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Appendix 3:
Depositions to the Tribunal
The following are excerpts from oral
testimonies made
before the Tribunal in April 1999.
 First Witness 
The First Witness represents an NGO
providing food and relief assistance to Burmese refugees in
Thailand. The personal details of the Witness cannot be
given. This Witness said that there are 12 camps in Thailand
housing 115,000 people, and 4 more are across the border.
Since the fall of Karen National Union (KNU) headquarters in 1995, the Burma army controls the
border and there are more restrictions on movement of
refugees. The Witness observed: "The refugees are
increasingly aid-dependent. Aid agencies now provide
virtually all food, including rice, salt, fish paste, yellow
beans and oil, as well as building materials, mosquito nets
and blankets."
The First Witness explained the impact of
the Government’s forced relocation programs.
"Relocations are usually done to facilitate
'development' work, such as roads and bridges at the new
site. People are ordered to meet paddy
quotas but are no longer able to do so as their villages have
been relocated. This year, soldiers are no longer provided
with rice and have been ordered to find their own rations.
They go to villages, take the rice they need to feed
themselves for a short time and destroy what remains. They
don't order people to bring it to distribution points. Orders
can be in verbal or written form, and relocation instructions
allow villagers as little as three days. Orders are made
regardless of whatever work the people may be doing at the
time. For example, at harvest times people are ordered to
work at construction sites. Families send their children
while parents continue the harvest." The Witness stated
that the military relocates populations to secure areas and
also to create a labor force in those areas. The Witness was
asked whether paddy land is available for at relocation
sites. "No. For example, the relocations about two years
ago in Karenni
State involved 70-80,000 people, and entire regions full of
villages were moved. People had four choices: 1) go to the
relocation site, under Burma army control; 2) go to find
relatives in a local town and stay with them; 3) become
displaced in the forest; 4) cross the border into Thailand,
as a last resort. The vast majority of people don't want to
come. Many Karenni went to the relocation site at Shadaw, and
now two years later we see people arriving in Thailand from
the relocation site because they simply could not survive
there. They tried. There are people who said their father
starved to death. And somebody said, 'This does not happen in
Burma, people do not starve.' But this is what it's come to
in some areas. They've been displaced for over two years.
They've tried and tried to make ends meet and now finally
they've decided they cannot any longer and they've come to
the border. And we're talking about weeks walking. These are
long journeys, and when you've got maybe five children and
you've got to find food on the way it's extremely difficult.
The good thing in them coming across the border now is that
we can get firsthand information." Generally, a
relocation area is an area under military control.
"Usually they are impoverished lands that no one else
wants. The people are given no assistance in any form. The
big issue is that whereas before people were dislocated due
to fighting between the Burma army and the ethnic
insurgencies, and the villagers were caught in the middle so
they had to flee; now it's not because of any offensives that
we are seeing them having to move. It's directly because of
military activities against civilian villages. The Burma army
specifically order civilians to clear out of areas they have
lived in throughout their lives. More are planned. The army
marks off an area and send the orders to clear it."
The Witness explained that there are large
numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) "yet the
concern is that nobody recognizes the existence of IDPs. The SPDC says
that there are no IDPs, therefore no organizations working
inside Burma cannot address the issue. They are prevented
from traveling around." The Witness said: "It's not
that internal displacement has just begun happening. I think
it's been going on for years, but they had their own
mechanisms to deal with it. And the reality is people survive
on very little. Another aid group divides people into three
categories: (1) those with enough rice for two or three meals
per day, but not enough to see them through to the next
harvest; (2) those with enough rice for one meal per day and
one of boiled rice/roots; (3) those with no rice, who live
off boiled roots. So people survive on the barest minimum.
They've had to run all their lives. Some people have moved 14
times in the last 20 years." The Witness was asked:
"(Q: In your opinion, if most of the people coming
across the border weren't being chased, if there were no
free-fire zones, do most of them feel they could survive
where they have come from?) Yes. That's all they want. These
people who came across are not looking for aid. I don't think
the rural populations could care less about who's in power in
Rangoon. For them it's not about democracy. For them it's to
be left alone in peace. (Q: So you would support the basic
thesis of this Tribunal, which is that access to food for
large sections of Burmese people has become a serious
problem?) Yes, and it's becoming an increasing problem. It's
a serious problem now and from what we are seeing, it's an
ever-growing problem. We see no sign of it improving in any
way."
