: When did you come to xxxx [refugee camp]?
A: We left the village ten days ago and it took us 7 days to get here. We arrived 3 days ago.

Q: Why did you flee your village?
A: We could not tolerate it anymore because the Burmese tortured and persecuted us and we had no time to work. They demanded that we do a lot of forced labour until we had no time to work for ourselves. They forced us to work every day for the whole month and we couldn’t work even one day on our fields, and then they forced us to do set tha [forced labour as messengers and running errands] and portering. They also demanded money, and we had to buy batteries for them, and also feed them 20 viss [32 kg /70 lb] of pork twice a month. 1 viss of pork costs 500 Kyat, so 40 viss for the whole month is 20,000 Kyat.

Q: Are the Burmese staying in your village now?
A: Yes, there are more than 20 soldiers from Division #44, LIB #102. They have stayed more than 2 months already.

Q: Why do the Burmese stay in the village?
A: I don’t know, but maybe they are looking for their enemies or they plan to stop KNLA soldiers from patrolling. They told us that they are there to stop the black market trade, but the Burmese aren’t doing what they said. They told us that they are going to stop black market trading but I thought they came to cut off the KNU.

Q: What did they do when they entered the village?
A: They didn’t ask to eat the villagers’ livestock, they just stole it. They stole in the night. The villagers went to tell the commander but we didn’t have eyewitnesses, so they said that we couldn’t prove it. They don’t pay for the livestock they take.

Q: Do they take porters from the village?
A: They come and capture porters when their new friends [replacement troops] come. Every month they collect 7 porters from B’Naw Kleh Kee and Paw Baw Ko. We had to go for 3 days, then after 3 days those 7 people go home and another group has to go. They demanded that the village head collect people for portering. If people could not go they had to give money - 2,500 Kyat for 3 days. They didn’t hire other people with the money, they just took it for themselves.

Q: Did you ever go to porter?
A: I had to go 4 times because our village is small [so his turn came up more often]. I had to go one time this month before I came here. The last time they asked me to carry mortar shells, more than 10 viss [16 kg / 35 lb]. It didn’t matter if I could or couldn’t carry it because they forced us to carry it. I had to bring my own food, enough for 3 days. If you go for many days, they feed you. Two of us went that time because the soldiers didn’t move beyond the surrounding houses of the village. Before that time, I often had to carry long distances. I started at Thingan Nyi Naung and carried one sack of rice until Sghaw Ko, but it was heavy so we carried it in turns from place to place. Ah!! They swore at us a lot in their mother tongue, so I did not understand and then they glared their eyes. They kicked and beat porters if they could not carry their loads. Last year in the dry season in the month of Tha Lay [January 1999] I saw them beat a Thai person from Kway Sha; he also had to go portering because he stayed in our village. They beat him and kicked him in the chest with their boots until he couldn’t walk anymore, but I did not understand why because they spoke in Burmese.

Q: Do they also ask people to go for loh ah pay
A: For loh ah pay we had to do many kinds of work like plough the fields, clean the roads, cut down trees and bamboo, make fences, and build bridges. Also we had to build their bunkers, since they set up their camp only 30 yards from our village. Villagers had no time to rest; both men and women had to work for them. They demanded one person from each house each day, but because we couldn’t finish our own work that way the village head arranged for 10 villagers to go per day. The old people asked their children to go for loh ah pay, and the youngest one was just over 10 years old. We had children around 12 and 13 working also. Children under 10 had to carry water for them.

____________________________

NAME:       "Saw Baw"            SEX: M               AGE: 29             Karen Buddhist/Animist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with one child aged 3
ADDRESS:   Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township             INTERVIEWED: 8/99

[When interviewed "Saw Baw" had fled his village and was living in a group of internally displaced people at Tee Ner Hta, a vulnerable site near the border with Thailand. This site was later shelled by SPDC forces and the internally displaced villagers scattered.]

Q: How many days have you been at Tee Ner Hta?
A: We have slept here 3 nights already.

Q: Why did you come here?
A: Because we had problems, for example we couldn’t pay what the Burmese demanded and also transportation - we couldn’t go [to the distant forced labour sites]. Der!! They demanded that we go for loh ah pay, portering and chores like carrying water for them at their Battalion camp. It is not in Tee Law Thay Kee. It is between Meh Pleh and Thingan Nyi Naung. It is quite far away, but I never noticed how many hours because we went all the time.

Q: Did they ever come into the village?
A: They weren’t staying in the village before I came, but if they entered the village and asked for pork the villagers had to give it. They usually came to the village every 2 or 3 days. Sometimes 100 of them came together.

Q: How many houses are in your village?
A: I’ve heard people say that it is 280 houses. The village head’s name is B---. The villagers elected him to be village head.

Q: Do the Burmese collect porters from the village?
A: Yes, they ask the village head. They do not collect monthly but each person has to go for 7 days. They collect 3 people per time.

Q: Do they cause problems for people do who cannot go?
A: They do not trouble them but their brother or sister has to go for them. Or if they don’t have anyone [to go for them], people like that have to run away.

Q: Did you have to give the Burmese a rice quota?
A: During this last rainy season the rice [ration shipments] didn’t come for them, so they didn’t have enough rice. Then they demanded rice from the villagers. They demanded it from the village head, and he had to give it to them because he was afraid of their guns. So the villagers had to give and then had to buy rice for themselves in order to eat. One big tin costs 2,500 Kyat.

Q: Could you earn your living by working on the fields?
A: I could support my family if we didn’t need to fear them, and if they didn’t disturb us. But in this messy situation, I had no time to work.

Q: Did the Burmese ever destroy your field huts?
A: Der! They destroyed huts at B’Naw Kleh Kee already. In my village they didn’t destroy them yet, but in the first year that the Ko Per Baw was founded [1995], they [DKBA] destroyed our huts and burned down our stacks of straw.

Q: Did you ever go to porter?
A: No, I ran to avoid them. We have to pay money if we dare not go, and if we can’t give money we have to run. If we run we don’t need to pay because the village head can’t find us when we run into the mountains. People who live in the village have to give it, and the villagers who don’t want to give it have to run and stay in the mountains like my family. I had to run because I had no money to give, and we just didn’t have enough money to buy food.

Q: Do they collect a monthly porter fee?
A: They collect it monthly from the whole village, and for each house it is 3,000 Kyat. Even if you go you also have to pay.

Q: So all the villagers have to give whether they go for portering or not?
A: Yes, because it is not just for portering. For portering they also collect. Most people dare not go, so they also pay 3,000 or 4,000 Kyat for 7 days instead of going. They tell the village head to collect it. Then we use that money to hire our friends in the villages; it is not given to the Burmese.

Q: How long ago did you leave your village?
A: It is a long time ago, 5 years already. I stayed near T---, a three hour walk from the village. But the Burmese couldn’t see or find my hillfields and field huts easily. Mostly they pass by the huts which are along other pathways.

Q: When you lived in the village did you have to go for loh ah pay?
A: If the villagers run with their whole family, they don’t need to go for loh ah pay. But if they captured us [hiding in the fields], they would kill us.

Q: Did you see them kill anyone?
A: No, I didn’t see them kill anyone. I’ve seen them fire at people who ran when they approached, but no one got injured. One time they shot at the village children who were looking after the cattle in the hills, and they captured many children. It was around 20 people. There were children and women, some of whom were carrying their babies. They called them back to their Battalion and forced them to spend the night. Then they released them.

Q: Why did you decide to leave your area and come here
A: I couldn’t stay near my place because they are going to stir up our place. I heard them say that they are going to drive all the villagers out to the same place. They didn’t tell us where or when they will drive us out, but they said that they would. They will gather and force out all of the villagers that are living around Meh Pleh Toh. They will block every path that passes or goes through Meh Pleh Toh until nothing can move, even food and other things. I heard that they will make trouble for people who stay in the mountains, that especially if they see men they will kill them at once. Our village head alerted us. If they see them, they will shoot dead all villagers as far as they can see.

Q: What do you think their aim is in doing this?
A: Their aim is to destroy our Karen nationals until we disappear. I heard this from the village head, who said it is because the Karen villagers who stay in the mountains and work the hillfields are all considered as their enemies. If they see women they rape them, and if they meet men they kill them. It is better to stay in the village but there is too much forced labour there. The village head told us, "If you cannot stay here anymore and need to go you can go, because there are people who will look after you". The Burmese don’t come to do good things, only to destroy things. Now more often than ever they are coming to persecute and kill us. That’s the reason we fled here.

_______________________

NAME:      "Saw Nyo"               SEX: M              AGE: 50         Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 4 children aged 6 to over 20
ADDRESS:  Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                     INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Saw Nyo" was interviewed in a refugee camp in Thailand just 2-3 days after his arrival there.]

Q: Why did you flee your village?
A: We fear the Burmese. If they got us, they would force us to do labour and beat us. So we dared not stay in the house, and we went outside the village and stayed there. While we were staying outside the village, we heard that this group of Burmese [the troops currently stationed in the area] are very vindictive men, so the village men dared not go back. The women went back and stayed for a while, but they said that they dared not stay either. So both men and women were staying outside the village and we dared not go back to get our rice, so they ate our rice and took all of our paddy. They also wouldn’t let other villagers come to sell rice, or let us go to buy any. Later some people tried to get rice, but they managed to get only 8 small tins of rice [totalling about 2 kg / 4.4 lb], so later people decided that we couldn’t tolerate this anymore. We fled and came here before they could arrest us.

Q: Do the Burmese destroy the villagers’ paddy?
A: They ate it all but they did not destroy the paddy growing in the field. They just kept it all.

Q: Did the Burmese force villagers to porter for them?
A: Ah! They collected 2 people per time. They went for 5 days and then changed with another group. They forced us a lot and we dared not go, so people collected money instead. They collected 2,000 Kyat for 5 days. They got 2 people each time [the villagers collected money and hired 2 people to go for them]. I have gone before, but this year I did not go and gave money instead. Last year I had to go around the time when I went back to my village. My home village is K--- and a lot of Burmese were staying there. That time when I went back I went with my child and it was a 6 day walk, but for a man alone it would take 2 days. I stayed one rainy season and one dry season. Last summer I came back and stayed at Pah Klu.

Q: What did people do who couldn’t go when ordered to go as porters?
A: The people who can’t go have to give 2,000 Kyat. They would give trouble if they came and people didn’t go, so everybody went. They asked the village head and the village head collected the villagers.

Q: Did they ever abuse any porters?
A: Recently they haven’t beaten anyone because most people dared not stay in the village anymore and ran away. But before it happened a lot because people did not run and hide forever, they just avoided the Burmese and then came back to the village later [and encountered the troops].

Q: Do they force people to go for loh ah pay?
A: Yes, if we had not come here we would have had to carry [short-term carrying, as opposed to longer-term ‘portering’]. We saw a lot of women who had to go right before we came.
His wife: Men are running away already.

Q: Do they collect one person from every house or does everyone in the village have to go?
A: They force one person from each family, but people don’t stay in their houses now; they stay in their huts in their hillfields. They did not trouble them because they didn’t see them. Girls also have to carry for them. The youngest ones they force are age 10 and older. The oldest are over 50 or 60. I dared not go so I asked my wife to go. She was staying outside the village but she went back to find rice. She is not well. Her name is S--- and she is 37 years old. She went back sometimes while I stayed in the hillfields.

Q: Did they do anything to the women while the men were staying in the fields?
A: They walked around the whole night and went into people’s houses. They stole people’s belongings and questioned women. They asked the women to sleep with them, and so some women dared not stay and ran away because they couldn’t face it. I did not hear that they raped women in the village, but I heard that they harassed women. They asked to have sex and the women got angry and moved away. They harassed 2 or 3 women like that. After people knew about that, only a few people remained in their houses. Most people ran away.

I know that that old woman is also involved. She is the lady village head named Naw xxxx. They harassed her by grabbing her wrists with their hands. She is over 40 years old and her husband is already dead. She has 4 children, 1 boy and 3 girls, because she was married twice.

Q: Are the soldiers still staying in the village?
A: No, they already went back to their camp at Ker Ghaw but we heard that they will come back again. I don’t know their unit number but there are 80 soldiers. They wear the same clothes as villagers. They wear short pants and shirts.

Q: Have you heard about the group called Baw Bi Doh?
A: Ah! It is that group. People told me that it is the Baw Bi Doh, but we called them S’Ker Po ["short skirts"].

Q: Do they carry guns with them?
A: No, they do not carry guns. They bring knives. They walk around day and night. They are going after women, not men.

Q: They don’t capture men to be porters?
A: During the last festival, they captured one man who came back to the village. He is Pa K---, and he is over 20 years old. He went back to donate something to the monastery. The Burmese captured him and accused him of being Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA]. They tied him up under the monastery but they did not beat him. He said, "I am not a soldier and never have been". They released him after a while, but after they let him go no one dared to stay and continue the festival, and all of the men fled the village.

Q: Did they ever beat any villagers?
A: Yes, they beat one married woman named P---. She is around 70 years old. When they were looting her children’s paddy she told them, "It will all be gone, then we will have no paddy to eat." Then they took a stick and beat her once and kicked her once. She dared not complain [to the commander] because the commander and the soldiers are the same.

Q: Did you hear if they killed any villagers?
A: Yes, the same group killed Du Lay Loh. He disappeared but I didn’t know because I was staying outside the village. I heard that and then didn’t know anything else about him until later when he was dead.

Q: Was he married?
A: Yes, she stays in the village and she is mute. She can only just move her hands. She had one child but he died.

Q: Did you hear whether they will force all the villagers to a relocation site?
A: I heard about that. I heard that the villages of Day Law Pya and Meh Pleh Wah Kee will move along with Pah Klu village if there are still people in these villages. They will force us to Ker Ghaw, according to a villager from Loh Baw. Der!! We were afraid that they would drive us to the lowlands [the plains to the west] and make us go among the landmines. The Loh Baw villager told us "They will force us together", but I was not optimistic about this because I worried about the landmines. I heard people say that they would start driving us out after this month. I dared not stay and made a plan to come here, but I dared not flee right away because I didn’t know the way to go. Just 3 families came with me on the way, but we met up with another group along the way. We met each other in the mountains and the other group had 20 or 30 families.

Q: How long did it take you to get here?
A: I slept one night on the way and then arrived at Tee Ner Hta. I slept one night there and came here three days ago.

Q: Are there any villagers still left in the village, or did everyone flee like you?
A: When we fled there were only one or 2 households left, but they already took their belongings to their huts in their fields. We have a lot of villagers staying in the jungle now, but I don’t know how many exactly. Just a few villagers arrived here, and the rest ran to K--- and to T---. Some also arrived at D--- [on the Thai border]. No one told me anything about this place, and we are tired of staying here [Thai authorities have kept them crammed together in the old school building of Beh Klaw refugee camp for months now without allowing them to build huts in the camp]. I am unhappy here, but I dare not go back and stay there. I feel like my heart is heavy through the days and nights, and I don’t have any clean space inside. My heart is full with rubbish.

______________________

NAME:      "Naw Hser Paw"            SEX: F            AGE: 28              Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 2 children aged 3 and 6
ADDRESS:  Tee Law Thay village, T’Nay Hsah township                 INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Naw Hser Paw" was interviewed in a refugee camp in Thailand just 2-3 days after her arrival there.]

Q: How long have you been in this hospital [in the refugee camp]?
A: I arrived here 2 days ago.

Q: When did you step on the landmine?
A: I stepped on a landmine near our village about one month ago. It was a Burmese landmine, and they put it beside our village. I was going to my hillfields with 5 friends of mine.

Q: Were you the only one wounded?
A: Yes.

Q: What happened after you stepped on the mine?
A: Right after I got wounded people carried me to my farmfield hut and I slept one night in my hillfield. Then the next day people came and carried me back, and I got treated by a Burmese medic at xxxx. Then people carried me here and I slept 5 days on the way. We worried that the Burmese would come and question me about what happened, so I dared not stay.

Q: So you got treatment for a month in your village?
A: Yes. It got better but the wound is not entirely healed, so I can’t walk.

Q: Did your foot become infected?
A: Yes, it was infected.

Q: Did any other villagers get injured from landmines?
A: Yes, we had one other villager named P--- who was 40 years old who kicked one [possibly mounted on a post with a tripwire] while he was going to his hillfields. His foot wasn’t hurt, but his shoulder was wounded. He is in hospital now but it is already healed. He stays in xxxx village.

Q: Now are the Burmese staying in your village?
A: The Burmese are staying in the village next to us at Tee Wah Blaw, but they arrive every day. Every time they come they find the village head and demand pigs, alcohol, and chicken.

Q: Do they demand villagers go for portering?
A: They demand it and the village has to provide it. For a short distance, like from our village to Tee Wah Blaw, they demand us for one day, but for the longer distances they demand us for 5 days. Because they stay near us we have to go once a day to give them news and messages, and report if we saw KNLA soldiers. Usually they call just one person, but sometimes they call 2 or 3 people. If some villagers cannot go, other villagers have to go. The ones who can’t go have to hire someone for 2,500 Kyat.

Q: Do they demand that all ages go for portering?
A: The oldest people are 40 years old, but the youngest is more than 10. They are chosen by the village head so some people are quite young.

Q: Do you have people who go for loh ah pay?
A: Yes, people have to go far sometimes, all the way to Tee Hsah Ra. We hired someone. If you couldn’t go you had to hire someone for 2,500 Kyat for 5 days.

Q: How do they treat people who go outside the village?
A: If they see the villagers in their huts or fields without passes, they capture them. You can sleep there [in your field hut] for 3 days if you want to, but after that the village head needs to write a permission letter again.

Q: What happens if people don’t have a letter?
A: If they don’t see a letter, they trouble them.

Q: Do you still have a village head?
A: Yes, but I don’t know his name because he is old and I didn’t ask. He is 50 or 60 years old and people call him P---. The villagers elected him because most villagers do not dare to become village head. If the village head is in the village when the Burmese come, he gives them food like pigs and chickens because we have to give every time they ask. Sometimes we have to give 1 pig that weighs 20 or 30 viss [32-48 kg / 70-105 lb].

Q: Do they come to the village often?
A: They arrive once a week or once a month, but because they stay near our village they can also arrive once or twice a day. They do not have a camp but they come and stay at Tee Wah Blaw, less than one hour’s walk from our village.

Q: Do the Ko Per Baw also come to your village?
A: The Ko Per Baw also come. They work together [with the Burmese]. In Tee Wah Blaw it is only the Burmese who come, because some of the Tee Wah Blaw villagers are Ko Per Baw anyway [so the Ko Per Baw columns don’t need to come].

NAME:       "Naw Bway"            SEX: F                AGE: 29                      Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Widowed, 4 children 9 years old and younger
ADDRESS:    Pa Noh village, Kyaik Mayaw township, Mon State             INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Naw Bway" was interviewed shortly after arriving in Thailand as a refugee. Her village is in Kyaik Mayaw township, just southeast of Moulmein, but her husband died when taken as a porter to eastern Pa’an District.]

Q: When did you arrive at Huay Kaloke [refugee camp in Thailand]?
A: I arrived here 2 days ago.

