KHRG Report: Stories from Kyuan Sei

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Subject: KHRG Report: Stories from Kyuan Sein Village

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     AN INDEPENDENT REPORT BY THE KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

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                STORIES_FROM_KYAUN_SEIN_VILLAGE
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June 15, 1993

Filename: jun15_93

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The following four stories were related by women who have recently
fled SLORC activities in Kyaun Sein Village, Pa'an Township, Thaton
District, western Karen State.

1)  [Our village is called No Kah Dee].  I'll tell you about a man
named Pa Keh from our village.  The SLORC accused him of being a
Karen soldier.  They tortured and interrogated him for 2 whole days
before they killed him.  They kept saying to him, "You are a Karen
soldier so give us your gun", and they beat him again and again. 
But Pa Keh had no gun because he was a civilian, not a Karen
soldier.  We know because we knew him well.  Finally the torture
was so bad that he said "Okay, I'm a Karen soldier - but I have no
gun", and he told them to go ahead and kill him.   He couldn't bear
their beatings any longer, so he told them that if he had to be
killed, he just wanted to die right away.  He only said he was a
Karen soldier because he couldn't suffer their torture any more.

Then the soldiers beat on both of his shins until they broke, poked
him with knives and cut open the skin on his stomach, but they
wouldn't stab him and let him die.  They just kept him alive and
tortured him.  Then they killed him the next morning out in the
forest.  We never found the body, but he must have been killed
because even if they'd freed him there's no way he would have
survived.


2)  I want to tell you about Aye Myint, a girl from our village. 
One day she saw a SLORC soldier along the path.   He stopped her
and asked her some questions, then he demanded her love and slapped
her in the face.  She refused him and told him, "How could I love
you after you slap me like that?  If you want to kill me I'll die,
but there's no way I would ever love you."  The soldier got angry
and slapped her again and again, 4 or 5 times, then he dragged her
to her parents' house and asked for them to give her to him.  Her
parents refused, and he got angry and accused her father of being
a Karen soldier.  He left and came back with a group of soldiers. 
They forced Aye Myint's father to put on a Karen Army uniform and
ordered him to say he's a Karen soldier.  But he refused, so they
beat him, dragged him to the forest and killed him.  The villagers
found his dead body in the forest.


3)  None of the villagers dare to go outside our village any more,
especially the girls.  If they see a soldier, they run all the way
back to the village.  If the soldiers see anyone working at our
farms, they always beat and torture them for no reason.  We don't
know why; they just say you are a member of Kaw Thoo Lei and that
you are helping Kaw Thoo Lei to survive. [Kaw Thoo Lei, the Karen
homeland, is also a term used by SLORC troops to refer to the Karen
National Union and Karen National Liberation Army].  But Kaw Thoo
Lei people don't even come to our village.

As for our livestock, it's as if we breed them only for the SLORC. 
They take them whenever they want and never pay, only threaten us. 
No one dares to stop them.  Even if we ask them to leave one or two
of our chickens, they take them all.  They threaten us  (and
stop??) and take whatever they like.

One day they went to the house of a woman who has a 4-month old
baby.  Her husband wasn't at home, so they ordered her to carry
their loads.  She asked to take her baby along with her but they
refused.  They forced her to go and carry for them and leave her
baby behind.  No one knew, so the baby was alone for 3 days with no
breast to feed it.

Most of the porters they use are women, because most of the men
have already run away from them to hide in the forest.  This is
because they know men porters are treated even worse than women. 
The women have to stay in the village to protect their belongings. 
The SLORC troops take girls as young as 15, and also women over 60
as porters.  When they took my husband as a porter, I got money and
bought his freedom by selling our pig and some other livestock. 
The soldiers treated us terribly before we finally left our
village.


4)  The SLORC soldiers killed my son and his 3 friends, Maung Tun,
Myint Thein, and Myint Aung.  They had no reason.  My son and his
friends just disappeared.  We couldn't dare ask the soldiers, and
we don't know what happened.  One day they also shot dead a man
from our village in the forest, who was just out hunting.

They treat us so horribly we cannot describe it.  They forced us to
work many, many times, so much that we had no time left to work for
our own survival.  So we couldn't bear to stay anymore, and we left
our village.


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Karen Human Rights Group
Box 22
Mae Sot, Tak 63110
Thailand

(Email for the KHRG sent to strider@xxxxxxxxxxx will be forwarded
to them)