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III. Human Rights Abuses of the Karen

In this country, order is the law. Everybody in Burma knows that if you make just one mistake––in word or deed––you’ll end up in jail.⁴²

Human rights and humanitarian law violations in Karen state

The consequences of the “mistake” of being perceived as an opponent of the SPDC in majority Burman areas of the country have been well documented. But until recently, less attention has focused on widespread human rights violations in ethnic nationality areas of Burma, particularly those inhabited by the Karen. This section documents ethnicity-based persecution by Tatmadaw military assaults on the civilian population, including killings, rape, forced labor, and repeated displacement.

International humanitarian law prohibits acts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.⁴³ All sides in the ongoing armed conflicts in Burma are bound by international humanitarian law (the laws of war). Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which Burma ratified in 1992, the conflict with the KNLA is considered a non-international (internal) armed conflict. During an internal armed conflict, government armed forces and their proxy forces and armed opposition groups must abide by Common Article III to the Geneva Conventions as well as customary international humanitarian law. Common Article III as well as international human rights law prohibits the murder, torture or other mistreatment of captured combatants and civilians. Customary international humanitarian law further prohibits attacks against individual civilians, the civilian population and civilian objects, such as homes and temples. Attacks on military targets that cause indiscriminate or disproportionate harm to the civilian population are likewise prohibited.⁴⁴

The Tatmadaw has committed atrocities with the apparent aim to instill fear in the civilian population for several decades. It has attempted to maintain control throughout Karen areas by brutalizing the civilian population. Echoing the logic of the “Four Cuts,” military officials defend their actions as necessary in the prosecution of a protracted war against rurally based guerillas.⁴⁵ Over the years, Tatmadaw forces have conducted repeated military assaults against ethnic minority villages in which there were no armed opposition forces or other apparent military target. Furthermore, upon taking control of such villages, Tatmadaw personnel have frequently committed abuses against the residents. These atrocities appear designed to instill terror in the civilian population and ultimately weaken opposition to the government.

Nearly all witnesses described the Tatmadaw’s attacks as targeting civilians at random and without an immediate military objective. H.D.’s story encompasses many of the violations experienced by the Karen. She is a sixty-seven-year-old S’ghaw Karen woman who moved to Ka Law Gaw Village on the Thai-Burma border as a settler nine years ago. Before that time she claimed that internal displacement was part of her life, and that she has moved “over one hundred times.” She has been made to participate in forced labor many times in her life. She can speak Burmese as she was once a village leader in an SPDC controlled area of Karen State.

Before when I lived in another village, I was a village head. Burmese troops treated us very bad and used men as porters and beat some men to death. One SPDC officer asked me if SPDC do good work or bad work? He wanted to know if I preferred SPDC or KNU? I said I didn’t know and that the political situation is still on a journey and we will see––whoever takes us to the end is good. I was afraid when I spoke to that officer. I cannot count [how many times I have had to do forced labor]. I have many times been made to show the way. I am very afraid when I have to do this at night. Many times I have been made to carry supplies for one day.

One night I stayed in a cave. It was very uncomfortable ground. It smelled bad and we were all afraid. The next day I was crawling along the ground and I looked up to see a Thai soldier standing in front of me. He told me to go back to my village. I told him the SPDC was there, I cannot go back. I was afraid of this soldier. Finally he said to come in [to Thailand]. The Thai soldiers kept us in the cave for two nights, then they took us to the monastery [in Thailand] until today…I only carried my granddaughter when I ran.

Another case reported to Human Rights Watch typifies the types of abuses committed:

After I harvest the paddy they come and take it all. I have a little left. When the doo-dar [enemy] come into my house I am afraid and think they will rape me. They call me moe- moe [“mother-mother”] to show respect then take everything. A soldier came into my house and began to speak to me, but I cannot understand so I just ignored him. He became angry and threatened me with his knife then took the pot of rice I was cooking. The soldiers are always suspicious and don’t trust us. They always ask where are the Karen soldiers. The Burmese soldiers are bad people. I tremble when I see them. I cannot approach [them]. The soldiers…gave us nothing…they only took from us.⁴⁶

H.T., a twenty-eight-year-old Karen from Dooplaya District along the Thai-Burma border near Tak Province, is married with one child. He said that on January 10, 2005––Karen New Year––local SPDC and KNU commanders had worked out a local ceasefire so that the New Year celebrations would not be disrupted. When a messenger sent by the SPDC from another village arrived with an order for the village head to go to the local SPDC column base thirty minutes away, he knew that something was going to happen.

