‘Stop the killing’

Letter a desperate plea for action

Karen National Union

March 5, 2010

While we, the Karen National Union (KNU), welcome UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s expression of concern regarding new attacks on the Karen people, we do not believe that this alone is an adequate response to the current crisis. We would like to remind the Secretary General that these attacks have been taking place for more than 60 years, and that numerous requests and expressions of concern, and even resolutions from the United Nations General Assembly, and a Presidential Statement from the United Nations Security Council, have failed to halt these attacks and persuade the SPDC military dictatorship to enter into genuine dialogue.

If the report fails to load, go here

Junta details how to assault ethnic minorities, decimate development of Christian church

www.danielpedersen.org

Daniel Pedersen

November 28, 2009

Leaked documents from Burma’s ruling military junta provide shocking insight of the inner workings of a fascist regime bent on eliminating diversity within its own people.

The documents are detailed directives about how to assault ethnic minorities and decimate development of the Christian church in Burma.

Two telling documents have been acquired by ethnic minority organisations, one detailing payment incentives for impregnating ethnic minority women so as to dilute their bloodlines, the other how best to purge Christianity from Burmese society.

Both documents refer to the Burmese “master race” and relate a desperate desire to maintain Burman domination over myriad ethnic minorities who populate much of Burma’s landmass.

The brochure claims the State Peace and Development Council, Burma’s ruling military clique, has set a budget of five million pounds sterling (GBP) annually to fund “Human on Human conquest”.

Monthly incentives being offered to members of the Burman majority are staggered from 500 kyat ($A84 at the official rate) for impregnating a “commoner or ordinary woman” to 2,700 kyat to the “daughter or niece of an educated, wealthy person”.

At the unofficial or black market rate by which everyone in Burma operates – about 1,000 kyat to the US dollar – making a “commoner” pregnant would attract a payment of little more than 50 Australian cents a month.

Currently in Burma rice is retailing for about 1,000 kyat per 2.5kg, enough staple for a person on an extremely lean diet to eat for five days.

Rice prices soar

The Burman majority is thought to constitute about 60 per cent of Burma’s population, the sum of the rest divided among a swathe of ethnic minorities, the two most-populous being Karen and Shan, each thought to make up about seven per cent of the population.

The brochure being distributed in ethnic minority areas is headed “A notice urging Burmese comrades to act” and suggests “Burmese comrades shall assault other ethnic groups of Burma by all possible means; both economic and social”.

It says the main objective of the assault is the “everlasting dominance of the Burman race”.

And it says the easiest way to achieve this is “subjugating non-Burman women through inter-racial breeding”.

It spells out measures that can be employed by Burman men loyal to their “comrades”.

“Typically, ethnic women lack moral principles, and tend to like and envy Burman men. In order to attract ethnic women into Burman society we should exploit these characteristics,” the brochure says.

“Ultimately non-Burman women shall effectively become prostitutes if offered money in an affectionate manner by Burman men,” it says.

“Dear comrades, if we are unable to carry out the above, ethnic people will become a poisonous substance that will harm the Burman race,” says the brochure.

“Oh my dear comrades, there is no time greater than the present to proceed with the above, we shall therefore work to subjugate non-Burman women by offering financial disbursement to encourage sexual relationships.”

It then goes on to list prices for impregnating women of various social levels.

It also deals with the possibility of a forced withdrawal from the ethnic areas in the future and the “benefits” of such a breeding programme in the long-term.

“We must entrench ourselves as firmly as we can in every corner … In case we have to leave the ethnic regions permanently one day, we shall leave our bloodline established,” the brochure says.

It closes with instructions to distribute the brochure – its fourth edition – only to Burmans who can be trusted to keep the matter confidential.

The documents relating to “eradication of Christianity” have supposedly been issued by the “Religious Order of Highest Honored Monks” and are marked “top secret”.

They constitute guidelines issued by a special unit supposedly established by monks to deal with Christianity – it is referred to as the “Cleansing Association”.

Given the Burmese Sangha’s (the monks’ supreme body) current hostility to the junta it seems highly unlikely they would pen such a document, particularly one that flies in the face of Buddhism’s ideals.

Under a heading “annihilate”, its first recommendation is to oppose the development of Christianity and every Christian household.

The Burmese documents suggest multi-faceted discrimination against Christians will be used as an offensive tactic to scupper the religion’s growth.

It also recommends “all means necessary” to defeat the rise of Christianity, “be they violent or peaceful means”.

The documents also suggest attacking the concept of creation with “scientific” theory and exposing what are considered inherent weaknesses of Christianity, such as its “gentleness and politeness”.

It portrays Christianity as narrow-minded, as opposed to Buddhism, which it claims is free of all prejudice.

It also suggested the “indecent apparel of morally bereft Christian youth” could be exposed among laypeople to Buddhism’s advantage.

These violent discriminatory tactics have been well known by ethnic minorities for years now – they have been subjected to racial and religious attacks for decades.

But the acquisition of these documents points to a determined campaign by the military junta to oppress, or even eventually eradicate, ethnic minorities, particularly those who have embraced Christianity.

The Karen have largely adopted Christianity, having always believed in a single god and a single book of his commandments.

Such was their dedication to these beliefs that upon “discovery” by American Baptist missionaries in the mid 1800s it was speculated they might have been a lost tribe of Israel.

From “tribe” to “state”: An official view of Karen identity

New editions of these documents do not augur well for recognition of ethnic minorities’ rights in next year’s planned elections, nor do they bode well for countries that believe the junta’s attitudes can be changed via “engagement”.

These tactics are anything but new.

In 2001 I interviewed a 19-year-old defector from Burma’s Army, Htun Htun, and he recounted religiously inspired attacks on villages.

“We walked into Ka La Ner, a Muslim village.

“First we burned the mosque then told everyone to leave for three days.

“We then began forcibly relocating anyone who refused to leave and seized control of the village and 25 others surrounding it,” he said.

Htun Htun said when the SPDC troops had finished using the village as a base they burned it down, wiping out more than 100 families’ homes.

Or take the case of Ye Ye Aye, whom I interviewed in December 2000 just days after she had arrived at Mae Lae refugee camp, to Mae Sot’s north.

She said in August 2000, soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia allied with the SPDC, marched into her home village of Aong Daw.

She said they immediately began terrorising people and grouping at gunpoint those who admitted to being Christian.

They were then marched out of town, never to be seen again.

Ye Ye Aye was at the time 25 years old, is a Christian and a mother of three.

She, like others from her home village all those years ago, lied about being Christian and used to pray only when she knew she would not be discovered.

The soldiers who took control of the village were strict vegetarian Buddhists, she said, and each night searched every house for any evidence of meat or eggs.

Anyone found with such “contraband” was jailed in a bamboo compound.