Acharn Pornpimon Trichot
She is at the Researcher, Institute of
Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University. She says that the
trouble started after 1990 when the state began interfering
with the people too much. She says: "The Government has
two arms for control. One is the army, the soldiers
themselves, the other is the bureaucracy. To have these two
organizations work, you have to support them. The military
needs food and privileges. The civil service is needed to run
things like the paddy quota and taxation systems, and they also need
their rice and salaries." She was questioned: "(Q:
It has been mentioned that they have reached a point where
the army also has had to cut back on privileges. So it
can’t even feed itself?) I would say that. And it has
resulted in soldiers taking rice and anything they can get
their hands on from the people. They used to have an excuse
to take this action against the minority ethnic groups, but
against their own people it is a very bad sign. Out of
poverty they are doing that. It’s surprising, because
even for a hardcore military to do things like this that
affect people can be very dangerous."
Hseng Noung Lintner
She is a photo-journalist/translator. She
was originally from Shan State. She is now a Swedish citizen.
She meets people at the Burma border and she can collect
information which she can pass on to NGOs. She says:
"Shans always grew enough rice for three uses: (1) for
themselves; (2) for religious offerings; (3) for guests. The
land in Shan State is so fertile that if you just throw the
seed it will grow, if nothing is disturbed and there are no
interruptions. The government claims that its operations are
counter-insurgency, but they have always had the upper hand.
It is just a policy of annihilation, without ever questioning
why there is insurgency all over the country. Relocated
people have to leave an area where they are already growing
crops and go to another area where they have no land. They go
and then can’t make a living and, not being close to any
border, go into the forest and try to survive. But they still
need cash to buy clothing and salt. To survive they need more
than just rice. On the hillside the only crop they can grow
is opium, so that’s also why production increased."
After 1988, the army was expanded: "They began facing
the issue of how to feed this big army, now stronger than
before. So they now demand that soldiers take care of their
own food supply, and from there the problems have increased.
They confiscate land and instruct people to work for the
army, growing food or building barracks. Even if households
have only old people or children, they must go."
She further says: "Yet what the
military is doing doesn’t make sense. On the one hand
they talk about more production, on the other they are
putting more pressure on people. In the town of Murng Phan,
Shan State, for example, a river used to go around the town,
but now they have filled it with earth, and for what reason?
The river was not very big, but it was enough for the town.
And now people can’t grow rice because of that. It used
to be that if people didn’t have enough rice in their
fields they would find some cash and buy rice to fill the
quota, if they couldn’t avoid it. But now there is not
enough rice to buy on the black market. There’s not even
that. Shan State used to have a self-reliant barter system.
People growing rice could trade with people growing tea and
beans, and so on. But now that has been interrupted by
demands from the central administration. A lot of rice grown
in Shan State goes out, so there is less for those not
growing for themselves. Rice imports to Shan State from
central Burma are prohibited, so that must have some
effect."
Fourth Witness
She works on emergency relief to refugees
along the Thailand-Burma border. Her personal details cannot
be published. She says: "[A] huge forced relocation
program in Shan State started in 1996. In early 1996, around
20,000 [refugees] came in [to Thailand] and the total number
of arrivals had increased to about 80,000 by early 1998.
Since November-December 1998 until now the number has again
gone up. We monitor conditions at border villages through
headmen, who keep very detailed monthly records on where the
people have come from, how many etc. Without exception, all
the people are coming from forced relocation. They come for a
variety of reasons connected to relocation." She says
that in the last few months a large number has come to
Thailand. In one crossing point "we monitor thoroughly,
we have records of about 1500 crossings per month. There are
several other points." She says how people are forced to
leave: "Three or five days after a relocation order is
given, the soldiers come back. If the villagers haven’t
left, either they’ll say ‘go now,’ or burn the
village, or shoot—there are so many different scenarios.
