Spent tea leaves were etched into the raw blisters on his face when they found him. Villagers believe the urn of scalding tea the Burmese soldiers tipped over Mu Kay’s head killed him. But the betel-nut farmer (57) more likely bled to death, shot point-blank in both thighs.
He died in agony. The 150 soldiers who surprised the remote hamlet waited over his dying body for two days before leaving. When the villagers emerged from hiding they buried him in a shallow grave and left their homes for good.
The farmer’s grim death is not unique. Many have been slain in the biggest Burmese military offensive in a decade — all under the guise of ”development”, to clear the way for four vast hydro-power dams — that began more than a year ago.
It is the latest bloody chapter in the world’s longest-running civil war that has lasted nearly 60 years and sent millions fleeing into Thailand.
The conflict also displaced 500 000 people in Burma. But the newest offensive, out of sight in the jungle, is driven by the Burmese junta’s aim to control resource-rich eastern Burma by enslaving some villages and destroying others — killing, forcibly relocating or driving out the inhabitants.
The prize is a bonanza of foreign currency from gems, gold, logging and hydro-electricity that will bolster the repressive regime. The largest and most lucrative project is a series of four dams on the Salween River generating cheap power, mostly for export to Thailand.
”The regime uses development as an excuse for clearance,” said Mark Farmaner, of the United Kingdom-based advocacy group, the Burma Campaign. ”The generals say these are ‘development projects’, but they’re cash projects. They invest massively in things like the dams and the revenues go straight to the dictatorship.”
In the past year, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium that works in the refugee camps estimates troops destroyed 232 villages in the country’s east and drove 82 000 from their homes. It is one development-driven conflict highlighted in a report this week by Christian Aid, Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis, which predicts another one-billion people will be driven from their homes worldwide between now and 2050 as climate change joins and exacerbates conflicts, natural disasters and development projects.
This week, eight British MPs are visiting the Thai-Burmese border to assess the UK’s department for international development’s efforts for refugees and those displaced by years of fighting.
The Burmese army adopts grisly tactics to extend its writ. Villagers are given just days to move to ”relocation sites” in ceasefire areas where ethnic rebel groups have signed peace pacts. They are often forced to build roads unpaid. Remote villages of no military value are shelled and torched, their rice stores destroyed. Landmines are sown on farm tracks.
Villagers encountering army patrols in ”black zones”, where the Karen National Union (KNU) holds sway, are shot on sight, or worse. ”The soldiers torture them,” said Naw Ler Htoo, of the Karen Teachers’ Working Group that trains in the camps. ”They cut off the ears and cut out their eyes. Then they leave their bodies, to terrorise the other villagers.”
Naw Phaw Phaw (34) suffered the Burmese military’s wrath. Struggling since her husband was killed three years ago by a landmine, she was forced to flee when her village in Karen state’s Papun district was razed in March.
”They burned down all 10 houses and the three rice stores,” she said, nursing her son and daughter. ”The KNU still controls the area and warned troops were near, so it might be dangerous. We left immediately and came back to find everything destroyed. We stayed for a few weeks, but it was impossible. There was nothing to eat and we left.”
In Burma an estimated 95 000 people teeter on the brink of starvation, hiding in the jungle. The ranks of refugees in camps in Thailand have swelled to 153 000. Phaw Phaw staggered into Ee Thu Hta camp exhausted and hungry late last month. The camp was set up by the Karen authorities a year ago when Thailand blocked new refugees. Bamboo shelters house 3 000, but there is no electricity or running water. The camp squats next to the Salween river on the border with Thailand. There are three Burmese army posts within two hours’ walk, leading to constant fear of attack.
Damming the Salween for hydro-power has been the focus of countless studies over the years. But a flurry of agreements signed by Chinese and Thai companies over the past 18 months moved preparations into top gear.
Details of the projects remain secret.But the Salween Watch pressure group says work started in April on a hydro-power plant and dam at Tasang in central Shan state, where an offensive between 1996 and 1999 displaced 380 000 people. The Burmese government and the Thai power producer MDX in April last year signed a £3-billion deal to build the 7 110MW project, with most power destined for Thailand to feed a prospective Asian grid.
Thai academics recently conducted an environmental impact assessment study, guarded by Burmese soldiers at the southern-most Hat Gyi dam site, a £500-million, 600MW project due to start in months and funded by the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and a Chinese firm, Sinohydro Corporation.
But areas around two other dam sites, at Wei Gyi and Dar Gwin, remain beyond Burmese control. The army is focusing its 61 battalions on killing, subjugating or driving out the population to guarantee the contractors’ safety.
The flooding of vast areas will drive another 73 000 people from their land in Burma and 10 000 in Thailand. Environmentalists say the Salween’s ecosystem will be devastated. But the biggest fear is for the populace.
”These dam projects will just mean more and more forced labour, either on roads or the construction itself,” said Nay Tha Blay, of Karen Rivers Watch. ”Yet the Karen people will get no benefit from the dams.” — Â