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KHRG #98-05 Part 2/7 (Dooplaya)



                STRENGTHENING THE GRIP ON DOOPLAYA

     Developments in the SPDC Occupation of Dooplaya District

      An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
               June 10, 1998     /     KHRG #98-05

[Some details blanked out or omitted for Internet distribution.]

*** PART 2 OF 7 - SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***


The situation in Dooplaya is now growing more complex due to the 
formation of a new army, the "Nyein Chan Yay A'Pway", literally "Peace 
Force", led by Thu Mu Heh.  In English they are calling themselves the 
KPA (Karen Peace Army).  Thu Mu Heh was the commander of the 
KNLA's 16th Battalion until February 1997, when he shocked the KNLA 
by surrendering to SLORC without a fight at the start of the offensive.  
The surrender had clearly been prearranged, and made the SLORC's rapid 
capture of Dooplaya possible.  As a KNLA officer Thu Mu Heh was 
notorious among villagers of the region for his corruption and 
mistreatment of villagers, and he is known to particularly despise the 
Muslim population of Dooplaya.  However, since his surrender he has 
been paraded in the SPDC media, given gifts by SPDC leaders and 
publicly handed authority over several townships of Dooplaya.  He formed 
the KPA with the support of  the SLORC/SPDC, declared himself a 
General, and according to villagers from the area he has now been given 
authority over the entire region from Kawkareik in the north to Three 
Pagodas Pass in the south.  In the process, the SPDC has ordered all 
DKBA forces in Dooplaya back to Pa'an District further north, with the 
exception of those in the 'hump' jutting eastward into Thailand and along 
the Thai border north of the 'hump', from Wah Lay to Myawaddy; the KPA 
does not yet operate in these areas.  

The SPDC appears to favour the KPA over the DKBA, whom they have 
never trusted; this is understandable, given that the DKBA was originally 
formed with the idea of Karen autonomy in Karen State, whereas the KPA 
has been formed by a corrupt officer with no interests except money and 
power.  Villagers from Dooplaya have already reported that the KPA and 
the DKBA cannot stand each other, and it is possible that the SPDC will 
pit the two groups against each other in the future.  With so many groups 
now tangled in the struggle in Dooplaya the villagers feel more confusion 
and less hope than ever, and the SPDC is trying to use this feeling to 
strengthen its control over them.

After Thu Mu Heh surrendered, most of his troops fled and either returned 
to the KNLA or deserted.  At present villagers report that he only has 200 
or 300 troops.  These are mainly untrained villagers who joined because 
the KPA is now promising that the families of all KPA members will be 
exempt from forced labour, extortion and other harassment by the SPDC 
(a similar promise was used to expand the DKBA when it was first 
formed).  Villagers report that in at least some villages, once a person
joins 
KPA a mark is made on his house to indicate that people in that house are 
exempt from forced labour.  The KPA has now completed training of its 
first group of recruits in Kwih Kalay, but it has yet to organise itself
very 
well on the ground.  At the moment its main activity is recruiting.  It 
maintains an office near the major SPDC base in Saw Hta and its officers 
and members who are already trained are acting only as adjuncts to SPDC 
Battalions, 2 or 3 of them assigned to each large SPDC unit.  All KPA 
material supplies, including arms and ammunition, reportedly come from 
the SPDC.


"Last month they gathered the people and divided them into two groups.  
One group was to be a people's army [i.e. regular KPA] and the other 
group was to be village defenders who would be  sentries in each village.  
They took their training in Kwih Kalay and the leader told them that 
they could stay in their own houses after the training, but after they 
finished they were not allowed to stay in their own homes.  There were 
50 of them in that training.  The leader sent them from Kyaikdon to Kya 
In Seik Gyi, so then they knew that their leader did differently than what 
he said and many of them tried to escape.  They ran away and hid 
themselves, they didn't want to go to other villages, they couldn't agree 
with their leader because he'd said they wouldn't have to leave their 
homes.  We don't know how to help the people who are in this trouble 
now." - "Pa Bway Htoo" (M, 44), Dta La Ku village headman (Interview 
#4)