This has happened to 1460 villages in the central Shan State
area. Then if they’re caught back at the village
they’re told they’ll be shot on sight. Most of the
villagers haven’t got permission to go back. A rough
estimate from various sources is that out of 300,000 people
who were relocated, 100-120,000 have come to Thailand. About
100,000 are in the relocation sites, and then about 50,000
have gone to other areas in Shan State, maybe on the
periphery of towns where they can find work, have relatives
and so on. About 50,000 are hiding. They don’t want to
go to the relocation sites and are trying to survive in the
jungles." She explains how people still desire to go
back, but they are not allowed: "After the relocations
started, there were some people who came to Thailand straight
away, who weren’t going to try to survive at the
relocation sites. Some people went to the relocation sites
and tried to survive but couldn’t, and when their
supplies ran out, they came to Thailand. Some people have
gone to the relocation sites, haven’t managed to survive
there and have gone back into hiding in the area, to
cultivate fields in the hills. They can’t hide in large
groups, and tend to stay only a couple at a time. And often
this is very different from what they are used to, because
the Shans live in valleys. But they can’t stay in the
valleys, because they’d be targets, so they have to stay
in the hills and cultivate hill fields, living in the jungles
which they’re not used to. It’s a very different
lifestyle that they’re forced to live."
She narrated the tragic story of a
17-year-old girl whom she met the previous day: "Her
family was relocated to Kun Hing in 1996, from a village just
south of there. Her family first went to the relocation site
and tried to stay but couldn’t. They tried various
means. So she, her father, her mother, and three younger
brothers and sisters went back into hiding after a year.
There’s a river with lots of islands on it, so they hid
on an island. She said there were two families on the one
island, which was heavily wooded. They stayed there for two
years and her father made money by fishing, as they planted a
little rice but it wasn’t enough. He would go out on a
boat and at night he would go secretly to Kun Hing and sell
the fish in the market. Just last month he went back to his
old village, to try to get some cattle he left there, to sell
them. He was shot and killed. The family lost their
breadwinner, so they moved to Kun Hing and the mother sent
her to Thailand to earn money."
Padoh Kwe Htoo Win
He is Chairman of KNU’s Mergui-Tavoy
District [Tenasserim Division]. He says that in the February 1997
offensive "Out of the 217 Karen
villages in the region, 80% were destroyed, deserted or
forcibly relocated by the Burma army. Forcibly relocated
people have had no chance to grow rice." He says "IDPs groups vary in size.
The smallest has 2 or 3 families, the largest 30-40.
According to our data, the total number of IDPs in the
Tenasserim region is around 20,000. They survive in the
forest any way they can. We stay with them, we travel with
them and try to assist. Some do not have enough food,
especially in the rainy season, but they try to survive. If
they do not have rice, they boil bamboo shoots and roots. We
can’t take food to them, but if we get some assistance
like cash from NGOs or friends we distribute it. They can buy
food, because they have some contact with people at
relocation sites. The biggest concentration of IDPs in our
area would be in Palaw and Eastern Mergui Townships. People
in Palaw Township who were situated along the Tenasserim
River fled into the mountains rather than go to the sites.
Medicine is a problem. We try to help, but there is never
enough. Malaria is especially prevalent."
Saw Ehna
He is Deputy Editor of Kwe Ka Lu, a Karen
language newspaper. Last year, his editor had asked him to go
and study the IDP situation in the Tenasserim
Division. That is how he has first hand information. He could
move only with great difficulty. When he met IDPs, he asked
them: "‘What do you think about your future?’
but mostly they just answered that they flee the Burma army
and die in the jungle of poverty and starvation, that’s
better for them than living under the Burma army. The biggest
thing for them is to flee the army. When they are hiding,
also they are afraid, so they don’t think about whether
or not they will starve or die in the jungle. They just want
to get away from the Burma army. Sometimes I asked, ‘How
long will you live in the jungle, how long will you
hide?’ but they didn’t answer. They have no plans
other than to get away from the army. Staying as IDPs, they
eat fish, wild potatoes, bamboo shoots. If they can get a
rice crop, they can survive. The problem is that when they
plant rice, the Burma army come and destroy it, so sometimes
they have little food left, and they have to ration it out
and mix the rice with leaves and bamboo shoots to make it
last. The villagers are classified as supporters of KNU, and the Burma army
has a strategy especially to destroy food, crops and fields,
and to arrest or shoot people on sight. This is a free-fire
zone, so they can shoot without questions, or sometimes
arrest and later torture and kill." According to him,
the future for people there is not good.
