III. REFUGEES FROM BURMA'S KAREN AND MON STATES AND TENASSERIM DIVISION

Human Rights Violations by the Burmese Military

Since 1989, the SLORC has embarked on a policy of attempting to reach cease-fire agreements with the numerous ethnic insurgent groups. In most cases, although the details of the agreements have not been made public, the rebels were permitted to retain territory and arms while at the same time gaining from significant economic and development projects which the SLORC undertook. However, despite such agreements, human rights abuses have continued as the SLORC deployed more troops in areas formerly considered "brown," that is, in the control of neither the government nor the rebels. The military required barracks, and villagers were forced to build them. They patrolled the areas bordering rebel territory, and the villagers were forced to carry their supplies. Above all, villagers were required to provide free labor to work on infrastructure projects which would further reinforce the military's control of the area. In March 1995 the cease-fire agreement with the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) broke down after the SLORC deployed troops within the KNPP's territory and continued to take people to work as porters for the army.

Significant portions of the Karen and Mon States and Tenasserim Division are of great economic importance to both the SLORC and the Royal Thai government. The Yadana gas pipeline, which will transport gas to Thailand from Burma's offshore Yadana gasfield, is being built across northern Tenasserim Division through areas which are home to a mixed population of Burmans, Mon and Karen ethnic communities. The Burmese government will receive an estimated U.S.$400 million per year for the supply of the gas, scheduled to commence in July 1997.7

Thai companies are also involved in developing a deep-water seaport at Tavoy in Burma. A number of important roads linking Thailand and Burma are being planned, including highways from Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai/Burmese border to Thanbyuzayat in Burma's Mon State, from Bong Ti on the Thai/Burmese border to Tavoy and from Bang Saphan in Thailand to Bokpyin. It has also been reported that the Thai company Ital-Thai isundertaking a feasibility study for a hydroelectric dam on the Mae Kok River, also in a Karen area.8 The area also has huge untapped potential as a tourist destination, and the establishment of a million-hectare "biosphere" in the Myinmolekat Nature Reserve is underway.

Given the economic importance of the area, it has long been a policy of both Burma and Thailand to "clean up" the border region. Military and political pressure on many of the groups along the border successfully resulted in cease-fires, and in the case of the Mon, the repatriation of Mon refugees.9 By the end of 1996, with the effective defeat of the KNPP, only the KNU remained an obstacle. The KNU is one of only a handful of ethnic insurgent groups not to have signed a cease-fire agreement with the SLORC, despite being in sporadic negotiations since March 1992. In January 1997, over one hundred representatives from several ethnic rebel groups, including some groups which had already formed cease-fire agreements with the SLORC, took part in an ethnic nationalities seminar in KNU-held territory. The seminar ended with a ten-point agreement which included a statement of support for the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.10 It is believed that above all else, the KNU's involvement in the seminar led to the SLORC's decision to embark on a final offensive against them in February. By May, the KNU had privately agreed to withdraw its support for certain items of the agreement in order to resume negotiations with the SLORC. However, on July 8, 1997, the KNU broke off all negotiations with the SLORC, saying that the SLORC had acted in bad faith by making its position public.11

Even before the February offensive began, human rights violations in the region were widespread, as confirmed by interviews conducted in Thailand in June 1997. Refugees from Burma described a variety of abuses in areas under the control of Burmese forces, some going back to 1993.

A thirty-eight-year-old Burman man from Tha Yet Chaung township in Tavoy District said he had been forced to work as a porter for the army for over one month in mid-1995 during an operation against the KNU, carrying arms, ammunition, food and the soldiers' backpacks:12

Once I asked some soldiers for more food, as we were only given a small amount of rice each day. I was beaten on the head by a soldier with a bamboo stick. Another time I saw a porter being beaten to death because he was too exhausted to carry his load.

He also spoke of another occasion during the same operation when he and the other porters had to cross a fast-flowing river, holding onto a piece of rope as a guide secured on both sides of the riverbank. It was difficult for them to keep their balance due to the heavy loads they were carrying. The rope broke after he had crossed, but a number of the porters behind him were swept away down the river being dragged under the water by their loads. He believed that at least ten porters drowned.

Just a few months earlier, in April 1995, this man said he had been taken by the army to Kanbauk, in the north of Tenasserim Division. He was kept under guard, with a number of others, in a reserve pool of porters in case the army required them in the run up to and during the Burmese New Year festivities, which takes place in April each year. He was kept in Kanbauk for ten days before being released. He witnessed one of the porters trying to run away. He was caught and stabbed by a SLORC soldier.

