(03/11/98) -- On March 11, at 1:00 AM local time, Hway Kaloke refugee camps in Thailand's Mae Sot district were attacked by a group of some 100 Burmese government and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) troops. Two people are confirmed to have died in the attack, and at least twenty others were seriously injured. One man, an amputee who was in the camp hospital, suffered severe burns. A total of 1,300 shelters in the camp, or approximately 85 per cent of the camp's area, were razed to the ground, leaving some 8,700 people homeless. The attack came as Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai was due to arrive in the U.S. for a three-day visit.
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"It is imperative that camp security be immediately improved, as the remaining camps along the Thai/Burma border are all vulnerable to attack, said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "In the longer term, new sites must be found to house these refugees. It doesn't solve the problem to consolidate refugees in camps which remain vulnerable."
There was reportedly no warning of the attack, which came from the west, and Thai border patrol police, who have posts in the north and east of the camp, were ill-equipped to fend it off.
On March 10, refugees and local people reported heavy shelling in Burma, just over the border from the Mae La refugee camp. Local Thai authorities are reported to have said that this was a training exercise by Burmese government troops, but these same troops have made verbal threats that Mae La and another nearby camp, Nu Pho, will also be attacked in the next few days. Mae La currently houses over 30,000 people, after the residents of Shoklo camp were moved there earlier this month under the orders of the Thai authorities. Nu Pho houses some 10,000 refugees.
Today's assault and threats of further attacks are the latest in a series of abuses against Burmese refugees in Thailand carried out by the Burmese army and allied militia groups since December 1994. In January 1997 Hway Kaloke was attacked and razed, leaving one man dead and 7,000 homeless. In the same month, Mae La was attacked, and one woman killed, though the camp was saved by the intervention of Karen camp guards, supported by Thai soldiers, who fought off the intruders.
Immediately after last year's attacks, human rights organizations, nongovernmental organizations providing humanitarian aid in the camps, and Western governments all appealed to the Thai authorities to relocate the camps. At the time the Thai government responded that there were no available sites for the refugees. The attacks appear to be part of a long term strategy of the Burmese government to terrorize the refugees into returning to Burma and to force the armed Karen National Union to enter into a cease fire agreement with the government.
"We call on the Burmese government, which is responsible for these attacks on unarmed civilians, to immediately cease such attacks and take steps to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the resulting human rights violations," said Jendrzejczyk. " We also hope that senior U.S. policymakers meeting with Prime Minister Chuan will raise this issue, and urge an immediate improvement in camp security."
http://hrw.org/english/docs/1998/03/11/burma1075.htm