Damming at gunpoint(English Version)
- No tags were found...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
36<br />
DAMMING AT GUNPOINT<br />
These anti-insurgency tactics have continued to be used by the regime’s<br />
troops during subsequent years in the Karen area.<br />
“The SPDC’s present policy is to bring all rural villages under direct military<br />
control. This policy has meant establishing more Army camps throughout most of<br />
the Karen areas, and forcible reloc<strong>at</strong>ion of villages too remote to be controlled by<br />
an Army camp to Army controlled villages. The soldiers then destroy the reloc<strong>at</strong>ed<br />
villages.”<br />
KHRG, Flight, Hunger and Survival, October 2001<br />
After villagers have been forcibly reloc<strong>at</strong>ed, the Burmese military regularly<br />
p<strong>at</strong>rol the areas around the former villages to flush out IDPs in hiding,<br />
often firing on sight <strong>at</strong> anyone found, and destroying any plant<strong>at</strong>ions.<br />
In 1999, 8 new b<strong>at</strong>talions were sent into areas in Papun, to destroy villages<br />
th<strong>at</strong> were suspected of having connections with and supporting the<br />
KNU’s Brigade 5. As reported by the Democr<strong>at</strong>ic Voice of Burma, on October<br />
23, 1999: “The objective of the oper<strong>at</strong>ion, according to the Southeastern<br />
Division Command, is to destroy villages in Brigade 5 [KNLA military command<br />
in Papun District] and other nearby areas they claimed had connections<br />
with and supported KNU.”
Change language