Q: Where is your husband?
A: My husband died 15 days ago. The Burmese forced him to do loh ah pay [she means portering]. They said that he would only have to go for a few days, but they forced him to go for 10 days. We couldn’t hire someone to go for him because we had no money. They said that the villagers who didn’t go had to pay them money, that’s why we had to go. He had not even been gone for 10 days when people sent me a message that he had died. I didn’t know anything. I went to ask the Burmese soldiers and they said he died on the borderline. One of his friends said, "I saw him when they arrested him, but I don’t know where he carried because I didn’t see him again". I went to find him at Ka Daung and Mudon, but I couldn’t find anything. After that I didn’t know where to go. I thought that I would go to his younger brother, but I couldn’t. In the past I stayed in the village, but I have no parents or siblings there. We left the village 10 days after we heard that he died. I have a younger brother who stays in Thailand, but I don’t know where. That’s why I came up to my Uncle’s house, but my Uncle hasn’t seen him and can’t find him. When I arrived at my Uncle’s place, I didn’t know where to go next.

Q: Did the Burmese come to collect porters when they caught your husband?
A: Yes. They arrested him in a shop. Two of them went, but I don’t know his friend. He is from Ka Daung. His friend came to tell us that he had died, but I forgot to ask him how he died. He only told me that he died from a landmine. The Burmese arrested them outside the village, but they didn’t kill them. They took them away from the village and forced them to porter. If they couldn’t porter, they killed them.

Q: After your husband died, did you have a funeral service for him?
A: I had only 15 baskets of paddy left, so I sold it and did a little service for him. This year, I only got 30 baskets of paddy [from the harvest]. We ate it and then my husband died, so I sold the rest of the paddy and came up here.

Q: Had your husband ever gone to porter before that time?
A: No, he never went because he worked on the farm. Sometimes we gave money to someone who would dare to go for him. This time he was arrested in a shop which was far from the village. We could do nothing - he had to follow them. I told the Burmese that I have 4 children and no parents who stay with me, and they should release him because it was so far from the village. They told me "Auntie, it is close by." My husband had never gone before. We worried that he would die if he went to porter for the Burmese.

Q: Did any other people die besides your husband while they were portering for the Burmese?
A: My husband died this year and two other men died 2 years ago. One young man got malaria and died. His name was A’Kyaw and he was 16 years old. An old man died because he was very weak. They forced him to carry their things from the shop. His name was Pu Htoo and he was 70 years old.

Q: Did the Burmese force you to pay fees for portering and loh ah pay?
A: Yes. We paid them both rice and money. I had to pay 5 baskets [of paddy] 4 times a year plus 500 Kyat each time. Last year we had to feed them one or two pigs. They called the village head and asked for it. We were afraid of them and gave it to them.

Q: What kind of loh ah pay did you have to do?
A: They forced us to build a road and to do everything else that they told us to do. When the Burmese forced us to go, all the villagers had to go. We were forced to work, but we didn’t know what we had to do at first. Sometimes we had to build a road, or cut bamboo and wood to send to the Burmese. We went to build the road every year on the way between Ka Daung and Kyaun Na Kwa. The road is not so long but the cars can go on it. I also went to build it.

Q: Did you have to pay other taxes besides porter fees and rice?
A: Yes, the DKBA comes to collect rice. When they arrive in the village, they go to the village head’s house and ask him to collect for them. Sometimes the village head gives to them and sometimes the villagers have to give. If they come less often, we give them one bowl of rice, or sometimes two bowls. They also ask us to give them money.

Q: Did you have enough time to work on your field? Did you make enough money from it?
A: No. when we weren’t free we had to pay money, and those who were free had to go [to loh ah pay]. We worked on the field and sold the crop for profit. If the price of rice was supposed to be 400 Kyat, they would buy it for only 300 Kyat.

Q: While you were living in the village, did your children go to school?
A: No, they didn’t because I couldn’t send them to school. I had no money. It would cost 1,000 Kyat to send the oldest one. When her friends went to school and came back home, she could learn Gka Gyi, Ka Kway [letters of the Burmese alphabet] from them.

Q: Are there any soldiers camped in or near the village?
A: The Burmese have a camp in Ka Daung that they call Ko Daw. If you go by car you get to the camp in one hour. They change their troops every three or four months, so I don’t know the commander. I have never been to their place, but it is nearby.

Q: Do the Burmese troops enter the village?
A: No, they never come to the village. Only DKBA soldiers come to the village when they are patrolling. I have never seen Burmese troops there, but they go around outside [on patrol near the village].

Q: You said that the Burmese don’t enter the village, but do they ever ask for livestock from the village?
A: Yes, I saw that they took it without asking. They took whatever they saw and if they entered a house they took everything from the owner. They didn’t do it in the village, but in the place where we stayed in the fields. They caught chickens and took the new rice pots, not the old ones. When they saw that we were cooking rice, they ate it all, then left. Then we had no more rice and had to cook it again.

Q: Have the Burmese troops ever raped any village women?
A: I haven’t heard about it in our village, but we always heard about it from the upper places [in the hills].

Q: Did fighting occur in your village?
A: No, it didn’t occur in the village. It happened far from us, on the other side of the river in Pa Thit and Nut Or.

Q: Did you have any problems along the way here?
A: On the way I had to pay for car fare, but I had no money left. I had only 1,000 Kyat left and I didn’t have a citizen card, so I dared not come here. They asked me to pay 1,000 Kyat in Tha M’Nya, so I had to give it all to them. I had only little coins left. I asked my Aunt for a little money for car and boat fare. When I arrived at Myawaddy, it was all gone. On the way my children didn’t get rice to eat.

Q: Have you decided yet if you will go back?
A: No, although if I go back I won’t even have a pot. I sold all my pots and plates. If I stay here, I have no pots, plates, or a house. I have no one to help me. I don’t know where to go. I have to rely on my Uncle. I have one sister, but I can’t go to her. I heard she lives on the border, but I don’t know where. I have already apologised to my Uncle because I’ve stayed in his house for two days.

___________________________

NAME:      "Saw Lah Baw"              SEX: M             AGE: 31           Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 3 children aged 6-11
ADDRESS:  Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township                    INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Saw Lah Baw" was interviewed after arriving in a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: Why did you come to xxxx [refugee camp], and when did you arrive?
A: We just arrived today. We stayed in the village but we couldn’t suffer anymore, so we came here. We can’t work because the Burmese soldiers confused and tortured us.

Q: Was there a Burmese camp in your village?
A: Yes, the Burmese camp is near my village. One camp is near the village and another camp is on the hill. Another unit is staying in B’Naw Kleh Kee. There is no senior commander, only corporals. The name of the corporal is Thra Hla Aung Ba. The Battalion is #356 and the commander’s name is Major Tin Soe, but he doesn’t come to stay with them. Only Thra Hla Aung Ba stays with them in the camp. Tin Soe stays at the Battalion camp near the fields of Kyo K’Lee.

Q: Since the camp is so close to the village, did they cause any problems for the villagers?
A: Yes, they forced the villagers to do loh ah pay and portering. For loh ah pay we built a main road, cut bamboo and wood, and dug trenches. They forced us to make bamboo fences and clear the place for their battalion camp.

Q: What happened to your legs?
A: I went to cut trees for them because the Burmese wanted to build a bridge and needed wood. When I started to cut down a tree, I stepped on a landmine. Three of us went. One of my friends got a small wound and the other one had dirt sprayed in his face. But I got hit worse than them. [Both of his legs were blown off.]

Q: Do you know if it was a Burmese landmine you stepped on
A: Surely it was a Burmese landmine, but I can’t recall the number of the battalion. The Burmese were moving in that area and the next morning we went to that place.

Q: What happened after you were hit?
A: After I got injured, my friends carried me to the Burmese. They looked at me, then took me to [Battalion] #356, then sent me to Ra Ma Tee [Myawaddy hospital].

Q: After they sent you to the hospital, did they take care of you?
A: No, they didn’t take care of me.

Q: Did they pay your medical expenses?
A: No, they didn’t. They helped [pay for] only one injection. When I stayed in the hospital they didn’t give me any money. I had to spend my own money and eat my own rice because they didn’t feed us. I stayed there for over a month before the water festival last season [April 1999]. I spent 45,000 Kyat in the hospital.

Q: Why did you come here? Did the Burmese make more problems for you in the rainy season?
A: Yes, they made more problems for us. We saw that we had to go as porters and do forced labour. If we didn’t go, they would torture us. Some villagers had no money and that’s why they had to go. If the villagers dared not go, they punished us. They beat the villagers. They broke open the head of one villager named Naw S--- [a woman].

Q: What did they force the porters to carry?
A: They forced the porters to carry ammunition. When my legs were good I went to carry.

Q: How much money did people have to pay if they didn’t go to porter?
A: 2,000 Kyat for 3-5 days. They collected 4 or 5 porters at a time.

Q: Did the Burmese force the villagers to work in the fields for them?
A: They did that near their battalion camp. They have 2 paddy fields that the villagers have to go and work on for them. They don’t do it themselves. The villagers have to do it every year.

Q: Did the Burmese take the villagers’ rice and paddy?
A: Yes, they did. The villagers dared not complain to them. They asked and they took it. They have their own rice but they said it was not white. They wanted to eat the villagers’ rice, but they don’t give their rice to the villagers. They just took ours.

Q: Do your children go to school?
A: No, none of them. There is a school in my village but I can’t send them.

Q: What language do they teach in the school?
A: Burmese. One is a Karen teacher and one is Burmese. I don’t know if the Burmese give them money or not. I don’t understand and I can’t guess. The villagers have to help them by paying with rice. They collect one bowl [about 2 kg] and 10 Kyat from each house per month. Even if you don’t send them to school, you have to give.

Q: When the Burmese enter the village, do they eat the villagers’ livestock?
A: Don’t ask if they eat or not! They ate a lot. We dared not complain to them. If we complained, they said, "I eat your poultry. If I ask from you, give. Don’t talk too much." The villagers are afraid of them and feed them. But the villagers don’t want to feed them in their hearts.

Q: Did the Burmese eat your poultry?
A: I didn’t raise any. If I had raised it, they would have eaten it. Even though I didn’t raise livestock, they took my pumpkins. If I complained, they told me "You have no legs. You shouldn’t say anything."

____________________________

NAME:       "Saw Ler"                 SEX: M                    AGE: 36                    Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married, 5 children between 2 and 12 years old
ADDRESS:   Paw Baw Ko village, T’Nay Hsah township                             INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Saw Ler" was interviewed after arriving in a refugee camp in Thailand.]

Q: When did you arrive here?
A: I arrived today at 9:30 a.m. with my family.

Q: Tell me, why did you come here?
A: We came here because we couldn’t suffer it anymore. The Burmese are forcing us to go as porters, to cut bamboo, to clear the road, and to carry rice for them. Now they are forcing us to be porters between landmines. If you step on a landmine, they don’t take care of you.

Q: Have you always gone to porter for the Burmese?
A: I always went to porter. I went twice a month regularly from my village to the mountain.

Q: Did any of you step on a landmine?
A: No, never because the Burmese went in front of us. We told them that we dared not go to the places where there are landmines. If they dared to go first, we would follow them. They went, and they stepped on them. I saw it happen twice this year. They didn’t die, just got hurt on the leg.

Q: Did they feed you when you portered?
A: No. We carried our own rice. But the Burmese got enough rice.

Q: What did you have to carry?
A: I had to carry 6 big shells that weighed 15 viss [24 kg / 52 lb]. I had to stay with them. We didn’t sleep in their camp. We slept outside in the jungle.

Q: Did you ever try to flee when you portered?
A: No, never. When I finished my turn, the village head sent porters to change. I never fled.

Q: What battalion did you have to porter for?
A: They are #357. I forgot the name of the Corporal, but the Commander’s name is Major Than Aung. He is the biggest one in that place. There are two camps forcing us to do things.

Q: What do the villagers have to do for them?
A: The villagers have to go to fetch water, find firewood, and carry rice for them. On each turn we had to carry 10 times. Two villagers would go every day, and one person has to carry 2 big tins each time [about 32 kg / 70 lb]. It is very far, about 1 furlong [220 yards] distance. Once they had enough water, they forced us to carry firewood. If they didn’t need firewood, they forced us to send letters. If we didn’t send the letters, they punished us. I also had to cut and clear alongside the car road [the Myawaddy/Thingan Nyi Naung road]. We even had to fence the bridges where the cars pass.

Q: Did you get called for portering or loh ah pay this month?
A: I went 4 times this month. Other people didn’t hire me, I was just going for my own turn. For 3 days we usually have to pay 2,000 Kyat, or 500 Kyat per day, to hire someone, or else the villagers go themselves.

Q: Did you have to work a flat field for the Burmese?
A: Yes, I did. I went twice and had to plough the field. The other villagers went during the time of transplanting the seedlings and harvesting. They even forced us to do it in the rainy season. I was not free to do my own work. That’s why I fled here.

Q: Did the Burmese take your belongings or your livestock?
A: Yes, they even ate our rice. If the owner was not in the house, they stepped into the house and took it. The fruits and vegetables that we planted under and around the house they also took without asking.

Q: Did any villagers stay in their farmfield huts?
A: They didn’t allow the villagers to stay in the farmfield huts. They told us to dismantle our farmfield huts and not to keep them. They said if you keep the field huts, the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA soldiers] will come to stay and rest there. The village head went to talk to them, but we had to take them down. They didn’t even allow us to tie our cows there. They told us that if they saw us staying in the farmfield huts they would shoot us dead. They think we are all Kaw Thoo Lei.

Q: Do the Kaw Thoo Lei come sometimes?
A: The Kaw Thoo Lei never come and the Burmese said they didn’t see Kaw Thoo Lei, so the villagers said, "You don’t see them and you still force us to dismantle our farmfield huts. If we go to the field to harvest our paddy, what will we do? Where will we stay? We have no place to stay." The Burmese said to stay under the shade of the trees and bamboo. We had to go back and tie our cattle and buffaloes in the village.

Q: In the past did the Kaw Thoo Lei ever attack the Burmese camp?
A: Yes, but they didn’t shoot this year. The villagers told the Burmese, "If the Kaw Thoo Lei come to shoot you, you shouldn’t take action against us." They said "No problem". Then if the Kaw Thoo Lei went to shoot them they couldn’t say anything. In some villages they fine the villagers 10 viss of pork if they [KNLA] come to shoot at them.

Q: How many houses are there in your village?
A: There are 100 houses in the village. In the past, there were 60 or 70 houses. Then it increased, but now it is decreasing again.

Q: Do villagers also have to pay tax to DKBA?
A: Yes, 600 Kyat for each house per month.

__________________________

NAME:     "Naw Mu Mu Wah"                SEX: F            AGE: 50                   Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:   Married with one child
ADDRESS: Taw Oak village, T’Nay Hsah township                                     INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Naw Mu Mu Wah" was interviewed after fleeing to a village on the Thai border.]

Q: How many days ago did you arrive at xxxx [a village on the Thai border]?
A: I arrived at xxxx over one month ago. I dared not stay there [in her village] any more so I have come here. The DKBA soldiers came to stay in my village. They are planting landmines to protect their logging and they are shooting at each other, so we dared not stay. Also they force us to follow them, and since the men dared not face them the women had to go instead. I had to do the same thing as the village head [she accompanied the village head during the rotation of porters, which involved following the DKBA or the Burmese on patrol]. My child came to stay here over one year ago and wouldn’t allow me to stay there anymore. I continued to live in the village and take care of my flat field, but my child called me to come here when I was called to follow the DKBA soldiers.

Q: How many DKBA soldiers are in your village?
A: I can’t tell, but there may be about 100 of them because they are staying both along the river and at its source. They do not all stay in the village. Some are staying in the jungle.

Q: Do you know the name of the commander?
A: Before I came here, the people told me the name of the commander was Lin Yone, and people called him "Moe Kyo" [Burmese for ‘lightning’]. Now he is dead from a landmine. Their chief commander’s name is Dter Gweh [also known as Chit Thu]. His troops were shooting between Pah Klu and Loh Baw village. They had a camp in the village. I know because I saw their place and dug the bunkers. At that time the Burmese soldiers also came up and worked with the DKBA. After that, most of the DKBA left the village to go and fight, so few were left. I came up here then.

Q: How many houses are there in Pah Klu village?
A: In the past there were 40 households, but the villagers all fled. Now there are only 15 households left in the village.

Q: Did the Burmese arrive a long time ago?
A: When I came here, the Burmese had arrived just a week before. The DKBA has stayed longer. There are about 100 Burmese soldiers who stay in Taw Oak. Before that, their troops were only staying in Ker Ghaw. The commander’s name is Kyaw Zay Ya [commander of the troops from LIB #118]. It might be his soldiers who come to our village, but people said he does not come himself. The Burmese are working with the DKBA. After I came here, the people said there are many Burmese soldiers in Pah Klu village.

Q: Do you have a village headman?
A: There is a village head, and when the DKBA came to stay in the village they forced her to follow them [on patrol]. If they stayed very far away and captured the villagers [for portering], the village head dared not go with them. That’s why the villagers elected each other [to be temporary village heads]. The men dared not go, so the women have to be village heads. The village head’s name is Y--- and she is about 38 years old. She is a widow but she already has a son-in-law.

Q: Who forces the villagers to porter?
A: The DKBA force the villagers to porter. They demand from the village head 4 porters to go for 5 days at a time, then they change porters. The villagers who cannot go have to hire villagers who can go. It costs over 1,000 Kyat for 5 days. If the villagers are sick they have to find and hire someone to go instead of them. The villagers pity each other and some go instead of others. The village men all have to be porters, including one of my nephews. I was waiting for my nephew before coming here, but I couldn’t wait long because if the Burmese and DKBA soldiers came back again, they wouldn’t let me leave.

Q: What do the DKBA force the porters to carry?
A: They force the porters to carry ammunition when they go fighting, and the women have to carry rice. The women carry one or more big tins or baskets of rice. They have to carry until they cannot carry anymore. If you can carry, they force you to go. The children who are 15 years old have to carry one big tin [of rice; about 17 kg / 37 lb]. Some parents won’t allow their children to go, and the parents go instead. The older people who are the same age as me - 50 years old - also have to go.

Q: Where do you go when you porter?
A: They forced us to carry to Loh Baw when they went to follow the people [KNLA]. If they force the villagers to go along, they have to stay with them [guard them] when they stay in the village. Their camp is at the upper place called Paw Moh Baw. If they stay there, the porters have to stay with them. Taw Oak and Paw Moh Baw are close to each other. From Paw Moh Baw, you can look down on Taw Oak. The villagers from Taw Oak used to have festivals in Paw Moh Baw because they built the pagoda there.

Q: Did you ever have to porter for the DKBA?
A: I have never had to go for them. I am old and stay alone, so they didn’t want to force me. But if they had a problem when they captured the villagers, I had to follow with the village headwoman [to supervise the porters]. That’s why they didn’t ask me to porter. Before I came here they had few people to carry things, so they asked me to go. I told them that I would go the next time because I had not yet finished cutting the grass [weeding her ricefields]. But when I was finished cutting the grass, I came up here.

Q: Do the Burmese also force the villagers to porter?
A: They didn’t force them before I came here. They think everything depends on the DKBA soldiers. They are using the DKBA to force us.

Q: Do you mean that if the Burmese need porters, they ask the DKBA to collect for them?
A: Yes. The village men dare not stay in the village, but they dare not go outside it either. So now they live in the village in fear. If they [Burmese] need porters, they force all of the men to go. They arrest many.

Q: Did they beat the porters who couldn’t carry things?
A: When I came here, DKBA hadn’t done that yet. But the Burmese soldiers are doing it, though there are not so many of them there.

Q: Do the villagers have to go for loh ah pay also?
A: They didn’t force them to go yet because they hadn’t built their camp yet. But the villagers always have to go and stay with them in Paw Moh Baw. The villagers have to be porters and stay together with them.