This same man told Human Rights Watch/Asia that throughout 1995 and early 1996, he had been forced to work as a porter for SLORC soldiers who were guarding the Yadana gas pipeline, which passes across northern Tenasserim Division.13 He spoke of an increase in demand for porters in his area, Tha Yet Chaung township, since the pipeline project had commenced. He was forced by the army to go to the pipeline area two or three times a month. He said he and other porters would carry weapons and food for the soldiers who were patrolling the area of the pipeline. As he got to know the area better he would usually run away from the soldiers after some days. He eventually fled from his village to the Thai/Burmese border because he could not stand working as a porter any longer. He was unable to make enough money to support his family because he was always doing forced labor for the army.

A twenty-year-old Karen man who lived in Taungoo in Burma's Pegu Division said that his father had been involved in the KNU for as long as he could remember until his death in 1995. While working in the Pegu mountain range in February 1996, he learned that his mother had been arrested. With the help of a relative, he went to the military intelligence office in Taungoo where his mother was being held:

Her hands were tied behind her back, she had been beaten up and could barely speak. I asked why they had done this to her and I was told that my family was suspected of having connections with the KNU. I asked to be taken in my mother's place so she could go to a hospital and they agreed.

He was held in the compound for a week where he was interrogated on three occasions. He was asked many questions about the KNU, including whether he or his family were hiding weapons or if anyone from the KNU stayed at their family home. He was always questioned by the same two SLORC soldiers, one of whom was an officer:

When they questioned me, one soldier whipped my back with wire cable. He also punched and kicked me. I was questioned about three times, and this happened each time they questioned me. They kept asking me the same questions.

After a week, he was taken to Taungoo prison and from there taken by the army in mid-1996 to be a porter. He was forced to porter for the Burmese army in Karenni State and spoke of how four older porters in his group were unable to keep up with the soldiers:

They apologized to the soldiers for their lack of speed and pleaded for mercy. They were beaten up by the soldiers and each one pushed off the edge of a cliff.

He then recounted how he himself had fallen sick and asked one of the soldiers for some medicine. He was hit in the mouth with the butt of a gun and lost two teeth. The soldier then stabbed him and slashed the back of his head with a knife. He was left for dead but was found and taken in by some local villagers.

Many civilians pay "porter fees"that can, sometimes, substitute for work as porters. However, when porters are in short supply, civilians are often taken by the army regardless of whether a porter fee has been paid. The level of porter fees varies over time and place but they increase when porters are in short supply. Those who cannot afford these fees have no choice other than to work as a porter or to flee.

One of the most notorious projects on which civilians are forced to work by the SLORC is the 160- kilometer railway between Ye in Mon State to Tavoy in Tenasserim Division.14 A thirty-four-year-old Karen man from Ye Bone village, some sixteen kilometers south of Kanbauk in Tenasserim Division, interviewed in a refugee camp in Thailand in June 1997, said that he had worked on the railway in 1993, clearing a section of the route before construction of the railway itself in that area began. Workers were taken from his village in rotation by the army. He did not have to work on the railway in 1994, although he had to work as a porter for the army many times that year. During his time as a porter, he was forced to carry supplies, including weapons and ammunition, for soldiers during their operations against the KNU. In 1995, he was again taken by the army to work on the Ye-Tavoy railway:

Each week, ten people from our village would be taken to work on the railway. It tended to work out that I would have to work one week on the railway and then would have two weeks at home before being taken again. I saw people who were too sick to work being beaten by soldiers for taking a rest. I also witnessed a landslide at the work site which resulted in a number of laborers' deaths. My legs were injured in this landslide. My wife came to take my place working on the railway so that I could return home to recover.

He said that Burmese forces built three military barracks near his village between 1988 and 1990. He and all the men from his village had been forced to construct the barracks. Periodically since 1990, he and others from his village had to go back to the barracks to do further work, such as making fence posts and putting up new fencing.

A man from Tavoy District in Tenasserim Division, interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Asia, had worked for two periods of fifteen days during 1995 on the Ye-Tavoy railway, at a site nineteen miles from Tavoy. He described how men and women from his village would have to go to work on the railway in rotation. He had to dig and carry soil every day he was at the site:

I saw many people from many villages in my area and other townships working on the railway. I also saw prisoners from Rangoon working at the site. They were wearing white clothes and their legswere shackled together with a long chain, which most of them placed round their neck to keep it out of their way while they were working.

This system of forced labor was described by several men and women who spoke of being forced to work without pay constructing and repairing roads and on army-owned farms. These people said that "forced labor fees" as well as "porter fees" were often collected from the villagers. A woman living in northern Tenasserim Division told Human Rights Watch/Asia that in 1995, an army commander had told the headman of her village that in order for the villagers to avoid forced labor on the Ye-Tavoy railway, after the project restarted in 1995, the village as a whole would have to pay 10,000 kyat a month (about one hundred dollars or a month's salary for a teacher). It was left to the headman to collect this money from the villagers.15

Human rights abuses of this nature drove 101,175 refugees from Burma seeking refuge on the Thai/Burmese border by the start of 1997.16 Since then, they have been joined by at least a further 20,000 refugees (not all of whom are in the established refugee camps) who fled fighting during the February SLORC offensive against the KNU.