Thus far the group hardest hit by the KPA's recruiting drive are the Dta La

Ku (a.k.a. Telekoo) people.  The Dta La Ku are a Karen religious minority 
who have very strict beliefs and practices which in some aspects resemble 
Buddhism, in others Christianity as well as Animism.  They are very 
devout, following strict codes regarding food, dress and lifestyle, and 
many other Karen regard them as being particularly holy and having 
special powers.  The men are easily recognisable because they wear solid-
colour sarongs (unlike other Karen men) and grow their hair long and wear 
it in a top knot, held by a kerchief or bandana.  The Dta La Ku number an 
estimated four or five thousand, living in certain villages of Dooplaya and

a small part of Thailand adjacent to the Burma border.  About 1,500 of 
them fled to Thailand in September 1997 due to forced labour after the 
SLORC/SPDC occupation of their villages.  Many of them returned to 
their villages at the beginning of 1998 after their elders reached an 
agreement with DKBA representatives that they would not be used for 
forced labour or otherwise harrassed by SPDC troops if they returned.  
However, just after that the DKBA disappeared from the area when the 
SPDC replaced them with the KPA.  In April 1998, 187 Dta La Ku 
families fled across the border into Thailand again after being abused and 
threatened by SPDC and KPA forces.


"Many Dta La Ku fled to Thailand but they stayed together near here, 
not at the refugee camp.  They fled because the Burmese forced them to 
do labour and portering.  They fled from #44 and #356, then they went 
back again but #61 came and forced them to carry heavy things so they 
fled again.  Then the DKBA came and told them if they became DKBA 
they would be free from harm by the SLORC, so they waited for the 
DKBA's help.  But the DKBA disappeared.  Then the KPA appeared and 
ordered the Dta La Ku to become soldiers, but the people didn't want to 
carry weapons because they knew that even if they didn't use them to 
shoot at others, those others would shoot at them." - "Pa Bway Htoo" 
(M, 44), Dta La Ku village headman (Interview #4)


Over the decades the Dta La Ku have been caught between many sides in 
the struggle all trying to coerce or force their support, including the
KNU, 
the DKBA and the SLORC; they usually manage to stay independent, 
though they have often paid a heavy price for this in the form of 
retaliations by the Armies of all sides.  Now the KPA is trying to force 
their support; this may be at the instigation of the SPDC, as a way of 
dividing the Karen population even further.  After the KPA was given 
authority over the area early this year, the four main villages of the Dta
La 
Ku (Kwih Lat Der, Kwih Kler, Maw, and Kyaw Kwa) were ordered to 
provide family registration lists which had to include the numbers of all 
Dta La Ku men aged 40 and above, and all those aged 15 to 40.  After 
receiving these lists, the KPA informed the Dta La Ku that they were 
actually KPA signup lists and that all boys and men aged 15 to 40 would 
be trained as KPA militia for their villages.  Joining an armed group goes 
directly against the religious beliefs of the Dta La Ku and against their 
desire to remain above politics, so they refused.  It appears that the
local 
SPDC commander stayed out of any open participation in the dispute, but 
he did not prevent the KPA from increasing the pressure on the Dta La Ku 
until many of them fled once again to Thailand in April 1998, both from 
KPA threats and forced labour for SPDC troops.  


"To get people into the KPA they didn't say that people must become 
KPA, they just said that they wanted to know how many families there 
are in each village and how old the people are. After that, they said that 
men 15 to 40 years old must become KPA.  Only the Dta La Ku.  They 
will take all, because they already know our number and our ages." - 
Dta La Ku village elder (Interview #3)


Since February 1998 Dta La Ku elders have sought a solution to this 
problem; first they approached the Thai authorities with a proposal to 
allow the Dta La Ku to stay as refugees in Thailand if life became 
impossible in Burma, but were answered only with Thai threats and absurd 
accusations that it was the Dta La Ku who had attacked and burned Huay 
Kaloke refugee camp.  Then they approached the SPDC with a proposal to 
let them live all together in one or two villages in Burma under a promise 
that they would take no part on any side of the struggle if the SPDC would 
only leave them alone; the villages they chose were adjacent to the Thai 
border, so that if the SPDC should break its promise they could flee to 
Thailand.  At first the local SPDC commander spurned their offer, stating 
that he is the commander and it was not the place of the Dta La Ku to tell 
him how to use his power.  However, the elders still remain hopeful of this

option, perhaps because there is no other, and in the meantime they have 
convinced the local KPA representatives to stop threatening them and 
pressuring them to join for the time being.  Despite this, it appears that
as 
the situation in Dooplaya becomes more complex the position of the Dta 
La Ku can only become more and more difficult.