Q: Did the DKBA tax the villagers?
A: Two years ago they taxed the villagers, but since they have been staying in the village they haven’t taxed us.

Q: When the Burmese entered the village, did they ever take the villager’s livestock?
A: Yes, they captured it. They asked the villagers and if they couldn’t get it, they stole it from them. The villagers went to complain to their commander, and the commander asked the soldiers to repay the price. They repaid it when I was there.

Q: Did you hear of any plans by the Burmese to relocate the village?
A: I heard that the Burmese would drive all the villagers to a relocation place. They said they would force ten villages. The name of the villages are Thi Wah Pu, Toh Thu Kee, Pu Wee, Tee Wah Klay, Meh Pleh Wah Kee, Day Law Pya, and Po Thwee Mu. They will surely force them to Ker Ghaw. As for us, the DKBA already tried to force us to Ker Ghaw one time, but we didn’t go because our monk pleaded for us.

Q: Were there landmines in your village?
A: The DKBA laid the landmines near the village and along the way that the villagers take to go to their hill fields. Two villagers stepped on landmines and died. One was named Pa Plah Po. He was about 40 years old and has had many wives. Another one was a woman named Peh Peh, who was also about 40 years old and had many children. She stepped on a landmine and then people brought her home. Then they sent her to Ra Ma Tee [Myawaddy] hospital, but as they were carrying her on the bullock cart she died halfway there. So they carried her back home. It happened in July [1999], when the villagers sow the seed paddy. The man also died in the same month.

Q: Did the DKBA ever shoot any villagers?
A: Yes, they killed one of my nephews. They didn’t allow the people to go out at night. He was foolish and went outside the village at night to find frogs in the rainy season. It was in Lah Ghoh [August] before people transplanted their paddy seedlings. We had already sown the seed paddy and the seedlings were growing long. Then DKBA soldiers who were staying in the village killed him. His name was Saw Eh Kweh, and he was about 20 years old, younger than my daughter. At that time the KNLA came to fight the DKBA in Taw Oak, and when the KNLA entered the village they met him. Some soldiers arrived and started shooting in the village. When he heard the shooting he was afraid and dared not return to the village, so he ran and followed the KNLA. After they [KNLA] finished shooting, they went back to Pah Klu village and took him there, too. But he was not a soldier, so the KNLA soldiers left him there and went away from Pah Klu. The next day when DKBA went to Pah Klu, they killed him and threw his body in the river. The villagers from Pah Klu saw them do it. They stabbed him through his clothes. Maybe they tied him, too, but we didn’t go to see him. It was raining then and the river was in flood. Later when the river went down his body appeared, and the villagers from Pah Klu took him out and buried him.

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NAME:       "Kyaw Soe"                   SEX: M                 AGE: ?              Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:      Married with children
ADDRESS:    xxxx village, Myawaddy township                                   INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Kyaw Soe" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: When did you flee your village?
A: One month ago already. I came here on July 15^th.

Q: Why did you come here?
A: I couldn’t tolerate the forced labour anymore. It cost us 600 Kyat per month [standard monthly fees]. In addition we had to pay 500 Kyat per day for loh ah pay or go ourselves. For 10 days it cost 5,000 Kyat. Then the Burmese and the Ko Per Baw stayed in the village and ate 2 pigs and our poultry every month. We had to pay 400 Kyat per month for the pork to feed the Burmese. I couldn’t tolerate it, because when we started to work on our fields they came and asked us to go [to work for them], and we had to go with our bullock carts and bullocks. They forced us to build [camps at] B--- and T---, but since I couldn’t go I had to hire someone for 5 days.

Q: What other jobs did they ask you to do?
A: They demanded a lot for other jobs and we had no time to rest. We had to go to Old Wangka for the whole month with our bullock carts and bullocks. Fifty villagers worked with 30 carts to pull out stones, logs, sand, and cement. We had to haul it and build things at the gate of their place. Even if we didn’t go they came and beat us, and if we had no time to go we had to pay 500 Kyat.

Q: Did the Ko Per Baw also demand that you do forced labour?
A: The Burmese and Ko Per Baw stay in their place at xxxx, and some of them [DKBA] are xxxx villagers. Both groups demanded 3 people per month. We had to carry bullets and rice. For the Ko Per Baw, the Company Commander’s name is P--- and he is a villager from xxxx. They work under [DKBA] Brigade #999 of Commander Chit Thu. The Burmese who stay in the village have a Karen commander, but I forgot his name. We had to pay four different ways: our own labour, fees, our bullock carts, and our cattle.

Q: What other things did Ko Per Baw and the Burmese demand from you?
A: The Ko Per Baw eat rice and drink alcohol. Sometimes they reimbursed us but not often. We hired 3 porters for them and it cost 500 Kyat each for 5 days. The Burmese came and demanded bullocks and got angry. They touched us with guns and beat us so we dared not stay and had to go. One time they pulled me two or three times saying "Hey! May Kyaw, come!" and they pulled me with my bullocks to follow them. My cattle and I didn’t eat for 2 days.

Q: What exactly did they ever take from you and your house
A: They did not come and take things from my house. I had pigs and chickens but they never took those. They just forced me to go even if I had hired someone to go for me and my bullocks had gone too. But they kept forcing, even though I told them, "Aye Hay! I hired someone yesterday and my bullocks went for you already", but they didn’t care and told me "Come down!", and I had to go down.

Q: When the troops come to the village do they make trouble for you?
A: The Burmese troops who stay in the village now are not good, but I can say they are a little better than the other groups who arrived before, which were the worst. They always came into the village at night and demanded things, then stole our pigs, chickens and goats. This group is better because they do not steal, though they’ve asked for things a lot lately. Also they don’t demand that we build gates for them, even if they do order people to help them build their houses. The pigs they eat weigh 40 or 50 viss, not 10 or 20 viss, and cost 2,000-3,000 Baht. So we had to collect that money among the villagers [to reimburse the pig owners], and it became a problem. Some people have money but some do not, like the widows and orphans who earn their living by selling things, but they still have to pay it. It is 4,300 Kyat per month for each family, and if you can’t pay at once you have to pay it little by little until you have paid in full.

Q: What would happen if they asked you to do things and you didn’t do them?
A: If we couldn’t give them what they wanted they beat us, and the village head had to give us a recommendation [to guarantee them before they would be released].

Together we discussed what our options were, and if people had friends over there [in Thailand] who would share food so we wouldn’t starve. If people over there asked us to work [doing odd jobs inside refugee camps in Thailand] we would do it, because if we stayed here [in Burma] we would have to work a lot for the Burmese. We left our fields behind because we couldn’t carry them with us.

Q: Did you ever have to porter for the Burmese or the Ko Per Baw?
A: Both the Burmese and the Ko Per Baw demanded 3 porters per month from the village. We had to hire people for 10 days, and after that we had to collect again to hire more people. I just went once and after that I hired people because I dared not go again. I carried shells, but I don’t know exactly how much it weighed. It was 9 shells and one full basket. I started carrying at Pah Klu as a replacement, and I carried for 4 days up to Tha Bya Yeh Gone.

Mostly, though, villagers from xxxx don’t go for them, and they hire Burmese villagers instead. The village head told us not to go if possible, and we would keep hiring people who came from the west [itinerant day labourers from central Burma] every month. He worried that if we hired villagers from the village, the Ko Per Baw would beat them if something happened. So it was better for the villagers, but then a lot of our money was gone, and people who stayed with their cows and buffaloes had no money because they spent 4,300 Kyat per month on fees.

Q: Did the Burmese ever beat villagers in xxxx?
A: In xxxx I never heard about them beating any villagers who worked for them. But in other villages, like in Ker Ghaw, I heard that they beat people and looted their belongings. Pa Noh Han stole one ring from a villager because he couldn’t force him to work. I heard it happened in the villages of Meh Pleh, Kway Sha and Yo Klah. The Burmese used the whole village of Yo Klah for forced labour throughout the whole year.

There was another problem before I fled here. They [KNLA] were collecting 3 soldiers from each township and demanded 3 new soldiers from xxxx. Our village head dared not go [to meet with them]. I had no power in the village, and he asked me to go because they had called for it a long time before, and he didn’t know what to tell them. He said I had to appease them by going because we had many problems in the village. So I agreed and told him to find me a companion to go with me, because if I went alone no one would believe what I said when I returned. The village head went to xxxx and told Uncle P--- [from the KNLA] about the problem, and Uncle P-- decreased the quota by one person, but they were still calling for 2 people. Then he went back and [KNLA] Commander L--- wrote a letter and asked the village head to come and meet at xxxx to discuss the 3 new soldiers. He didn’t dare go because he worried that he would meet the Ko Per Baw or the Burmese along the way. Since he was a village head, if he met them they would interrogate him and say, "Village head, why have you come here and what are you trying to find?" It is not good for village heads to travel for that reason, so he asked me to go instead. I met with Commander L--- at xxxx and was able to decrease their demand to two soldiers. They had also demanded 3 people from yyyy, and yyyy can meet that, but xxxx has many problems and it is difficult for people to come in or go out. Also the Ko Per Baw always stays there, and if we select xxxx villagers who stay in the village, their families will suffer the consequences. So we agreed to give them money instead of people.

I went back and discussed it with the village head and Y---, but some didn’t like it and wanted to only give to the Ko Per Baw. We collected more than 10,000 Baht, and I told the village head that we would give to the KNU first because we understand and believe in each other. We had raised half the amount, and then he told me that the KNU was calling us again, so I had to go. Then I told him to ask someone instead of me because I have had problems, and I did not dare to go again. I told him I would go, but I asked him to wait 5 days first to see if problems occurred, and then I would face him again. Right now it is impossible to go every time for a short trip, because if the enemy [SPDC] knows our steps it won’t be easy for us [meaning they will be arrested]. Also because the Ko Per Baw had already captured the village head for money before. Even though I don’t dare face them in a different place, I can face the Ko Per Baw in xxxx because they are not so bad. As for the KNU, I could stand in a court and talk in front of them because they have rules and they understand. But sometimes the Ko Per Baw do stupid things, and even if it wasn’t right they accused the village head and captured him anyway. When they captured him, Saw xxxx, who is with Ko Per Baw intelligence, sent me to Major C--- at xxxx. I didn’t see what he had written in the letter he had in his hand, but he had a duty to send me to his leader. I knew I would face problems because Saw xxxx sent me only half way and did not eat rice with me in the morning. My heart wasn’t calm and I didn’t know whether to run or stay. I remembered that people have been killed before when they hadn’t made any mistakes, like D--, an xxxx villager who they killed at Ker Ghaw. When I arrived at T--- it occurred to me that it was not good for me, and I worried that if they knew about [my part in] collecting the new soldiers for the KNLA, I would die. The L--- group of the Ko Per Baw captured the village head then, so I ran.

Q: Did D--- [the villager they killed] work for the Ko Per Baw?
A: He was the village head for both the Burmese and the KNU. When he was a village head, if 10 or 20 Karen soldiers came to the village they would have no problems. If D--- went to the Burmese and told them that the situation wasn’t good that night [i.e. KNLA soldiers were coming], the Burmese would move to the monastery and no problems would result. But after D--- died, the village head after him couldn’t resist like D---, so there were problems when the Ko Per Baw stayed there.

Q: Do you want to say anything else about the things that you couldn’t tolerate?
A: I couldn’t tolerate the forced labour and portering. I had no money to buy my children food, but I had to find it for them. We had to find money for the Burmese and Ko Per Baw, because if we couldn’t they didn’t like it and they told us that if other people could pay, why couldn’t we? People have told me it isn’t worth it to go back. If I went back, it would be death for me.

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NAME:       "Naw Ther Paw"           SEX: F               AGE: ?                    Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Widow, 4 children, the youngest aged 4
ADDRESS:   xxxx village, T’Nay Hsah township                                     INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Naw Ther Paw" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: How long have you been here?
A: Just a little over 2 months because I came here in the rainy season. I fled in June or July.

Q: Why did you come here instead of staying in the village?
A: Der! We had to pay for portering but we couldn’t pay, and we dared not go. Also the Ko Per Baw oppressed us and we couldn’t do anything after my husband died. We faced many problems so we fled here.

Q: How did your husband die?
A: The Ko Per Baw shot him dead. They resented him because he worked to earn his living and so that his daughter could marry. But all the money disappeared when the Ko Per Baw came, which was before the wedding and the pork roast. They captured and tortured him, so he ran up to the mountains and worked on the hill fields and his chillie field. One year later he was coming down from the fields and the Ko Per Baw shot him.

Q: Do you know the names of the people who shot him?
A: I knew the person who shot him very well. His name is Pa D---, and he is from K---. He stays with S---’s group [DKBA], which could be Maung Chit Thu’s Battalion [Brigade #999]. S--- disliked him so he called his soldiers to go as a group. They shot him near the village of T--. He was coming back alone from working in his hill field but he didn’t know that the Burmese [sic: DKBA] were coming. They arrived at 10:00 in xxxx, and at 5:00 they went to T---. The next morning they shot him dead.

Q: Why did S--- dislike your husband
A: Der! Because he is a villager and they accused him of being a soldier. But he does not do anything, just ploughs the flat fields so he has enough to pay taxes. He was tied and beaten, and we still have a photo.

Q: Did the Ko Per Baw collect fees every month in the village?
A: Each month it was 2,000-3,000 Kyat at the most, and at the least it was 400 or 500 Kyat. It was more than 10,000 Kyat per year. We couldn’t pay them. Also we had to hire porters and people to go for loh ah pay for both the Burmese and the Ko Per Baw. We didn’t have money to hire them every time, because it cost 2,000 or 3,000 Kyat. We had to pay for porters and for their food. If they collected it you had to pay. You couldn’t stay in the village without paying. All of our money was gone, and we sold our belongings so we had nothing. My husband would go for 1 or 2 days and carry as much as he could. Sometimes it was very far. He got yellow bean with rice to eat, but only one bowl and he was not full. This happened every time we went during the year. This situation frustrated us for more than 4 years. After we sold all our belongings we all had to run away and come here. I don’t know what would happen if we still lived in the village, if they would kill us or not. But now a lot of people cannot pay them, and this year there is not enough rice or paddy either, so maybe the villagers will have to steal.

Q: Did you ever have to do any jobs for Ko Per Baw or the Burmese?
A: Oh!! We had to work for the Burmese. We planted and picked chillies in their garden. We also went far away and built a road near Tee Hsah Ra and Ko Ko. We built their camps and dug holes and did many other kinds of forced labour for 4-5 days. For the Ko Per Baw we had to dig ditches at their camp between K--- and xxxx, at K---. We worked in the daytime and came home at night because it was nearby. They didn’t give us anything [money] and they didn’t feed us rice. They didn’t give us water to drink, either. They were always very angry. If I look back on my life, this was the very worst time. My heart was gone.

Q: Did your husband have to porter for them when you ran out of money to pay the fees?
A: Yes. He had to carry everything: a basket of pots and bullets and shells. When he went for loh ah pay he had to carry rice and milk and their personal belongings. He usually had to go for 1 or 2 days.

Q: Were any porters beaten by the Burmese?
A: Pwah! A lot. The men cannot porter without being beaten. The Ko Per Baw beat everyone who was captured with my husband at the same time. The others were both from xxxx and their names are S--- and B---. They beat them severely until they couldn’t take it anymore. Pwai!! They dropkicked one of them and bruised his face. One side of his face was discolored and his chin was swollen. They accused him of having guns and a radio, but he didn’t do anything, he only worked in the fields. The village head went to rescue them but could not. We went but they didn’t look in our faces. After that they ordered us to bring 2 mattocks [large hoes] and people brought them. My husband, S---, dared not stay, so the next morning he escaped. He ran through an area where there are a lot of landmines, but he was lucky and did not step on one. They had put a lot of landmines in the ground.

A lot of women have to carry for the Burmese too. Der! Last year the Ko Per Baw forced women to go in front of them [to step on landmines] but the women didn’t dare to go, so they forced the village head to go. He didn’t dare to go either, but they pointed a gun at him and he had to. He went and he died. His name was P---. It happened at T--- next to xxxx. His wife swore at them very badly. She still stays in the village and she wants to leave but can’t because her children are so young.

Being a villager is the very worst because we have to feed both sides. You can’t give to only one side, because if you give to just one, the other side hates you. If the Burmese force you, you have to go. If the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNLA] force you, you have to go. If DKBA forces you, you have to go. So it is the worst being a villager.

Q: Did the Burmese or DKBA ever steal anything from you, like food or belongings?
A: Der! They entered from the side of the village and if they couldn’t get things by asking, they stole it. In my house they came and ate. Also they took pots and spoons. They stole it; they didn’t give me even one Kyat. They took it all and we had to buy everything new. I was there but I didn’t see them because they are very clever when they steal. After they’ve gone everything is lost, you don’t have anything left. I didn’t have any livestock so they didn’t eat mine, but they ate other people’s livestock a lot. They chased and shot every animal in the village.

There are people who scowl when they force us to work. It is not the same with people from this side [KNU]. I was sick of my troubles and problems that I faced and felt until now. Until I arrived here I faced many troubles and was poor. I was frustrated and I had to go to Mae Sot Hospital [in Thailand], and now I have to go again. A lot of villagers want to flee to come here because the Ko Per Baw and the Burmese demand a lot and the villagers can’t give them any more. But they’ve heard that the refugee camp is closed, and that they won’t let any more people in. If they didn’t hear this, many people would come.

Q: Do you know the other people who have also fled here?
A: Yes, I know them. They are from xxxx [her village]. They couldn’t pay either and were unhappy to stay. Naw L--- is the same as me; her husband is dead and she couldn’t stay with her child and still pay the taxes, so she came here.
Another woman: Her husband went to porter and the DKBA beat him, and when he returned he was sick and died because they had beat him so hard.
A: They beat him while he was going to porter at Kway Sha. T---’s group beat him because they stay there and they are very rude. They beat him with everything they had, their feet as well as sticks. They forced him to keep going for so long, and they were not kind. They beat him wherever they wanted to; they kicked his sides, slapped and punched him until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Q: Are the Ko Per Baw still staying in your village?
A: The Ko Per Baw always stay there. T--- didn’t come back again but Maung H--- still stays there. That group is a little bit better than T---’s group from K---. Pwai! T---’s group didn’t care about any villagers who are non-military. When I was trying to find my husband, T--- told me to go and find him for them, and if I couldn’t find him he was going to kill me and my children and my mother. Myself, I thought if he wants to kill me then kill me. Being a villager is the very worst, so if he wants to kill me, go ahead. I would be happy to die.

Q: What did they do when they entered the village?
A: Ah! You don’t need to know. They fired guns continuously and children were running and crying. They fired guns before they arrived in the village, and when they arrived on the hill they fired their guns, and when they entered the village they fired their guns again. They frightened all the women in the village, and they laughed at the women who ran with trembling feet. That is their manner and way of thinking.

Q: Did they ever beat any of the villagers
A: Der! They beat my husband’s cousin. They chased and captured him and stabbed him with a bayonet. Then they twisted it inside him and he yelled loudly because it was so painful. They accused him of having a gun and radio and making contact with T’Bee Met ["closed-eyes", DKBA slang for KNU/KNLA], but he never had. All of the people they capture they beat a lot. The time they captured my husband they captured 7 people and they slapped their faces until they were bruised. They accused them all of having guns and radios, so they interrogated and beat each of them in the fields. They tied them all and beat and kicked them. Later they released them all because people gave guarantees for them. I was very afraid and my feet were trembling, and I was so afraid that I couldn’t go to guarantee him [her husband]. But I had to go to give the guarantee because they kept telling me that they were going to kill him. They said that he and his cousin, B---, were most at fault.

