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KHRG: Letters from the Irrawaddy De (r)



Subject: KHRG: Letters from the Irrawaddy Delta

Subject: KHRG: Letters from the Irrawaddy Delta

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LETTERS FROM THE IRRAWADDY DELTA
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
December 6, 1993


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       A REPORT BY THE KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

The Karen Human Rights Group is a small and independent organization
operating out of Manerplaw, headquarters of the Karen National Union (KNU)
and Burma's democratic forces.

Although the KHRG relies on the logistical support of the Karen National
Union, the group is independent and apolitical and focuses on human rights
abuses in Karen regions.  Whenever possible, abuses against other ethnic
peoples in Burma are also reported.

Karen Human Rights Group
PO Box 22
Mae Sot, Tak 63110
Thailand
(email sent to the KHRG at strider@xxxxxxxxxxx will be forwarded)


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Southwest of Rangoon lies the Irrawaddy Delta, perhaps Burma's
most fertile and productive rice-producing region.  It is large,
flat and well-irrigated, and its population is about 50% Karen
and 50% Burman.  Karen resistance forces operated there in the
early days of the Revolution, but there have been no Karen forces
there since the 1960's.  In 1991, small numbers of Karen soldiers
once again infiltrated the Delta, and were preparing to lead the
Karen population there in a mass uprising against the brutal SLORC
military dictatorship.  However, the SLORC discovered this before
it began, and quickly wiped out all possibility of an uprising
by sending in helicopters, jets and masses of troops to massacre
much of the Karen civilian population.  Though the seeds of the
uprising were wiped out within months, the SLORC has continued
to send in large numbers of troops and is still taking a severe
revenge against Karen civilians in the Delta even now.

The SLORC's horrific abuses in the Delta have been worse than
in any other part of Burma, because they know they can get away
with it; the Delta does not border on any other country, so there
is nowhere for refugees to flee, it is almost impossible to get
information out, and no foreigners of any description are ever
allowed to enter the Delta.  This report contains 3 accounts:
the first is the translation of a letter by an anonymous Karen
civilian there, which was smuggled out to the Burma-Thai border.
 The second is the account of a Karen woman who has obtained news
of her family through villagers from the Delta, and the third
is the account of a Delta villager who fled to the Burma/Thai
border over a year ago.  Most of the names and many specific details
must be omitted in this report, because in the Delta the SLORC
will wipe out entire villages on the slightest suspicion that
they have communicated with the outside world.

See also the related Karen Human Rights Group reports "Karen Farmers
in the Irrawaddy Delta", dated August 13, 1992, and "Karen Civilian
Casualties in the Delta Region", dated January 27, 1992.
___________________________________________________________________________

The following anonymous letter was smuggled out from the Irrawaddy
Delta in November 1993.

On October 4, 1991 not less than 3,000 people were put in jail.
 More than 200 of them died.  All the farms were robbed or confiscated
by SLORC, in many different ways.  This severe situation has affected
Karen people both in the villages and also in the urban areas,
where over 1,000 people have also been put in jail.

The villages that suffered the worst were those that are near
the sea, and also the two villages of Aung Kone and Poe Kone -
in all these villages, people suffered to death whether they 
had done anything or not.  In Aung Kone and Poe Kone, all the
men were murdered.  They murdered more than 80 men altogether,
and they were all murdered brutally, without mercy.  The SLORC
district leader who was responsible for the Delta at the time
was Myint Aung, along with his people.  Now he has become a SLORC
government minister.

The situation for the Karen people is very serious - we are being
exterminated.  Everyone should worry about the whole future of
the Karen people here.

The SLORC soldiers come back from the front line [although there
are no military battles, this presumably means the "front line"
of their mopping-up operations against civilians], and we hear
them talk about how they confiscated everything that the Karen
people own there, and especially about how they violated all the
women, both big and small.  Some of the women are killed brutally
with no mercy.  This is evidence from the words of the SLORC soldiers
themselves when they come back.  Whenever they make an offensive,
the SLORC soldiers who have contracted AIDS are used specially
to rape all the women, young and old, so that all these women
will get AIDS and the Karen generation will end soon.