The offensive was launched against the KNU's 4th Brigade (Mergui Tavoy District) and 6th (Duplaya District) Brigade areas, located in Burma's Tenasserim Division and Karen State. On February 7, 1997, government troops, supported by supplies carried by mules, bulldozers and civilians forced to work as porters, started fighting troops of the KNU at the village of Myitta on the upper reaches of the Tenasserim River in the KNU's 4th Brigade area. The two-pronged attack by the Burmese army, along the Tenasserim and Paw Klo Rivers, proceeded quickly with new villages being taken by the army on almost a daily basis. The 4th Brigade headquarters at Htee Kee was taken by the Burmese army on February 26.

On February 11, the offensive against the KNU 6th Brigade area commenced. Two days later, the KNU headquarters in this area, at Htee Ker Pler, was taken by government troops, and on February 17, some three hundred troops of the Karen National Liberated Army, the troops of the KNU 16th Battalion, surrendered to the Burmese army.17

With these important objectives achieved, the Burmese army continued its sweep south along Burma's border with Thailand. Reinforcements were sent into the region from Ye further north, Palaw in the west and Mergui in the south. From Mergui the SLORC troops advanced north along the Tenasserim river to join with troops advancing along the river in a southerly direction, as well as advancing south, capturing the headquarters of the KNU 11th Battalion at Ler Ker on March 18. By the end of March, virtually the whole river valley of the Tenasserim River was occupied by SLORC troops.

A number of rebel opposition groups in addition to the KNU had bases located in the south of Burma's Tenasserim Division, and by May, it was reported that government troops had attacked the All Burma Students Democratic Front's (ABSDF) 8888 camp, Mukapaw camp of the All Burma Muslim Union (ABMU) and Chang Chee and Hway Pha camps of the Mon Army Mergui District (MAMD), a splinter group from the New Mon State Party (NMSP). On May 25, the MAMD surrendered to the government.

As in all previous offensives, a large number of porters were used by the Burmese army.18 These porters were taken both prior to and during the offensive, primarily from the areas between Moulmein in Mon State to Tavoy in Tenasserim Division. Three women from Moulmein interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Asia witnessed dozens of porters being rounded up in February from a video house, theater and railway station. Another eye witness saw porters being taken from the bazaar in Moulmein as well as from other smaller shops in the city. A pool of approximately three hundred porters were reportedly kept at a football field in Thanbyuzayat in Mon State during February in order to provide a ready supply of porters to the Burmese army.

Many of the 20,000 people who have fled into Thailand since the offensive started did so in advance of the SLORC troops and thus avoided being subject to other abuses. However, some of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Asia remained in their villages for a period after the government forces took control.

A thirty-six-year-old Karen headman, from a village near Kyunchaung in Karen State, said his village had been in an area under the control of the KNU 6th Brigade. However, in early March 1997, troops of the Burmese army arrived and told the villagers that they were looking for "the enemies," meaning people connected to the KNU.

He recounted how, after two days in the village, the commander in charge of the troops singled out three villagers who were suspected of assisting the KNU. According to his account, he witnessed all three having their hands tied behind their backs and being beaten by four or five soldiers in front of the villagers, in order to try to obtain information about the KNU. The soldiers used their fists and the butts of their guns to beat these men while asking them questions. One of these three men was accused of having a brother in the KNU. The soldiers wrapped a plastic sheet around his head and tied it with twine so that it seemed as though he would suffocate. After this, these three men were held in a compound the soldiers had forced the villagers to build for them. Two of the men were released after three days but had to report to the military compound each day. The third man was detained for a month and continually forced to serve as a porter; he was said to have escaped from the soldiers while portering for them.

The same Karen headman said that a large number of porters were taken by the Burmese authorities from his village to accompany the soldiers on patrols in the area on a three-day rotational basis. As the village headman, he had to nominate and gather together the porters for the army. In addition, he said that the soldiers took rice from the villagers without giving them any payment. They also killed and ate pigs, chickens, cows and buffalos belonging to the villagers. Two months after the army entered his village, he fled to Thailand as he felt unable to continue to nominate and gather porters and feared being tortured and beaten by the soldiers for suspected involvement with the KNU.

A forty-eight-year-old Karen man from Pa Der Plaw village in Kya In township, Karen State, said that the Burmese army started passing through his village very regularly from February 1997. He was a member of the village council and had to arrange for the villagers to provide bullock carts and drivers for the soldiers to take supplies from Kya In to Taungzun, further south in Karen State. They would be gone for eight to ten days at a time. As the rainy season began in earnest, the bullock carts could not always be used, so the soldiers demanded porters from his village to carry their goods, which he also had to arrange. The headman of his village had been arrested and detained three times because the officials thought he had information about the KNU. On the first occasion, the headman was tied up and detained for four days at the place in the village which the army used as an occasional base. On the second occasion, the headman was tied to a wooden post and punched, slapped and beaten by some soldiers. He was released when two ex-KNU soldiers who had surrendered said that they knew the village headman had no information about the KNU.