Q: Did they shoot any villagers?
A: The Ko Per Baw went and shot Po G---, his wife, and Maung N---’s uncle. I heard that the Ko Per Baw who shot him were named Pa T---, Pa D---, and Maung P---. All of them were Ko Per Baw but the Burmese were also involved because many of them went along. They shot both of them [Po G--- and wife] as well as P---. Even now he can’t walk well and still has pain.

Q: What are the villagers doing who remained?
A: A lot of people in xxxx want to leave the village. If they leave they have to go secretly, because if they [the Burmese] know people want to go, they stop them so that no one dares to go.

Q: Is it better for you since you came here?

A: When we arrived here it became better because we were not in fear and could sleep until the sun came up. We don’t have enough food yet because we are new arrivals, but if we stay long enough we will get enough to eat. When I arrived, if K--- had not taken care of me I would be dead by now.

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NAME:       "Naw Kyaw"         SEX: F               AGE: ?              Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married, 2 children aged 6 months and 5 years
ADDRESS:   Pah Ka village, Dta Greh township                       INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Naw Kyaw" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: What sort of persecution did you face in your village?
A: In the village we had to porter and go for loh ah pay, and if they came they demanded things to eat. If the Ko Per Baw asked for one pig, the Burmese also asked for one pig. We did not have time to work in the fields and my father could not work, so my mother worked a hill field and in the dry season she worked on the garden.

Q: For whom did you have to do forced labour?
A: We had to go for both of them [the DKBA and the Burmese] because they are staying in the same place. They didn’t hire us, they just came and captured people. Sometimes the Burmese came and ordered it and if the place was near, we went with them. But when the Burmese could not capture people because the villagers ran to escape, the Ko Per Baw came and captured villagers. Since the Ko Per Baw had never captured villagers before, the first time the villagers just stayed in their homes and the Ko Per Baw captured them and handed them to the Burmese. When I was single I had to go sometimes, but now I have a small baby so I didn’t have to go often.

Q: Did you have to porter for them?
A: For the Burmese, we had to carry from Mo Nan to Pray Taw Lu, and sometimes to Ler Pu where they have their camp. Sometimes it took us days, but other times we could come back the same day. We had to carry rice and bullets. The rice was heavy and we carried 1 or 2 shells each. They forced me to carry many kinds of loads, and I had to go for 2-3 days at a time when I was single. They didn’t feed us anything, we just had to go and come back. I couldn’t buy food for the month [after that].

I had a friend in Pah Ka who stepped on a landmine while he was carrying. His name is Pa T---. He went to porter for the Burmese and carried paddy and rice. He had to carry for many days, and one of my cousins called Pa K--- went with him and became very sick because he was tired from carrying things. They had to start carrying at Ah Tan and my cousin was left behind at Ka Tan village. When I was on my way here people hadn’t yet gone to get him because we had just heard the message. Pa T---’s parents and the village head sent him into town after he stepped on the landmine, and I don’t know if he lived or died, but when I left the village he hadn’t come back yet.

Q: Did they collect fees in your village also?
A: When the DKBA demanded money, the Burmese knew about it and also came to demand money. If we didn’t give it to them it wasn’t good, so we had to collect money for them, too. Each time they collected 400-500 Kyat, and sometimes 900-1,000 [per house], so it was always one or two thousand Kyat altogether per month. My older sister had to pay because I was staying with her and my mother. If they needed something they told us, but after people gave them money, no one knew what they did with it. We also collected for them to pay for their food, like when they ate one pig or chicken in the village we had to collect the price from the whole village [and reimburse the owner]. The people who went out and found money on the black market [selling goods, sometimes back and forth across the border] came back and then they [the Burmese and the Ko Per Baw] demanded their money. Before we came here my husband won 50,000 Kyat in the lottery at the same time that our child was sick. Then the Ko Per Baw asked for that money to rent video equipment, so he didn’t get any Kyat for himself. Before my husband left the village he had traded cattle once or twice and the Ko Per Baw knew about it, so when they captured him along the way they stole his money, and now he is in debt for one million Kyat. Recently I asked his brothers and sisters and they told me he has gone to the upper place [Bangkok] to work.

Q: What would happen if you couldn’t find enough money to pay them?
A: If you couldn’t find it they became angry and frightened the villagers, so people were afraid of them and had to give it to them. They didn’t rob it, but they demanded that you give it to them even if you didn’t have anything to give. You had to find it.

Q: Did they ever threaten anyone with guns?
A: Yes. They never fired them, they just frightened people with guns and knives. They also interrogated guests who visited our village, asking them where they lived and things like that. They were Ko Per Baw but they never stayed in the village. They just entered the village and became furious with us, so we didn’t know their hearts.

Q: Did you ever hear of any villagers being killed by the soldiers?
A: One time a woman from Pway Taw Ro was found dead in her hut, but we didn’t know who had killed her. She and her husband were both stabbed to death. She was cut around her neck. At the foot of her ladder there was a landmine, and also in her kitchen there was a landmine. It was lucky that a dog went in there first and lay down, so it exploded that landmine. We don’t know who put the landmines there. In the house above the ladder [which serves as the front steps] there was a landmine in the water jug [a pot with drinking water for visitors and passersby]. Since she had died, many people had gone to her house and passed under her ladder. Suddenly somebody knocked the water jug, and it fell down and exploded. Then no one dared to move and walk around her house. Her mother told us this when she was visiting a relative in Pah Ka. I don’t know if it was the Ko Per Baw or the Burmese. Her mother told us that her daughter’s 4 necklaces were stolen, also 3 rings and 2 pairs of earrings. They also took 20,000 Kyat.

Q: Was it common for the Ko Per Baw to steal people’s belongings?
A: The Burmese came once to my house and stole 8 big hens from my mother, and she wanted them back so badly. They didn’t even ask, they just stole them. We just saw the empty baskets [bamboo-strip covers which the chickens sleep under] in the morning. When the Burmese came to the village a lot of belongings were stolen. Sometimes things that weren’t so valuable, like pots, sarongs, and clothing were lost. But livestock like chicken and ducks were lost more than anything else. Cows and buffaloes were not taken, but we heard that they took cattle and buffaloes when I visited my aunt and uncle’s village in the Naw Ter area. They didn’t do this in our area because when they needed money they grew angry, and we collected at once so they didn’t loot our cattle and buffaloes.

They took fruit from our gardens, and they always asked villagers for money who came back from trading on the black market. Last year it wasn’t good to plant rice in the hill fields, so my cousin went to trade cattle on the black market for medicine. If they take someone’s money, the villagers have to pay for it. He [a DKBA soldier] took it [merchandise] from someone’s hands who would sell it, but he didn’t pay for it and told the owner to wait for a while. He took one watch and one cassette player. He went and told the village head to collect money from the villagers for it. He is a Ko Per Baw named S--- who stays in the village.

They never looted anything from my house, but I had to go for loh ah pay often so I could not pay. We are poor and did not have cattle, we had only a bullock cart, so people who have cattle always came and borrowed it. Villagers who were collected for their turn [loh ah pay] came and took our cart without cattle [villagers ordered to provide bullock carts to do forced labour would use theirs].

Q: Did many villagers go to porter and do other forced labour?
A: At Noh Bo village the villagers have to go for loh ah pay to Yat Say village for the Burmese and for the Ko Per Baw. People said that battles occurred there a lot, so people had to go there and to Pway Taw Ro, at their camp called Ler Pu. People also had to carry to the top of the cliff called Naw Ta Yat. Some were captured [and forced to go], but some were assigned by the village head. If they demand it then you have to go; you can’t stay in the village unless you go. The Burmese demand it and people have to collect for them. They always have to carry rice, bullets, beans, milk, and sugar. The longer distances took 2-3 days, but sometimes it only takes a day and they can come back. At the time when I went they fed us rice with salt. It did not taste good, and I ate once or twice until I got full because I was tired from the trip. I didn’t go often because my child was small.

We had some neighbours who didn’t have food so they went for other people [they hired themselves out for forced labour]. Going to nearby places we didn’t have a lot of injuries, only for the long term trips to faraway places. We heard that when they came back from faraway places, villagers went to meet them to carry back the sick people, and some of them stepped on landmines, not just porters. The Burmese forced them to wait for them all. They couldn’t carry them all because there were [among the injured] porters, Burmese, and Ko Per Baw. People had to take them back with a bullock cart. They didn’t hire it [the cart], but we had to go in turns because no one could go all the time.

Q: Did you have any problems on your way here?
A: The Burmese thought that we were going to stay here, but I told them that I was not coming to stay here, just to visit my mother-in-law who stays here. At K--- [a village on the border] they always demand 50 Kyat to come in or go out, so we had to pay 100 Kyat.

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NAME:      "Saw Maw Htoo"         SEX: M           AGE: ?       Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:    Married, 2 children aged 1 and 3 years
ADDRESS:   Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township             INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Saw Maw Htoo" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: Why did you come here?
A: I fled here because of the fees, worries, and fears. The Burmese are very implacable, and if they ask you to go in the night you have to go. Wherever they ask you to go, you have to go because you are afraid of them. We had to buy paddy and rice to eat [their crop was not enough to survive] but they still ordered us to give them some, and if you didn’t they pointed guns at you until you did.

Q: What is their commander’s name?
A: Kyaw Zay Ya. There are more than 100 Burmese. They don’t build their own houses. If the house where they are staying doesn’t have rice, they look at other houses to see if they have rice, and they steal it in the night. Villagers sometimes didn’t have enough rice and so they couldn’t eat. They take our livestock, mostly pigs and goats. If you add up the livestock that they eat during one night, it is at least 3 pigs. They steal it during the night and don’t give any money.

Q: Do they also collect fees from the villagers?
A: Yes, they collected from us. The fees cost 3,000-4,000 Kyat per month [per family]. They collected for porters also [money to avoid going as porters], and they got more than 20,000 Kyat monthly for that. We dared not go so we had to hire someone. Even if you had a goat, pig or hen you had to sell it to hire someone. Some people didn’t have even one hen left, and some didn’t have anything. If we didn’t have the money when the Ko Per Baw came to collect it, they captured the village head. Then if we didn’t collect the money for them, they wouldn’t allow the village head to come back. They would capture him and keep him in jail. Then the villagers had to collect money until we could give them enough. If you have a goat or a hen you have to sell it. Before some people had money, but with more and more collections they sold all their belongings, even their cattle, pigs and goats.

They also took some things from my house. If your eyes aren’t watching your rice, they will steal it. They took things from other people, too. They took a lot of pots, bowls, and spoons. It doesn’t matter if you have only one or 8 tins of rice, they will take it. If they walk near huts and see hens, they ask for them and if they can’t get them, they shoot at them because they have more power than you. They demand with authority, so what can you do? The Ko Per Baw also came and ate one time. They didn’t ask or buy food, they just stole it. They became angry and if they didn’t know to whom something belonged, they just took it and went. The Burmese took married women’s sarongs and children’s skirts and every kind of cloth they liked.

Q: What are they going to do with the money that they collect?
A: Der! They will do what they want and send it to their families. It is the way of earning respect from the family by sending them money.

Q: When they entered the village, did they frighten people?
A: Yes, they frightened us when they demanded food. If people didn’t give it to them, they threatened us and touched us with their guns saying, "Will you give it to me or not? If you don’t give, I will shoot you." We were afraid so we gave to them. We didn’t know if they would fire at us or not, and if they did we would die.

They didn’t kill anyone at that time, but during the dry season [before July 1999] the Ko Per Baw shot dead one villager. He was not a Pah Klu villager himself, but he married a woman in Pah Klu like I did. I don’t know why they killed him. It happened while he was eating rice in his house. He ran down [out of his house to escape them] and they shot him from behind. After they killed him they accused him of being a [KNLA] soldier. We said that he is a villager, but they told us that he was a soldier and that we couldn’t dare to argue with them. They have guns, so no matter what they say to you, you dare not speak up.

Q: When they entered the village, what did they say to you?
A: We didn’t understand what they were saying. The village head dared not meet them, but since the village head always has to stay beside them, they accuse him of contacting the other side [KNU] if he avoids them. So the village head has to stay beside them because they dislike it when he goes away.

Q: Have any women been raped in Pah Klu?
A: The Burmese tried to rape the women in the village, but they could not. Women dare not sleep alone, so the married women sleep 4 or 5 in a house. When they [soldiers] stepped on the ladder, people shouted at them and they retreated. It happened this month during the full moon [of August 1999]. Once a Burmese soldier entered a married woman’s house. When she tried to go into her room [to escape], he caught her by the leg and pulled her back out of the room. The Burmese was drunk so the woman became afraid and came back out.

Now not many women are staying in the village. Mostly they go and sleep in the jungle or in their field huts. They [Burmese] don’t try to find them, because whenever house owners flee they are happy because they can steal freely.

Q: Have you ever had to porter for them?
A: Last year I had to carry, but this year I haven’t gone for them. Once I carried a backpack from Pah Klu to Tee Wah Blaw. The next time I went to Ker Ghaw. This year we had a lot of people who carried food for them. Even women had to carry for them, and this year mostly women did it because the men were afraid and ran away, but the women dared to stay for a bit, and they forced the women to porter. They were forcing us and touching us with guns, so people had to go. At that time they didn’t beat villagers, but we don’t know about what happened after that because two people went daily, and if they beat them we didn’t see it. Even if they didn’t beat them, they still had to carry very heavy loads. Also they were angry and shouted at me and said, "Walk the right way. If you don’t walk the right way we will shoot you dead." We had to sleep there for 2 days and then come back.

Q: Did anyone plant landmines around your village?
A: I portered for them [SPDC troops] when they patrolled the area between Pah Klu and Ker Ghaw. They guarded us from behind and forced us to go in front of them and walk among the landmines. Four of us had to go in front of them and all of us were villagers. If the landmines were there, they would have liked us to die by them. We were afraid to go because we could not see where the landmines were buried underground. If I went and stepped on a landmine and my leg was blown off, how could I earn my living? My family would be broken-hearted, but I wouldn’t dare to hang myself, even though it would break my heart.

Q: Did the Burmese ever torture villagers?
A: If they saw them in the village, they forced them to carry things and forced them to help them steal. They are villagers so they do not steal, they are not thieves. But the Burmese steal, and they asked them to show them the other villagers’ poultry and goats. They always steal so people don’t have many goats anymore, just a few.

We also have villagers whom they beat. They accused them, "You are Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA]", but people told them, "We are not Kaw Thoo Lei", and the village head vouched for them and they released them. They hit Kaw Yu with a stick and punched him 3 times in his face, and one side of his face turned grey. They tied him so tightly his blood couldn’t flow.

Q: Did the Ko Per Baw come to the village this dry season?
A: Yes, it was Pu Lay Yo and his group that came, but maybe that was his radio name and not his real name. They shot one villager who was running away from them because he was afraid. The shot broke the villager’s leg and the village head asked them to heal him. He was a Pah Klu villager and he was very old.

Q: Did Moe Kyo [a DKBA Commander] come to the village also?
A: When Moe Kyo arrived in our village he said that if the people [KNU] attacked them, they would burn down the whole village. He said he would shoot dead all the villagers and burn down all the houses. That is what Moe Kyo said and his soldiers repeated to us. They burned one sugar cane field and also some huts and straw. You can’t count all the huts and gardens which they’ve partly burned. The people who do things like that have envious and jealous hearts, and resent all the people. We saw #118 [SPDC Battalion] but we don’t know if it was a battalion or what.

Q: Did they [DKBA] force you to build their huts and buildings?
A: No, we didn’t have to build because they go and stay in people’s houses. We had to build huts for the Ko Per Baw at Saw Mo Baw. We went for a day and came back. They fed us only one bowl of rice and chillie paste, but they were eating good food. They guarded us too, and they said, "Don’t run away. If you run we will shoot to kill."

____________________________

NAME:        "Maung Thein"            SEX: M           AGE: ?                     Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:      Married with children
ADDRESS:    Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township                        INTERVIEWED: 8/99

["Maung Thein" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: Did the Burmese or the Ko Per Baw ever kill any villagers?
A: We had one group of 6 people who lived in Tee Hsah Ra who they killed. The Ko Per Baw who we knew well, including one named Saw Leh Loh, were involved. The people who died were Pa Noh Wah’s family. They said that Pa Noh Wah cast spells to harm people, but he came to stay at Tee Hsah Ra since before I was born, and until I was 40 years old I never heard that he could do that. But he was rich. On July 10^th the Ko Per Baw who killed them were Pa Pla Wah, Saw Leh Loh, Pa Dah, Dee Klu, Pa Noh Han, and Pa Ka Lweh. The ones who died were Pa Noh Wah (age 55), Daw Aye Khin (age 53), Pa Suh (age 15), Saw Leh (age 20), Saw Hsah (age 17) and Saw Bleh Ku (age 13). All of them were villagers in Tee Hsah Ra. [All of the above are men and boys except Ma Aye Khin, a woman.]

_________________________

NAME:      "Naw Lay Wah"            SEX: F            AGE: 25                   Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 2 children aged 5 months and 4 years
ADDRESS:   Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                              INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Naw Lay Wah" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: When did you arrive here?
A: I arrived here one month ago, to bring my child to hospital.

Q: Were you there when the Burmese came to your village?
A: Yes, when we came here, they were still staying in the village. They have come to every village and haven’t left yet. Sometimes they stayed for 10 days in our village and sometimes only 2 or 3 days, then they would go back to Meh Pleh. They have about 200 or 300 soldiers with camps in Meh Pleh and Ker Ghaw. Last year the Burmese troops who came were IB #44 [sic: actually Light Infantry Division #44] and LIB #118. The commander of #118 they call Kyaw Zay Ya. One of their groups went up to Loh Baw, one has gone to Thay K’Dtee, and another one has gone to Po Thay Kyu. They are patrolling the fields, divided into 4 groups. One group is left in Pah Klu. The Ko Per Baw follow the Burmese, but they stay separately from them while they are in the village. They said that they plan to build a camp and will force the villagers to build it for them. Also the villagers worry that they will capture the men to be porters, so the men don’t dare stay in the village. Only the women dare to stay.

Q: When the Burmese came to your village, did they kill any villagers?
A: Before I came here they killed one villager in Taw Oak village. His name was Pa Eh Kweh, and he was about 20 years old. They accused him of being a spy for the KNU, but it wasn’t true. He was just a crazy man. When they came to our village, they shot their guns—I don’t know if they were shooting Karen soldiers or villagers. They are always shooting their guns in the village, both big weapons and small guns. If they see people run, they shoot them all. They starting shooting last year, and they don’t think beforehand whether they’re aiming at villagers or the KNLA. The Burmese accuse the DKBA of doing the shooting and the DKBA accuse the Burmese of doing it.

Q: Did any villagers get hurt then?
A: Yes, 3 villagers: P--- (40-50 years old) broke his leg, Pa M--- (40 years old) got hit on the shoulder, and Naw W--- (13 years old) got injured on her leg [Naw W--- is a girl and the other two are men]. P--- came to stay here too. The Ko Per Baw asked the villagers to take him to Ker Ghaw, but when he arrived there the Ko Per Baw didn’t take care of him, so he came back to Pah Klu. After that the people asked him to come to xxxx [refugee camp], so he came here. The Burmese didn’t take care of the other villagers either. Before they shot in the village, they already came one time and killed one villager named Maung Tin Hta. They shot him because he ran. He was about 30 years old, and he was married. It happened in the cold season when I delivered my baby [about February 1999].

