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Burma/Thailand No Safety in Burma,



Burma/Thailand
No Safety in Burma, No Sanctuary in Thailand  (concluded)

Human Rights Watch/Asia
July 1997, Vol. 9, No 6

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 refugee
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.

IV. SITUATION OF THOSE FROM BURMA'S SHAN STATE

As this report goes to press, other groups, including those from Shan State,
were also at risk. The Shan in particular were subject to arrest and
deportation as illegal migrants, in part because the Thai authorities
refused to allow the establishment of camps along the border. But given the
low-level military conflict which has continued to take place in Shan State
and the government's program of massive forced relocations and other abuses,
there was no reason to believe that the Shan, or any other ethnic group on
the Thai/Burmese border, would be in any less danger of persecution than
their Karen counterparts.

Human Rights Violations by the Burmese Military

In March 1996, in an attempt to cut off all support to rebel Shan groups,
the Burmese army began a program to relocate some 100,000 people from over
600 villages in central Shan State to forty-five main relocation sites. The
villagers were usually given three to five days notice to move after which
the villages were declared "free fire zones." The relocation sites, which
all had major military compounds, were often one day's walk away from the
villages and nothing was provided for them once they arrived. Many of the
villagers in the relocation sites were then forced to work for the army on
various projects without pay. 32  Then in early 1997, the government began
to move people from these sites into towns. Relocations were also reported
in new areas, including Murng Pan and Murng Ton, east of Salween River. As a
result of these forced relocations, at least 60,000 Shan have entered
Thailand during 1996 1997 thus far.

In the Shan State, three Shan groups have cease-fires with the SLORC: the
Shan State Army (SSA), the Shan te National Army (SSNA) and the best known,
Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army (MTA).  33 The SSNA cease-fire, which began in
mid-1995, is "unofficial" in that no formal talks have taken place. In
addition, the United Wa State Party ASP) and the Lahu Democratic Front (LDF)
are also present in southern Shan State, both of which also have cease-fire
agreements. 34   The only group still currently fighting the government is
the Shan United Revolutionary my (SURA), which claims to have 3,000 to 4,000
men under arms. Though they had asked for peace talks in ruary 1996, the
request was denied. Until January 1996, much of the area, and routes through
it, was controlled the Burmese government and groups which had cease-fires
with the government. However, after Khun Sa's surrender in January 1996, the
newly re-formed SURA troops attempted to move out of the old MTA and to join
up with the SSNA or SSA. The relocations in 1996 and 1997 have followed the
path of the SURA soldiers, but with this
plethora of different armed groups, as well as the operations of the Burmese
army, local Shan and other ethnic groups living in Shan State have
frequently been the victims of abuse by all sides.

In June 1997, Human Rights Watch/Asia interviewed a sixty-two-year-old man
who had been in Thailand thirteen days, having fled from Kun Hing township
in central Shan State. He was married with three children, two sons and a
daughter, and worked as a farmer. He lived in Keng Kham, a village to which
a number of other villages had been forcibly relocated in 1996. He said that
on April 20, 1997, over one hundred government troops one into his village
and stayed for three nights, sleeping at the monastery. They told the
villagers that they would have to move but did not specify when. In mid-May
1997, some SLORC soldiers returned and told the villagers they had three
days in which to move to Kun Hing town. They threatened to burn down the
village if the villagers did not leave. He said the villagers took as much
with them as they could and left. People fled in different directions, as
those who did not have relatives in Kun Hing did not want to go there.

He and his family went to an island in the Nam Pang River, a half an hour
walk away from Keng Kham, with two other families:

"After ten days, about fifty SLORC troops landed on the island. We did not
see them coming. They started shooting at us and we scattered. My two sons
jumped into the river. My wife was somewhere else on the island collecting
vegetables. My daughter and I tried to hide behind a tree. She was very
frightened and started to run. She was shot in the back by one of the
soldiers. A man from one of the other families on the island was also shot.
I and another man were then captured by the soldiers and taken off the island." 

He was then taken to a place in the forest where he was tied to a tree:

"They asked me for two guns. I said 'I have no guns, I am only a farmer.'
Five of them then beat and kicked me using their hands and boots. My face
was covered with a plastic sheet so it was very hard to breath. That night
was terrible. They took all my clothes away and left me tied to the tree in
a standing position the whole night. During the night if one of the soldiers
heard me make a noise he came over and punched me."