"Now the problem is for the Dta La Ku people. Dta La Ku can't carry 
weapons and become soldiers.  Everyone knows that we do not make 
good soldiers.  First they came to make the family list [of all families in

his village].  But after we gave them our family information, they 
changed our family list to the KPA list.  So we bravely stood up to them 
and told them that we would never enter into the Peace Army.  We told 
them, 'If you want to kill us, we agree to die, but we can't do their 
"peace" work'.  They needed us to become soldiers.  They would teach 
us through their training, they would give us guns.  So we said that we 
couldn't do work which involves carrying weapons and shooting people.  
'If you kill us we agree to die.'  So they got angry with us and told us 
that they will report us to Than Shwe and the UN.  We said do as you 
like, if you want to report to Than Shwe, we don't mind [Than Shwe is 
Chairman of SPDC].  If you want to kill us we will let you kill us.  That 
is our problem. ... [Another villager added:] Lone Shwe [a KPA officer] 
said that if we don't do as the others do, it means we are their enemies. 
Yes, he said that." - "Pa Hla Myint" (M, 30+), Dta La Ku villager from 
Kwih Kler village (Interview #3)

"If you have a gun then others will think you are their enemy, and 
everyone wants to shoot you.  That's why we don't want to carry guns.  I 
want to say this.  If you are not carrying weapons and I'm not carrying 
weapons, we see each other and sit together and talk to each other in 
peace.  If you and I are both carrying weapons, then it is not easy for us 
to sit together.  We will have to be afraid of each other and stay far from

each other.  If neither of us have weapons, we don't need to be afraid of 
each other, we will sit closely and talk to each other.  So it is not easy
for 
us to answer [to groups which ask them to take sides].  If we carry 
weapons, the other groups will think about us, "Are they our enemy?"  
And then they dare not come to sit with us. So we don't want to do bad 
things like that.  Real peace is to sit together like this." - Dta La Ku 
village elder describing the dilemma of the Dta La Ku, who are always 
being pressured to take up arms for one side or another (Interview #5)


Just how powerful the KPA will become will depend on its usefulness to 
the SPDC.  Currently each village in central Dooplaya has been ordered to 
provide 2 or 3 KPA recruits or face heavy fines.  In recruiting, the KPA 
refers to some people becoming KPA soldiers and others becoming a KPA 
'people's militia'.  It appears that it plans to operate largely on a
village 
militia basis, sending many of its trainees back to their home villages to 
exert direct KPA/SPDC control.  One of the inducements offered to 
villagers who join is that they will be posted back in their home villages,

although there have been reports that this promise is already being broken.
 
In March some recruits already fled the KPA when their training ended 
and they discovered they were being sent away from their villages.  If the 
KPA attempts to post soldiers in every village this would probably make 
life much more difficult for the villagers in terms of forced labour and 
extortion (particularly given the known corruption of Thu Mu Heh 
himself), though it may also reduce the number of villages in the central 
part of the district which SPDC troops would otherwise force to relocate.  
For example, Thay Pa Taw village was initially forced to move by 
SLORC/SPDC, but later the KPA told them to return to their village.  The 
SPDC and KPA may decide to impose a system whereby any village 
which fails to provide KPA recruits is forced to relocate.

Regardless of the KPA's existence, the number of SPDC troops occupying 
Dooplaya continues to be very high.  Observers and villagers in the area 
state that the number of SPDC troops has greatly increased since February 
at Lay Po Hta, directly across the border from the Thai Karen trading 
village of Ber Kler, and that enough supplies have been brought in for a 
year or for a significant operation.  Until March 1998, the SPDC officers 
had an agreement with the Thai Border Patrol Police and Thai Army that 
they and their troops could walk into and out of Ber Kler village anytime 
during daylight hours, as long as they wore civilian clothes and were 
unarmed.  Many of them came every day bringing charcoal, stolen cattle, 
looted furniture and other items to sell, then used the Thai money they 
obtained to buy alcohol, clothing, and dry or tinned foods to augment their

insufficient rations.  Ber Kler shopkeepers complained that the soldiers 
constantly tried to steal small items and slip them into their bags, and
that 
the officers always wore pistols in the backs of their sarongs.  Groups of 
soldiers also crossed the border to steal betelnut from the plantations 
surrounding the village.  A Thai villager's gun was stolen out of the back 
of his truck, and a Ber Kler shopkeeper was beaten up by a drunken SPDC 
officer for refusing to sell him more alcohol.  The Thai Border Patrol and 
Army take no action in response to such incidents, "because they are 
afraid", according to the villagers.  Instead, the Thai Border Patrol
Police 
regularly drink together with the SPDC officers.  Thai forces have only 
one post in Ber Kler and they have no post at all on the road which the 
SPDC forces use to walk into the village.  