Q: Do they force the villagers to do loh ah pay?
A: Yes, if the men don’t stay in the village they force the women to go and carry rice whenever they run out. They force one villager per house to go. If the villagers are not free to go, they have to hire someone for 500 Kyat per day. We have to pay the village head and then the village head repays the one who goes in the villager’s place. I didn’t go for loh ah pay, but my husband has to go. The villagers have to go one or two times every year. They went to build a road one time in Ker Ghaw and Kwih Lay because the Burmese have camps there, and they haven’t finished that road yet.

Q: Do they come to capture or collect porters?
A: They tell the village head to collect the porters. If they don’t ask first, they arrest them themselves. They collect the porters for one month and sometimes two months at a time. My husband fled and escaped before the Burmese arrived in the village, but before that he always hired porters [to go in his place]. The villagers who went to porter had to go to Loh Baw and Toh Thu Kee, then to Lay Gaw Pu. They told the villagers they had to go for only 5 days, but if it takes more than 5 days and the Burmese haven’t come back yet, the porters can’t come back either. I heard that they beat and kick the villagers from Maw Toh Ta Lay. One porter stepped on a landmine when he was carrying and they shot him. They didn’t bring him back to the village. A villager from Pah Klu witnessed it.

Q: Do you hear whether they feed the porters?
A: Yes, they feed them but not enough rice. They eat twice per day but only just a little per person. They don’t get curry, they just eat rice with salt. The Burmese eat rice with oil or curry. They all came back to the village, but when they arrived they were very sick because they hadn’t had enough food. They were thirsty also. They got water to drink but not enough because the Burmese didn’t allow them to drink. They didn’t allow them even to clean their faces. When they came back, they said that they didn’t get enough food and it was bad food. The weather was very hot and they didn’t have enough water. Along the way if the Burmese forced them to keep moving, they had to go.

Q: Do you now the aim of the Burmese in coming to your village?
A: Their aim is to do logging and to guard it.

Q: Did Ko Per Baw also force the villagers to do loh ah pay?
A: Yes, they forced them to carry rice and bullets. The villagers had to hire porters to go for them, at the same price that the Burmese soldiers collected. They forced them to carry one or two times a month. They also forced the villagers to send them pork and chicken. The Ko Per Baw commander’s name is Pu Lay Yo. Mostly they stay in Ker Ghaw because they have a camp there. It is about a 3 hour walk to Pah Klu from Ker Ghaw.

Q: Are there landmines around Pah Klu village?
A: Yes, KNLA landmines. If the Burmese came to sleep in the village, they planted landmines at night near the village. Mostly the cattle stepped on the landmines, but two villagers died from stepping on landmines. They were Pa Kyaw Lu, who was about 30 years old, and I don’t remember the name of the other one.

Q: Do you have a village head?
A: The villagers elected xxxx. The villagers also chose T--- - she is about 40 years old - to be the Burmese village head. The Karen soldiers [KNLA] elected xxxx to become village head.

Q: Did the KNLA ever go to your village?
A: Yes. There was a battle in June before I came here. Karen soldiers and Ko Per Baw were fighting each other. If it happens in the village they don’t cause problems [afterwards], but if it happens outside the village they get annoyed. If the Burmese or Ko Per Baw step on a landmine, they say that the villagers didn’t tell them and they fine them. If they step on a landmine, they force the villagers to give one pig and one or two viss of chicken. Mostly they fine them a pig. The Ko Per Baw also fine the villagers.

Q: Did any villagers flee and stay outside the village?
A: Yes, they stayed in the farmfield huts. The Burmese don’t say anything about that in the rainy season, but they don’t allow the villagers to stay there in the dry season. They force them back to stay in the village. If they see any villagers staying outside the village, they accuse them of contacting the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA].

Q: Do you think the Burmese come to the villages to do good things for the villagers?
A: The Burmese did not come to do good things. They just came to torture us. If they see no one in our house they accuse it of being a Kaw Thoo Lei house, and they take everything from the house. They take everything. At my mother’s house they took everything, even the fire grill. They took all the pots and plates. They also eat the chicken and pigs of villagers who raise them.

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NAME:        "Saw Nya"          SEX: M             AGE: 60             Karen Animist farmer
FAMILY:      Married with 4 children aged 8-28
ADDRESS:    Ker Ghaw village, T’Nay Hsah township               INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Saw Nya" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: When did you come here?
A: I have received rations twice already, so I have been here 2 months. I came in June.

Q: Why did you come here?
A: We were not happy staying in the village. I have 4 children, and we have houses and land there. But I thought I am too old, because I had to run [from forced labour, etc.] and I didn’t dare make a hill field in that area anymore. Now we have to make our hill fields very far from each other [spread out in remote areas, making them very vulnerable to being surprised by passing SPDC or DKBA columns]. At first only 3 of us came: my youngest daughter, your Auntie [his wife] and me.

Q: Did the Burmese come to your village?
A: The Burmese have stayed in the village for two years. If the Burmese wanted us, they captured us. We always had to hide. They stay in and under the villagers’ houses because they have no camp. They don’t get firewood for themselves, instead they take the firewood from the villagers, along with pigs, chickens, and rice. If they asked the villagers, they would have to pay, so that’s why they just steal. Even if we do complain, they have guns. If they looked at you threateningly, would you complain to them? But they didn’t go in my house because I have nothing. They dared not go in my house, and if they had I would have cut them with a knife. They don’t take things when the owners are in the house. They steal a lot, but the villagers dare not complain. They stole and stabbed two pigs belonging to N---, but he got one pig back. The pigs were small, about 8 viss [13 kg / 28 lb] each. The people knew they stabbed and ate the pigs, but nobody dared to complain about them. How could we dare?

Q: How many houses are in your village?
A: There are about 100 houses in the village. They elect the village head for two or three months at a time. Sometimes in the past they elected one village head for 6 months, but now they always change the village head. If the villagers think that someone can do it, they ask the person to do it. If you ask the villagers to do it, nobody wants to. The villagers all have their land and fields to work.

Q: How many soldiers are staying in the village?
A: There are over 100 soldiers, but they change once a month. They took apart their camp in Kyaw Ko and now are staying in the village with the villagers. Other Burmese [troops] are settling down along the bank of the Moei River near Ra Ma Tee [Myawaddy] and near Thingan Nyi Naung. The Ko Per Baw are staying on the east side of the village and the Burmese are staying on the west side. They stay separately, but they work together. When the Burmese go anywhere, the Ko Per Baw have to go with them. The Ko Per Baw have to spy for them and go in front of the Burmese.

Q: Do you think the Burmese came to develop the villages and organise the villagers?
A: How can they say they come to do good things? I haven’t see them doing anything good in the whole time I’ve lived there. Is it good that you have to pay fees? Is it good that they steal? Can you do anything about that? If you are scared of them, it is what they want, it is good for them. Once I saw them ask the villagers to build a school. The villagers also had to pay to build it, and if it wasn’t finished by a certain time they said they would fine us. Even if they do something good like that, the villagers have no time to rest.

Q: Is the school finished?
A: Yes, it’s finished. It may have 7 or 8 Standards [up to Grade 7 or 8]. The schoolteacher is from Rangoon. For one year they [the villagers] pay the teacher 10-20,000 kyat.

Q: Do the villagers flee from the village when the soldiers stay there?
A: In our village, the men always have to flee from the village. If they don’t flee, the soldiers chase them to capture porters. One troop of Burmese stays in the village, and the other is ordered to capture the men. If they couldn’t collect porter fees, they would capture the men. If they want 10 or 20 porters, the villagers have to go. They have to pay 500 kyat for one day if they cannot go. Last month, I had to pay 2,500 kyat for my son-in-law’s porter fees. But if the villagers don’t go, the Burmese arrest all the older people. Ah! I saw a lot of older people with white hair whom they forced to go portering. The village head collects us but nobody dares to go. Therefore, the Burmese take the money and have to hire the porters. But if they can arrest us instead of hiring us, they can use all the money for themselves. If you give money to the Burmese they say that they have hired the porters, but we never saw them hire anyone. You can’t do anything about that.

Q: Did you ever have to porter?
A: In the past I had to go. Ah, I was going too much, so I escaped from them. Sometimes they forced us to go for a few days and sometimes it was for many days. Recently when I was supposed to go for more than 10 days, I had to pay 3,000 Kyat, even for men with white hair as old as me. Last year, I portered to Taw Oak during the time that the villagers were transplanting the paddy [July/August 1998]. It might have been in June, when the bamboo shoots come up. The Burmese were staying in the village at the time, and I woke up early when they started arresting porters. They arrested me and I told them "I will go back to my house", but they didn’t allow me to go. Then I took my torchlight and one set of clothes and the sarong on my body. They called me to Taw Oak, a day’s walk from Ker Ghaw. I had to walk the whole day on the winding path and sleep there for 4 days. If we go without carrying weight, it only takes one or two hours, but I had to carry bullets and 6 shells, about 10 viss [16 kg / 35 lb]. It was actually more than 10 viss because they also put their military backpacks and bullets on top. They arrested about 10 to 20 villagers in Ker Ghaw and more along the way who were staying in their fields.

I slept three nights in Taw Oak, one night in the upper part of the village and two nights in the lower village. They guarded us with guns and kept us together. When we woke up to defecate, we had to ask them. We didn’t need to be afraid of tigers, they were guarding us so tightly [an expression; actually there are no more tigers in the area]. Then we returned to Tee Hsah Ra. When we came back along the path, whatever they saw in the field huts like machetes, baskets, and rice, they took it all. I had to carry it back to Tee Hsah Ra. Then they released me and I arrived back home after 3 days.

Q: Did they feed you when you were portering?
A: What would they feed me? They gave me rice once in the morning and once in the evening. Their rice is not delicious--I could eat just a little of it. It is lu pu rice, a round shape. They fed me enough but I could not eat it all. I could only eat one plate. They gave us a piece of fishpaste, and if they made curry [for themselves] from the villagers’ chicken or pork, they fed us 2 pieces of meat. They didn’t buy it themselves.

Q: Did the Burmese hurt anyone, or did anyone die while you were portering?
A: No, they didn’t beat us. I am so old so they didn’t beat me. Nobody died because we only had to go close by.

Q: Did the villagers have to go for loh ah pay?
A: Yes, the villagers have to go for loh ah pay. All the women have to go. They forced the children to go in the dry season, but they couldn’t do it in the rainy season. They forced us to carry one big tin of rice, tinned milk, sugar and food from Meh Pleh to Ker Ghaw. The villagers had to carry a lot and they weren’t fed. The villagers had to carry their own money, and then in the evening when they finished carrying things, they went back to eat at their houses. They forced us to go for one day or two or three days at a time. We didn’t have time to do it, but we had to go whether we had time or not. They forced one person from each house to go. Some villagers didn’t go because sometimes they got sick. If they didn’t go, they might give money or the Burmese would make problems with the village head. They have to pay 500 kyat for one day, but many villagers can’t pay for loh ah pay. Many villagers would come here if they could because they have much suffering. After we came here, the Burmese were going to patrol around the upper places, near Toh Thu Kee and Taw Oak. Some villagers fled from the village and stay in xxxx [refugee] camp.

Q: Did the Burmese collect taxes in your village?
A: They didn’t collect yet in our village. They tax the villagers from the lower villages, though. Last year, all of our paddy dried up and died because we had no rain. This year there is also no rain.

Q: Were people in the village injured by landmines?
A: Many villagers’ legs have been blown off from stepping on landmines. I foraged for food until I dared not forage any more. The last time I went foraging with other villagers, a girl’s legs were blown off by a landmine and two of her sisters were hurt. They are over 20 years old and married. One did not lose her leg, but the other did. Two of my grandchildren also lost their legs. About 12 villagers from Ker Ghaw have been injured, and 3 have died. Kyaw Per died, he was about 50 years old. Also Lin Noh, who was about 30 years old, died this year.

The villagers don’t know if it is the Burmese or the KNLA who plants the landmines. We don’t follow them so we don’t know. One of the villagers was shooting squirrels near his house and stepped on a landmine. Now no one dares to go on the upper side of the pagoda. They plant them near the village, by the pagoda and monastery, where the villagers go to take care of their cattle. When I went to find bamboo shoots there, one cow stepped on a mine. Boom!! It blew its front leg off, and it died.

Q: If the situation improves there, will you go back?
A: I will tell the truth. If the people go to a new place, we will also go. I will stay here. I won’t go back to stay there. That is our own village so we want to go back. But if the situation is like this, yellow and black, I don’t want to go back. I already came to stay for 6 years in M--- [a village on the Thai side of the border], then I went back to Ker Ghaw for 8 years. Now I have reappeared, and everybody knows me because I was already here for many years before.

__________________________

NAME:      "Pa Ghaw"             SEX: M            AGE: 35                     Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:    Married, 2 children aged 3 and 11
ADDRESS:  Toh Thu Kee village, T’Nay Hsah township                   INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Pa Ghaw" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: When did you arrive here?
A: I arrived 2 months ago. My wife came two months before me, with our two children.

Q: Why did you flee and come here?
A: I fled from the Burmese. Recently they have been staying in Ker Ghaw village, but they come sometimes to our village. There are over 100 Burmese soldiers and about 50 Ko Per Baw soldiers. I don’t know their [Battalion] number because I dared not look at them. If I looked at them, they would scold me. They don’t like it too much when we look at them. At first they just went to the village head and asked for pigs. I didn’t have any livestock, so they didn’t take from me. I didn’t raise any pigs or chickens because I didn’t want to feed the Burmese anything. If I raised animals, they would have eaten them. If they came to the village, they took them from other villagers. There are about 25 houses, but before there were 40 or 50 houses in Toh Thu Kee. Some went to stay in the plains [to the west] and some went to stay at xxxx [refugee camp].

They arrested us and forced us to carry things. It happened more than once. I had to porter and I couldn’t do it anymore. Last year I went to porter early in the rainy season, around June when the Burmese went to stay at Kyaw Ko. If the villagers didn’t go, they came to arrest them. You had to pay 2,000 kyat for 5 days if you didn’t go to porter. I always had to go. The village head collected 5 porters for them. They change the village head once a year, but this year the villagers elected xxxx.

Q: What did you carry when you portered, and where did you have to go?
A: I had to carry bullets, 81 [millimetre] shells. I couldn’t tell how much it weighed, probably 30 viss [48 kg / 105 lb]. I nearly died. We had to go very far, so they put more and more weight on. When porters fled and escaped, they put still more on. Because we had to go very far all of us had to carry bullets. We went out for 5 days, but we went so deep in the jungle that the people couldn’t find us for the porter rotation [to replace them with new porters], so we had to carry for a whole month. I started to carry from Loh Baw, then went down to Tee Wah Blaw, where I slept 3 nights. After the troops got their rations, they went up to Paw Wah Kee and Dta Law Per. Then they went to burn the sawmill at Thay K’Yah that belonged to Karen villagers. The Burmese went to shoot the villagers so they fled, leaving their pigs and chickens behind them. After the soldiers finished burning the Thay K’Yah sawmill, they went back to sleep one night at Paw Wah Kee. That night many of my friends fled and escaped from portering. I was the only one left from the village. I thought that I couldn’t flee because they guarded us very tightly. If we even rolled onto our side while sleeping, they shone their torchlights on us. They forced us to sleep, urinate, and defecate in the same place. It was very bad. There were about 200 porters for about 500 soldiers. We arrived at Paw Wah Kee and Dta Law Per after we climbed up Ma Luwan Boh. Then we arrived to Tee Ghaw Htaw and we crossed the hill called Kler Baw Ko. Then we went down to Bo Deh, where they have their camp. When we arrived there we didn’t rest, instead we went down to Meh Pleh. They got their rations and we went up again to Toh Ka. When they had no more food, they went down to get some from the village and came up to stay again. That year they shot many cattle from Ker Ghaw village to eat, and one or two bulls. When I arrived there, I thought that they would release me, but they didn’t. They released me only when the village head came to pay them 1,500 Kyat. I had to carry for over one month but they still demanded 1,500 Kyat [to release him].

Q: Were many porters injured during the time they carried?
A: They didn’t let us rest. When I went to porter that time, some porters died because they could not carry and they were thirsty. They fell down as they were walking and died. We saw them but we continued going. I saw 2 or 3 porters who died, but I didn’t know them. We didn’t ask their villages, but I know they came from the lower place [the plains]. They were Pwo Karen, Mon, Taw Thu and Burman. I saw the soldiers kick and beat the porters because we had to keep going, and they wouldn’t allow them to rest. When we arrived at Tee Wah Blaw, a soldier kicked me one time. Then when we arrived on the hill, I was thirsty and I could not ask for water. I drank a little of his [a soldier’s] water, and he slapped me one time on my neck. They didn’t give me water to drink, but I was so thirsty, so I stole from them.

They gave me only a little rice and a little bit to drink twice a day. They fed us the same amount as the head of a cat [a small ball of rice]; it was not enough for us. They fed us only salt with rice and we didn’t get water to drink, while they ate good food which they had brought for themselves. They didn’t care if we ate enough or not. When I came back from portering, I was in so much pain that I had to drink many gallons of spirit water [traditional medicine]. I rested for one month.

Q: Did they force the villagers to go for loh ah pay as well?
A: Yes, they had to go, about 40 or 50 people from each village. Both men and women have to go, they didn’t care. They also forced the villagers who are 50 or 60 years old, and children who are 15 years old. If they met them, they forced them all to do it. Anyone who could carry 4 bowls [about 8 kg / 18 lb] of rice, they forced to go. Also they had to carry fishpaste, salt, and chillies. We had to carry it from Kyaw Ko village up to Po Thwee Kyo. They didn’t feed the villagers, so they had nothing to eat unless they brought their own food. If one villager didn’t go, another had to go in his place. They released each one only when someone came to replace him. They forced us to go all the time.

Sometimes the DKBA also forced the villagers to do loh ah pay. They mainly forced us to carry pots and their food. In the past, the DKBA and the Burmese travelled together, but now they don’t like to follow each other. Even though I was a porter I had to do loh ah pay as well, and I was very annoyed. However, I couldn’t do anything about it. Last year before I went to porter, I also had to dig a road at B’Naw Kleh Kee. It was horrible. I had to go for 5 days and take my own food. Five villagers at a time had to go from each of Toh Thu Kee, Kwih Lay, Kyaw Ko, Ker Ghaw, and Thay K’Dtee [villages]. We dug a road from Lay Kaw Tee to Meh Pleh and Kway Sha. We had to work the whole day except for time to cook rice and eat it. We dug out logs and bamboo stumps and carried rocks.

Q: Do you think that when the Burmese force you to work, it is for the good of the village?
A: Is it good? I have never seen or heard of the Burmese doing good things. They do not do good things, but we can do nothing about it. We can just try to avoid them. If I were going to speak about my feelings for the Burmese and how they torture us, I wouldn’t finish in a week.

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NAME:       "Pa Po Doh"            SEX: M               AGE: 24            Karen Buddhist farmer
ADDRESS:   Tee Hsah Ra village, Myawaddy township                 INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Pa Po Doh" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: Why did you come to xxxx [refugee camp in Thailand]?
A: We came because the Burmese soldiers oppressed us with forced labour and caused us many problems until we couldn’t tolerate them anymore. The Burmese also ate our chickens and livestock and we had to reimburse people for them. I always had to go for loh ah pay every day. They forced people who live in the fields to go, and if they didn’t the soldiers chased them and captured them. The fields are destroyed because no one is working on them. We couldn’t solve these problems and we were dying. Some came here and some stayed there, but I came alone.