Ye Ye Aye fled her home village in a moment of opportunity with her husband, 32-year-old Hla Kah Paw and her three children on December 12, 2000.

She still lives in Thailand’s Mae La refugee camp and thanks God that she and her family survived.

ENDS

www.danielpedersen.org

Don Talenywun

October 14, 2009

Unauthorised meetings with Burma’s ruling junta, the State Peace and development Council, in Rangoon and Naypidaw last year ensured Nay Soe Mya’s ouster from his father’s beloved Karen National Union and Karen National Liberation Army.

The KNU now regards him as a traitor and people who once thought of themselves as comrades-in-arms want nothing to do with him.

Better known as Tay Lay, the late General Bo Mya’s youngest son crossed into Thailand this month, driving a car with Thai registration plates, carrying a Thai passport and doing the rounds of his old stomping ground of Mae Sot, a town where whispers were exchanged in his wake.

He’s still got the same disarming grin and remains loose with the facts.

He’s stacked on weight around the gut, but sticks with his tight, black T-shirts that make clear he shares the broad shoulders of his famous father, the late General Bo Mya.

Tay Lay Mya likes to wear dark glasses, slip-on dress shoes, a nice cut of trouser and considers himself quite the ladies’ man.

Once a prominent figure in Karen circles, Tay Lay has now aligned himself with his uncle, former KNLA Brigadier-General Htein Maung.

Htein Maung was once KNLA Seventh Brigade commander, but absconded in 2006 amid allegations of multi-million baht theft.

Tay Lay has now joined Htein Maung’s ranks.

He brags about having taken 42 soldiers from KNLA Seventh Brigade’s 202 Battalion with him when he jumped ship to work with Naypidaw.

He’s a little more reserved when he admits he only got four from Sixth Brigade’s 201 Battalion, the hardcore crew that held onto the stronghold of Wah Lay Kee for months either side of the new year in the face of constant attacks.

“The Peace Council has a problem with the SPDC,” he says matter-of-factly, as he pulls up a plastic seat and orders a glass of milk at a Mae Sot cafe.

“Two months ago they [the SPDC] asked Htein Maung to fight the KNU.

“We have said we will not fight the KNU.

“We have been asked to change badges for an SPDC insignia, some DKBA [the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a KNU splinter group allied with the SPDC] commanders have agreed, some have not. We have not.

“Some of the leaders have said it would be considered a move against the Karen people,” he said.

Tay Lay said the current pressure from the SPDC for militia armies to “join the legal fold” and transform into “Border Guard Forces” backed by the SPDC was not working for the greater Karen community.

“The SPDC will order the border guard forces to fight the KNU,” he said.

The entity to which he is now aligned, the ambiguously-named KNU/KNLA Peace Council, has refused to fight the KNU and will not transform itself into a border guard force if that is a pre-requisite.

“But Htein Maung [the supreme KNU/KNLA Peace Council leader] has said we must control the borderline,” said Tay Lay.

Control of border territory relates directly to the Peace Council’s interest in trade with Thailand.

It seems this is not an area where conflict with the KNLA is likely anyway.

KNLA Special Warfare Branch chief, Brigadier-General Saw Hsar Gay, earlier this month said border fighting was not on the KLNA’s agenda, regarding it as an expensive waste of ammunition.

The KNLA’s intention is to move deeper inside Burma, he said.

So it would seem the Peace Council and the DKBA will have the border to themselves – and have to sort out who takes what cut on which deal, a potentially messy business.

Peace Council members are widely regarded within the KNU as money-grabbing opportunists.

And the SPDC has reinforced this view, rewarding their desertion with revenues from Thai-Burma border trade, showering them with “gifts” and essentially giving them their own carriage on the junta’s gravy train.

“We are close to the SPDC, but don’t agree with everything they say,” Tay Lay said of the Peace Council.

He, for one, has done well out of his shift from the KNU.

He shows me snapshots of his three new homes in Burma and says he now owns 12 vehicles, one a jeep with an M-60 machine-gun mounted on top.

For the record, the American-designed M-60 is capable of firing 550 7.62mm rounds per minute.

But, according to its own leaders, the Peace Council is not in conflict with anyone.

Tay Lay says he is now in the jade business, teaming up with SPDC vice chairman Maung Aye’s sister-in-law, selling jade internationally.

“We’re working together, she came to me and asked how she could help,” he said.

Tay Lay carries two passports, Thai and Burmese, and has homes at To Kau Ko, Myawaddy and Rangoon, but says he doesn’t live in Rangoon because he’s not really sure how the SPDC feels about him and worries they may assassinate him.

Much of Tay Lay’s cash comes from the Myawaddy-Mae Sot and Shwe Kokko-Kokko tax gates.

“We’re also planning a new road to To Kaw Ko,” he said, and quickly sketched a map showing To Kaw Ko directly west of Mae La refugee camp, across the dividing Dawna Mountain Range.

The sketch showed a rough square, bordered by Myadwaddy on the Moei, Kaw Ka Klae to the west, To Kaw Ko to the north and Mae Lae in the east.

This is apparently Tay Lay’s patch.

He said he personally commanded 1,800 men, the Peace Council’s Company One, which he described as a “special company”, comprising Battalions 709, 708, 37 and 777.

This flies in the face of KNLA Colonel Nerdah Mya’s (Tay Lay’s older brother) estimates of the Peace Council’s strength.

“They have about 300 men,” he said earlier this year.

Tay Lay said the major difference between the Peace Council and the SPDC and its ally, the DKBA, was that the Peace Council’s prime motivation was helping the Karen people, whereas the DKBA and SPDC thought about making money first.

“The schools are not good, they need to be helped first,” he said.

“The villages get 20,000 kyat a month from the SPDC, that’s not even enough for food.”

He said donations such as that from World Vision, which he claimed on September 27 donated books to a school in Karen State amid much fanfare, were welcome additions to sparse resources.

He said the Peace Council wanted to establish offices in Mae Sot, Thailand, “for the Karen people”, that could help administer aid distribution and trade deals over the other side of the border.

Cash doesn’t seem to be a problem for Tay Lay and just before he left to return to Myawaddy he said he intended to buy a helicopter.

But where would he buy a helicopter from?

“From the Thais of course,” he said, mocking me as if I were a fool for not realising the Thai military did deals with outlaw businessmen aligned to Burma’s military junta.

And for how much?

“Four hundred and fifty thousand baht, it’s an old one,” he said.

“I’ll only fly it once, but I want to fly over Nerdah’s house.”

Tay Lay said his motivation for buying a helicopter was “a show of strength in the face of the SPDC”.

Asked about Tay Lay’s hopes to buy a chopper, Colonel Nerdah simply laughed and said he cannot buy a helicopter”.

“He’s a businessman now, he just comes over the border to see his family,” he said.