The KNU soldiers were in our village celebrating Karen New Year. The SPDC got very angry and wanted to come to the village. The village head went to negotiate with the SPDC officer five times. The last time three monks and a religious teacher also went to talk to the officer so that they would not attack. In the village a KNU officer, Ner Dah Mya, 201 Special Battalion Commanding Officer, spoke to a DKBA officer who was with the SPDC soldiers to try and stop the fighting. DKBA gave the radio to the SPDC officer but he just shut off the radio. He did not want to talk with KNU. Just attack. Twenty – thirty families stayed on the Karen side on Monday night. Many of them were hiding in a cave. The others went to the Thai side. On Tuesday nearly 350 people went to the monastery inside Thailand traveling in small groups.⁴⁷

Given these civilians’ geographical proximity to the Thai border, it is common for them to seek shelter from Tatmadaw assaults there. In some cases, the Thai military is helpful to them.

N.B., a forty-six-year-old S’ghaw Karen farmer, fled the Tatmadaw into Thailand two days before Human Rights Watch interviewed her in January 2005. She spent two nights on the borderline in a cave hiding from SPDC soldiers. Thai soldiers let her come into Thailand where she spent two nights in a monastery with the rest of the people who had fled the fighting. According to N.B., this was the third time in her life she had been forced to flee.

We were afraid that SPDC would come. The fighting started on Monday, Burmese soldiers came, saw two KNU soldiers and started shooting. On Wednesday [January 12, 2005], four people went back to the village and SPDC took them. We don’t know what happened to them.⁴⁸

Despite the ongoing ceasefire negotiations between the KNU and the SPDC, abuses of Karen civilians have continued. In December 2003 the Tatmadaw launched a major offensive against the KNU in northern Lu Thaw township and against the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) in southern Karenni (a short-lived SLORC-KNPP ceasefire broke down in 1995). Like most post-ceasefire military operations, this campaign specifically targeted the civilian population, displacing some 5,500 people, from nineteen villages. The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) documented the arrest and summary execution of at least thirty-one civilians in Nyaunglebin District during the period of the ceasefire.⁴⁹ The KHRG reported in September 2004 that “villagers have been summarily executed by SPDC columns.”⁵⁰ There is considerable evidence of further abuses, including summary executions, torture, and looting.⁵¹

Since mid-February 2004, occasional skirmishes have displaced at least two thousand civilians around Mawchi in Southwest Karenni State, where no ceasefire has been agreed.⁵²

In addition to attacks directed against civilians, the Tatmadaw also represses Karenvillagers by stealing, extorting, or destroying their personal property. Customary international humanitarian law prohibits pillage, the forcible taking of private property, and looting. Attacking or destroying objects indispensable to the civilian population, such as food supplies or livestock, are also prohibited, unless such objects are being used as sustenance solely by enemy forces. Collective punishments against a civilian population violate international law.⁵³

Such abuses have been particularly acute since 1998, when Tatmadaw battalions were ordered to be self-reliant for food. Since then, the army has been living off the land. Such actions only augment poverty, displacement, and resentment. The KHRG has reported that during the ceasefire negotiations, “SPDC military units have also continued to demand building materials, food, and money from the villagers.

Looting by Burmese troops was a common theme in accounts by the displaced Karen. According to a forty-seven-year-old man:

In 2000 my parents went back into the mountains, to tend their betel nut trees and rice field. While they were weeding the fields, troops from Burma Army Battalion 48 came and shot them, without question. The troops took their livestock and belongings, including 90,000 Kyat in cash, and burnt their hut. The soldiers also shot and killed three men, Saw Tha Pu Loo, Saw Eh Doh Wah, Saw Poh Blay, and injured one.⁵⁴

Soon after the interview was conducted, Tatmadaw Battalion 264 troops arrested and killed the man’s brother while he was harvesting betel.