Q: What kind of soldiers are in your village?
A: There are Burmese soldiers from IB #44 [sic: actually Light Infantry Division #44]. They have about 30 soldiers under Company Commander Pa Nya Plah. He is Karen, but the tone of his speech is up and down like people’s from the lower place [plains of central Burma], not flat like ours. The Burmese stay in the village and the monastery. They don’t have a camp, but they sleep for 7-10 days in the village when they’re on patrol. Sometimes they come and go on the same day. The DKBA are living in the village too. They don’t demand fees but they force us to work whenever they go anywhere. They also eat the livestock in the village, and if they eat pigs and chickens then the villagers have to reimburse the owners. They sometimes ask for livestock that they want to eat, but they also take it at night, along with rice from the villagers’ houses. If they don’t see the owner of the house, they go into the house and take their things. They took Naw T---’s 2 chickens, one big tin of rice, and one pack of Ajinomoto [MSG seasoning]. The DKBA shoot off their guns wherever they are living just to make noise.

Q: Do people in your village have to porter as well?
A: If the Burmese call it loh ah pay it means we have to go as porters, but if they call it "portering" it means we have to both carry and pay them a fee. People who go for loh ah pay have to porter also. Some disappear for one week and some for the whole month, and they still have to pay the porter fees. The DKBA also forces the villagers and does the same things as the Burmese. Just before I came I had to go to Bu Deh once and to Tha Bya Yeh Gone once as well. They captured me in the village and forced me to carry to Tha Bya Yeh Gone. I carried bullets for M16’s [a type of common assault rifle]. Each person’s load was 20-30 viss [32-48 kg / 70-105 lb]. It takes half a day to walk there and I had to sleep there 2 nights. Then they released us and another group replaced us. For loh ah pay the Burmese also force people to build their camps and bunkers and to carry their things. When they see us outside the village they capture us for portering, and if they see us in the village they order us to go. If we refuse to go, they capture us anyway. Four people from the village have to go each month, and each family has to give 600 Kyat for them.

People who do not go to porter have to hire someone for 500 Kyat per day. But for the villagers who are sick or who have no money, the Burmese wait for a while and if they still cannot pay then they give them trouble. They make them go for more days when they become well. Also women who have no husbands and women whose husbands are ill must go. As for children, if their parents cannot go, they have to go. The oldest labourer is about 40 and the youngest person is 15 or 16. They have to take along their own food and start work at 7 o’clock and work past 5 in the afternoon. At Tha Bya Yeh Gone we had to build their shelter, carry wood, and build their bunkers. At Old Wangka [on the border with Thailand] we had to dig and then pour cement for their bunkers. They let us take a rest once to eat and they guarded us while we worked. They shouted at us and wouldn’t allow people to rest when they were tired, but they didn’t beat us.

Q: What were the conditions like when you were portering?
A: They gave us food, sometimes it was enough and sometimes not enough. They didn’t beat or kick me but they hit my friend from the village. There were four of us from the village: Pa M---aged 25, H--- aged 24, and T--- aged 24. They beat Pa M--- because he could not carry things. We were at the foot of Tha Bya Yeh Gone. They kicked him twice, then they made him stand up. They decreased the weight of his pack and forced him to carry on.

Q: Does your village have a village head?
A: Yes, his name is xxxx, but he was arrested by the DKBA. Their company commander’s name is L--- from Brigade 999, and he has about 20-30 soldiers. They accused the village head of collecting money for the opposite side [KNU/KNLA]. Then my friend heard that [DKBA] Commander P--- would send the headman to xxxx, but we weren’t sure what would happen to him. We were afraid of the DKBA because they knew us from the village and because they had chased us once before. He [his other friend] was clever, so he ran first and left a letter behind [for the DKBA]. When I was told that he ran, I ran too. If you don’t run you never know what they will do to you, and you can’t do anything to stop it, though they can do anything to you if they capture you. We couldn’t stay, so we had to run. As my friend was leaving he heard on the radio [probably a KNLA-supplied walkie-talkie] that the Burmese had captured the village head, and he told me that later. We dared not return because the village head had told us to avoid them if he was captured. They put him in Ra Ma Tee [Myawaddy] Jail and still haven’t released him.

Q: Did you ever hear of the DKBA or the Burmese killing any villagers?
A: Yes, the DKBA shot 6 people on the 10^th of July [1999] in Tee Hsah Ra. I was sleeping at night but I heard it, though I didn’t go and look. It was near my house, only a 2-minute walk away. They came at night to shoot people in the fields, then they came back [into the village] to shoot people in the houses. They shot them because they accused them of casting spells over people. But they were villagers, just simple people who cannot do magic or cause harm to people, but only work in the fields. They didn’t belong to the opposite side [KNU], they only worked in the fields. One villager disliked them because she thought they had cast a spell on her husband. But everybody saw that he was a fool, even though he said that the other family was making magic to do him harm. Pa Maung Wah told him that if he had truly done magic things to harm him, he would drink Thit Sa Yea ["vow water", which once it is drunk forces people to keep promises made or face dire consequences] and confess, so that whatever he had done would come back to him. But the man didn’t believe him and threatened that he would wait for his wife’s brother to come back and kill all of them. The wife also had a son who died, and she accused them of casting a magic spell to harm him. So she asked her younger brother, who had joined the DKBA, to go and kill them. First they stabbed Pa Gyi Reh in his field at 9 o’clock. Then they went to his father’s field and killed his 3 brothers and his father, Maung Wah [a.k.a. Pa Noh Wah]. Then they came to shoot his mother in the house. People called her Pa Gher Mo [a.k.a. Daw Aye Khin] and she was well over 40 years old. Pa Gher [her son] was over 35 and he was married. His brother Pa Saw Leh is 20 years old, Pa Saw Hsah was 16, and Saw Bleh Ku was 13. They had 6 people in the family; 4 of them were murdered and only 2 women are left. They still live in Tee Hsah Ra and are married already. The DKBA [officer(s)] came to look after this happened, but they didn’t say anything about it. They didn’t accept the fact that they had killed them, and so they’re trying to say that it was an accident, that no one killed them. They are going to make the case disappear and make peace between each other. Commander Maung Chit Thu’s soldiers killed them, but he told us it was an accident. But he knew about it because his soldiers had to get permission from him to arrange it, since if he doesn’t give permission they can’t do anything.

Q: Did you hear about soldiers burning down people’s houses or rice barns?
A: They burned villagers’ rice barns this year in the dry season, around Christmas time [1998]. The DKBA burned the rice straw [used as fodder for cattle] and paddy at Meh Pleh Wah Kee. The number of the troops was #999 [Brigade] and their commander is Moe Kyo, but we heard he died in Mae Sot [Thailand] after he was injured by a landmine. Now the commander of #999 is P---, the one who recently moved to Tee Hsah Ra. His commander was L---, who captured the village head.

Q: Do you think that the Burmese and the DKBA are collaborating in your village
A: Yes, they cooperate and patrol in the same group. Both of them are so rude to people who live in Tee Hsah Ra. We couldn’t deal with the forced labour and fee collections, so we fled and came here for a better future. We still have people there who will come here. Some villagers still have their fields and are waiting to finish the harvest before they come. I came here alone but my wife and children arrived yesterday. We dare not go back, my friend or I, because the DKBA is still looking for us.

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NAME:       "Pi Ghaw Paw"         SEX: F            AGE: 51              Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 5 children
ADDRESS:   Meh K’Neh village, Myawaddy township                   INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Pi Ghaw Paw" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: Why did you come here?
A: I was sick and I went to the hospital, but we didn’t have enough money and so I came back to the village. In my house the Burmese and the DKBA were forcing my family to go for loh ah pay, but I have only one child who can do it and my husband is old. We could not go and so we gave money to them. Sometimes if they went they were tortured, touched with guns or with bamboo, which was painful. They would shoot them with their guns. If we dared not go for a long trip, we had to pay them money - 500 Kyat for one day. But after we gave it to them, they came again the next morning to make us fetch water from the mountain. If you couldn’t go, you had to pay 300 Kyat for one day. After that, we had to send 2 villagers each day for set tha [messenger/miscellaneous forced labour], and if you couldn’t go, you also had to pay 300 Kyat. At that time I wasn’t healthy and I had no money either, so I thought I would come to get treatment at xxxx [refugee camp] hospital. When I arrived here, it was raining and so I couldn’t go back. The medic also wouldn’t let me go back, but made me stay until the treatment was finished. That place is a blessing from God, because otherwise it would have been very difficult for us.

Q: How long have the Burmese been in your village?
A: They have been in the village for 3 years. When one unit goes back, another one comes to stay there. Sometimes there are 40 or 50 soldiers and sometimes only 20 or 30. Sometimes they stay in villagers’ houses, sometimes at the monastery and sometimes at the church. Also the DKBA are staying together with the Burmese in the village. They are working together.

Q: Do the soldiers take the villagers’ livestock?
A: They ask us, but if we don’t give it to them they shoot the livestock. We dare not complain to them.

Q: Do the Burmese force the villagers to porter or go for loh ah pay?
A: For loh ah pay they forced us to go once a month, and sometimes for 4 or 5 days per time. If the village head couldn’t collect us, they arrested people themselves. Even women and children have to go, some as young as 12 and 13 years old. If their parents are sick, the children have to go. People 40 and 50 years old have to go if they are strong and can work. They forced us to dig the road and build bunkers beside it in Hsah Htoo Gone, between Myawaddy and [Thingan] Nyi Naung. They also forced us to weed the road, cut the grass, haul bamboo, build fences, and cut small trees and bamboo to build their bunkers. If the villagers are obedient, they don’t beat them or guard them. They go in the morning around 7 a.m. and come back in the evening around 4 p.m., and they have to pack their own rice. If the villagers can’t finish the work in one day, they still have to go. If they get sick they have to hire someone to go for 300 Kyat per day. I don’t go but my son always goes for me. They force men to porter 4 or 5 times a year. 10 porters from our village have to go each time they collect. Those who cannot go have to pay money, 500 Kyat for each day. They have to go for 5 days at a time, so it costs 2,500 Kyat for 5 days. We always hired porters to go for us. We heard the people say they didn’t get enough rice or water. When some porters came back they were bruised on their backs, and they complained that they couldn’t carry the weight but were still forced to do it.

Q: What happens if people disobey and do not go for loh ah pay?
A: My son is a leader of 10 houses and one day in April he told the villagers, "Today you have to work for the Burmese". He went to gather firewood because he thought that the villagers would go and work for the Burmese, but then the Burmese came to ask him why no one had come to work. We told them that he was not at home, and they told us to call him. When he came back, he met them and followed them to their place. The Commander told him "You are not obedient. You have to dig 5 holes for banana trees". After he dug the holes, the Commander told him to find 2 viss of chicken. My son bought them, gave them to the Burmese, and he got a chance to come back home. After that he didn’t work anymore. He fled from the village and came to Thailand. He was afraid of the Burmese and dared not go back.

Q: Did any villagers who went to porter die or get injured?
A: We didn’t hear that they tortured the porters from our village and no one died on the frontline, but the son-in-law of M--- got injured in April because he stepped on a landmine. He couldn’t come back to his house, so the DKBA sent him here to stay in xxxx [refugee camp]. He didn’t go back home because he was afraid. He is about 30 years old and has 2 or 3 children. His wife and children will go to see him in the hospital.

Q: Where did they porter to?
A: They started to carry from [Thingan] Nyi Naung. Sometimes they had to carry to the hill of Maw Pa Thu. Before we came here, we heard they were going there. If there is nothing happening, the men dare to stay in the village. But if the Burmese are going to the frontline and fighting, the men don’t dare stay, they have to flee and sleep in the jungle. If the villagers see that the Burmese are capturing men, they flee. The villagers warn each other; we were staying outside the village and heard it first and fled.

Q: Do the villagers have time to do their own work?
A: Last year they had no time to work and there was no rain. The villagers didn’t get enough rice to eat. They have to search for vegetables to sell, then they come back to buy one bowl [about 2 kg / 4.4 lb] of rice. One bowl costs 120 Kyat. I work a flat field, but I didn’t get enough [the crops have been very bad for the past 2 years]. We had to work the flat field and also had to work for the Burmese. When we got money, we had to buy rice and medicine but also pay porter fees. On the path the soldiers would come to collect paddy, but now they can’t collect it because the villagers didn’t get paddy. In the past they collected [a quota] by acre, but I have a field in K--- so they didn’t collect from me.

Q: Do the DKBA also force the villagers to work?
A: The Burmese force us a lot, and the DKBA forces us sometimes. They’ve forced the villagers to cut wood and build houses for them, to build a Pagoda, and to clean up for them.

Q: Did you ever hear that the Burmese will relocate the villagers?
A: Yes, I heard they would force the villagers from the source of the river at Bah Hta, Tha Blu Ko Kee. They already forced them down [out of the hills] one time, then the villagers pleaded with them and they allowed them to go back. They will force them to Meh K’Neh village near the main road. We think that they forced the villagers away because recently the Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA] came to shoot them and they were angry, so they forced the villagers out in order to starve the Kaw Thoo Lei. The Kaw Thoo Lei have not come to our village for a long time. Four or five years ago battles occurred very often, but not any more.

Q: When you arrived here [the refugee camp], did you get food?
A: I got food rations this morning and my daughter went to carry it. I’m staying here with two of my grandchildren and one of my daughters.

Q: What did the medic tell you about your health when you got here?
A: They said I have lung disease. I stayed in the hospital for 3 or 4 months in Myawaddy, and I had to pay many millions of Kyat. Here, I have no more money. My daughter told me that I should see the medic.

Q: What do you suffer as a result of the Burmese being in your village?
A: I am suffering that we have no money. When they came to force us to work, we were sick or we had no time or we couldn’t go, and we had to hire someone. We had no food to eat and no paddy. Most of the villagers fled and stayed in Maw Ker [refugee camp]. I came alone because I came to the hospital. When I came here, I was nearly dead. How they made problems for me! I said I would go the hospital in Mae Sot [Thailand]. I brought one blanket, one shirt, and one sarong. In the village, if we told them we will go to this place or that place, they wouldn’t allow us. I didn’t get a pass letter because they didn’t know when we left the village. We left before daybreak, and the Burmese never came to stay in my house because I lived at the end of the village. When we arrived at the bridge, we had to get a pass to go to the hospital. The Burmese staying in the village didn’t know about it, and we didn’t bring anything.

Q: Do you think that the Burmese came to do good things in your village?
A: They haven’t come to do good things. The villagers are staying together with them. If they were good we could have stayed like that, but they threatened us, and we are afraid of them.

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NAME:      "Saw Daniel"          SEX: M            AGE: 70                  Karen Christian farmer
FAMILY:    Married with 8 children
ADDRESS:  Dta Greh (Pain Kyone) town, Hlaing Bwe township     INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Saw Daniel" was interviewed after arriving in a refugee camp in Thailand. Dta Greh (Pain Kyone) town is in northeastern Pa’an District; the Karen consider it a township of its own, but the SPDC considers it part of Hlaing Bwe township.]

Q: Did you come here to stay?
A: I came to take care of my wife. The medic sent her to Mae Sot [in Thailand] but the white foreigners there couldn’t do anything, so she came back and stays with our children. In the last few days she has been feeling worse, so she sent our youngest child to go back and bring me from the village. So I followed my youngest child here.

Q: What is the situation in Dta Greh?
A: Recently the situation has become worse. It was a big village, 100 houses in the past. But many villagers have left and now there are only 40 or 50 houses. During the old times the Burmese settled down in the middle of the village, but now they are camped about 1 or 2 furlongs from the houses and they don’t allow the villagers to go there. There are about 10 or 20 soldiers from Division 44. The Burmese were staying in the village when the Karen soldiers [KNLA] came and told the villagers to flee. That happened one or two years ago. The Karen soldiers were going to fight the Burmese in the village and they were worried that the villagers would get injured. So they told the villagers to stay outside the village; some fled, and some stayed at Pa Nya Plih about 1 furlong from our village. As for us, we have fields between Pa Nya Plih and the village, so we went to stay in the fields. But the Burmese didn’t allow us to flee and called the villagers back to stay in the village.

Q: Do the villagers have a headman?
A: The village heads work for 1 or 2 years and then run away. They are not honest. The people who become village heads don’t follow through, and we don’t know what they will do for us. We are living in difficulty. Now the villagers are working together with ‘Dta Lah Lu Gyi’ [‘monthly village head’], who is always a woman. The villagers elect her every month. The villagers work for Dta Lah Lu Gyi throughout the year, and each house gives 1 basket of paddy to them for taking care of us. They would elect men but they dare not. When the DKBA or the Burmese come to the village, it is a different matter with a male village head. Once in the past they came to collect emergency porters and the headman couldn’t find any for them. Then they beat the headman and the people dared not complain. The Burmese stay at the village, and when the Battalion is going out [on patrol], they force the village head to collect porters.

Q: Do you stay in the village?
A: Yes, I stay in the village, but when my wife came here I had to stay in the farmfield hut with our cows and belongings. They allowed us to stay in our farmfield huts during the rainy season, but after finishing the fields we all had to come back and stay in the village. When it was time for the villagers to come back, they didn’t care that the villagers who have many animals can’t come back and stay in the village. They must stay in their farmfield huts. Once before when the Ko Ko fruit was ripe their cows went down to the fields, and the soldiers captured them and fined the villagers. So this time they dared not come back and stay in the village. Some are still staying in the farmfield huts and the hills. They can’t stay in the field huts forever, but their livestock is there. We can’t watch them all the time. Whenever the animals go down to their camp they fine us, and we can’t pay them. Sometimes they fine us 300 or 400 Kyat.

Q: Do they force the villagers to porter?
A: If they can’t collect people [by demanding quotas from village heads], they capture porters. If they cannot capture them, they demand them from the villagers and the villagers have to hire them. Bpay Pwet [payroll troops] bring a salary once a month for the Burmese who stay in the mountains [and collect porters to go with them]. Sometimes they come to rotate their troops, then the troops collect the porters. We have to hire the porters at 100 Kyat per day. Sometimes the villagers hear that the Burmese will capture porters and they send a message to the village, so all the men leave the village. The Burmese came to call me but said, "Ah, Grandfather, we won’t force you to do anything", and then they left me alone. As for the young people who they can catch, they force them to go. My children stay in the farmfield hut but they had to go when the Burmese forced them to send rations by bullock cart.

Q: Do the villagers go to porter or pay the fees instead?
A: As for Bpay Pwet [payroll troops], they come and call the women to go with them. As for portering, mostly the villagers give money to them instead of going. They collect 100 Kyat per day for porters, and if they demand 5 villagers for 10 days, the villagers have to pay 5,000 Kyat. The village head plans out who will go to porter in turns. If we don’t go this time, next time we will have to go. Before people go to porter the villagers have to collect for them, because their wives and children have no food to give them. They don’t tax the houses with no men, but we all have to support them. The widows who are very poor only have to pay 20 or 25 Kyat.

Q: Did anyone from Dta Greh ever die while portering?
A: Last year one porter died. His name was Hsah Po Dee, about 25 years old. He stepped on a landmine. The Burmese captured him while his wife was pregnant, just before she was supposed to give birth. He was going to hire someone to replace him, but he missed the car at Dta Greh Bridge, and so he had to go. Two groups of people came to replace the group he was in, but he didn’t come back. Later the porters who were captured by the Burmese and went together with him returned to the village and said he had been injured by stepping on a mine. He shouted, but the Burmese didn’t take care of him. He didn’t die right away, but they couldn’t go any further with him. No one carried him. His wife is still living in the village. After she heard about her husband, she gave birth to a son, but she was not healthy so she gave her son away to someone. I don’t know if her son is alive or dead. She lives with her two other children. I don’t think anyone can look after them because her mother-in-law is a widow and so is she. The Burmese didn’t come to tell her anything. After people knew about it they went and asked for compensation, but the Burmese refused to listen.