Tay Lay’s wife and children live in Khamphaeng Phet.

ENDS

Special Warfare Branch to strike deep, hit strategic targets

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

October 15, 2009

When two explosions rocked the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army compound in the middle of the night, destroying a bulldozer and excavator, the Karen National Liberation Army’s Special Warfare Branch headed for the hills.

It was a rude post-midnight awakening for the DKBA soldiers of Brigade 999, but they quickly assembled a pursuit team.

And they struck out from Ta-ah Tah village, straight up into unforgiving terrain of the Dawna Mountain Range.

They had been hit by a KNLA strike deep behind the lines, a tactic favoured by Karen National Union Vice President David Thackrabaw, and they knew there would be hell to pay for destruction of such expensive machinery.

It is not the first such strike and will not be the last.

The Special Warfare Branch, headed by Brigadier-General Saw Hsar Gay, says this is the result of a new warfare doctrine, using small teams and hitting strategic targets.

The targets are of such value that the teams know hot pursuit will follow and prepare in advance to create a matrix of booby traps that will inflict maximum injury and death on their pursuers.

Some of the key weapons of these matrices are Claymore-style, directional anti-personnel mines, bounding and stake mines.

Brig-Gen Hsar Gay said these weapons were all detonated at the time of engagement, and so proved no danger to the civilian population later on and technically weren’t considered landmines.

“They are triggered either by remote control, electric trigger or a tripwire and, provided strict technical specifications are followed, can be manufactured anywhere.

“They represent the premium defensive weapons as small demolition squads withdraw under fire, or a lethal ambush weapon where a handful of men can hit entire enemy columns without expending ammunition.

“There’s also the benefit of the low risk of casualties,” he said.

These tactics will be spread throughout KNLA battalions.

“It is important to standardise construction of all our boobytraps,” said Brig-Gen Hsar Gay.

“Wherever they are assembled they must be identical, so that performance is streamlined and training and user manuals don’t differ.

“That means our special warfare soldiers can move between battalions and brigades and train others.

“Stealth communications and night warfare are also part of our new doctrine, but implementing these across the force means forming a centralised, homogenous programme using the same hardware, so battalions can carry out very similar coordinated operations, even if they are hundreds of miles from each other.

We’ve changed tactics, out of necessity we must make our weaknesses our strengths,” said Brig-Gen Hsar Gay.

“It’s quite contrary to previous doctrines, where we [the KNLA] wasted a lot of ammunition engaging the enemy in firefights.

“We created the section in 2001 and have since used it to pioneer new tactics that will be employed increasingly in the field by all of our troops,” he said.

“These are unorthodox tactics – behind-the-lines missions and Claymore ambush warfare – that are ideally suited to our outgunned army.”

“The Americans used these tactics as part of their ambush doctrine during the Vietnam War, but only as an ambush initiator, followed by a lot of small arms and machinegun fire, or even heavier weapons.

“But in Karen State we’re doing the opposite – the Claymores, stake and bounding mines are the main weapons and small arms fire is used only for self-defence or if the opportunity to seize enemy weapons and equipment presents itself and covering fire is needed,” he said.

“Our Second and Third brigades are using special warfare tactics with great success, particularly multiple Claymore and boobytrap withdrawals, that’s why the SPDC casualty figures are so high in those brigades.

“But now Sixth Brigade and Seventh Brigade are becoming more capable.

“We’ve trained NCOs [non-commissioned officers] and specially-selected soldiers from most brigades, but the better the tactics are understood by battalion and brigade commanders, the more easier and effective implementation is.”

While the logistical benefits are fairly obvious – the potential loss of life is minimised using small teams, valuable ammunition is preserved and premium weapons carried – there are also direct political benefits.

Earlier this year, frustrated by border warfare marked by shelling and heavy machine-gun fire, Thai authorities ordered leaders of the Karen National Union and its armed wing, the KNLA, off Thai soil.

Things had got out of control and pressuring the side perceived to be weaker – the KNU – was identified as the quickest solution to calm the border region and facilitate trade.

The DKBA, allied with the Burma Army and pitched against the KNLA, was running rampant up and down the border, launching attacks against the KNLA from Thai soil and terrorising Thai villages thought sympathetic to the KNU.

The KNLA tactics of small teams trekking through the jungle for days with one target in mind and avoiding fighting on the borderline will ease relations with the Thais as the matter will be considered an “internal affair” for the Burmese to deal with, said Brig-Gen Hsar Gay.

“The border fighting creates the false impression the KNLA is supported from the other side [the Thai side] of the border.

“It’s important not to affect Thailand’s security interests,” he said.

“And it also shows the KNLA’s ability to fight the Burma Army deep inside areas they claim to control.”

The DKBA broke with the KNLA in the mid nineties, claiming religious persecution of Buddhists by the largely Christian leadership of the KNU.

From its days as a rag-tag bunch of deserters it has developed into a formidable military force.

The DKBA is also one of the few ethnic minority armies to agree with Burma’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, and its proposal to form Border Guard Forces from disparate armies controlling areas of Burma.

However, the DKBA is not seen to have the loyalties of the greater Karen population.

Its submission to the will of the SPDC does not augur well with people hard done by for decades at the hands of the Burma Army.

There is little doubt a small band of KNLA specialists on the run from a larger unit of DKBA pursuers would be given sound advice on local conditions or a sock of rice by villagers in a bid to render their mission successful.

Such sentiments are not lost on DKBA foot soldiers.

And now, with their transformation into a border guard force, the DKBA are being issued with badges to be sewn into their uniforms bearing the motifs of the Burma Army.

This is creating dissension in the ranks according to one venerated retired KNLA soldier.

“The [DKBA] brigades are now operating independently of one another, doing what they wish, employing tactics of their own making, following allegiances held by their commanders,” he said.

At a clandestine meeting in Thailand, a commander of another breakaway military clique, the KNU/KNLA Peace Council, said both the SPDC and DKBA had plans to attack a KNLA stronghold opposite northern Thailand, across the Salween River “as soon as the rain stops and things dry up”.

Tay Lay Mya, a son of former KNU general Bo Mya and a surprise defector from the KNLA earlier this year, said both the SPDC and DKBA had their sights set on KNLA Fifth Brigade in coming months.

The once-traditional time for major military offensives by the Burma Army is the dry season, which begins late in the year, about November, and continues through until April.

Both sides are now well-advanced in their preparations for heavy fighting.

One senior KNLA commander involved in these preparations predicted as many as 2,000 refugees Karen could flood out of Burma during the dry season as the battles ensue.

ENDS

OFFICE OF THE SUPREME HEADQUARTERS

KAREN NATIONAL UNION

KAWTHOOLEI

October15, 2009

If the report fails to load, go here

Restrictions fueling frustration, anger and violence

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

September 28, 2009

Trouble is brewing among the refugees of Burma’s war.