On the third occasion, the village headman was detained for over a month, held first at Haw Her village and then at Paw Naw Mu village. On his return to his village, the headman told some of the villagers how he was beaten and tortured by the soldiers while they questioned him for information about the KNU. He still bore the scars of the treatment he had suffered, which included burns to his torso where the soldiers had set fire to his shirt and stubbed out their cheroots on him. After the headman's return, a number of villagers felt they were in danger of receiving similar treatment from the soldiers and fled to the border.

Repatriations and Denial of Access By the Royal Thai Government

Even as the first refugees fleeing the SLORC offensive arrived in Thailand, the Burmese and Thai military were meeting to lay contingency plans. On February 25, 1997, Burmese Army Chief Gen. Maung Aye and his Thai counterpart, Gen. Chetta Thanajaro, met in the border town of Tachilek. In that meeting, Gen. Maung Aye reportedly said that the government of Burma had to use force against Karen rebels as Rangoon did not want other ASEAN countries "to be concerned" about the issue. He also reportedly said that Thailand is given prior written warning whenever the Burmese Army plans a new offensive.19 Thus, with the Thai authorities working hand in glove with the Burmese, they were able to anticipate a major influx of refugees from Burma fleeing the advance of SLORC troops. Despite knowing full well that denying refuge to this group would leave them vulnerable to Burmese government abuses during a major military offensive, the Thai response, was to minimize the number of refugees in Thailand by both denying access at the border and returning refugees to Burma. In short, there was a policy of refoulement.

Instances of Refoulement

At Bong Ti, Sai Yo District, Kanchanaburi Province

On February 24, 1997, villagers who had been evacuated by the KNU in anticipation of SLORC's imminent arrival in their villages were allowed by the Thai authorities to cross from Burma into Bong Ti village in Thailand. The following day, the men from this group were separated from the women, children, sick and elderly by soldiers from Thailand's Ninth Division. The 230 men were then loaded onto trucks and taken to a point on the Thai border further south known as Pu Nam Rawn, directly opposite the KNU 4th Brigade headquarters at Htee Kee in Burma, an important objective for the Burmese army, to which they were advancing rapidly. From this point the men were forced back into Burma by soldiers of the Ninth Division and told either to fight the SLORC troops or surrender to them. That same day SLORC troops were shelling Htee Hta, a village situated only thirteen kilometers from Htee Kee. Two days later Htee Kee itself fell to the Burmese army.

These men had a well-founded fear of persecution. By virtue of living in KNU-controlled areas, they were perceived as supporters of the KNU. They were returned by the Thai authorities into an active conflict zone, in clear violation of international standards.

On February 25 and 26, the 900 women, children, sick and elderly who had crossed into Bong Ti were loaded by the Ninth Division onto private logging trucks in two batches and taken to an area in Suan Phung District in Ratchaburi Province, Thailand. From this point, they were forcibly repatriated to Burma. Soldiers of the Ninth Division pointed out where they had to walk and gave them no choice but to return to Burma. They congregated at a place known as Htaw Ma Pyo Hta, an old tin mining area. The refugees had no idea where they were being takenwhen they left Bong Ti and at Htaw Ma Pyo Hta found themselves at the Burmese army's next objective along the border, having taken Htee Kee.

One man in his late seventies, who was interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Asia in June 1997 in a refugee camp in Thailand, spoke of how he had fled from his village of Amoh in Burma as SLORC troops were approaching. He was allowed access to Bong Ti, but said that after one or two days the men were separated from the others in the group:

I was lucky because I was old. I was not in this group of men who were trucked away.

He then recounted how he, together with the others remaining in the refugee group, was trucked to a heavily forested site in the area of Htaw Ma Pyo Hta. He had been able to take many of his possessions with him to Bong Ti, but had to leave most of them behind when he was loaded onto the truck. He spoke of how he could not stay at Htaw Ma Pyo Hta as the Burmese army arrived:

I ran along the border. I did not think that the SLORC troops would pursue us, but they did. I fled to a point on the border called Meh Pya Kee and from here I was able to cross into Thailand.

From the time he left Htaw Ma Pyo Hta, it took him seven days before he was able to cross into Thailand, during which time he passed through eight villages inside Burma, pursued by government troops.

The Ninth Division pushed back a smaller group of refugees on February 28, 1997 in the area of Htaw Ma Pyo Hta, having fled from Amla Kee in Burma to the Thai border.20 They were taken in two trucks to a point on the Thai side of the border and Thai soldiers ordered them to walk across the border into Burma. A relief worker sought permission from the Thai authorities for two people in this group who were in need of medical assistance to be transferred back to Thailand for hospitalization, but permission was denied.