Q: Do the villagers have to go for loh ah pay?
A: Mostly the women and girls have to go for loh ah pay, but sometimes they force the men to go. People over 40 years old have to work, and children start going when they reach 15 years of age. If the children are too small they cannot carry the thatch shingles [which the villagers are forced to provide to the Army camps]. The villagers have to send one person per house. If they tell the village to collect 10 people at a time, then people have to go in turns. If they force them to come to this side [of the mountains, i.e. a long trek of portering], the villagers have to hire someone for 100 Kyat a day if they cannot go. But if they capture villagers, the villagers can’t hire anyone. They didn’t force them to go to Paw Yay Pu or another place close to the village; mostly, they forced them to go to Gkah Deh. They are all women who come to this area [as porters] because before when the men came, they forced them to carry their bullets and rice rations. But when the women arrive at Gkah Deh they release them.

Q: Did they force villagers to do other projects for loh ah pay?

A: They force them to work whenever they come up to the village. When they built a building like a church last summer, they forced the villagers to work the whole summer. They started to build it in January and it lasted until May [1999]. The villagers had to carry sand, cement, and brick, and then make a fence all day and night. Only when they finished building could they have time to rest. Two years ago the villagers had to build a road between Dta Greh and Ka Kyo. They were rebuilding an old car road from the time of the foreigners [British colonial period]. They forced each village to do a certain number of furlongs. It is 3 furlongs between Dta Greh and Ka Kyo, and the villagers built the road between Ka Kyo and Ka Mah Ko. The villagers from Dta Greh, Mo Nain, and Ka Kyo had to build each furlong. They started to build from Dta Greh and went up to Yeh Mee Lah [‘5-mile’], but the road didn’t go down to the town. It went back into the bush and passed above the town. Sometimes they forced the villagers to work from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. without rest. Don’t even think that they’d pick them up by car to go to the work site! It was very difficult to walk, and it takes over one hour to walk to the place where they built the road. But they didn’t beat or punish the villagers who went to build the road, and they allowed them to fetch water to drink.

Q: Did they feed the villagers when they were doing loh ah pay?
A: The villagers had to eat all their own food when they built the road, but if they go to Gkah Deh the soldiers feed them. As for building the school, the soldiers hired carpenters and the villagers had to feed them all.

Q: How do the villagers make a living if they have to work for the Burmese and also get taxed?
A: They work their fields and transplant paddy. But if the Burmese come the villagers can’t work, and they flee. If they have an ‘emergency’ [i.e. they need porters or forced labour immediately] they won’t let men or women flee, and they capture them all. The men are very important for them. Sometimes when the troops need help they are very strict. Then the villagers must hire women to transplant the paddy for them.

Q: When the Burmese come and collect porters and labourers, do they collect anything else?
A: They come to the village to eat and drink and the villagers have to feed them. If they eat one pig, the villagers have to reimburse the owner. Anything that they want, the villagers have to pay for. When the troops from the camp come to eat in the village, the villagers have to repay all of that [to those who were forced to provide the livestock and food]. You can’t even describe all that they collect within 12 months.

They are not always Burmese soldiers. Sometimes officials come to town and talk about agricultural development and the villagers have to feed them too. They come to talk about how to plant and fertilise the rice. They came to tell us but they didn’t do as they said. We never saw fertiliser or anything else. [The officials promise fertiliser as part of government programs but then steal it all themselves and sell it; meanwhile, the farmers are still expected to produce the fertilised second or third crop of the year, which they cannot do.] We have been doing the fields in Dta Greh for a long time, and it is not productive to fertilise the fields in that area. We were tired of doing what they taught us with the fertiliser; there was no improvement. Sometimes when they came to the village, we wanted them to help us because we don’t have anything and our living condition is poor. They came to tell us that they understand, but we don’t understand them. If they understood, they would come and show us new methods. But they just come and tell us about them. They already knew that the earth wasn’t fertile, but they came to check. Here the earth is better for planting mangoes and other fruit. Instead we transplanted 10 baskets of [paddy] seeds and some years we harvested only 30 or 40 baskets, which was not enough for us. We had nothing to give to the civil servants [rice quota collectors], but they also have to give to the government [they must collect their given quota with no excuses]. They taxed us three times this year and were very strict. Every year they collect Ta Won Gyay [‘obligation’ quota paddy] from the farmers, 5 baskets for every 100. It has been very hot and dry there, so there is a lot of chaff, and when we take 5 baskets to them, they blow off the chaff with a fan and it becomes less. Last year there was no paddy because it was so hot and dry, so they asked for money instead. The government’s price is 3 Kyat per basket [actually it is several hundred Kyat per basket, but the officials steal most of the rice quota payouts and give almost nothing to the farmers who are forced to hand over the rice]. They gave three Kyat for one basket and then you had to give more than that to the owner of the bullock cart who carried the paddy for you. But we had to pay 1,000 Kyat three times because we had no paddy, and we couldn’t stay without paying them [in lieu of giving paddy]. After collecting the first time, the village head took all the money and fled the village. Then they elected a new village head and he collected again. But that time there wasn’t enough money, and so we had to give a third time. We gave 3,000 Kyat in total last year. The last two years there have been droughts and we didn’t get enough paddy for seed, so we had to sell the cows and buy paddy seed from Maw Goh village. One basket of paddy is 500 Kyat. Before for one basket of rice [after husking] we had to pay 1,400 Kyat, but now we have to pay 1,600 Kyat. That’s why we’re bitter. If we suffer any more than this, we’ll all die.

Q: What do the troops do when they stay in your village?
A: They don’t always stay there. Some troops come to stay for one month or more, then a new unit comes to replace them. They always change their troops. I don’t know about Division 44; they have already stayed for 1 or 2 months. One month ago some troops came, but I don’t know where they are now. They stayed on this side [of the mountains] and then they went down to the village.

Q: You said they killed one of their own soldiers.
A: Yes, that was within the past month, just when my child came to the village to get me. One of the Burmese officers had two chevrons [Corporal, actually an NCO and not an officer]. He was Karen, but he only spoke Burmese. He was Christian, not like the other Burmese. He got sick and the Burmese sent him to the clinic at the police building. Burmese soldiers took him there, and as they brought him back to the village they beat him along the way, and he was shouting. They tortured him all day long. When they reached the steps of the Pastor’s house they let him sit. There was a woman there who was waiting at her Uncle’s house. She asked him, "What happened to you?" He said, "I am not healthy". She asked "What is your religion?" and he said, "I am Christian and I have two children". He laid down, and then they came to get him. When they arrived there at the steps of Thra C---’s house, they beat him to death with a stick.

After they killed him they buried him. Then they went to Thra C---’s house and drank alcohol.

Q: Why do you think they killed him?
A: They were from the same unit but their religion was different, so they did not like him. I heard that afterwards they [the soldiers] went to tell their commander, and the commander was sorry for him and cried a lot. The commander asked his soldiers, "Why didn’t you come to me and get medicine?" The soldiers told the commander he had got sick and died, they didn’t tell him they had tortured him.

Q: It wasn’t his commander who killed him?
A: The one who killed him was not his commander, he was a Corporal with 2 chevrons just like the one who died.

Q: When the troops enter the village do they eat the villagers’ livestock?
A: We can’t raise livestock because the soldiers take it and eat it. We can’t even raise chickens. They take as they like. They don’t ask the owners. I bred 3 geese and fed them in the evenings, but they came to capture them at night when we were asleep. If a dog or pig went after the geese they made a sound: "gho gha, gho gha", but I think that the Burmese grabbed their necks when they started to make this sound. Then they disappeared. Now they are stealing a lot but we can’t do anything. They steal goats and shoot chickens in the daytime. In the past they respected the villagers but now they practice their immoral behaviour. Now that I look back on it, the situation has become worse this year. The villagers dare not complain. If we go to them they will tell us that we have no village head and so they will do as they like.

Q: How is the situation different now from when you were younger?
A: At first when they came, the situation was as bad as it is now. In between then and now they were friendly with the villagers. But now they are patrolling and also the DKBA patrols, so the villagers have great difficulty. The DKBA has a camp in Myaing Gyi Ngu and some of them stay in the lower places [the plains to the west and south]. If they come down to the village or if they are going up [into the hills], they capture the villagers. They force them to carry things like the sarong and clothes of their [DKBA] wives. Mostly they need men but the men hide, therefore the girls have to go. They beat the villagers, which is why nobody wants to be the village head. This May they beat one of the village heads, who was a temporary headman. He can read and speak Burmese well. One time when they tortured him, he didn’t want to be the village head any more. He told me that the DKBA beat him. They wanted villagers to go immediately, but he told them that they could not find anyone right away. They said, "The villagers are bad, and we already told you to get them". Then they beat him. He told me, "Brother-in-law, I cannot suffer anymore." He could not bear it anymore and so he fled from the village. After that whenever he heard about the Burmese or DKBA, he didn’t face them.

Q: Did you have any problems coming here?
A: While we were coming here they were fighting at P--- and people told us not to go there because the Ko Per Baw and Karen soldiers were shooting each other. When we arrived in S--- they told us that the Burmese had gone back already and weren’t staying in P---, which is only 2 furlongs from S---. In P--- an Indian whom I knew said that the Burmese had already gone down to P---. Then I asked him where the KNLA were staying, and he told me they were staying at N---. The Ko Per Baw shot at Karen soldiers at P--- and 3 were wounded. When the Ko Per Baw were trying to take away the bodies of their friends, the Karen soldiers waited to shoot them again before leaving to stay at N---. We came and slept at B--- and we met them. Then we slept at M--- and another night in T---, and then we arrived here.

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NAME:       "Nan Paw Oa"            SEX: F           AGE: 18               Pwo Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 1 child
ADDRESS:   xxxx village, Kawkareik township                             INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Nan Paw Oa" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee together with her mother, age 38, and her father, age 41.]

Q: Who did you come here with?
A: I arrived here 4 months ago with my child and my parents. My husband works in Bangkok. I have 5 siblings, and 4 of us are here but one is in Bangkok with his wife.

Q: Where is your village?
A: xxxx, in Ku Ta Ligh [Kawkareik] township. xxxx is near yyyy and zzzz.

Q: Why did you come here?
A: Because we were pressed to do loh ah pay and porter and give too many fees and taxes until we couldn’t give anymore. If you couldn’t go for loh ah pay, they fined you 500 Kyat for each day. I couldn’t tolerate it anymore so I thought it would be better for me to be here. We had to struggle for our food. When we were in the village, only my father could work for us because we had no time to work. We couldn’t bear it anymore, so we left.

Q: Were many people from your village coming when you came here?
A: I don’t know about other people because we came secretly. We dared not tell anybody about our plans to leave. We dared not tell because if the Burmese or DKBA knew that we were coming here, they would capture us. Everybody leaves secretly because they do not like us to come here. We left the village before daylight, at about 4 a.m.
Father: To leave our village we had to be careful and leave secretly. If the DKBA or the Burmese saw us they would capture and punish us. We couldn’t carry our things except for a couple of bowls of rice, because we had our small children. We came on foot, by the way of Wah Sakine.

Q: How did your brother and husband get to Bangkok?
A: They had to take gold with them. Each of them had to give the people who took them one and a half Kyat Tha of gold. My brother never sent us anything, but my husband sent us money only once when I was pregnant and still lived in the village. He sent one and a half Kyat Tha of gold along with 3,000 Baht for my baby. Now my child is already one year old, but he hasn’t sent money again since then. We heard word from him, but he doesn’t have any money.

Q: How often did you have to go for loh ah pay?
A: Every month we had to go more than 10 times. Sometimes we had to go for 2 or 3 days, but sometimes we went continuously every day. We had to go and build a road.
Father: Sometimes we had to go 20 times. We had to build a road and their army camp, clean their camp, and bring them firewood and whatever else they wanted. In the rainy season, they confiscated people’s fields and forced them to plough and plant paddy for them.
Mother: In the rainy season there was lots of work for us. They confiscated our fields but forced us to work on those fields for them. They only sat around and ordered us while we ploughed, sowed, and transplanted. When we finished the harvest they took all the paddy. They didn’t give us anything even when we reaped, gathered, winnowed and put the paddy in the [milling] machine. We had to go and sell things like oil, onions, and beans on the other side of the mountain. We bought rice from them [SPDC soldiers] with the profit, but they sold us old rice that smelled bad.
A: One basket of rice costs 1,600 Kyat and one bowl [about 2 kg] is 100 Kyat. But they kept the new rice and sold us old rice that wasn’t good.
Mother: They kept this year’s rice for next year, so we couldn’t buy new rice from them. They sold the old rice to keep the new for next year.

Q: Auntie, did you have to go for loh ah pay?
Mother: Ah, ah! Do not talk of loh ah pay! I had to buy food from the Burmese soldiers’ wives who sold it for 200 Kyat, but I only brought 100 Kyat with me. I worked very hard. I carried earth on my head like this. They came and took a video of us and I thought to myself, "Go ahead, if you want to take a video of a tall woman carrying a load on her head!"

Q: Where is their camp?
Father: Their army camp is at T’Nay Hsah. They confiscated all the fields near there a long time ago, 2 years after the DKBA appeared in the village [i.e. in 1997].
A: They came and lived in T’Nay Hsah’s Muslim quarter, and forced all the Muslims to leave. Then they built brick houses.
Mother: There is only one farm between our village and xxxx [where the Army camp is]. Before there were many trees with resinous wood, and the KNU protected them so people could use their leaves for roofing. Now the DKBA and the Burmese have cut them all down, and no trees are left.
Father: They logged them, and we had to cut them and help them log, too. They used them to build their houses and they sold them, too.
Mother: Everyone had to do that. We were afraid because the KNLA went and placed landmines around the logging sites. The KNU had protected the woods for hundreds of years, but when the DKBA and the Burmese were planning to log them, the KNLA placed landmines there. We heard about this and were very afraid of doing forced labour there. I had to go to do it, and we helped each other roll the logs or carry them in the cart.

Q: Did they force you to sow rubber?
Mother: Not yet, because they are still clearing the place to plant rubber. I think they are planning to plant rubber between Toh Kaw Ko and Dta Weh Dah. They are building a road between those places this year. Last year it still didn’t reach Toh Kaw Ko, only Dta Weh Dah, but this year they will continue it. Last year we had to dig the road, but this year the Toh Kaw Ko villagers will have to do it. It is a two lane road but they aren’t making it properly, just roughly. At Noh Hta Baw, Noh Kaw Tay, and from T’Nay Hsah to Kru Tu [Kyone Doh], they laid stones on the road. We dug those stones there at Noh Hta Baw and built the road.

Q: When they come to the village do they take your livestock?
Father: Whenever they came to the village they took all the chickens and pigs. If we complained, they would hit and punch us. Although you got angry with them, you couldn’t do anything.
A: They really took them all, even the hen that was warming her baby chicks in her nest. They took them and asked their wives to raise them.
Mother: If they didn’t bring anything home, their wives would say, "Other people bring meat and food to their wives but you do not bring anything. So what will you eat?" They speak as if they had raised the livestock themselves. I got angry with that.

Q: Did they take any food besides livestock?
Father: Anytime they came to our village they took livestock and other things like oil, onions, garlic, etc. The village head had to give them those things and then collected money from the villagers later. They came more than 10 times per month.
Mother: Ah! They came every night! In the daytime they came to find food in xxxx because their camp is nearby, and most nights they came to the village and captured livestock.
A: They came often and demanded food. The village head gave it to them every time, then asked us to reimburse him once a month. We had to give a lot of money every time the village head collected from us.
Mother: The DKBA lives at the foot of the mountains and they contact each other by radio. That’s why they dare to come and find food every day.
Father: They dare to walk four or five together and come and shoot our livestock, then take them back to their place. Whenever our livestock grew big, they ate it all. If they didn’t come, we could have sold them when they were big. But they came and ate them all.

Q: Did they take other taxes?
Father: They often demanded between 70,000 and 80,000 Kyat from each village. If the Burmese demand it, the DKBA will demand the same. There are only 83 houses in our village so each house must give more than 1,000 Kyat at the least. Some families, like ours, have to give 3,000 or 5,000 Kyat, and some even give 10,000. The poorest family in the village must give 1,500 Kyat. But you have no time to go out and work for money, so how can you give that much money so often? You go for loh ah pay every day, so how will you get money?

Q: How many times did you have to porter each month?
Father: We took turns going every month. 15 people had to go for 5 days, then we would rotate. There are 83 houses in the village. If we couldn’t porter we had to give 500 Kyat per day. If you couldn’t go for 5 days, you had to pay 2,500 Kyat. If you couldn’t go or pay the fee, they captured you and put you in the stocks. When they put you in the stocks they would only release you when you gave them as much money as they demanded from you.

Q: What did you have to carry? Did they hurt you?
Father: I had to carry shells and sometimes rice with pots. Each load weighed more than 20 viss [32 kg/70 lb]. I got wounds on my shoulders while I was carrying. They didn’t hit me but they always shouted at us, especially people who weren’t healthy. We dared not talk back to them, because if we said anything they hit us.
Mother: The village head always stands up for villagers so that they don’t hit them. In our village there are two village heads, one woman and one man. The woman always says, "When you take my children [meaning her villagers] with you, do not hit them because they are going to work for you. They will carry things for you so do not hit them." That’s why they don’t hit people, but they always scold us with "Nga Lo Ma Tha!" ["Son/daughter of my fucking whore!"] - that is always on their lips.

Q: How did they treat you during the road construction for loh ah pay?
Mother: One person from each house must go. We started from Dta Weh Dah and went to Taw Yaung [Daw Lan] and in the other direction to Kru Tu [Kyone Doh]. We had to sleep there for 3 nights if we had to go far, but if we went close by we would just go for the day.
Father: We had no time to rest. Our village was divided into two groups and each group must go for 3 days, then the other group would rotate with them.
A: We had to go by turn like this until the road was finished. When the road was finished there was always another kind of work to do next.
Mother: Their work is never done. We had to sleep under a tree, group by group. If your work site was near someone’s house, you could stay at that house. We had to bring rice, fishpaste, salt, Ajinomoto [MSG seasoning], and whatever else we needed.

Q: Before you came here, did you hear about any villages that were forced to relocate?
Father: Yes, Htee Klay village and all the villages at the foot of the mountains were all forced to relocate before I came. The reason was because their villages are at the foot of the mountains, so the Karen soldiers could stay there, and sometimes they shot at the Burmese soldiers who went near them. They forced them to move to Noh Ta Bweh and Klaw Kla, or to other villages near the foot of the mountains. They gave the village heads an order on paper saying they had to relocate within 15 days. They could take along their houses and things.
Mother: They’d better bring their houses, because if they left them standing the soldiers would say that Karen soldiers would come to live there. They don’t like people to leave their houses, and they burn them if they’re left empty.

Q: When did they go?
Father: They were just ordered to move before I left in May. People who came later told me that those villages did not go to the relocation site but they are not in their villages either. Some relocated to Htee Klay because it’s a bigger village with a monastery, so I think maybe they asked permission to live in Htee Klay together.
Mother: When I came, there were 3 of us but one went to live in W--- because her child was not well.