A fifty-year-old woman, N.L., from the Nyanglebin District told Human Rights Watch how “In November 2001, Tatmadaw troops came into Ko Ker village and burnt down all the houses. They killed the pigs and chickens, destroyed the rice barns, and looted our possessions.”⁵⁵

According to K.T., the soldiers came every week:

Sometimes the soldiers stayed for two-three days. They ate food, killed our livestock, mostly chickens, and drank alcohol. The soldiers just point at what they want then take it.

K.T. said that she “walked with my children for one full day to reach the border. I was very afraid of landmines but I came anyway.” K.T. told Human Rights Watch that her two daughters died soon after she arrived at the borderline, one in Ler Per Her and the other one in a clinic at Mae La refugee camp. Her youngest son is seriously ill.

LST is a thirty-year-old S’ghaw Karen woman.⁵⁶ She is married with six children. Many of the people that had lived in Mae Ken village in Eastern Hpa-an District had filtered away in the past year to IDP settlements within Karen State or to live in another village. Stealing by SPDC soldiers was constant, and they forced villager to perform menial labor to support the nearby Tatmadaw base without compensation. She left the village because thesoldiers had taken almost all her possessions and took away most of her small paddy crop yearly.

I dare not stay in the village. The soldiers steal everything from us. We cannot do anymore (stay in the village). We leave because of SPDC soldiers not Ka Thoo Lei soldiers (KNU). They took away all my belongings.

LST’s story also demonstrates that such abuses are not only visited on those living in villages, but also on those already displaced. She had to leave for the border with her family in three groups, as a large group would attract the attention of the army patrols. She could also not carry many household goods because it would have alerted the army that she was fleeing.

I did not carry pots or blankets when we fled because the SPDC would know we were running away. Three times we came across SPDC soldiers. I was scared of talking to the soldiers. We could not understand [their questions] and just pointed. We tried to tell them we were just visiting [another village]. It took me nearly twelve hours to walk here with two children. The men [including her husband] came in six hours but they had no children [to bring].

Again, the KHRG notes that, “SPDC officers also continued to enrich themselves through … extortion of money during the early part of 2004.” Recent reports from Nyaunglebin District indicate that the Tatmadaw has continued to extort cash, goods and labor from villagers throughout the period of the ‘ceasefire’. Army units in the area have reportedly been ordered to collect 100,000 Kyat per month (approximately U.S.$100) from villagers, for a “front line military fund,” of which 80,000 Kyat is reportedly transferred to the Tatmadaw Southeast Regional Command headquarters. In total, local KNU sources estimate that 10 million Kyat was extorted from villagers in Nyaunglebin District, in the first half of 2004.⁵⁷

Another villager described the events that led her to flee:

In 1997, the Burma Army shot my brother in the bladder. He bled to death. Later, in 2002 in Baw Gwa village, Burma Army troops twice destroyed our rice barns. The second time, they also burnt our houses while we were hiding in the forest. We were so scared. Later, when we crept back to the village, we had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. We were still scared, but also hungry–– and angry too. Now, whenever I hear of or see the Burmese soldiers, my heart beats quickly, and I get all shaky and nervous.⁵⁸

In addition to direct attacks on civilians, Burmese troops often destroy the livelihood of the Karen villagers they target, as reflected in many of the accounts above.

A villager explained how she was displaced:

In 1998 Burma Army troops came to Da Baw Kee village, and asked us to move all of our rice from jungle hiding places into the centre of the village. They said that if we did not obey them, they would burn all our rice and houses. When we had finished moving the rice, they burnt down all of our houses and rice barns anyway (including the newly transported rice too). Then they told us to move to Mae Wai relocation village, or to Ko Sh’rot. Some villagers moved as instructed, but others fled to the jungle.⁵⁹

It is clear from the testimony that in many cases Burmese troops were either attempting to prevent the Karen villagers from surviving in their villages, or gathering provisions for their own needs with total disregard for the civilians.