The SLORC soldiers went to the front line and captured a mother
and her son, and forced the son to rape his own mother.  The son
could not refuse - he was so terrified that he did rape his own
mother.  Then all the SLORC soldiers clapped their hands and said
to the son, "You Karen people are the descendants of dogs", and
then they shot dead both the son and his mother.  This evidence
was given to me by a medical doctor.

Now they have meetings discussing and planning their offensives
all the time.  Now, all the Karen people from the urban areas
are also suffering severe poverty.

When the dry season comes, all the civilians suffer under slavery
like that of ancient Egypt.  All the rice and all food growing
in the fields in confiscated by the SLORC.  The people have to
fix roads and dig trenches for the SLORC without rest.  They have
no time left to find food for their own families.  If they refuse
to go do the work, they are fined heavily and persecuted until
they cannot bear it anymore.  Every man in the village must always
be ready to go work for them.  The men dare not go anywhere. 
They have to be ready at all times, because whenever they are
called they have to follow the troops at once.

In Bo K'Lay and Ka Tha Min areas 32 people were killed all at
one time.  In Own Pin Su village area, the SLORC came and stabbed
to death over 30 young people, all at 4 o'clock in the morning.
 Before they were stabbed they were forced to dig their own graves.
 In Nyer Pu Taw village area and Taung Na Kone village area, more
than 40 people were killed by having their throats cut with big
pieces of bamboo.  In Aung Kone and Poe Kone villages, near Tha
Yet Chaw, all the men were killed, more than 80 men, and all the
women were left behind in the village as widows.  There are also
many other places where the SLORC soldiers have killed people
which aren't included in this note.

Many Christian pastors have also been persecuted and thrown in
jail.  Now at Kaw Lay Lu and Pa Taut Kone villages, the SLORC
has built pagodas.  They ordered the Karen Christians to put on
the stage shows for the pagoda celebrations, and they forced them
to worship there and to leave their traditional Karen costumes
inside the pagodas.

Now in Rangoon the SLORC has a game for the young people.  They
invite the young people to come for shooting tournaments.  Then
once the children become interested in shooting and come frequently,
one day the SLORC detains them and they're not allowed to go home
anymore.  They are forced to become soldiers.  Their parents go
to get them, because they are only 13- and 14-year old schoolchildren;
but instead of freeing them, the SLORC scolds the parents and
sends them away, and they never let the children see their parents
again.

The SLORC is trying to mix Burmese blood with the other nationalities
in clever ways in order to exterminate the Karen.  They never
trust teachers, pastors or missionaries.  Now they won't let Karen
people get any good jobs, and we are also stopped from studying
the Gospel.  This situation is getting worse for all the Christians
here.  The SLORC is trying to strengthen their control.

All these are just short and to-the-point descriptions of incidents
in the Delta, but I hope this short note can give you some understanding
of the situation here.
                               -  October 10, 1993
___________________________________________________________________________

The following letter was written by a Karen woman who fled the
Irrawaddy Delta to the Karen Revolutionary Area over 10 years
ago, and has just received news of her family still in the Delta:

I am writing this because I want people in the whole world to
learn about the policy of the Burmese Socialist government, which
is now SLORC policy: how they are dishonest, how they lie, they
just pretend a false reality while they commit rape against women
and oppress people.  I will tell some of my own story, because
it is unbearable to me, it makes me feel great sadness, and I
can never forget it.

As I am a Christian, my parents and grandparents always raised
me and taught me in God's way, a good and loving way.  I know
nothing about bad ways, or about giving bad in return for bad.
 But as I grew up, I saw that the Burmese Socialist policy is
wrong because they do nothing but bad things: they raped and murdered
women who were my relatives, and then they burned down my village
until there was nothing left but ashes.  When this happened my
heart was filled with sorrow, but I could do nothing.  We are
only villagers, we have only our hands but no weapons, and I didn't
want to fight fire with fire.

This Burmese Socialist government, they never stopped doing these
abhorrent things - they've only done them more and more as time
has gone on.  Now they treat the villagers worse than ever before,
making even more hardship and difficulties for the people.  After
my village was burned down, we had nowhere to stay.  We faced
great difficulty just finding food to eat.  We became like beggars,
and life was very hard for us.  Everything keeps getting more
and more expensive, so people can't get enough food.  It's very
hard to survive.