Q: How did you get here?
Mother: My daughter and I came together and my husband and two sons came 2 days later. The DKBA chased him when they knew that we had left, but they couldn’t catch them. At that time I was waiting for them in W--- because I couldn’t come to xxxx [refugee camp]. On the way I carried my child and my daughter carried hers. We could barely climb the mountains. I have never been to xxxx before. Along the way when people asked me where I was going, I answered them that I was going to find my son.
Father: The DKBA radioed to capture me, but they dared not chase me because the KNLA is on this side [of the mountains]. They ordered my nephew to come and call me back, but he couldn’t chase me. He just asked the businessmen who were going along the same way to ask me to go back when they saw me. The people who came to sell things on the other side of the mountain told me about that, but I didn’t go back. If I went back they would make trouble for me because they don’t like people to come to the refugee camp. I was thinking to myself that I won’t go back, but that if they captured me I would lie to them that I was going to work in Thailand. I don’t have any other options. They make problems for anyone who lives here and then goes back.
Mother: As for me, I won’t go back. I will go wherever the refugee camp moves. I asked my friends why they don’t want to die in Thailand, because people must die somewhere, whether it’s in Burma or Thailand.
Father: How would I work for a living if we go back? They have confiscated all our fields. We have no time to work when we have to go for loh ah pay and portering.

_________________________

NAME:       "Saw Maw Hla"          SEX: M          AGE: 30             Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:     Married with 3 children
ADDRESS:   Maw Goh village, Lu Pleh township                       INTERVIEWED: 7/99

["Saw Maw Hla" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee. His village is in Lu Pleh township, northeastern Pa’an District.]

Q: When and why did you come here?
A: I arrived here over 5 months ago. We came here because we had no time to work. We had to go for loh ah pay to build roads and other projects. I was a daily wage labourer, but I had no time to do it because when they called us we had to go and work for them. We had to pay them because otherwise they would scold us if we didn’t go.

Q: Who forced you to work?
A: The leader of the Pyitthu Sit ["People’s Army", SPDC militia units], Maung Htay Aung. They are militia who are working together with the Burmese, but they are not Burmese soldiers. I don’t know what they are doing in the village, but they have guns. It could be that they are sentries to protect the village from thieves. They come from a camp in upper Maw Goh. There are about 20 of their soldiers staying in the village and the villagers have to pay them a salary. Each month we have to give each of them 350 Kyat plus paddy. We have to find the money and pay them every month. The rich villagers pay 10 baskets [of paddy] from each house and 2,000 or 3,000 Kyat, and the poor villagers pay 4 baskets each. The village head organises a monthly collection. His name is xxxx and he was chosen by the Burmese. Also when they come to eat in the village, they collect 200 Kyat from the poor and 500 Kyat from the rich. The militia are villagers who were recruited by the Burmese, but I only know 3 of them: Saw K---, Saw T---, and the younger brother of M---. We couldn’t complain to them because they are powerful, and if we complained they threatened us. We could do nothing. If we complained to them, they would torture us. They have their horns. We are a small village, so whatever they said we had to do passively.

Q: Do Burmese soldiers ever come to the village?
A: They used to come but they don’t come any more, now that the DKBA has started controlling the village. Only the militia stays in the village now, but they are working with the Burmese. The DKBA patrol the village, but they rarely force us to work. The Burmese forced us all the time. In the past the Burmese burned the villagers’ rice barns, but since the DKBA started patrolling I haven’t seen them do it. Before the DKBA came we had to flee quite often. The Burmese arrested porters, so we had to flee or they forced us to work and beat us. Now the DKBA have camps at Lar Ni and Kaw Say Ko. They forced us to go and build the camp, as well as a pagoda and their bunkers. We walked for one day and slept there for 2 or 3 nights, then came back. The DKBA want to kill their enemies, but they haven’t killed any villagers. Since the DKBA came the situation has improved, but if they meet us they also treat us badly.

Q: What did the soldiers force you to do?
A: I had to go for loh ah pay and portering. If we couldn’t go we had to hire someone to go [in their place], but we had no money. We had to find food and also pay them, but we couldn’t pay them all the time. That’s why I came here. They came to collect at least 10 porters every month. We had to go for one month or more. I don’t remember the date of the last time I went, but it was before I came here. We took turns going every month. If I had no time to go, I had to hire someone. The rich people who didn’t have time to go paid 1,500 Kyat for one month, but the poor people who didn’t have time to go paid 350 Kyat to hire people. Sometimes we worked for 3 days and then they would come and ask for money.

Q: For loh ah pay what did you have to do?
A: One person from each house went from our village and from other villages. I only had time to work one or two days a week in the fields, then I had to work for them. We asked our children to go to loh ah pay also. My eldest daughter is 15 years old and she had to go build a road. Also if the children have no parents, they have to go. They don’t have time to study. The soldiers forced us to go and build a road at Paw Yay Pu. They have no camp there but wanted to build a road, and many of us had to go. We had to sleep in another village for 5 nights and take our own rice. The Burmese sent the message to the militia, and the militia sent the message to the village head. They told us to go for 5 days and to take 4 bowls of rice [each; about 8 kg / 18 lb]. We had to start working at 6 a.m., then we would eat once at 11 a.m. and rest a short while, then start to work again until past 6 p.m. We had to dig in the hot sun. They didn’t guard us because the villagers’ headmen stayed at the site and showed us what to do. We had to do many kinds of projects, like dig a bunker, dig a wall, and dig a dam at Paw Yay Pu, also at Maw Po and Tee Po Kler. In the dry season I had to build the road for loh ah pay and I had no extra time, so I had to plough paddy fields and make paddy dykes in the rainy season [to make extra money]. They [villagers who employed him] gave me 100 Kyat for one day, but we had to buy rice for ourselves and one basket of rice costs 1,000 Kyat. I could only buy 2 bowls [about 4 kg / 9 lb] of rice for 100 Kyat, so it was not enough for me.

Q: Did the Burmese close the village school
A: Yes, they close the school when the children go to work. If the parents have time to go, we go, but if we have no time, our children must go instead of us. The teachers get a salary from the governor, so they can’t do anything about it. They are supposed to get 1,500 Kyat each month but sometimes they only receive 1,500 Kyat for 6 months.

Q: Is there a hospital in Maw Goh?
A: No, if the people are sick they go to Pa’an, Tee Lone, or Lu Pleh. People can’t do anything while they’re sick, but as soon as they get better they have to go [for ‘loh ah pay’].

Q: Did you ever have to porter for the Burmese?
A: I had to carry rations for them to the foot of the mountain on the road of Naw Ka Ya, Ler Pu and Maw Po Kay. We had to go for 2 or 3 days’ walk, and sleep wherever they stopped on the path. If they didn’t stop, we had to continue. I carried 3 big shells that weighed over 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb]. I couldn’t carry it but they forced us to keep going. There were 15 porters with me, 5 from my village and others from nearby villages like Kaw T’Pi Ko, Kaw Ta Khoh, Maw Goh, Ta Gu, and Tha Nay Der. There were over 150 Burmese soldiers, and we had to go between them. I started to carry from my village and we arrived at Ler Kyeh Day, Nya Maw Raw, Taung Lone Kyaw, Pa Kyo, and Noh Ker. We slept each night in the villages if they stopped there, but if they kept going we did not sleep. Finally we arrived at Ler Pu. There are many Burmese soldiers on the hill because there are many camps there. They released us at Ler Pu, and we had been away for 15 days.

Q: Did they feed you while you were portering?
A: We had to bring our own rice and food. If you didn’t bring it, they didn’t feed you. The leader of the militia who stays in our village forced us to bring food to last for 15 days or 1 month. If we ran out of rice, we had to tell them, then they let us come back, or they fed us. We had to steal from each other to eat enough. Some Burmese soldiers fed us but some were very annoyed [if they asked]. Some porters managed to flee, but they had to flee when the soldiers weren’t looking because they would surely shoot if they saw them. They guarded us in the night. All 15 of us slept together.

Q: Did they ever beat you?
A: They did once, a long time ago before I got married when the situation was especially bad. The soldier kicked me 3 times on the back with his big jungle boots. He told me, "You can’t carry things and you are lazy. You walk very slowly and can’t follow your friends", and he told me to walk faster. If we couldn’t walk quickly they tortured us. If we complained they tortured us. Some Burmese soldiers beat and some do not, and many get very annoyed with us. After I came back I was sick for many days.

Q: Did the Burmese hold meetings in the village?
A: Yes, the village head called them. If you have money, it’s better to take some in your pocket. They don’t have a plan to develop the village, but if you have money, better to bring it. They like it. The village head will get some because we hire him with paddy. We have to raise 1 basket from each house to give to the village head because he says that he doesn’t have time to do his own job. He always has to go [to supervise ‘loh ah pay’]. Our family gives him 1 basket [of paddy] and rich villagers give 2 baskets. We have to give them at the end of the year. Some villagers who cannot give paddy have to give 400 Kyat.

Q: What did you have to do to flee here?
A: We came secretly because we dared not come in front of them. It took us 3 days to get here. When the DKBA questioned us we lied to them and told them that we were going to work. I came with my wife and children, but my parents are already dead.

It is not easy to go back. It will be many long years before the situation gets better. I think it will not change for a while. Some people say that the situation will become peaceful, but that will not be easy. It made my heart unhappy that I had to work for them, which is why I came here. I couldn’t suffer anymore. After 2 or 3 years I’d had enough of working like that. The other villagers with fields and cattle want to come here too, but they can’t. The rich villagers have to stay because they cannot leave their fields and cattle, but we could come because we had nothing. But if all our people go back, I wouldn’t dare stay here alone.

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NAME:        "Maung Hla"            SEX: M          AGE: 30              Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:      Married, 3 children
ADDRESS:    Kru Bper village, Kawkareik township                    INTERVIEWED: 4/99

["Maung Hla" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: When did you arrive here?
A: I arrived here 5 days ago.

Q: Why did you come here?
A: We had to do forced labour, such as planting paddy for the Burmese every day until we had no time to do our own work. We also had to serve as porters. Anytime they called us we had to go because we did not have money to flee. That’s why we came here with our families.

Q: When the Burmese troops entered your village, what did they do?
A: When the Burmese troops came to our village, they ate any livestock they saw. We dared not complain to them because if we did they shot us with a slingshot.

Q: This year did you have to do forced labour or portering?
A: We had to go every day and every month. We had to dig and work the fields for the Burmese and also build roads and bunkers. Sometimes it took us 3 or 4 days, and sometimes one week. We had to go to T’Nay Hsah, Maw Ghaw and other areas. We were in their grip, so we dared not stay in the village without doing what they ordered us to do.

Q: What was the number of the Burmese Battalion that ordered you to work?
A: I don’t know, but there are Burmese battalion camps in Kawkareik. There are two Army camps near our village. One is in Mya Pa Deh [called Myapadine by the Burmese], and another is in Kru Bper Kaw Day Kyay. T’Nay Hsah camp is far from our village. People in Mya Pa Deh township must go to Mya Pa Deh camp, but we must go to Kru Bper camp for loh ah pay.

Q: What kind of work do you do at the camp?
A: At the Burmese camp now there is a farm, so we must go to plough, sow, and transplant paddy in their field. If you have buffaloes and a plough, you must go to plough, and if you have nothing you must go to dig the earth, sow, and transplant. At harvest time, they force people to reap for them until it is finished. As for us, we don’t even have enough food for our own family, and no time to work for ourselves. We always have to work for them, which is why we couldn’t tolerate it and decided to come and live here with our relatives.

Q: Which road did you have to build?
A: The road that leads from Kawkareik to Mya Pa Deh and T’Nay Hsah. The width of the road is approximately 10 cubits [15 feet]. We had to dig earth and put it on the road to build its height to 4 or 5 cubits [8-foot high embankment]. People from the whole village had to go. If you had money you could hire others, but if you didn’t have money you had to go. People who had bullock carts had to go with bullock carts. We had to take our own rice, fishpaste, and chillies from our house. We even had to take our own machetes, axes, mattocks and spades.

Q: What did you do in Maw Ghaw?
A: I had to plant rubber. They have already planted many rubber trees in lines. Many people had to go, so we had to do it for 2-3 days, then we went home. They didn’t give us anything to eat. We had to take our own food there too, but they gave medicine to the workers who were ill, and if they couldn’t work anymore they sent them home.

Q: If you couldn’t work, did you hire others to go in your place?
A: We had to give 200 Kyat a day. If someone works 5 days for us, we must pay him 1,000 Kyat. If we couldn’t go and couldn’t hire another person to go for us, they [Burmese] would come and give us problems, like fining us. We dared not face that. Even the very poor people had to pay 200 or 300 Kyat for porter fees [extortion money in addition to payments to hire substitute labour]. We paid the big fees 3 or 4 times a month and the small fees 4 or 5 times a month. Some months we had to pay 2,000 Kyat total, but some months we paid 3,000 Kyat [per family]. If we couldn’t pay the village head might take away our precious things, such as cooking pots and other things that he could sell to get enough to pay the fee. He is the Burmese village head [the village head appointed by the SPDC].

Q: Did you ever have to serve as a porter?
A: I had to go once. It was 3 months ago. I can’t remember the date, but it was during the time that people reap paddy. They came and captured me from my house. I had to carry for them for 10 days, then I ran to escape. I escaped when people [KNLA] were shooting at them. We were in the middle of them. They were guarding us, but when people shot at them, we ran to escape. Many of my friends stepped on bamboo spike traps and landmines.

Q: Which battalion captured you?
A: I don’t know. They just came from the camp in our village at Kaw Day Kyay. They captured 9 people. They captured me in my village while I was eating rice. They came and called to me in Burmese language, "Come down, come down", so I had to come down to the ground. They told me that I must go for loh ah pay at that very moment. Their ‘moment’ lasted a long time!

Q: What did you have to carry?
A: They forced me to carry 12 of the 2.5 inch shells. It was over 10 viss [16 kg / 35 lb]. I had to carry them from my village to Ker Ghaw. They gave us very little rice to eat; two of us had to share one small plastic bag of rice. Sometimes the rice was not well cooked. We did not have enough water to drink because they rushed us. We had to eat [the stems of] wild banana trees to curb our hunger.

Q: How many people ran with you when you escaped?
A: Nine of us. We all wished to run, but one of us dared not come with us when we called him, so he is still with the Burmese. Eight of my friends ran with me, and porters from other villages ran too. I know two porters who are still left with the Burmese. The places where we ran were full of landmines. We didn’t know the direction to run, but we ran ahead and reached Pah Klu even though we’d never been there before. When we arrived at Pah Klu, the Sgaw [Sgaw Karen; he is Pwo Karen] women asked us, "How could you dare to come back this way? Landmines are everywhere. We are surprised to see you arrive here safely." Some people ran into Burmese soldiers, though, so the soldiers tortured them.

Q: When you portered, did the Burmese soldiers ever torture you?
A: They beat me on the temples once. I tied up my load to the baskets and the soldier asked me, "Is that tied tightly?" and I answered him, "It is tight." But when we were marching the shells fell down, so he beat me on the temple. Another time he kicked me with his jungle boots when I was picking up the fallen rice grains on the ground to eat. When we arrived at a place where people had lived and recently left, I picked up some rice to eat to curb my hunger since I hadn’t eaten enough rice. He asked me, "Why do you pick up that rice to eat? If they have poisoned it, you will die." And he kicked me with his boots on the head.

NAME:     "Pu Dta Ler"             SEX: M              AGE: 50-60                Karen Buddhist farmer
FAMILY:   Married, 3 children
ADDRESS: Pah Klu village, T’Nay Hsah township                               INTERVIEWED: 4/99

["Pu Dta Ler" was interviewed after arriving in Thailand as a refugee.]

Q: Can you tell me the story about how the Burmese shot you?
A: I decided to go and hire myself out to get some money to cure my child with bad legs. When I arrived at the other side of the river, I didn’t know that the Burmese had arrived. There were not many of them, not more than 10 soldiers. I was outside the village, but they were inside the village when they shot at me. The young man from my village who had come with me ran from behind me and passed me. The Burmese shot at him but hit my leg instead, so I fell down. They didn’t come to look at me, and they went away. I was left alone for a while until I saw a young woman who was coming back from gathering firewood. I told her to go back and tell my son to come and get me. She told my son and he came and carried me to the village.

Q: Did the Burmese know that you had been hurt?
A: They said that they didn’t know. When people went and told them that I was hurt, they asked my son to carry me to Ker Ghaw. They gave me one injection when I arrived there. I bled a lot. When I was in my village, someone gave me an injection of medicine. When I arrived at Ker Ghaw, it seemed that they didn’t care about me even though I had gone with them to Ker Ghaw as soon as they called me there. When I arrived at Ker Ghaw, they gave me 3,000 Kyat and told me to go to Myawaddy Hospital. How would 3,000 Kyat be enough? I stayed there for 10 days and they took care of me while I still had money, but when my money ran out they stopped taking care of me. When it was gone, I had to go back to my village again. Then I asked people to treat it with traditional medicine and holy oil. I can’t stand up yet because it is painful.

Q: Had the Burmese ever come to your village before?
A: Yes, they come to my village often and whenever they come they shoot villagers. The other time they came they shot a man named Htay Lah. He is Karen and a villager. He was eating rice at his wife’s parents’ house when they shot him. He wasn’t wearing clothes while he was eating, only short pants. They started shooting into the house, so he stopped eating and ran down to the ground. He ran and they shot him to death. They accused him of being Nga Pway [‘Ringworm’ derogatory SPDC slang for KNLA soldier]. People told them, "He is not Nga Pway; he is a villager. Look in his house - there are no weapons!" When they came another time, they shot dead two villagers at Thay Po Kyu too. After they shot those two villagers, they shot Htay Lah, then me.

Q: Did the Burmese who shot you appear in your village again before you fled here?
A: No, but now the DKBA is there to do logging. They went to pull out all the big old logs that they have been cutting down.

Q: Did you tell the DKBA that the Burmese had shot at villagers?
A: The village head told them, but they said they couldn’t do anything after the person had been shot. They said he was shot accidentally.

Q: What had the villagers done to provoke the Burmese so they shot at villagers?
A: The villagers didn’t do anything to them. We even gave them whatever they wanted to eat such as pigs and chickens. They even killed cattle to eat without permission. They just took whatever they want by force. People dared not tell them anything. They just watched them. They even demanded rice and salt and chillies. People gave it to them because they were afraid.

Q: How did you feel after they shot at you and broke your leg?
A: I only felt sorrow because of the pain, and because I had to borrow money to cure myself. I had nothing to sell, no cattle, pigs, or chickens, because I had already sold everything to cure your Auntie [his wife, who is infected with tuberculosis].

Q: Was anyone else hurt at the same time as you?
A: They shot many times but only hit me. They also fired two mortars. When their commander asked them [later] they said that a small battle had occurred with the KNLA and that they had accidentally hit a villager. For sure there was no battle, because there were no KNLA there. They just shot at a villager who was running.

Q: Do you think the villagers still worry?
A: When the DKBA was logging, the KNLA went to disturb them and the DKBA said that if they thought they couldn’t fight back against the KNLA, they would ask the Burmese Army to help them. Therefore the villagers are worried.

Q: Will you go back to your village?
A: If I go back to my village, I’ll have no rice to eat. My children have been working in the fields, but since there was no rain we didn’t get enough rice. My daughter has two small children, and my daughter-in-law also has two small children who are still breastfeeding. My daughter-in-law is ill in the hospital. When we are cured, we would like to stay here as refugees with all our children, but we don’t have any money to build a house.

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