At Pu Nam Rawn, Kanchanaburi District, Kanchanaburi Province

As the KNU evacuated the villages in the area of Htee Kee, persons fleeing from the second prong of the government attack along the Paw Klo river, west of the Tenasserim River, also arrived at the border after walking for several days through the jungle and across the mountains. By February 24, a group of some 2,000 people had gathered at the Thai border, adjacent to Pu Nam Rawn in Thailand. At the border post, Thai Border Patrol Police screened the refugees as they attempted to cross into Thailand. Some 500 males were refused entry to Thailand and told to return to Htee Kee.

Human Rights Watch/Asia interviewed a fourteen-year-old boy, in a refugee camp in Thailand, who was in this group:

I and my brother both went to school in Htee Hta, where we lived with my aunt. My brother is thirteen. The KNU told the whole village that we would have to leave, as the SLORC were attacking the area. I could hear the sound of mortar shells and heavy weapons. The whole village left together and we fled first to Htee Kee and from there to the Thai border. The walk to the border from Htee Kee took about two hours. I was with my aunt and brother. When we arrived at the border we saw that there were Thai officials waiting there. They pointed at some of the males trying to cross the border, including me, and said that we could not come across. My aunt and brother were allowedto cross the border. I cannot express what it felt like to be separated from my relatives, but I was very unhappy. I have suffered a lot. I then walked back to Htee Kee with a group of four or five other people who had also not been allowed by the Thai officials to cross into Thailand. The people in the group I was with ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen years old.

He also described how he and the others had to leave Htee Kee as the Burmese army began to attack it. He heard the mortar shells landing in the village as they fled. They then started a perilous journey along the border on the Burma side, walking through the jungle for at least seven days until they reached Htaw Ma Mah, where they stayed for two weeks on the Burma side of the border. They then moved to Ke Ma Kee, again inside Burma. From this point, they were allowed to cross into Thailand to Huay Sut refugee camp. His brother and aunt, from whom he was separated at Pu Nam Rawn, were in Pu Muang, a different refugee camp in Thailand. At the time of the interview, three months later, they had still not been reunited.

In addition to the refusal of entry to Thailand by the Thai authorities at the border, which clearly constitutes refoulement,21 Thai soldiers of the Ninth Division also screened the refugees who had already entered into Pu Nam Rawn before the Border Police had started screening at the border post. They picked out an estimated one hundred boys, some as young as ten, who were told they must return to the Burma side of the border. Again, this group had to make the dangerous journey along the border inside Burma before being allowed to cross into Thailand at a point further south.

On February 25, 1997, Major General Thaweet, Commander of the Ninth Division, visited the sites at Bong Ti and Pu Nam Rawn and told the refugees that they would only be allowed to stay in Thailand for two to three days. On the same day, two officials of the U.S. Embassy were refused admission to Bong Ti and Pu Nam Rawn.22

At Bo Wi, Kanchanaburi District, Kanchanaburi Province

In early July 1997, a group of at least 150 people fleeing from inside Burma gathered at the border in the area opposite Bo Wi in Thailand where the Ninth Division refused to let them cross the border into Thailand.

At Tho Kah, Sangkhlaburi District, Kanchanaburi Province

Tho Kah is situated inside Burma close to the Thai/Burmese border. There have been internally displaced Karens and Tavoyans at this site since April 1995. From the time the Burmese army's offensive began in the KNU's 4th Brigade area, the number of people at Tho Kah has swelled to over 2,000. As the SLORC troops approached Tho Kah, the people at the site fled on foot to the border. They crossed into Thailand on February 28, 1997. On March 10, 1997, this group was pushed back across the border into Burma by the Ninth Division. They were too frightened to go back to Tho Kah, given the proximity of the SLORC troops, so they stayed on a hilltop nearby. Government troops immediately started shelling this area, with some shells landing on Thai soil.

On April 12, 1997, government troops overran the Tho Kah site and the refugees were allowed to enter Thailand and stay in an area known as Mong Soe Mine, very close to the border. On May 19, 1997, this camp was closed and the refugees transferred to another site in Thailand, Don Yang. By then, there were only some 800 to 900 people left at the site, the majority having left this insecure and vulnerable camp. A man recently interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Asia, who in April/May 1996 had fled human rights abuses in Tavoy District and had settledat Tho Kah, spoke of how the Thai authorities would not let him and others from Tho Kah cross into Thailand for more than a month, despite being in real danger from advancing SLORC troops.