Stranded in northern Thailand, fed on rations donated by international community, unable to travel freely and not allowed to work, the populations of the camps strung out along Burma’s border are ready to blow.

Umpheim Mai refugee camp is on tenterhooks, with violence threatening to break out among residents at any time.

A football game on Saturday afternoon descended into crowd violence at game’s end, with gangs of young men attacking each other.

Some camp residents described it as a mini riot.

The current trouble started earlier this month, with a murder of a Burmese resident when he allegedly failed to pay for a cow he had already taken possession of.

When it became obvious he could not pay, the owner is said to have sought his money back, only to find the potential buyer had already slaughtered the beast.

A dispute escalated rapidly from a verbal stoush among two groups of men into physical violence.

Whatever ensued, the alleged “buyer” is now dead.

The camp, situated in Thailand’s in Tak province to the south of Mae Sot and officially home to about 15,000 people, spent months earlier this year on high alert and these latest events have done nothing to ease ethnic tensions.

Residents for months waited in anticipation of an attack by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia allied with the Burma Army, the armed wing of Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council.

Rumours ran wild that the remote camp would be destroyed, with much of the population packed up and ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

It only takes a rumour for a large group of isolated, traumatised people to react unpredictably to minor events.

Law and order in the camps has long been a taboo subject with Thai authorities, lumbered with policing communities that would not exist but for a grinding war of attrition in Burma’s ethnic minority-dominated north.

Thai authorities maintain stringent guidelines for allowing Burmese citizens to become part of the camps, requiring them to be fleeing fighting orchestrated by soldiers of the state.

Thai authorities do not recognise soldiers of the DKBA as soldiers of the Burmese state, creating a propensity by the Burma Army to use allied ethnic militias where it can, and paint the conflict as an ethno-centric struggle for power among rival warlords.

Economic migrants or those fleeing human rights abuses or forced labour do not qualify as refugees, inadvertently creating a vast pool of people who have quietly slipped over Burma’s borders and become part of an illegal workforce.

This workforce, satisfied to work for as little as half the wage of a Thai worker, is estimated by some organisations to number as many as two million.

But for those who do qualify as people who have literally run for their lives, containment in a refugee camp and the inability to achieve anything for themselves results in a frustrated existence.

In Umpheim Mai refugee camp on Saturday that frustration bubbled over into mob violence.

“Football is banned now,” said one refugee.

“And rumour from on high is that the Palat [Thai camp commander] may close the gates [put the camp into total lockdown].

“Things are not good, I’ve never seen it like this before, there is a definite vibe in the air,” said the refugee resident.

“Thai patrols through the camp are random now and the soldiers are clipped up and ready to go [carrying live ammunition in the event they have to quash a riot or mob violence],” he said.

ENDS

Two DKBA soldiers killed, two seriously wounded in daring operation

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

September 29, 2009

The special KNLA squad, formed from Sixth Brigade’s 201 and 103 battalions, took the machines out with two kilograms of TNT.

The depot is on the western side of the southern reaches of the Dawna Mountain Range, about five days’ walk from the Burmese border town of Myawaddy.

KNLA forward scouts strapped the explosives beneath the engines and remotely detonated them at 1am on September 21.

Soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia allied with the Burma Army, gave chase after the explosions rocked their depot.

The KNLA soldiers evaded their pursuers, from the DKBA’s 907 Battalion, for more than two hours, and then led them into a claymore booby trap, killing two and seriously wounding another two.

The earthmoving machines were being used to build a new military road.

The D6 Caterpillar was estimated to be worth about three million Thai baht and the excavator two million baht.

They were the only two machines stationed at the depot.

DKBA Battalion 907 was instrumental in the offensive against KNLA Seventh Brigade during June and July this year that forced more than 5,000 Karen civilians across the Thai border.

Battalion 907 has since been deployed to the Sixth Brigade region.

The formation of a demolition squad specifically to destroy the machines would seem to be an extension of Karen National Union Vice President David Thackrabaw’s declaration earlier this year that the KNLA had to start operating “deep behind enemy lines”.

The KNLA has endured serious territorial losses in the past 12 months.

ENDS

If the report fails to load, go here

KHRG web site at http://www.khrg.org

Remnant population of KNU Seventh Brigade struggle on

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

September 16, 2009

Individual donors are starting to assist new refugees at Safe Haven Orphanage.

About 200 people have gathered on the grounds of Safe Haven, many of whom are children.

They fled Karen State, finally giving up their shaky hold on homes constantly in danger of attack, during an offensive by the Burma Army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

The DKBA and Burma Army troops seemed determined to displace the majority of people living in the Seventh Brigade region, suspecting them of supporting Karen National Liberation Army soldiers somehow.

But much of the KNLA guerilla force left the area before the enemy arrived.

They left landmines behind them however, and many of the DKBA dead and wounded, which both numbered in the hundreds according to the KNU, fell foul of these booby traps.

But left in limbo were the civilians who lost their homes.

With no shelter at the height of the rainy season they trod up and down mountains, finally crossing the Moei River to relative safety in Thailand.

For now they are allowed to stay where they are, but the chances of establishing a new camp for between 5,000 and 6,000 people displaced is almost nil, because nowhere is secure along the border.

DKBA are camped not far from Safe Haven, just over the other side of the river in view of anyone from the Thai side.

For now they have not attacked the camp and donors are providing the necessities of life, but mostly things that can be carried so all is not lost in the event of an attack.

More help is needed, mosquito nets and sleeping mats are most important.

ENDS

One DKBA captain killed, two SPDC soldiers wounded by landmines

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

September 16, 2009

A former Karen National Liberation Army captain who defected to the Burma Army has been killed in an attack by his former battalion.

Captain Ta Baw, who defected to the Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council last year, was killed on Saturday September 5 during an ambush by soldiers of KNLA Sixth Brigade’s Battalion 201.

After the former KNLA commander defected to the SPDC earlier this year he was set to work with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

He retained his rank of captain.

Neither side considered his defection as being of any great significance.

He walked away from the KNLA alone and without a weapon, yet leaked intelligence to the DKBA and SPDC about Wah Lay Kee’s defences, 201’s former base camp, before it fell earlier this year.

Wah Lay Kee was lost on April 28 this year, when the KNLA pulled out after a 14-day siege that left many dead and scores injured.

Neither side lamented Captain Ta Baw’s death.

While he died during an ambush, he was killed by landmines – he stepped on one mine, then staggered onto another.

DKBA Captain Ta Baw died of blood loss in the field.

Two SPDC soldiers were also wounded in the same skirmish, one later dying.

The attack occurred in the Kanelay area of Karen State, in the mountainous area between Wah Lay Kee and Umphiem Mai refugee camp, to the south of Mae Sot.

