The Karen villages - to the south of the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot - Kaw Ser, Klaw Gaw, Kaw Poe Pee and Paw Buh Hla Ta are each being forced t

2009 April 20
tags: Burma, Genocide, Human Rights, Karen, KNLA, KNU, world focus on Burma
by peacerunning
Military activity increases food crisis for struggling villagers
Daniel PedersenMae Sot, ThailandApril 20, 2009
Increased military activity by a combined force of the Burma Army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army has more than 2000 villagers struggling to feed themselves.The Karen villages - to the south of the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot - Kaw Ser, Klaw Gaw, Kaw Poe Pee and Paw Buh Hla Ta are each being forced to provide five porters a day to DKBA and State Peace and Development troops.The villages are clustered between Umpheim Mai refugee camp and the Thai town of Umphang, famous for trekking and its natural beauty.These four villages are home to 2,111 people, all of whom are short of food, living only on rice, deprived of fish paste to mix through the rice, a Karen staple.This region is rich in minerals and used extensively for contract farming.Much of the native forest has been clear felled, leaving behind rich, red-clay soils.Huge limestone outcrops dot the landscape.These soils produce huge crops of corn and peanuts. Some areas are also planted in sugar cane and rubber trees.Thai investors generally carry the cost of seed for contract farming and in turn, at harvest, provide rice for the village inhabitants who work the farms.This year the region has become a war zone, hindering the cropping of corn.The corn that has been cropped has then been taxed by the DKBA/SPDC and the Karen National Liberation Army to the point that it has not been commercially viable, particularly with the depressed corn price this season being taken into account.As a result, Thai investors have not seen returns deemed adequate enough to pay the farmers their rice, which would generally carry them through the year.DKBA units 333, 999, 907 and 906 and SPDC units 404, 283 and 284 are active in the area.At any given time there are about 350 active troops. There are regular patrols, with each village being asked to provide five porters a day to carry water for soldiers. Any rice discovered in the village is generally seized.The porters are not paid and are expected to take their own rice.The DKBA/SPDC force has established a base camp at Paw Buh Hla Ta.The camp is built of bamboo and hardwood, probably at least a semi-permanent settlement, so the villagers expect a presence throughout the rainy season and beyond to be maintained.KNLA Brigade 201 and Special Battalion 103 remnant forces, numbering in all about 300 soldiers, are attempting to provide security to the villages and generally harass the DKBA/SPDC troops.Asked about supplementary foods to go with the rice, for example fish paste, chillies and cooking oil, a committee of three established to assess needs said there was none available in the region and the only rice available were emergency rations recently donated by a foreign NGO.Health conditions in the four Karen villages are tenuous at best, but most people do have access to boiled water.In Kaw Ser there is a gravity-fed, piped water supply. In Klaw Gaw, Kaw Poe Kee and Paw Bu Hla Ta water is drawn from wells.Mobile units of medics and nurses accessing the area say the greatest medical need at the moment is rehydration packages and Buprofen, although some of these are being provided by Help Without Frontiers (HWF).Villagers said the biggest health risks they were facing at the moment were diarrhoea, dysentery and malaria. Dengue did not rate among their concerns.There are some malaria control programs operating, depending on security.The villagers this morning said they were desperate for more rice and fish paste.These four villages had been receiving medical aid from Special Battalion 103’s base camp, which was lost last year and apparently HWF clinics in the region that were burned down about the same time.Now they depend on mobile medical units and don’t have enough to eat.ENDS
STOP KILLING KAREN PEOPLE!!!!