At Htee Hta Baw/Htee Lai Pah, Sangkhlaburi District, Kanchanaburi Province

The original site of this camp which straddled the border was at Htee Htaw Bah. It was established in 1992, and in early February 1997 its population was 2,300. On February 15, 1997, shortly after the offensive by the Burmese army began in the KNU 6th Brigade area, the population of the camp fled to the Thai side of the border. Two days later, on February 17, 1997, soldiers of the Ninth Division pushed them back to the Burma side of the border. On February 20, 1997, troops of the Burmese army entered Htee Hta Baw camp. Some of the refugees fled to Htee Lai Pah, which is also situated inside Burma. The Burmese army then appeared to advance on Htee Lai Pah, quickly outflanking the KNU troops in this area.

The refugees again fled to the border where they were held on the Burma side at gunpoint by soldiers of the Ninth Division until February 27, 1997, when they were finally allowed across to Thailand. They settled in the Thai village of Htee Lai Pah.

On March 9, 1997, these refugees were moved by soldiers of the Ninth Division back to the border and some were repatriated. It was reported by a relief worker in the area that some were beaten up by Thai soldiers for not voluntarily going back. The remaining refugees were forced to move on numerous subsequent occasions by the Thai army. When they were moved to Don Yang on May 20, 1997, the refugees had been moved an estimated ten to fifteen times. Only around 700 refugees remained, representing a "loss" of over 1,500 refugees. An estimated 600 of these went to Nu Pho, a refugee camp in Tak Province but the fate and whereabouts of the others are unknown.

The border is not clearly demarcated in this area and given the number of times this group was moved by the Ninth Division of the Thai army, it is difficult to say how many times this group of refugees was actually returned. However, it is clear that refoulement occurred on at least two occasions and that the group was held in the border area in a extremely exposed and vulnerable position for three months.

At Don Yang, Sangkhlaburi District, Kanchanaburi Province

On the orders of the Ninth Division, refugees from Tho Kah and Htee Lai Pah were moved to a new refugee site at Don Yang on May 19 and 20, 1997. By the end of May, the population of the camp was 1,552. A considerable number of people who were at the sites of Tho Kah and Htee Hta Baw/Htee Lai Pah in early February 1997 were separated from the main groups of refugees in the course of the numerous moves they were forced to undertake, including the final relocation to Don Yang. Despite this, the Ninth Division has said that beginning in June 1997, the camp would be closed to new refugees, including those who had originally been in Tho Kah or Htee Hta Baw.

The closure of Don Yang has blocked access to a group of over 2,000 people, mainly Karens, gathered at a village inside Burma called Htee Wah Doh in an area opposite the camp of Don Yang, close to the Mon camp, Halockhani, which is also situated inside Burma. Human Rights Watch/Asia interviewed three heads of families from Htee Wah Doh who had fled from their villages because of human rights abuses perpetrated by SLORC troops who entered and occupied their villages during the course of the government offensive in the KNU 6th Brigade area. The group may also contain people separated from the refugee groups at Tho Kah and Htee Lai Pah/Htee Hta Baw.

Htee Wah Doh clearly was not a safe place for this group of displaced people. On May 11, 1997, some one hundred government soldiers, with forty to fifty porters, entered the Mon camp, Halockhani. They set up two checkpoints in the camp and began charging entrance and exit fees. The people in Halockhani camp were very frightened and some tried to move out of the camp, either into Thailand or further north along the border inside Burma. Initially, the commander said their purpose was to demarcate the border and discussions proceeded with the Ninth Division. However, after two days the commander of the SLORC troops said they needed to stay in the camp to fight Karen insurgents in the area. The NMSP, which has a cease-fire agreement with the SLORC, reportedly wroteto the Burmese army's South East Command headquarters in Moulmein asking that the troops be withdrawn immediately. On May 15, 1997, the troops were ordered to withdraw to Three Pagodas Pass, a point further north along the border and outside Mon state. The SLORC troops moved towards the village of Htee Wah Doh but were headed off by the NMSP before they entered the village. The troops then returned to Three Pagados Pass.23

On June 1, 1997, a delegation of five people from Htee Wah Doh walked to the Thai border checkpoint adjacent to Don Yang to seek access to the camp. They were told that the camp was closed to new arrivals and that the Thai authorities would not consider any people arriving at the border from the beginning of June 1997 to be refugees as there was no longer any fighting in the area. By July 8, 1997, this group was still stuck on the Burma side of the border, in a vulnerable position with very limited access to medical services or other humanitarian assistance.

In Pranburi Area, Hua Hin District, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province

As the SLORC troops moved further south along the Thai/Burmese border in the Tenasserim Division and began attacking the headquarters of the KNU's 11th Battalion at Ler Ker, villagers fled from this area to the border. On March 10, 1997, some one hundred villagers crossed the border into Thailand in the area adjacent to Pranburi. On March 15, 1997, they were told by the Thai army that they could not remain in Thailand and they were forced to return to Burma. They joined approximately 300 others who had congregated on the Burma side of the border. This group was eventually moved to Huay Satu, an isolated site a six-hour walk from the last border check point inside Thailand. At the end of May 1997, this site housed some 1,548 refugees on the Thai side of the border.