Colonel Nerdah Mya, a KNLA commander, said the SPDC nor the DKBA would be sorry Ta Baw was dead.

“They don’t care,” he said.

“It’s just another dead Karen, better we die fighting each other in their eyes.”

Just out of the field this morning (September 14), Colonel Nerdah backed a claim made last week by Karen National Union Vice President David Thackrabaw that DKBA leaders were feuding.

“That’s right, they know that if the KNU is eliminated then they will be next,” he said.

“They’ve got to be smarter than that, surely.”

An anticipated attack on KNLA Fifth Brigade, near Mae Sariang, across the Moei River, has not yet occurred.

After the KNLA’s rapid defeat in Seventh Brigade, during June and July, commanders expected a rapid advance to Fifth Brigade.

It has not yet happened, but an attack on Fifth Brigade headquarter is expected soon.

That brigade is better armed than Seventh Brigade and morale is high.

Thackrabaw last week said Seventh Brigade was the KNLA’s weakest, still reeling after former Brigadier-General Htein Maung’s defection in 2006 to form the KNU/KNLA Peace Council.

Peace Council vehicles, once boldly emblazoned with the militia’s name, still move around Mae Sot, but have been stripped of all markings, some observers suggesting they too have fallen foul of Thai authorities.

Thailand early this year demanded all KNLA commanders and senior KNU figures leave safe havens in Thailand, upping the pressure on the ethnic army, that has in the past enjoyed cordial relations with senior Thai military figures.

But that was when the KNLA held much more territory.

These days the Thais deal with the DKBA.

ENDS

Militia anguishes over slaughter of brethren

Mizzima

Daniel Pedersen

September 7, 2009

Leaders of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, which broke away from the KNLA in 1994, are said to be split over the role the militia should play in a theatre of war that pitches soldiers against their brethren.

And in a bid to bolster its numbers the DKBA has begun to raid Karen villages to muster legions of child soldiers, said a senior KNLA source.

The DKBA has hit the KNLA’s Sixth and Seventh Brigades, to the south and north of the Thai town of Mae Sot, hard in the past 12 months.

But Karen National Union vice president David Thackrabaw said the DKBA and SPDC should steel itself for a fight in the north.

The KNLA’s Seventh Brigade fell in June, after a two-week offensive, but DKBA casualties were heavy.

“The DKBA suffered heavy casualties attacking Seventh Brigade,” said Thackrabaw. The KNU is the KNLA’s political overseer.

“They had 100 dead and about 300 wounded in just two weeks.

“Now the SPDC (Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council) has a plan to launch an operation against the KNU Fifth Brigade and also Sixth Brigade [again],” he said.

“But there is a quarrel, a lot of disagreement among the DKBA leaders.

“Some say they are just being used as cannon fodder by the SPDC, they will be just wiped out if they keep attacking the KNU.

“This is the junta’s policy and the other ceasefire organisations should draw a lesson – if they agree to become a border guard force then they will be used to attack other groups or other organisations still carrying on the resistance.

“Now they have attacked the Kokang, the Kokang is very weak comparatively [to others in the region] – it only has about 1,500 troops.

“They are saying the Kokang are producing their own weapons, they are saying they are still producing drugs, but drugs have been eradicated [in the Kokang area].

“It was in 2006 that the regime itself announced the Kokang region had become a drug-free area,” said Thackrabaw.

Asked if it was true that the Kokang had indeed stopped producing drugs, namely heroin, he said it was, and that the Kokang drug “era” had begun only in 2000 and had ended by 2006.

“They got help from the UN and substituted [drugs] for rubber and rubber is more or less a steady crop for export, so they have more trade and they don’t have to depend on drugs.

“Of course many groups [near the China border] didn’t agree to the transformation into a border guard force, including the Kokang, and so they are being attacked, the smallest, the weakest, as a warning to the others.

“But groups like the UWSA, the Wa, and the Kachin, I really don’t think the military dictatorship has the capacity to override them,” said Thackrabaw.

“The Wa are 20,000 strong and they have a number of heavy weapons also.

“Then you have the Mong La, the Mong La is the group below [to the south of] the Wa. It has about 5,000 troops,” said Thackrabaw.

“So the Wa, Mong La and the Kachin should stand firm, they don’t have to fear,” said Thackrabaw.

“They have nothing to fear because within the SPDC morale is low, they may have good weapons, but morale is low and the terrain favours the ceasefire groups.

“The SPDC does not care about any of the ethnic minorities, their ideology is to eliminate all of the ethnic peoples, by hook or by crook.

“They will employ methods of assimilation, or ethnic cleansing or genocide,” he said.

Thackrabaw said the KNLA’s Fifth Brigade was well prepared for an anticipated onslaught, perhaps at the beginning of the dry season.

“Fifth Brigade is well prepared, they have been fighting for a long time,” he said.

“Seventh Brigade was weak because of the actions of Htein Maung [the former brigadier-general who defected in 2006 to form the KNU/KNLA Peace Council].

“It would be fair to say it is the weakest brigade of the KNLA.”

He said the determination that saw the SPDC and the DKBA join forces and fight for more than six months in Sixth Brigade (to Mae Sot’s south) was largely to do with money.

“I think the DKBA particularly was encouraged by Thai business who want to log and who want to mine in our areas,” he said.

“The operation in Seventh Brigade was an SPDC test for the DKBA, in preparation for their transformation to a border guard force, to which they’ve agreed.

“They [the DKBA] have begun a campaign of recruiting, you know, forced recruiting, and if a village cannot provide troops then they have to pay 300,000 kyat.

“It’s based on a population scale, the larger villages have to provide more troops.

“In some cases they have to provide one person per household, that is fairly drastic we believe, one person per household.

“And they have started taking child-soldier recruits and so some people, they ran into Thailand to escape these human rights violations.

“But the Thais have said ‘the shooting has stopped, you had better go back, you can go back now,’ but they cannot,” he said.

“They would be going back to human rights violations, so the Thai policy is also against humanitarian values, it’s very immoral.”

Thackrabaw said the DKBA maintained no minimum age limit for its soldiers.