After three nights (after the first night he was tied, clothed, to a tree in
a position which allowed him to sleep), he was taken to Wan Tong village. He
said it was deserted. He was not questioned further at this village and
after two days, he was released. He went back to the island:

"My daughter was still alive but was suffering greatly. My family told me
that after my daughter had been shot, she was thrown into the river by the
soldiers. She floated some way down the river but then got hooked on
something and managed to crawl out onto the river bank, where my sons found
her unconscious. She died five days after I returned to the island. She was
eighteen years old. After we buried her, we left the island and walked to
the Salween river. We then traveled by raft down the river to a point from
where we were able to go by truck to Thailand."

A sixty-five-year-old man also from Keng Kham said that SLORC troops came to
his village in April and May 1997 and told the villagers that they had to
move to Kun Hing. He had fled to the Salween River together with other
villagers from Keng Kham. Every few days, they sent someone to Keng Kham to
see what the government was doing there in order to assess the possibility
of returning. He learned that the soldiers had taken the food and the
harvest the villagers had left behind, and destroyed what they could not
take with them.

A twenty-five-year-old man from Wan It village in Ke See township said that
in late February 1996, SLORC soldiers told the village headman that the
villagers had to move to Murug Nawng. A week later, over one hundred SLORC
soldiers came to the village and said the residents had two days to move, as
the village would be burned down. He said that the soldiers took two pigs,
five chickens and 8,000 kyat from him, and more money and animals from other
villagers. He continued,

"I went to Murng Nawng on my ox cart but I could not take everything. We had
to stay near to a SLORC army camp. No one stayed in the village as some
soldiers were checking that everyone left. The huts in the relocation site
were small shacks like the huts I have seen in construction sites in
Thailand. When we arrived at Murng Nawng we had to dig bunkers near the army
camp for the soldiers. Every week they would come and order us to do things.
We had to dig ditches, place a fence around the army camp, clean the army
camp, clear the sides of the road, guard the road to watch for Shan rebels
and repair roads."

He said he worked for the army about ten days a month. However, he was able
to sneak out of the camp and work in his fields near Wan It so he had a rice
harvest to feed himself and his family. After about a year, he and his
family left the relocation site. They did not dare go back to their village
but built a hut nearby in the forest. Others from the relocation site
gradually moved to the forest around the village until there was virtually
no one left in the relocation site in Murng Nawng. However, after a short
time, SLORC soldiers came to the forest to take them back to Murng Nawng.
The soldiers started searching the area and a lot of people ran away. During
this time, he was picking some fruit with his ten-year-old brother in the
forest when some soldiers came across them. He managed to escape the
soldiers, but his brother was caught and as he looked back, he witnessed
them hitting his brother over the head. He was eventually captured and had
to go back to Murng Nawng, but this time to a different relocation site
situated very close to the Burmese army base. The soldiers made it clear
that if the villagers were seen in their fields around the village, they
would be shot on sight. He said that it was impossible to survive at the
relocation site without being able to go to his fields, he and his family
could not adequately feed themselves. He sold everything he had to get money
to buy food but after four months he, along with about thirty others from
the site, left for Thailand.

The Shan have also frequently suffered abuses as the different armed
factions move through their villages. The villagers have no choice but to
cooperate with all the armed groups, and often face retaliation for doing
so. In 1996 a fifry-five-year-old Shan villager from Keng Dawng village
tract told Human Rights Watch/Asia of his village had been razed by the
Burmese army in February that year. He said that some Shan soldiers came
through the village one day, and they were followed the next day by 200
Burmese. It was the night of a festival, and the village was full of people:

"The soldiers accused us of helping the Shan soldiers, but we told them they
were from the SSNA, group which has a cease-fire. The Burmese just took all
the gifts, food and money which had been gathered for the festival and after
three hours in the village, they set half of the houses alight. They said we
were all lying. The soldiers stayed in my half of the village for another
day, and we had to give them all food and they stayed in our houses. I heard
that the next day, they went on to Wan Yawn and burnt eight houses there, too."

In other areas, where armed groups which have cease-fires with the Burmese
army are based, the villagers do not enjoy the fruits of peace, but rather
find themselves having to provide labor for all sides. Promises to develop
the region which were made as part of the cease-fire deals have not been
realized. A Lahu villager from the Hopaing village tract in southern Shan
State described how his village was surrounded by army camps from the UWSP
and the Burmese military:

"There are four Wa camps, they have been there since 1992 and 1993, then in
January 1996 the SLORC came and forced us villagers to build a camp for
them, also just outside the village. Each Wa camp has about ten soldiers and
their families, the SLORC have twenty men. The villagers have to work,
unpaid, in each camp, cutting wood, gathering water, tending the vegetable
patches. We also have to work as porters for both the Wa and Burmese, though
the Wa don't take us so often. Sometimes there is tension between the Wa and
SLORC soldiers, and we villagers are caught in the middle. Really we don't
dare to live there any more. We have got nothing from the cease-fire -- the
SLORC ordered us to build a middle school, which we did, but they have not
sent any books or teachers."