It was at this site that a group of some 400 families connected with the Mergui-Tavoy United Front (MDUF), another rebel opposition group, was forcibly repatriated by the Thai army to the Burma side on the border on June 5, 1997. This group contained a large number of women and children.24

Towards the end of June 1997, the refugees at Huay Satu received threats from the Ninth Division that they would be forced to move to the Burma side of the border by the end of June 1997. A representative from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok visited this group of refugees on or around June 19, 1997 and was informed by those refugees he was able to speak to that they did not want to return to Burma. This representative was reportedly informed subsequently by the Thai Army that there were no plans to repatriate this group of refugees.25 A few days later, soldiers of the Ninth Division went to the camp and tore down the plastic sheeting used by the refugees for their shelters. The soldiers then ordered the refugees to cross the border into Burma. The refugees had no choice but to do as they were ordered. On June 26, 1997, SLORC troops came right up to the border on the Burma side and this group together with some new refugees fled back across the border to Huay Satu in Thailand. On June 29, 1997, soldiers of the Ninth Division went to Huay Satu and told the refugees that all of them, apart from the pregnant, sick and elderly, had to return to Burma or move to Don Yang camp. All except 220 people were then repatriated by the Ninth Division. At the time of the repatriation, both the UNHCR office in Bangkok and a NGO were refused access to the site by the Ninth Division whose officials claimed that the river in the area was too high and the security situation unclear.26

In Thap Sakae area, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province

As the Burmese offensive swept further south in the Tenasserim Division, fighting commenced between its troops and MAMD in April. A group of some 800 Mon crossed into Thailand sometime in April 1997 to a site near the border, some nineteen kilometers south of Thap Sakae. The numbers there had decreased by June 6, 1997, with only 300 to 400 Mon remaining at the site. On that day, the Thai authorities repatriated this entire group directly into the hands of a local Burmese army commander. The Thai authorities invited both Thai television cameras and the UNHCR to be present at the repatriation. It is unclear what steps, if any, were taken by the Thai authorities to establish whether the refugees were willing to return to Burma. An announcement over a loudspeaker was made before the refugees were loaded onto trucks that anyone who did not want to return should step aside. This is not sufficient to establish voluntariness on the part of the refugees. Thirty of the families which were repatriated expressed their wish not to return to a NGO which was present. It would appear these refugees were returned.27

The UNHCR reported that a letter had been sent by the head of this group of refugees to General Chetta stating that they consented to return to Burma. However, a letter of this nature clearly does not establish that each of the refugees was willing to return; clearly a letter from a purported leader cannot be taken to represent the desires and wishes of each of the individual refugees within the group. The use of such a mechanism cannot establish voluntariness on the part of the refugees and its use should be strictly avoided.

The role of UNHCR's local representative who was present at this repatriation was unclear, and UNHCR Bangkok did not make public their objection to the repatriation even though it appeared to fall far short of the relevant standards.28

Attacks on the Refugee Camps

Most of the refugee camps are situated perilously close to the Thai/Burmese border. As the Royal Thai government has failed to provide adequate security for the camps, they are vulnerable to cross-border attacks and raids by SLORC troops or the DKBA, a splinter group from the KNU established in December 1994 and backed by Rangoon.

The attacks are part of an attempt by the SLORC and the DKBA to terrorize the refugees into returning to Burma. Throughout 1995 and 1996, refugees in the Thai camps closest to the DKBA area opposite Tak Province faced abductions and killings. In 1995, 300 houses were destroyed and scores of refugees were abducted and others killed in attacks. The attacks ceased by mid-1996 but began again towards the end of that year. In early January 1997, over forty heavily armed SLORC troops attacked a refugee camp housing Karenni refugees in Thailand's Mae Hong Son district, resulting in at least two deaths.

During the last months of 1996, the DKBA sent threatening letters to camp leaders and individuals in a number of refugee camps, including a "final warning" sent to the leader of Don Pa Kiang camp in Mae Sot, threatening to attack the camp if all the refugees did not return to Burma by January 31, 1997. The refugees remained in the camp, and at the end of January 1997, attacks were indeed undertaken by forces of the DKBA and the SLORC on three camps in the Mae Sot area- Hway Kaloke, Don Pa Kiang and Mae La- leaving at least three people dead and 7,000 homeless out of the 36,500 refugees housed at these sites. Despite these warnings and the vulnerability of these camps, the refugees were refused permission to move and no new security measures were put in place.Thailand's General Chetta insisted that the camps would not be moved.29 The camp at Hway Kaloke was rebuilt and those from Don Pa Kiang camp who were made homeless as a result of the attack were moved mainly to Hway Kaloke, with some moving to Mae La camp.