ENDS

NCUB

September 7, 2009

1. The National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) strongly condemns the “Acts of War” by the SPDC military dictatorship in the ethnic Kokang Longai areas, Wa areas and the Kachin State. We earnestly call on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to intervene immediately to halt “Acts of War” by the SPDC to prevent further conflicts, the breakup of local communities and suffering of the innocent civilians.
2. The United Nations, the EU, the US and the world community should note that for nearly two decades, with the hope of progressing towards political agreements and peaceful co-existence, not only had the ethnic nationalities entered into ceasefires but they had also participated in the SPDC’s decade-long constitutional convention.
3. In the SPDC drafted and adopted State Constitution, Article 56 in Chapter II, under the heading “State Structure” provides Konkyan and Laukkai townships in Shan State as “Kokang Self-Administrated Zone”. Even before this Constitution is practiced, the spirit of it has been shattered by the same SPDC, which had previously declared success due to participation in the so-called National Convention by the ethnic nationalities, which had entered into ceasefire agreement with it. The SPDC has blatantly and unilaterally broken the ceasefire agreements, the constitutional agreements and the essence of coexistence of multi-ethnic societies, in peace.
4. The pouring in of more SPDC troops into Kunlong (north of the Wa controlled territory) and into Mongkhark-Mongyang (south of the Wa controlled territory) is an outright repudiation of request by the Foreign Ministry spokesperson of China, Jiang Yu, who had said that “China hopes Burma can properly deal with its domestic issues to safeguard the regional stability in the China-Burma border area.” The Bangkok Post of August 30, quoted a UNHCR spokesperson as saying “According to our information, as many as 30,000 people may have taken shelter in Nansan since August 8, as a result of civilians fleeing the fighting between the Burmese government troops and the ethnic minority groups.”
5. The SPDC is acting rashly and ruthlessly to disturb the stability on the borders of China and now Thailand. It is the same highhanded action of the SPDC that has made a mockery of the judicial system and the international community’s goodwill in its attempt to isolate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Khun Htun Oo and other political prisoners. We urge the United Nations Security Council members, especially China to stop referring to the SPDC’s wanton acts against the ethnic nationalities as Burma’s internal affairs and telling the UN that it should not interfere in the matter.
6. In conclusion, the NCUB and the entire democratic and ethnic movement seriously call upon the UNSC to take assertive actions by intervention to stop SPDC’s dangerous “Acts of War” against the Kokang, Wa and the Kachin peoples.

5 September, 2009 National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB)

Contact persons: Nyo Ohn Myint -66 897003432

Saw David Tharkabaw-66 872079296

ENDS

Saw Yan Naing

The Irrawaddy News

August 24, 2009

A commander of KNU’s military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), who asked to remain anonymous, said he is ready to buy weapons and has enough money to purchase what he needs, but he cannot find a broker who will sell to him.

“We have enough money,” he said. “We are in the market to buy dozens of assault rifles, preferable AK-47s, but it is proving hard to get them.

“We are careful with our old weapons and maintain them very well, so we can use them for a long time,” he said.

The KNLA produces some explosives, especially landmines; however, it is commonly believed that the Karen rebels do not have the capacity to produce high-grade weaponry, such as assault rifles, RPGs or mortars.

The KNLA commander said that the insurgents are able to pay for arms from the income they generate from local businesses, taxation and border trade with Thailand, including logging and the sale of gold and zinc.

He noted that the supply of arms has decreased greatly since the civil war ended in Cambodia and since the KNLA lost its base of Thai support.

The Times magazine in London reported in March that the KNU leadership was losing the support of the Thai government which it had previously been able to rely on for a supply of weapons.

Earlier this year, all KNLA commanders were asked to vacate Thai soil and return to areas under their control.

Founded in 1947, the KNU is the oldest rebel force in Burma and has been fighting for self-determination, autonomy and equality ever since the Burmese central government declared independence from Britain colonial rule in 1948.

ENDS

Promise of profit benefits few over the needy

Don Talenywun

Mizzima

August 18, 2009

As the sun sets through the branches of a kokko tree on the banks of the River Moei, one of the last commutes of the day – from Thailand to Burma – takes place.

The pilot of a longboat points his vessel upstream, revs its diesel engine and in 10 minutes has sidled to the opposite bank.

It’s a semi-official international border crossing, a sideways struggle against the current, where no-one on the Burmese side is waiting to check your papers.

On the Thai side a lone soldier with an M-16 casts a disinterested glance at the locals as they pass under or around the boom gate on a road to nowhere.

A few bulbs light the two Thai restaurants perched on stilts offering a view over the river to the small temple on the Burmese side.

One of the cooks arrives, stops for a chat and shakes his head at the columns of smoke rising from houses on the other side as Burmese Karen stoke charcoal fires on which they will cook their dinners.

Welcome to Kokko, a Thai hamlet of farms, farmers, itinerant workers and one of the “tax gates” that mark this region as an international trade frontier.

Kokko is part of Ban Mae Pa district, a few minutes’ drive from Mae Sot.

Across the river, the Burmese border town of Shwe Kokko is controlled by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army – in particular it’s notorious Brigade 999.

Once the region was Karen National Union heartland but as the KNU has ceded more and more territory, the DKBA have seized this place, ensuring a revenue stream from arbitrary taxation of anything crossing the river.

They have erected a small Buddhist temple right on the bank, thumbing their noses at the largely Christian-led KNU.

The land that surrounds Kokko is dedicated to farming.

Vast fields of corn are just beginning to flower, baby cobs are forming on healthy stalks.

Eventually the cobs will be as thick as a forearm, for corn grows lush here.

Beyond the corn, sugar cane is at the height of its growth cycle, soaking up the wet season’s rains.

Come cool, dry conditions later in the year the sugar content of the stalks will soar, but for now the plants are not worth cropping, the deluges of these months diluting their harvest potential.

Even in a good year, the returns on these crops are marginal.

Last year the bottom fell out of the corn market and investors and small-scale farmers alike lost out.

So enraged were farmers that for a time they implemented wildcat blockages of the Tak-Mae Sot arterial road, in a bid to bring attention to their plight and demanding better prices.

Another reason for agri-business losses were the exorbitant “tax” rates being charged by the Burmese military-aligned DKBA, to ensure safe passage to Thailand’s markets.

In some areas, assumed loyal to the KNU, the DKBA demanded as much as Bt20 per 16kg tin of harvested cobs.

For now the land will continue to be used for farming, making a little cash from relatively low-maintenance crops.

But for owners of the properties, like those in the nearby light industrial/residential zones that cluster along Route 105 on Thailand’s national roadway grid, the real money is yet to be made.

Ban Mae Pa is experiencing a real estate boom, with prices doubling in the past decade and a Bt1 million price tag for an old elevated timber home not off the radar, depending on its location.

The old real estate adage, location, location, location rings true in Ban Mae Pa.

One landholder who bought a nice house on a nice block in the area seven years ago for 750,000 baht has since been offered Bt2.7 million.

He is at a loss to explain exactly why, except that his land is right on the highway between Mae Sot and Mae Ramat, a region bordering Mae Pa further to the north.

He is realistic about property prices, bought what he could afford and, unlike many others, isn’t looking to cash in on an overly-inflated return as soon as possible.

“Look, Mae Sot is a false economy, a totally false economy, without over there [Burma] and over here the place would be just another little Thai town,” he says.

The highway that tracks through Ban Mae Pa eventually ends at Mae Sariang.

But by the time the weary driver arrives in Mae Sariang they have experienced all manner of road conditions, from washed out gravel to multi-lane thoroughfares.