"We can't trust in Thai soldiers.  They do not dare to shoot.  They will 
never shoot, even when their duty is to shoot. ... [At the checkpoint] 
They are border police.  They just sit at their gate which is by the
border.  
They don't dare go into the forest.  They're even afraid to stay here in 
the village!  They're not brave." - "Saw Lah Htoo" (M, 24), K--- village, 
now a shopkeeper in Ber Kler (Interview #5) 


Due to fear among the villagers and growing tensions caused by the 
SPDC's threat to attack and burn Noh Po refugee camp, the Thai forces 
finally told the SPDC troops not to come into Ber Kler village anymore.  
However, they can still be seen there, though in smaller numbers, and the 
Thai forces do nothing about it.  There are still no Thai security forces 
posted on the side of the village closest to the SPDC base.  Many villagers

and shopkeepers in Ber Kler are very nervous, feeling that the SPDC may 
want to take Ber Kler and that the Thai Army and the Thai Government 
have no will to defend it.  Half of one hill just outside Ber Kler has
already 
been given to SLORC/SPDC by local Thai forces as an appeasement offer, 
but this and the other concessions by Thai forces are most likely only seen

as signs of weakness by the SPDC commanders across the border and the 
junta leadership in Rangoon.

Many villagers from the central plain of Dooplaya and the areas closer to 
the Thai border report that given the choice they would rather flee to 
Thailand than stay in their villages because of the forced labour, 
harassment and insecurity under the SPDC occupation.  However, they say 
they are staying in their villages because they are afraid of losing their
land 
and houses if they leave, and because they have heard that no new refugees 
are being allowed in Thailand.  For several months now, SPDC officers 
have deliberately fed these fears by telling villagers in central Dooplaya 
that they will soon attack and burn Noh Po refugee camp, particularly if 
the KNLA attacks them anywhere in this part of Dooplaya.

Noh Po refugee camp lies west of the Thai town of Umphang, about 200 
km. south of Mae Sot.  It was created in early 1997 to shelter new refugees

fleeing the SLORC offensive and subsequent occupation of Dooplaya 
District.  It currently has a population of approximately 10,000.  The camp

has not yet been attacked, but after attacks on other refugee camps in 
March 1998 tensions were very high, and this was made worse by the 
SPDC's open threats to villagers in Dooplaya that they would attack the 
camp.  In the area around the camp in the week leading up to March 27th, 
Thai soldiers reported that SPDC troops were entering Thailand every day 
to look for weaknesses in the border defences; each time, the SPDC 
patrols would continue into Thailand until they were seen by Thai soldiers,

then withdraw.  The SPDC has ordered the DKBA out of the area across 
the border from Noh Po; there are a few KPA members there, but not 
enough to attack Noh Po.  Therefore, if an attack comes it will have to be 
conducted by SPDC troops using the KPA as a front, or possibly by a 
DKBA group brought in from elsewhere specially for the attack, as was 
done in the March 23rd attack on Maw Ker refugee camp.


"The method of the Burmese is that even if they attack, they will always 
say it was the KPA or DKBA who did it.  They will never say it was the 
Burmese.  Even if KPA or DKBA won't go with them the Burmese will 
still say it was KPA or DKBA, because they will just mimic the DKBA or 
the KPA when they attack." - "Saw Lah Htoo" (M, 24), K--- village, 
answering who he thinks will conduct the attack on Noh Po (Interview #5)


Thai soldiers in the area have admitted that they cannot effectively defend

Noh Po camp, yet the refugees continue to be held in this fenced camp like 
prisoners, with no permission to leave or reenter.  Thai authorities told
the 
refugees in the camp to dig bunkers, and they have done so.  Since the end 
of March, tensions have lessened somewhat as no attack has been 
forthcoming.  However, the camp could still be attacked at any time, and it

is important to note that many of the past refugee camp attacks have come 
just when tensions are at their lowest and people are not expecting them.