Khu Turein
He is from Karenni
State. There is little flat land there. Most agricultural
land is under hillside cultivation. Most people live in
forests, farming on hill slopes. In 1982, the Government
began forced purchases of rice, partly to pressure the people
not to support the revolution. "Since 1992, the military
government has required summer paddy in
Karenni areas, and this has created many hardships. In the
beginning growing one crop per year was sufficient, but the
summer crop meant depleted the soil so even the monsoon crop
wasn’t good anymore. Another thing was when they
introduced seeds to use for the summer crop they brought them
from another area, and these were unfamiliar to the local
people. Land owners had to irrigate for summer rice at their
own expense, which was very costly. The reservoirs
didn’t have enough water. At first, the administration
sold fertilizer, but later they stopped and the crop yield
fell."
In 1996, forced relocation began. He says:
"Firstly, they sent written orders to villages with
fixed dates by which to arrive at the relocation camps. If
people didn’t follow the order, when the military
arrived, they burned the village. In 1996 there was one
example of some elderly people left behind in a village with
some rice to eat by villagers who had left. The families
hoped to return to the elderly people later. They wrote in
front of the houses that ‘we have left some old people
behind here, please do not harm them because they are too old
to travel to the relocation camp.’ But when the troops
came and inspected the village and saw the people left
behind, they reacted angrily, as if the people didn’t
obey them, and burned down the houses with the people in
them." He also says: "From 1997 to the present,
most families in relocation sites couldn’t eat rice, and
had to eat maize- if they were able to grow it. Most go to
beg in nearby towns, and some people can offer them rice, a
tin or two, or sometimes just one or two spoons full. There
are also some villages that have not been relocated, but the
people in these places must pay a lot of fees, serve as
porters and so on. The army demands logs, porters, money, and
even cattle manure to make fertilizer for the town garden,
which the people would otherwise have used on their own land.
People are not paid for these things. If they do not provide
as ordered, they will probably be punished by having to do
labor at a military outpost, such as digging trenches and
doing domestic work for the soldiers."
Ninth Witness
This witness is from Shan State. For
security reasons she cannot be identified. She says:
"Before 1998, the situation in Shan State was easier, as
most families had sufficient income and food. At this time
there are a lot more difficulties. The deteriorating
conditions relate to the broader militarization of Burma. The
government purchases rice forcibly and at very low prices,
such as one-fifth the market value. If you can not or do not
sell to the government then they take action against
you." Here also there is forced relocation: "Forced
relocation has come to Shan State. In the south, townships
like Pin Lone, Murng Nai, Larng Kher and so on have had to
move in their entirety. The Burma army has carried out
relocation the same as in Karenni
State, issuing deadlines and threats that they will come back
and harm the villagers. According to government development
plans, whenever they want to extend a road from place to
place they confiscate land and destroy houses and crops
without compensation."
Thra Paw Moo
He is a teacher from one of the refugee
camps. He was a government employee under the socialist
regime. He says: "As a Grade 2 civil servant, I got some
rations and 750 kyat/month. The food benefits were not free. We could
buy rice at the discounted government rate. At that time, one
pyi of rice at the market rate was about 13 kyat, so my
salary of 750 kyat made me quite well off. But now the price
of rice has gone up to at least 80 kyat per pyi, yet the pay
hasn’t risen. Of course, workers are unable to make ends
meet, so they are forced into corruption to survive." He
came to Thailand in 1991 and since then he has not gone back.
Naw Miroline
She came to Thailand in February this year,
"to find work, as the cost of living is now so high
there, and there are no ways to earn an income." She
worked in Irrawaddy Division as a farm laborer. Whatever she earned
planting rice in the rainy season was not enough to survive
the year. This is the fate of all farm laborers. She referred
to the paddy
quota system: "In our area there is a paddy quota set by
the military, at the rate of 12 baskets
per acre. The government pays about half the market rate. The
quota is paid by the land owner, not workers like me. If they
don’t pay the quota, they can be arrested." Some
people borrow paddy from others. Some families don’t
have enough for their own consumption, particularly when the
food crop is affected by floods etc.