Ban Mae Pa is home to hot springs, waterfalls and caves.

Even the most casual of tourists can see a little of everything in a day and still have time for a leisurely lunch by the river.

It’s about seven kilometres from Mae Sot Airport, 97km from Pa-an airport in Burma and about halfway between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, an hour-and-a-half off the main highway between the two.

The region experiences three distinct seasons, hot and dry, hot and wet and cold and dry.

While not cold by some standards, early-morning temperatures might drop to five or six degrees Celsius during the cold season, which includes Christmas and a month either side.

Early this year the Tak Chamber of Commerce proposed a new bridge be built across the Moei River to further facilitate already-booming trade.

The current friendship bridge opened in August 1997, dark days for the Thai Kingdom’s corporate elite.
It was a time of bankruptcy and suicides, with the “Asian Tigers” in the grip of a meltdown that shook South East Asia to its very core.

Thailand precipitated the region-wide disaster when it floated the baht in the face of runaway foreign debt.

The former peg to the greenback was abandoned and the baht went into freefall taking others, such as Indonesia’s rupiah, with it.

The danger signs presented themselves in early 1997.

But by early August, just days before the opening of the Mae Sot’s Friendship Bridge, the government had formally shut down 58 Thai finance companies and accepted a US$16.7 billion bailout by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In Mae Sot the effects weren’t sorely felt in the local business community.

At an informal gathering over coffee of prominent businessmen in Mae Sot one Sunday afternoon the consensus on 1997 in Mae Sot was “sabai, sabai” (all’s well, or no problems).

They are wealthy men in a wealthy town, and they know they owe much of their good fortune to the bridge, and in turn Burma.

The talk then turns to just how much money is being made via the Friendship Bridge.

One mentions that Birdy, the popular chilled-milk coffee brand, sends Bt35 million worth of product over the bridge in Mae Sot annually – with a Bt2 mark-up on each can at wholesale rates.

A 180-millilitre can of pre-mixed, sweetened milk coffee sells for Bt13-Bt14 in Mae Sot, just five kilometres away, over the bridge, it can sell for as much as Bt20 or more from a local retailer.

Birdy is produced in Ayuddhya, an hour or north of Bangkok and 450km from Mae Sot.

In the final five kilometers from Mae Sot to Myawaddy on the Burmese side of the Moei, the product increases in value by more than 10 per cent.

Business has always pioneered river crossings in this part of the world, whether by boat or bridge, legal or illegal.

The Tak Chamber of Commerce estimates Thailand earns Bt1 billion each month from cross-border trade via the Friendship Bridge.

That figure can be doubled with a second bridge, says Chamber President Ampol Chatchaiyareuk
“If they [the Burmese government] agree to it, we will build it,” he said earlier this year.

The DKBA is ready, the road on the Thai side is a potholed mess, on the Burmese bank a semi-trailer could U-turn comfortably.

The first vehicular crossing of the existing bridge, other than trucks involved in its construction, was a convoy of 20 vehicles carrying 51 Thai businessmen and led by then Chamber of Commerce Vice President Panti Tangphati.

Greeting them in Myawaddy was Lieutenant Colonel Khin Maung Win.

The military runs business in Burma, and only a strange blend of patronage and submission enables civilians to open a business.

As evening’s twilight settles on a Saturday night at Kokko two high-sided, dual-trailer trucks are loaded with sawdust destined for Bangkok.

The sawdust will be used as fuel to fire a furnace for dyeing textiles.

The trucks are perched on an earthen ramp that leads to the water’s edge and their trailers chocked in place with rocks and coarse gravel.

Loading them is labour intensive.

On the Burmese side the sawdust is packed into 50kg rice sacks then transported by longboat across the river, unloaded, then manhandled into the trailers.

The truck drivers’ family members either slumber under a rough bamboo shelter at the ramp’s edge, or tend a huge pot of rice soup, awaiting departure time.

As night closes in it seems the day has defeated them, the trailers are not yet fully loaded and the five longboat owners have gone to their homes on the Thai side to eat.

There is no lighting at the ramp.

At dawn the slow shuffle of bags will begin again.

On Sunday, probably by mid-morning, the load will leave for Bangkok.

This is the slow pace of the transportation industry in Kokko, and workloads of the men working here, clad in ragged T-shirts, cut-off jeans and flip flops, would make a stevedore in the West shudder.

But even with loading mired in such inefficiency, there is still obviously money to be made.

A new bridge would undoubtedly hasten progress, but the greatest share of profits would remain Thailand.

The key to this inequitable arrangement is the fact Thailand at least has some economic legal infrastructure, such as property laws, a working banking system and credit lines open to most people if they can pay it back.

Rubbery as Thailand’s laws might be in reality, the gateway from Burma to Thailand is overseen by men with guns, illegitimate power and privilege.

Kokko bridge

Wangpha casino & resort,
Shwe Kokko

ENDS

Junta bleeding Burma dry with electricity projects for neighbours

Mizzima

August 14, 2009

The dislocation of between 5,000 and 6,000 people from Burma to Thailand in the past two months has so far been reported as a military thrust against the Karen National Union by Burma’s Army.

Coverage has largely focused on refugees, people fleeing forced conscription, forced labour, murder and rape.

Video footage of militia armies torching people’s modest bamboo homes and the schools and churches the inhabitants relied upon for their sense of community are widely available on the internet.

Free Burma Ranger medical teams shot close footage as community centres and schools built by villagers with material cropped from the surrounding jungle were razed to the ground.

Now, sent packing to Thailand, the people eat from communal kitchens on donated rice rations and sleep under plastic sheets.

On the surface this offensive, which involved a force of 1,700 junta-aligned soldiers, could be interpreted as a State Peace and Development Council (the ruling junta) bid to wipe out dissent before controversial elections planned for next year.

For 60 years the KNU has fought to defend human rights, people’s land rights and to establish its say in how its people are governed.

The Karen people have a population conservatively estimated to be about seven million, their own flag, their own songs, their own culture.

Since Burma’s independence in 1948, shortly after which military offensives began against the Karen people, soldiers of the KNU have stood as a symbol of rejection of centralised rule by the majority Burman race.

Without the KNU, the oldest representative body of the ethnic nationalities defying successive illegitimate military regimes, other people’s bids for recognition would be dealt a severe psychological blow.

A simple conclusion to draw is that what happened during June and July opposite northern Thailand’s Tha Song Yang district is just another incident, albeit severe, in the world’s longest-running conflict.

Dam the consequences

Yet there are untold benefits to be shared between Thailand and Burma.

The planned 33m-high Hat Gyi Dam will span a river the World Wildlife Fund describes as supporting “possibly the world’s most-diverse temperate ecosystem”.