Current Thai policy is to deny asylum to all new refugees, and many 
groups of refugees from Dooplaya have already been forcibly repatriated at 
gunpoint by Thai troops.  In November 1997 one group of new arrivals 
was refused entry into Noh Po camp by Thai authorities, so they camped 
out in a remote area of fields and forests at Thay Pu Law Htwee.  The Thai 
Army then camped near them, and before daylight on the morning of 
November 15th they fired M79 grenades among the refugees, wounding a 
60-year-old couple.  They then fired small arms, and when the refugees 
panicked and fled a six-month-old baby was dropped by his mother and 
died of a broken neck.  When it was light, the Thai troops appeared and 
tried to claim that someone else had done the shooting, even though it had 
come from their camp.  They ordered the refugees to march back toward 
Burma, and when some refused several of the headmen were tied up and 
beaten in front of the others.  The group was then force-marched all day to

a site right on the Burma border and very close to the major SPDC camp at 
Lay Po Hta.  Finally, many of them were allowed into Noh Po much later.  
However, they were not allowed to build huts and several hundred new 
arrivals had to live for months through the hottest season of the year in 
long open shelters with bamboo slat floors, no walls or dividers, and 
plastic sheeting for a roof.  With the current rainy season approaching, 
they were finally allowed to start building proper huts in the camp.


"When we were sleeping at about 5:40 a.m. they fired their big gun at 
us.  An M79 shell [grenade] fell on a hut and 2 old people about 60 
years old were injured.  All the innocent people were shocked, ran out of 
the area and hid in fear.  A newborn baby died because he fell to the 
ground while his mother was running with him.  Then we heard the 
noisy sound of bullets [small arms] being fired.  When the daylight came 
we found out that it was the Thai soldiers who were shooting at us.  We 
looked all around our shelters and cleaned things up.  After a while they 
came to see the place too.  They asked the villagers, 'Who was shooting 
at you last night?'  The villagers told them that it was them who were 
shooting at us.  Then the Thai soldiers were quiet and didn't say 
anything. ... [T]he senior commander arrived at our place and called me 
and the other headmen.  He told us to prepare our things and be ready 
in one hour to move to another place ... Then the Thai soldiers were 
angry with the people who wouldn't obey.  They forced them, they tied 
some of them up and hit some of them.  After that they called the 
villagers together and told us to be quiet.  They told the villagers, 'Now 
all of you see these three people we have tied up because they were not 
obeying us.  This will happen to people who do not obey us.'  Then they 
kicked some people.  Finally they called the headmen to come out in 
front and then ordered them to go in front of the people to lead them.  
So the villagers were following us. ... The Thais guided us by car but we 
had to walk.  We were walking along like that until noon, and by then 
we could see that the children were walking with difficulty and they 
seemed very tired.  Some were crying sadly.  The women were weeping 
sadly." - "Saw Lay Doh" (M, 33), Waw Lu village, describing the 
shooting by the Thai Army at Thay Pu Law Htwee on November 15th 
1997, and the forced move to a dangerous site just a few minutes from the 
SPDC base at Lay Po Hta (Interview #1)


The situation in Dooplaya appears anything but promising for the 
villagers.  It appears that the SPDC is succeeding in using the KPA as a 
proxy army, both to exert further control over the villages and to fragment

the Karen people.  The option of flight to Thailand has been essentially
cut 
off because of forced repatriations by the Thai Army and the threat of 
attacks on refugees already in Thailand.  For most villagers, this means 
they have little choice but to try to survive under heavy restrictions and
an 
ever-increasing burden of forced labour, extortion, and forced military 
recruitment.  For religious minorities, primarily the Dta La Ku and the 
Muslims, survival will likely be most difficult of all; not only do they
have 
to carry the same burden as all other villagers in Dooplaya, but they face
a 
long uphill struggle to prevent their lifestyle, culture, and people from 
being completely wiped out.


"What I really want to say is that I want our brother Burmese to keep 
the Dta La Ku together in a safe place which is free from portering, 
forced labour and battle.  We don't want to be soldiers.  I can't 
understand why they don't let us have a place like that.  Burma is very 
big  and I think that in such a big land there must be a safe place for us 
somewhere.  But we can't ask them for it because there are no educated 
people among us who can go and ask them.  I hope our English brothers 
will help us by saying that for us.  We are hoping for help from our 
English brothers." - "Pa Hla Myint" (M, 30+), Dta La Ku villager from 
Kwih Kler village (Interview #3)
____________________________________________________________________________
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 - [END OF PART 2 - SEE SUBSEQUENT POSTINGS FOR PARTS 3 THROUGH 7] -