Kyan Du
He arrived in Thailand this year. He worked
on a rubber plantation in Pa-an Township. He says:
"Before it was converted, this land was peanut fields
and swidden cultivation. The military said that these fields
weren’t real farms, took the land and converted it to a
rubber plantation. They declared it a development project. It
was the villagers’ land, and they paid taxes on it. It
was difficult, but people would find a way." Now, that
is no longer the case, as the farmers have lost their lands
and earn a marginal income from subsistence labor.
Saw Lay Thaw
He was in the 1988 uprising. He had to flee
in 1989. At first he worked in the revolutionary areas. Later
he stayed in a refugee camp. He also collects information
from people who have fled Burma. Based on his experience, he
says: "It is clear that there is now real scarcity of
food. For example, at the time I left, a cup of tea was one
and a half kyat. Now
it is 20 to 30 kyat. But who can afford tea when one pyi of rice is at least 70 to 80 kyat? From the
information I have collected, this is my assessment of the
situation. It has become worse and worse until the point that
some people now even have to sell the water poured off from
boiled rice [for others to drink]."
Saw Tin Win
He is from Karen
State. He travels back and forth through the border regions
as a member of the KNU
Forestry Department. He says: "In my area, there is a
demarcated forest that I have to monitor, although it’s
not under firm control of the KNU. This is a
‘black’ zone. There are still about 20 villages in
the area. In 1998, there wasn’t enough rain and this
meant that people couldn’t grow crops. In this area
orders have been given for people to relocate, but instead
they fled into KNU areas and they have been able to get some
supplies of food and rice sent by aid agencies." He has
some hope that people may be able to go back and cultivate.
Thra Lawrence Po
He has stayed in Thailand since 1982. He is
originally from the Irrawaddy Division. He says: "Before 1962, there was
plenty of rice, both for exports and for people in the
country. And a Burmese administrator said to me at the time
of the take-over, ‘We are not afraid for our economic
situation. Our country has the best rice exports in Asia. We
are afraid only that the Thais will give arms to
invaders’. Yet now Thailand has greater exports,
although they did not supply invaders. And because of
nationalization and ineptitude, staff were not able to
perform their tasks. They are clever in other ways, but not
good at administration."
Saw Htoo K’baw
He stayed in Kyauk Kyi Township until 1997.
His statement is recorded in the Submission made by AHRC. In
1997 he had to leave Burma. He says: "My village was
destroyed. Also, I had worked as a swidden farmer when I was
there, and up to 1997 it was still possible to grow
something. The Burma army didn’t come to tell us to
move. They just came in, patrolled up and down, shot at
random and killed people sometimes. They didn’t give any
orders or details. If they saw people they just killed them.
So in this area we hid our rice stocks in the forest, but if
the army saw them then they burned everything."
Saw Roman
He is from the same place as the previous
witness. He talks of the Four Cuts operation that began in
1973-74 and says: "We were driven from our villages in
great numbers, cattle taken, people murdered. That operation
was called ‘Operation Aung Soe.’ At the time, I was
a schoolboy, and I remember that my relatives – uncles,
parents, young people and old – had to serve on forced
labor projects. We were terrified by their cruelty and fled.
People were arrested and tied to trees. Some who escaped died
fleeing, others made their way out with nothing, some even
without clothes. Some who were recaptured were tortured and
executed. It was a disaster for our people. Starting from
that time, our troubles have increased steadily, including
those regarding food."
He talks of the quota system which does not
take into account the actual production. He says: "They
get the quota but still they go around the place demanding
other things and bullying the people. In December 1998, my
family couldn’t meet the quota and had to buy rice at
the rate of 50,000 kyat for 100 baskets, which we resold to the government for 30,000 kyat.
So they make at least a 20,000 kyat profit. Anyway, I worked
yellow beans to get some money back. These things happen all
around Kyauk Kyi Township, not only in my area. There are a
lot of swidden farms there too, so people have to go to the
hillsides to harvest, but nowadays they don’t allow
people to go. It’s very dangerous to collect a
harvest." He also says: "Many people in my area
have experienced far greater suffering than we. We are some
of the lucky ones, to be able to leave. I consider Burma my
home and my land, but because of the gross injustice and
abuse there, we are forced to run away from our country. We
had grown a rice crop up until this year. I had even planted
a new crop, but we just had to leave it all. If we reaped
some and sold it to get some money for the journey then
people would have been suspicious. So we lost
everything."