Forced labor

Despite repeated denials by the SPDC, the Tatmadaw continues to conscript local villagers in Karen areas, including children, to work either as army porters or as unpaid laborers. Many villagers told Human Rights Watch that they fled as a result of these practices, thus maintaining the cycle of abuse and displacement. In addition, since January 2004, the SPDC has also expanded forcible conscription into local militias, which must be supported financially by villagers.⁶⁰

Uncompensated or abusive forced labor is prohibited under international human rights and humanitarian law. International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 29, the Forced Labor Convention, defines forced or compulsory labor as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”⁶¹ The ILO took the unusual step of appointing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate violations of the Convention in Burma and in 1998 it issued a comprehensive report that found the government “guilty of an international crime that is also, if committed in a widespread or systematic manner, a crime against humanity.”⁶²

In October 2004 the TBBC reported that “more than half [57 percent of those surveyed, but only 39 percent in Karen State] of internally displaced households have been forced to work without compensation and have been extorted cash or property within the last year.” Furthermore, 52 percent of those surveyed, but only 39 percent in Karen State, had paid illegal taxes over the past year, and 17 percent––9 percent in Karen State––had food supplies destroyed.⁶³ CBOs working inside the country also report that forced labor––including forced portering and payment of “porter fees”––is a major problem for IDPs and others across eastern Burma.⁶⁴

A young man of nineteen described his abduction and forced labor at the hands of the Tatmadaw:

I never saw Karen soldiers in the village; only government troops. We faced many problems from the Burma Army. We had to give them money, and build bridges and roads for them, all unpaid. One evening, in August 2003, my mother sent me to the market…on my way home, I was arrested by the Burma Army soldiers, and my arms were tied behind my back. They forced me to get into a truck, which already contained over one hundred people. That night they took us to Taungoo. In the morning they gave us some rice, and then took us to the battalion base at Kyauk Gyi [Ler Doh] town. We were put in a building surrounded by soldiers, where we spent the night. The next day we had to carry rice up the motor road to Mu Then. We eventually arrived at their Ka Pen base, where we stayed for three months.

During that time we cut and carried bamboo for the soldiers, and carried rocks to build their garrison. We were beaten regularly, and had to do lots of very heavy work. We were given very little food, and never any medicines. During those three months I saw six people die of illness. I myself had malaria, and couldn’t work properly. However, the troops said that I was being lazy, and punched me on the face and nose, and beat me with a stick on the back of my legs.

Although we had been warned not to run, I couldn’t face this existence anymore, so I decided to escape. My malaria was so bad that I couldn’t do the work they forced us to do, so I had to get away. I collected a little rice at night, and then asked permission to go to the lavatory. Then I ran and ran, the whole night! Then I ate my rice and drank some stream water, had a nap, and then set-off again into the jungle. I was quite sick by then, because of the malaria. Also, I had to eat the rice un-cooked, as I had no pot and dared not light a fire!⁶⁵

K.T., a thirty-year-old S’ghaw Karen woman, fled to the border at the end of 2004 because she could no longer endure forced labor and food shortages. Her village, Mae Ken, used to have forty-fifty families, but now there are just a few left. K.T. said that the fighting in the area had decreased in the past two years, but forced labor and stealing by SPDC soldiers was at the same level. According to K.T., there is a Tatmadaw battalion base close to the village, about two hours walk away, although the villagers can see the base on top of a hill. The villagers would be used almost every day for forced labor, which could mean carrying supplies from the auto road thirty minutes walk from the base, or for security along paths, cooking for soldiers, or repairing buildings or structures for the soldiers.⁶⁶ She said they did forced labor, and that she had been taken as a porter often when she was young:

All the time, every week. The SPDC change every six months, so we help them carry [equipment]. Every day we must cook for them and carry water.

LST’s husband and fellow villagers were forced into serving as Tatmadaw porters:

My husband would always hide in the jungle when the SPDC came. When they caught him the made him become a porter. He could not grow crops or work…All my family has done (portering). In the last year two people from my village were taken as porters and stepped on landmines. They died. The SPDC did not inform us. We found out from other people.

Another displaced villager cried as he was interviewed:

I was a Burma Army porter so many times that I can’t count. When I was a porter, the army gave me very little to eat. We porters were often beaten. Some were beaten to death by the soldiers. They tied us porters together, so we could not escape, and made us carry heavy loads.

