Hleswe, a registered refugee who owns a small cornershop, has contacts among the KNU leaders and firmly believes that the DKBA will attack in the next

2009 March 17
tags: Human Rights, world focus on Burma, Junta, Burma, FREE BURMA, Karen, Genocide, KNU, KNLA
by peacerunning
Waiting in silence: life in a border refugee camp
Mar 17, 2009 (DVB)–Although being in Nu Pho camp feels like being in any little village peppered with bamboo huts, no one I spoke to there seemed to feel safe.
“The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army is just too close”, says Kohw, an Arakan monk who has lived in Nu Pho for over a year and a half. Kohw is unregistered, and therefore illegal, along with the other thousand or so in the Arakan section of the camp.Rumors about planned DKBA attacks on former political leaders in Nu Pho circle around the camp from time to time. The DKBA split from the Karen National Liberation Army – the armed wing of government opposition group Karen National Union – in 1992 and joined sides with the then State Law and Order Restoration Council (now State Peace and Development Council-SPDC), Burma’s ruling military regime.“We have so many spies affiliated with the Burma government,” says Kohw’s friend, who approaches us to warn about any curious bystanders in the camp. On 28 January last year, one suspected DKBA spy was arrested by the camp security officers and later executed.“All the Burmese people here who speak good Thai are potential SPDC spies”, Kohw says. The presence of spies creates a climate of fear, despite many of the people in Nu Pho having no valuable information or contacts, and thus being of no use to the SPDC. Still, people remain careful about what they say and who they speak to.The sight of children playing in the narrow streets and the friendly attitude of people in Nu Pho seems to give a false facade. Hleswe, a registered refugee who owns a small cornershop, has contacts among the KNU leaders and firmly believes that the DKBA will attack in the next two months.“Current KNU leaders have warned me that former KNU leaders here, and all political leaders, are in danger of getting assassinated,” he whispers. Hleswe has seen up to a hundred border police moving up to the Thai side of the mountains nearby. “The DKBA will enter the camp from there, behind the mountains,” he said. “It will happen.”Kohw is an ex-political prisoner, and is aware of the assassination attack rumors too. He is worried about the camp policy whereby ex-political prisoners or people affiliated with activism in Burma live among refugees, who have no special status in the SPDC’s eyes.“If an attack happens, the Thai military will be of no use to us,” he said. continue http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=2346
BTW.This Killergroup DKBA Mr. Quintana visited on his last trip