The Burmese Socialist government oppressed us from every side
and in many different ways, until we felt we just couldn't stay
there anymore in such a terrible situation.  So my brother and
I came out to the Karen revolutionary area and joined the revolution.
 Since we came, the SLORC took over from the Socialist government.
 Since the SLORC took over and started ruling the country, they
have made everything twice as bad as before.  Under the SLORC,
all the villagers have to face even more difficulties, and they
have to do forced labour.  They ordered the people in my village
to dig a fish pond for them.  When the villagers went, they had
to take all their own food, and if they got sick while they were
there working the soldiers never gave them any medicine, so many
of them died of diarrhoea.

They make the villagers work hard as if they were buffalos or
cattle.  They make them into slaves.  They don't treat people
like human beings; even when it's very hot under the sun, they
force them to dig in the ground all day long.  The villagers are
never given time to rest, so many of them die of fever and other
sickness.  Not only that, but the SLORC military also comes into
my village and searches every single house for valuable things.
 They take our fruit and vegetables and anything else they want,
they just take it away with them.  The villagers dare not do anything
or say a single word to them, so they just have to watch the soldiers
take all their things and not say anything until they disappear
from sight.

After I left my village my mother and father had to face terrible
treatment by the SLORC.  My old father Saw Teh Nay, he was 67
last year, he lived quietly and peacefully and he was a trustworthy
man in the village.  But the Socialist government arrested him
twice.  The first time was in November 1979 - they arrested him
and put him in jail for over one year and treated him very badly.
 The second time in 1982, they put him in jail for two and a half
years.  Then the SLORC arrested him for the third time in 1991.
 This time they treated my father worse than before.  They persecuted
him and treated him so badly that my father couldn't bear the
suffering, and then when he asked for water to drink, instead
of water they gave him urine to drink.  They tortured him in Ma
Oo Pein jail, and then my father died in jail while he was being
tortured by the SLORC in November 1992.  The SLORC kept it secret,
so my mother didn't know.  She decided to go visit her husband,
so she was packing up clothes and blankets to take to him.  But
while she was packing things, someone came and told her "Your
husband is dead", and that he'd already been buried.  But the
SLORC wouldn't let my mother know where they'd buried him.  Now
we still don't know where he's buried.

Ever since my father died, the local SLORC authorities come to
my village to search the houses at least once every two or three
months, and every time they make some problem for my mother, so
now she has to live in fear all the time.  These are the people
who arrested my father and give my mother problems:  U Hla Aung,
the SLORC township authority of Pan Ta Naw; an army sergeant in
Pan Ta Naw named Kyaw Wai Shwe; a SLORC Intelligence officer named
Aung Mya Tay in Pan Ta Naw; and U Tin Nywe, the SLORC Captain
in Pan Ta Naw.

In December 1991 my cousin Saw Po Ku, my uncle Saw Tha Htoo Gay,
and Pastor Saw Shrewkehna were arrested by the SLORC military
and put in jail.  I heard that the SLORC killed my uncle in jail.
 The SLORC now claims that they've released all the prisoners
in Mah Oo Pein, where they took 2,000 prisoners altogether, but
no one has seen my cousin Saw Po Ku or Pastor Saw Shrewkehna come
home.  The SLORC is telling a lie, and we can't believe them at
all.  They still can't stop lying, raping women and burning down
whole villages.  They still keep doing it now.

Tee Tah Mya Pago is my Aunt's village.  The villagers there live
quietly and peacefully.  They are very poor and can barely provide
food for their families.  They have to work very hard, and live
from hand to mouth.  But the SLORC are like dogs - they saw that
there are very many Karen in the area, so they came with airplanes
in November 1991 and shot down at the village.  The village is
in the middle of flat ground with no trees, so the villagers can't
protect themselves, and many of them lost their lives to the big
shells from the airplanes.  After that, the SLORC announced, "Rebels
were in the village, so we came to bomb them."  This SLORC government
has a heart filled with cruelty.  They want to kill the roots
of the Karen people so that there will be no more Karen at all.
 But so far, we Karen still survive because of God's help.  Since
this SLORC government took power, no one can live peacefully anymore.
 Instead everyone has to face poverty and starvation, and has
to run away from their homes for their lives.
___________________________________________________________________________
___

The following testimony was given by Maung Sein Mya (not his real
name), a 27 year old single Karen man from Aung Gone village,
Bo Galay Township, in the Irrawaddy Delta.  He recently fled to
the Thai border.

