BURMA: The Karen, one of Burma's ethnic minorities, hide in the jungle to escape rampaging Burmese soldiers on a brutal offensive, writes Rory Byrne
We travel by Thai army boat up the Salween river, which divides Thailand from Burma (also known as Myanmar), for over an hour under the watchful gaze of Burmese army observation posts suspended in the jungle canopy. The fast-flowing river is mud brown cutting through dense mountainous forest on both sides.
Pulling up on the riverbank, we wave goodbye to our Thai army escort before setting-off on foot up the small E Tu stream. After a short trek, we clamber up the steep bank and into camp E Tu Hta, a makeshift settlement of bamboo huts and home to over 800 newly arrived Karen refugees. Three months after the Burmese army launched a brutal offensive against ethnic Karen villagers in eastern Burma, exhausted refugees continue to stagger into the camp on an almost daily basis.
The refugees - men, women and children - spent weeks cutting their way through thick malarial mountainous jungle to escape rampaging Burmese soldiers who have targeted Karen civilians in a scorched earth campaign that has seen homes burnt, crops destroyed and villagers murdered.
The desperation of the refugees' plight is etched into their faces. They sit around listlessly, many suffering from malaria picked up on their trip through the jungle. Half-naked children scream and cry, their skin covered in bleeding sores from hundreds of itchy insect bites.
According to the Free Burma Rangers, a Karen advocacy group working in the state, more than 15,000 Karen villagers have been forced to flee their homes since February when the army began clearing areas from around the newly built Burmese capital at Pyinmana, as well as from the site of the Hatgyi megadam, a newly constructed hydroelectric plant on the Thanlwin river.
Many of those driven from their villages are officially listed as "missing", either dead, lost in the jungle or press-ganged into forced labour units by the army.
Saw Pudee (48), told The Irish Times that he and his family were asleep the night that shells began to rain down on their village, Pa Der Kar in Taungoo district, near Pyinmana. "They caught us by surprise. It was complete chaos. Mortar bombs were exploding and villagers were running around screaming hysterically. My family and I escaped into the jungle. Many of my neighbours were there too. We waited there because we didn't know where to go."
The villagers stayed in the jungle for two days before a party of volunteers was organised to return to the village. "We found five dead bodies. They had been slaughtered with machetes," said Pudee, drawing a finger across his throat.
The village had been burnt to the ground, rice stores blown up, animals killed or looted and landmines laid to prevent anyone from returning.
Without looking back, the villagers set off on mass through the jungle guided by a lone Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier. "The trip through the jungle was a nightmare," said Pudee. "We had no food, no water, no mosquito nets. Many of us got malaria. People were collapsing from exhaustion and had to be carried." In other areas, the tactics employed by the army are less direct, though no less effective.
Naw Eh Htoo (42), said that the army surrounded her village two months ago and planted landmines to prevent the villagers from getting to their fields. "All of the paths we use to get to the fields were mined. One villager lost his leg. Other mines were set off by animals. We could not get anything to eat, so we left," she said.
Her husband stayed behind to help her ailing mother while she set off ahead through the jungle with her three young children. "We could only cross the roads at night. We could not use torches. If the Tatmadaw [ armed forces] saw us they would shoot," she said.
Eh Htoo caught malaria while all of her children suffered from diarrhoea. When they arrived at E Tu Hta on May 11th, Eh Thoo collapsed and had to be treated with a drip at the camp's primitive clinic.
All of the refugees had similar tales of horror to tell.
The Burmese army has been targeting Karen civilians - rather than confronting the KNLA soldiers - in order to deprive the Karen fighters of their support base. Saw David Tharckabaw, joint-general secretary of the Karen National Union, the political wing of the KNLA, said that the poorly trained and unmotivated soldiers of the Burmese army are frightened of the Karen fighters who have adapted well to guerrilla warfare. Figures released by the Karen National Union claim that in the 250 clashes they recorded in March and April of this year, 70 Burmese soldiers had been killed with over 200 wounded, while the KNLA suffered just two dead and two wounded.
But for the refugees at E Tu Hta this is the end of the road. Without a peace agreement, returning home is not possible, they said. If the Burmese army attack them they will try to escape across the Salween river and into Thailand, where they are likely to be arrested for illegal entry. KNLA soldiers are posted as lookouts around the camp which should give them some warning of an attack but bags are kept packed just in case. With the nearest Burmese army camp less than a mile away, nobody feels safe.