The international outcry over the refoulement of refugees, especially interventions by the United States government, resulted in three refugees camps further south in Umphang, Tak Province being moved to a safer site. On March 7, these camps, which received refugees from the KNU 6th Brigade area inside Burma, were consolidated in a camp further from the border near the Thai town of Nu Pho. However, the nearby site of Ta Per Poo was not moved at this time.

On April 27, 1997, DKBA fighters entered the refugee camp at Ta Per Poo, situated two kilometers from the border in Umphang, Tak Province, which housed some 2,500 refugees, and burnt down eighteen houses in the camp. The camp was closed at the end of May 1997. The refugees at this site were given the option of either moving to Nu Pho camp or returning to Burma.

All the new camps established during February and March 1997 in Kanchanaburi Province were situated dangerously close to the border. After visits to these sites by the UNHCR and a number of embassies, they were moved to new locations and consolidated, so that as of the beginning of July 1997 there were just two sites, Htam Hin and Don Yang in Kanchanaburi Province.30 However, some of the moves of the refugee sites were ill-timed. The Thai authorities gave the refugees and NGOs less than twelve hours advance notice for the move of Bo Wi camp on May 16, 1997. Also, there had been no preparation of the new site. During the move of Tho Kah camp, the refugees had to walk from between six to twelve hours in the rain to reach the trucks which were to transport them. The trucks could not reach Tho Kah because of heavy rains. If the camp had been moved earlier, before the onset of the rainy season, this could have been avoided. The refugees were moved throughout the night, and again there was no preparation of the site at Don Yang when they arrived. After NGOs protested to the Ninth Division about the way in which the moves were handled, subsequent moves of the refugee camps proceeded in a more orderly manner.

Conditions in the Refugee Camps

Conditions in the refugee camps in Thailand along the Thai/Burmese border vary greatly from one area to the next, depending on which Thai authority is in control. During 1997, the Thai authorities began to discourage the refugees from staying in Thailand by imposing new restrictions in previously established camps, not allowing the refugees to build shelters in the newly established camps, failing to provide adequate security for the camps and on some occasions actively harassing the refugees. On March 8, 1997, some 150 Thai soldiers entered Karenni camp 5 to search for weapons. However, in the process of doing so, they confiscated some refugees' personal possessions and money. 31

In camps established prior to 1997, the Thai Ministry of Interior had ultimate authority but in Kanchanaburi Province, the Ninth Division has assumed control. The terminology being used by the Ninth Division in relation to the refugees is worthy of note. The refugee camps are referred to as "temporary sites" and the refugees as "displaced persons fleeing fighting." This seems to reflect an unwillingness on the part of the Thai army to recognize the reality that these people are refugees and thus are entitled to protection under international standards.

The refugees at the camps in Kanchanaburi Province, Htam Hin and Don Yang which house some 7,400 and 1,500 people respectively, suffer some of the worse conditions. Unlike in other camps along the border, the refugees are not officially permitted by the Ninth Division to build structures with thatched roofs or sleeping platforms. They are permitted to use only plastic sheeting to cover their bamboo shelters, despite the onset of the rainy season. The army has designated the areas within which the structures must be built, forcing the construction of shelters very close together in unhealthy, cramped conditions. In Don Yang, when the camp was initially established, the camp plan was worked out with the local Thai officials. However, when the army came to the camp, they redrew the plan and some twenty-four families had their shelters pulled down.

As of July 8, 1997, the Thai authorities had refused permission for schools to be established in Don Yang and Htam Hin. Also, the refugees in Htam Hin were not permitted to bury their dead, and cremations over two old tires per person were required. The refugees were not allowed outside the confines of the camps, while no new refugees were being permitted into the camps. In these conditions, it is not surprising that some refugees would decide to leave the camps and try to survive in Thailand on their own, perhaps adding to the estimated one million illegal workers from Burma there.

By July 1997, application of the restrictive policy adopted by the Ninth Division seemed to have spread north to the other refugee camps along the border. In Nu Pho camp in Umphang, Tak Province, it appeared that no new refugees were being allowed into the camp and a new double security fence had recently been constructed around the camp perimeter. Similarly in Mae La camp in Mae Sot, Tak Province, no new arrivals were being permitted to enter the camp and the Thai Ministry of Interior refused to register 2,280 people who arrived from Burma between April to June 1997. Again in the camps in the Mae Sariang area in Mae Hon Son Province, the Thai authorities said that no new arrivals were permitted into the camps, despite the fact that three thousand people had arrived in this area from Burma since April 1997, many of them fleeing severe human rights by the Burmese security forces in the areas around Papun in Burma's Karen State.

There is growing concern that if the camps are closed to new refugees will in effect be stopped from crossing the border to seek asylum in Thailand.