Since 1991 there have been horrible abuses against Karen people
in my area by SLORC troops.  When it started, they used many different
kinds of weapons against the people.  They sent four aircraft
at a time to attack the villages around Ka Tha Min.  A great many
people were killed brutally, including many children.  The SLORC
troops also arrested many adults and children, and shot people
dead along their way.  The villages were all almost destroyed
and many, many houses were burned down.  I think the only reason
they are doing this is to commit genocide against the Karen people.

I saw them kill the headman of our village.  His name was U Tun
Myint Kyaw, and he was about 85 years old.  They just went to
his house and beat him to death, for absolutely no reason at all.
 They just left the dead body there, and left.  Then they met
a mentally ill man along their way, and stabbed him to death with
a bayonet without any reason and without even interrogating him.
 In Kyauk Gyi village, the headman's name is Aung Bala Tin, and
his wife's name is Naw Shee.  They had two daughters named Naw
Htee Shee and Ler Bwe Paw.  One section of SLORC soldiers, 11
of them altogether, came and tied up their parents, and then all
of them raped the two girls right in front of their parents. 
After they raped them, they tied them up, dragged them to the
river and kicked them in, and they drowned.

The soldiers killed my parents brutally.  They tied up my mother
all over, then poured petrol on her and burned her to death. 
Then they sharpened a bamboo stick, took my father and shoved
the stick in through his anus and right through him until it came
out his mouth, then burned him to death as well.  I was not there
when it happened.  It's horrible.  I don't know why they killed
my parents - I think it must have been because they were looking
for me and couldn't find me.  They were looking for all the young
men and killing them for no reason, so most of the men didn't
dare stay around the village and ran away.  There were 90 houses
in my village, and they killed almost 100 people before I ran
away.  There are so many villages in the area where they did this;
as for Taw Pai village, it has 40 houses and they killed 40 villagers.
 Tha Yet Chaung village has 90 houses and they killed 40 people,
and in Lay Bin Chaung out of 40 houses they killed 20 villagers.
 Kyauk Gyi only has 40 houses but they killed about 100 people.
 As for Ka Tha Min, there are 150 houses and they killed over
120 villagers.

They moved a Burmese village called Amar to a secure place.  As
for many of the Karen villages, they ordered us to move to a secure
place and took many villagers on a ship.  But when they got onto
the big river, they tied them all up and kicked them into the
river, and they were all killed.  They killed so many people from
many places.  They killed at least 400 people in the area before
I left.  I don't know how many more they've killed since then
- I heard they've killed over one thousand, but I'm not sure.

They came to the villages and took whatever they wanted, even
our old clothes.  As for our livestock, they caught and ate it
all.  They abused us so much we can't describe it.  It was horrible.
 Whenever they meet people, if they want to beat them they beat
them, and if they want to kill they kill, for absolutely no reason.
 Another terrible thing is that they try to force us to join the
Army - they order one man from each family.  They confiscated
all our rice, and then we had to buy our own rice back from them.
 They charged us 60 to 70 Kyat for 8 small tins.  Most villagers
didn't have money to buy their food like this.  We were barely
able to survive.  We had to do hard work getting firewood until
we had enough money, then buy some rice to eat.  We had to eat
rice soup instead of rice, and many children got sick from starvation.
 They also made us do 20 days slave labour every month, and left
us only 10 days per month to provide for our families.  Whenever
we went to work for them we had to take our own food.  We had
to work 8 hours a day, digging bunkers, building a dam for them,
and building a car road.  They always beat the villagers while
we worked.  When people died from the beatings we had to bury
the dead body.  They beat anyone who couldn't work, whether Karen
or Burmese.  A friend of mine named Sein Lin was beaten to death
right in front of me.  They killed him because he got sick and
couldn't work very well.

One time they also took 10 porters from our village.  We don't
know where they took them.  None of them have come back yet, and
we think they've all been killed for sure.  Whenever the SLORC
takes people they disappear.  Three of those porters were my friends:
Nay Lin, Myo Win, and Aung San Lin.

The poor families can barely survive.  They just barely make it
through day by day, and we all join together to take care of each
other.  There are horrible abuses taking place there; it's abhorrent,
what's happening.