It will produce 1,200 megawatts of power per hour, or 7,335 giga-watts (Gwh) annually, a giga-watt being the production of one million kilo watts for the period of an hour.

Burmese, Thai and Chinese interests will all play roles in funding and construction of the dam.

The Hat Gyi Dam is the smallest of five planned for the Salween River, but the first of which construction is proposed.

The Karen National Union has personally asked Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to halt construction.

And representatives of 19 villages that will be flooded on the Thai side have asked that the project be halted.

The dam will be built just to the north of where thousands of Karen people lost their homes to the Burma Army in June and July.

Po Luang Nu Chamnankhiripai, the local leader of the Thai group in Mae Hong Song province protesting the dam’s construction, told the government last month that the dam would mean more armed conflict on the Burmese side of the border.

And that, he predicted in a written plea to stop the dam project, would mean more refugees in Thailand.

“The construction of the Hat Gyi Dam will exacerbate human rights abuses against the Karen people and Thailand is bracing herself for more refugees and enormous burden,” he wrote.

Access justifies excess

The access road to the dam on the Burmese side runs straight through the Karen National Liberation Army’s (the KNU’s army) Seventh Brigade region.

At the moment it is a fair-weather road, meaning for about six months of the year it can barely be traversed in a four-wheel drive, let alone trucks moving heavy machinery.

And so the process of sealing the road must begin, raising once again the spectre of forced labour, a crime Burma has been accused of so often that the junta’s continual denials of such practices ring hollow, to say the least.

In the real world, people forced to abandon their homes and their ancestral lands to make way for major state infrastructure projects would be compensated.

But in Burma they have been pushed out of the KNLA Seventh Brigade area by a major military thrust and ended up in Thailand as refugees with nothing.

Back at home their houses have been burned to the ground.

Their farms now go unattended, barring some cross-border sorties by desperate villagers to harvest produce from their subsistence farms so their family can eat.

But even the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, which since 1994 has sided with the military junta and needs to supply workers to help build the road, has warned farmers not to go back.

The DKBA has suffered massive casualties to landmines and surgeons at Thai hospitals have been busy amputating the limbs of foreign soldiers.

But the job of clearing the area of civilians and the guerilla armies they help nourish is getting done and the population forced from their homes.

For now the KNLA has no base camps in Seventh Brigade, has lost its general headquarters and is waging a guerilla war with soldiers sleeping rough in the jungle, sometimes with not even a pair of boots to their name.

Refuge no haven

It was a surprise to international aid workers stationed along the border when Thai authorities agreed in principle to bringing all of the Seventh Brigade refugees together at one site.

The argument put forward was that they would be far easier to care for and supply logistics simplified if everyone was in the same place.

So the hunt for a place where refugees could be housed began.

It wasn’t long before the deserted Eden Valley Academy School was proposed and all non-governmental organisations based out of the bustling town of Mae Sot agreed that 2,300 people could be housed there.

The site had buildings, most with walls and some with roofs. Of the buildings in structural disarray, at least bare concrete slabs and footings remained.

It was by no means perfect, prone to some flooding, needing a footbridge to link it to another area of flat land, some construction and general maintenance.

But it was a beginning, an opportunity to get everyone to a single location.

But when the NGOs raised the most-pressing issue – security – they drew a blank.

DKBA patrols were known to pass through the area regularly, despite the site being well inside Thailand.

Thai authorities said they were unable to provide security.

Too many of their soldiers, they said, had been sent to the south, where a Muslim insurgency grinds away against the Malaysian border.

Eventually plans to inhabit the Eden Valley Academy School were abandoned – the refugees were granted permission to stay where they were, or return home.

But Thai authorities insisted that anyone returning to Burma would have to declare it was their own decision and sign a form to that effect.

They did not want media allegations they were forcing people back across the border into a war zone.

Who’s in power?

Thailand and Burma signed a memorandum of understanding to build the Hat Gyi Dam in 2006 and mutual benefits are assured.

But on the Burmese side the benefits seem mostly financial and therefore destined for the junta, which is widely estimated to spend 40 per cent of its national budget on its formidable military force.

Thai government officials told a July gathering representing the 1,800 people who will be officially relocated that Thailand would receive 90 per cent of the power generated by the dam, but were quick to add the project could yet be cancelled.

Much of Burma’s population relies on diesel-powered generators for electricity, one of the reasons escalating fuel prices acted as a catalyst for the 2007 “Saffron Revolution”, in which Burmese citizens were executed, beaten and jailed by their own army.

For Burma to “receive” just 10 per cent of the new dam’s power load suggests there is not much benefit pending for inhabitants of Karen State – a land kept isolated – and certainly none for those who will lose their homes and livelihoods.

Thailand’s current National Energy and Development Plan, which pledges to both diversify energy supply by buying from foreign countries and to reduce national dependence on energy imports, was implemented in late 2006.

Even at this stage, almost two years after construction had been planned to begin, Thai officials are publicly hedging their bets on whether the project will go ahead.

The Salween is Southeast Asia’s longest river that has not yet been dammed.

It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2003 and is home to 80 endangered animal species.

Eventually, after wending its way through 2,815 kilometres from the mountains of Tibet to Moulmien in Burma, the river spills into the Andaman Sea.

It is a wild river – just 89km of its course, through a series of gorges as much as a kilometre deep, is navigable.

Power partners

On July 30, at the 27th Association of South East Asian Energy Ministers’ meeting, representatives of the 10-member bloc agreed on a plan drafted by Thailand.

The plan, to be known as the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation 2010-2015, includes development of the Hat Gyi Dam.

Sometime this month a committee established by the Thai government, at the behest of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, is to recommend whether or not to go ahead with the dam.

ASEAN ministers are backing the project as an integral part of the region’s power grid.

Burma’s ruling generals are hungry for more foreign revenue and looking to cement their place as Burma’s legitimate rulers, while ingratiating themselves with their ASEAN partners.

Abhisit, in forming a committee to recommend to the government whether or not to go ahead, has distanced himself and his shaky coalition government from the decision.

There will be a maelstrom of international criticism if the Thai government goes ahead with damming the only major river in South East Asia that remarkably still follows its natural course.

But it is no secret that “development” and securing future energy reserves take precedence over protecting the environment in most of the world.

But what of human rights? Will the Hat Gyi Dam form the Salween’s first loch, and will there be more to follow?
And what of the proposed benefits for Burma?

Only the Thai government at this stage can answer these questions and it is due to do so this month.

In the aftermath of ASEAN’s salute to Thailand and Burma’s plans, environmental and Burma’s ethnic groups, not to mention Thai residents who will lose their homes and communities reliant on the river for their existence, issued statements condemning the project.

But Ethnic Community Development Forum representative Sai Khur Seng summed it up best: “Energy projects in Burma should be for the benefit of the Burmese people and not at their expense.”

ENDS