A Lahu man from Loikaw-Mu village tract, which is within the UWSP-controlled
area, arrived in Thailand in July 1996. He described how his
fifteen-year-old son had been killed by SLORC soldiers after he had been
taken as a porter in May 1996:

"They came and took my son at 8 p.m. with seven other lads from the village.
The next day he had to carry the soldiers' things to X village, just four
hours walk away. My friends in X told me that vhen they got there, the
soldiers ordered my son to start cooking rice for their meal, but he didn't
understand Burmese. My son and two other boys were just shot on the spot
because they couldn't understand the orders. I arrived at X just an hour
later and was shown his body."

Treatment of Shan Refugees by the Royal Thai Government
Following the launch of the Burmese government's relocation program in
central Shan State in March 1996, an estimated 20,000 people had fled into
Thailand by the end of June that year. 35   Since then, 40,000 more at least
have fled into Thailand. However, the response of the Royal Thai government
was not to establish refugee camps where these refugees could receive
humanitarian assistance, but to allow them to enter the country as illegal
migrants. Those who flee to Thailand from Shan State are therefore not only
at severe risk of being exploited and cheated by unscrupulous employers,
agents and traffickers, with no protection or remedy against such treatment,
but also live in constant fear of arrest for illegal entry into Thailand,
the punishment for which is a one-month prison sentence, 2,000 baht and
subsequent deportation to Burma.

Many who have fled from Shan State work on construction sites in towns such
at Chiang Mai or Bangkok, and because of their illegal status receive lower
wages than Thai laborers. Workers and their families often live in
corrugated iron or bamboo shacks at the construction site. In one such site,
south of Chiang Mai, visited by a researcher from Human Rights Watch/Asia in
June 1997, it was observed that members of several families were frequently
living crowded together in one shack.

In early March 1997, around 430 people from four villages in Shan State fled
to Mae Hong Son Province in Thailand. The villages, Ma-O, Nong Long, Long
Jik and Mae Gerd, are situated northeast of Ho Murng in Shan state, the
former headquarters of the MTA. They fled because SLORC troops had come into
their villages and accused them of harboring ex-MTA fighters. Some of the
villagers were beaten, some were forcibly taken by the army to act as
porters, and the soldiers stole pigs and chickens from the villages. As a
result of this, the villagers fled to Thailand and established four new
settlements just across the border, dividing themselves according to their
old villages. The new settlements were called Mai Kai Luang, Mai Kai Orn,
Pangyon and Long Jik.

Soon after their arrival, Thai authorities visited the refugees but did not
at that stage say they would have to return to Burma. However, on May 30,
1997 Thailand Times newspaper reported that it had been decided at a meeting
at the provincial office on May 26, 1997 that this group would be pushed
back into Burma on the basis that they were not fleeing fighting. 36   A
group of around 150 people, including personnel from the Border Patrol
Police, the armed Rangers, officials from the provincial office and local
volunteers, were sent to repatriate the refugees. The 430 refugees were
escorted to the border to ensure they crossed back into Burma. This
constitutes refoulement, as they had sought refuge in Thailand on account of
a well-founded fear of persecution by the Burmese government based on their
real or perceived political opinions.

V. CONCLUSION: ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

This report has documented systematic violations of internationally
recognized human rights committed by both the Burmese and Thai governments
against villagers from Burma's Karen, Mon and Shan States and Tenasserim
Division. The international community has repeatedly condemned human rights
violations against ethnic minorities in Burma in annual U.N. resolutions
since 1991. The most recent resolution which, passed by consensus at the
U.N. Commission on Human Rights in April 1997, included a paragraph
expressing "deep concern...at the forced relocations and other violations of
the rights of persons belonging to minorities, resulting in a flow of
refugees to neighboring countries, and at the recent attacks on members of
the Karen ethnic group, resulting in death, destruction and displacement."
It called upon the government of Burma"and all other parties to the
hostilities in Myanmar to respect fully its obligations under international
humanitarian law, including Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions..."
and "to create the necessary conditions to remove the causes of displacement
and of refugee flows to neighboring countries and to create conditions
conducive to their voluntary return and their full reintegration in safety
and dignity, in close cooperation with the Of fice of the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees."