In December 1995, while I was in the front-line as a porter, the Burma Army came to my village, Thi P’Yaw Taw, and killed my wife and two children. They burnt down my house, and looted all of the household and livestock. When I came back to my village, I had nothing to live on. I did nothing for a few years, and then in 1997 I remarried, and had another child. I moved to another village, but still they used to come and take me as a porter. In 2002 the Burma Army again caught me, and I had to be their porter. While I was away, the army again entered my village and killed my new wife and child. I was nearly mad with my bad luck and broken heart.⁶⁷

According to some interviewees, the only way to avoid portering is to pay a bribe.⁶⁸

The Burmese military’s use of forced labor and porters causes harm well beyond that suffered by those directly involved. This practice of forced labor contravenes international law and has various serious side-effects, such as a reduction in family productivity and a concomitant inability to pay taxes and other fees, leaving those involved at further risk of forced labor.

In addition, as Karen men escaped their villages to avoid forced labor, they often left their families particularly vulnerable to Tatmadaw abuses. The following account is typical of the experience of villagers in northern Karen state:

In 1997 we were living in Da Baw Kee village. My husband fled to the jungle when Burma Army Light Infantry Division No. 77 troops entered the village, because he did not want to be captured and taken as a porter. As I had malaria at the time, I did not flee with my husband, but stayed at home with my five-year-old daughter. The troops came into the house where I was lying, and looted everything; they even stepped on my head! One of the soldiers pointed his gun at my daughter, and took the packet of chilies she was holding – our only food. Later, the soldiers returned, and interrogated me about the whereabouts of my husband.The Captain stole my bracelet (which my mother had given me) ‘to give to his wife in Mandalay.’ Although we were hungry, they wouldn’t let us cook, or even go to the toilet.⁶⁹

B.E., a thirty-three-year-old S’ghaw Karen, is now in the Mae La refugee camp in Tak Province in Thailand. The region he used to live in was classified as a “brown area,” meaning it was contested by the Tatmadaw and KNLA. His village was a cluster of houses. Most people were farmers, and there was a small school and a clinic. B.E. had lived in the area for most of his life as a farmer, teacher, and part-time medic.

According to B.E., Burmese soldiers would use the villagers for forced labor routinely. He was forced ten times to “show the way” for Tatmadaw patrols. This could mean impressments for a day or several days. Often this would entail him guiding Tatmadaw patrols through landmine-infested jungle paths. The soldiers treated the people in his village very badly. B.E. said that two Karen women in his village were raped by Burmese army soldiers. He said he was once beaten by a Burmese soldier because he remonstrated with him for stealing a chicken. In late 1998 at a Karen festival, Tatmadaw soldiers came into the village.

They didn’t say any words, they just started to beat us. They killed all the livestock, beat people, then left.⁷⁰

In mid-2003, fighting intensified in their area between the Tatmadaw, with their DKBA allies, and the KNLA. Forced labor increased to assist the Burmese soldiers to carry their supplies. The village held a meeting after a month of the fighting to decide what to do. Most of the villagers, but not all, decided they should move to the border away from the fighting. They sent one person to contact the KNLA to let them know they would be leaving, and asking instructions on where to go. “No one wanted to leave. But if I stayed in the village I would always be afraid.”

The whole village––thirty families comprising 158 men, women and children––fled nearly a month later. The very morning they fled––September 7––the Burmese soldiers shelled the village with mortar fire, injuring two men and one woman. It took all day to walk through landmine-infested jungle to reach the Moei River that forms the border with Thailand. At the border, they were assisted by KNLA soldiers with small amounts of food, but it was still not safe so they were moved further along the border the next day.

B.E.’s wife was heavily pregnant when they left, and he said she was very afraid of the landmines as they walked. All the people crossed over to the Thai side where they stayed in the jungle at Le Min Jaw, supported by international NGOs. “There was no work to do, we just stayed there.” Most of the people arrived in Mae La refugee camp on October 8, 2003, although two families returned to their village in Karen State because family members who were with the DKBA summoned them.

B.E. is not happy to be in the camp, living in a small hut on the steep mountainside.

I don’t want to be here but I can’t go back. There are so many landmines. How can I go back? Now the DKBA live in the village (area). We cannot go back.

The KNLA also employs some of these tactics. Villagers taken as porters for the KNLA worked without payment, but sometimes received rice from other villagers. Villagers were usually required to work for a day or two. While some Karen justified such human rights violations in the name of solidarity with the struggle against the SPDC, saying they are the same ethnicity and the KNLA protects them,⁷¹ other Karen expressed anger at the KNLA’s forced conscription of porters and soldiers.⁷²