Nyunt Thein
He is from Karen
State. He was working as a betel nut farmer. The Burma army
entered his village in 1997. In 1998, he had to flee. He
says: "After the Burma army came in, we tried to stay
for a year, but we had to do forced labor for them and serve
as porters. We had to pay various fees and taxes if we
didn’t work, or serve as porters. Every month it came
out to thousands of kyat. When you are a porter, you have to feed yourself
or give 1000 kyat per day for a substitute. I couldn’t
bear it any more, but anyway we stayed on, in spite of
everything they forced us to do. Then they shot dead four
villagers, so finally I didn’t dare to stay. I
couldn’t bring any of my crop with me, and the soldiers
got my buffalo. I don’t dare to go and live there any
more, so whoever wanted to eat those nuts did so; whether
Burma army troops, villagers, or whoever. I had to leave my
land and everything behind. So did many others." He went
back to his house once after coming here, about a month
before he deposed before us. He says that every thing of his
had been taken or eaten.
Saw Hsar K’baw
He came to Thailand in 1984. Now he works
in a refugee camp as a teacher. He says: "Last year I
went to work at a timber mill in the area of Karen
State, only a few hours from the border. In that area, I saw
many people living displaced without shelter, in huts by the
streams and in the hills. Most of them had come from Myawaddy
and Kya-Inn Seik Kyi Townships. But they couldn’t cross
into Thailand, because the DKBA didn’t want them to leave. The DKBA said they
would feed the people, but I saw that most of them
didn’t have enough food. They all faced the same
problems, losing their land, paying too many fees, serving as
porters and not having work. People have no way to support
their families. So they thought that it would be better to go
to the refugee camps. They came but cannot pass the DKBA.
Also the Thai military doesn’t want people coming in.
It’s very hard for them. Now I’ve heard that many
of those people have tried to find new places in the hills
and jungles. The biggest problem is that there is no
medicine. They can find food, but when they get sick there
are no medicines, and some die. Sometimes sick people are
allowed to travel to refugee camp clinics, but usually by
that time they are already in a critical condition and die
soon after."
Khun Kham Koh
He was originally from Shan State. He was a
member of the Pa’o National Organisation. In 1991, they
made a cease fire deal with the Burma army. He did not
approve of this. He is now a member of Independent Historical
Research Association – Pa’o. He says: "During
the U Nu period, according to the statements of elders that I
have documented, food and agriculture conditions were good.
After Ne Win’s take over in 1962, things began to get
worse. Some people suffered from starvation at that time.
When the military government came up with the Burmese Way to
Socialism, only army officers could take senior
administrative positions. But these officers didn’t have
technical expertise needed for managing agriculture, and were
ignorant of the different conditions of the places they were
assigned. In Pa’o areas, people were ordered to work
crops which were untenable and without any support for the
farmers. The administrators came at harvest time and scolded
people for crop shortfalls, without ever having helped or
knowing what they were talking about. Some people who
hadn’t produced anything at all lied out of fear, saying
‘we got this much or that much.’"
Although last year there was little rain,
the Government demanded its quota. So "the villagers had
to buy rice. They couldn’t do anything else. One half basket of paddy cost
700 kyat in
the market. The government set the purchase rate at 200 kyat.
They lost 500 kyat per half basket. If they didn’t
comply, they would have their land confiscated by the
military. When land is confiscated, the army puts up signs
saying ‘Military area: no trespassing’. That’s
why people know they have to pay the quota. To survive people
eat a boiled mixture of rice, potato and wild wheat. The
situation is the same for many villages." He also
explained how this has resulted in increased narcotics
production: "Farmers unable to cultivate rice to eat and
sell will ultimately grow drugs. The drug plantations are
small and easily hidden. So annual production of narcotics is
increasing and there is competition between drugs and food.
For example, in Shan State increased production of narcotic
drugs has resulted in reduced production of citrus fruit
plantations. One has directly offset the other. Yet people
are simply growing these drugs to get money to buy food. They
can’t see any other way. So this is a big problem."
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