Some Western governments responded immediately to the instances of
refoulement which occurred at the end of February I 997, from Bong Ti, Pu
Nam Rawn and Htaw Ma Pyo Hta.

Representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok visited the sites of some
of the repatriations and sent a statement to General Chetta on February 27,
1997, stating, "On behalf of the U.S. government, I urge you to halt the
repatriation during the Karen hostility in Burma." In Washington D.C., U.S.
State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns called on the Thai authorities to
"cease the forcible return of Karen refugees immediately and to recommence
provision of asylum until conditions inside Burma permit their safe and
voluntary return." 37 The European Commission also issued a statement: "The
Commission regrets that by denying refugees access to their territory, the
Thai authorities are putting people's lives in danger." 38   A large number
of international and national NGOs also expressed their concern about the
repatriations. 39

The UNHCR's role was also crucial. The UNHCR Bangkok issued a press release
on February 28, 1997 stating that it was seeking clarification from the
Royal Thai government about disturbing reports of refoulement and that
"UNHCR is very much distressed by this information and continues to be
concerned for the lives of those who were returned." On the same day, at a
press briefing in Geneva, a spokesman for the UNHCR expressed UNHCR's alarm
about the situation of the Karen refugees at the Thai/Burmese border.

Clearly, the Royal Thai government was sensitive to these diplomatic
protests and expressions of public concern. Both General Chetta and Prime
Minister Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh responded to these accusations of
refoulement by stating that no one had been forced back to Burma and that
all those who returned did so voluntarily.40  General Chetta subsequently
claimed that the United States had apologized for presenting "misleading
reports" about the repatriations, 41 but a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy
stated it stood by the statements previously made. 42   General Chetta
stated that all unarmed Karen refugees crossing into Thailand at its
northwestern border with Burma would be accepted 43  but that the UNHCR
would not be allowed to provide assistance to them. However, he also said he
did not consider these people to be refugees but people who "escaped the
dangers of war." 44  Sustained pressure and concern is urgently needed to
press the Thai authorities to fully comply with their international obligations.



29 Human Rights Watch/Asia, Press Release, January 30,1997.

30 However, Don Yang camp is situated only two kilometers from the border.

31 Private correspondence of March 9, 1997 between camp residents and Human
Rights Watch/Asia.

32 Shan Human Rights Foundation, "Uprooting the Shan: SLORC's Forced
Relocation Program in Central Shan State" (Thailand: Shan Human Rights
Foundation, December 1996).

33  The SSA was formed in 1964, led by Sao Hso Hten: it entered into a
cease-fire agreement with the government in September 1989. The SSNA was
formed by Kurn Yod, a former senior military strategist with the MTA, when
he broke away from Khun Sa with around 2,000 men in 1995. SURA was formed in
January 1996 by Maj. Yot Serk with other former MTA soldiers who opposed
Khun Sa's agreement to surrender. For further information on the politics of
the Shan State, see Bertil Lintner, Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency
Since 1948 (Colorado:Westview Press, 1995).

34 The UWSP, LDF and SSA are represented at the government- sponsored
constitutional assembly, the National Convention 

35 See Shan Human Rights Foundation, "Uprooting the Shan," pp. 39.

36 Thailand Times, May 30, 1997.

37 Robert Horn, "Thais send hundreds more refugees back in path of Burmese
Army," AP, February 28, 1997.

38 Government Slammed on Refugees," Bangkok Post, March 8, 1997.

39 See Amnesty International Urgent Action, (London: Amnesty International,
Al Index ASA 03/02/97, February 26, 1997); letter of February 26, 1997
signed by twelve NGOs including Human Rights Watch/Asia; conclusions and
recommendations of a fact-finding mission sent to Pu Cam Rawn and Pu Muang
camps organized by the Coordinating Committee of Human Rights Organizations
in Thailand and the Thai Action Group for Democracy in Burma, March 4, 1997.

40 "Army Halt Plan to Force Back Refugees," The Nation, March I, 1997.

41 "Chetta Says States Apologized for Criticism," Thailand Times, March 2, 1997.

42 Yindee Lertchroenchok, "U.S. Stands Firm on Karen Issue," The Nation,
March 4, 1997.

43 "Thai Army Says to Accept All Unarmed Karen Refugees," Reuters, March 5,
1997.

44 Wasana Nanuam, "Karens 'not refugees', Army Chief Insists," Bangkok Post,
March 6, 1997.
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