EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS

On March 30, 1997, SLORC troops raped and shot dead a girl of 12 while she was taking hay to cattle in a field near her old village of Ho Pung, Lai Kha township. When her relatives requested permission to bury the body, the SLORC troops said: "She must be kept like this as an example for you people of Shan State to see. If you bury her you must die with her." (SHRF June 1997 monthly report)

On July 11, 1997, SLORC troops laid out the beheaded bodies of 26 villagers beside the main Keng Lom-Kun Hing road in an apparent warning to other villagers straying from the relocation sites. On July 12, a further 12 headless corpses of villagers were placed by the Keng Lom-Keng Tong road in Kun Hing township.

Throughout 1997, SLORC troops killed villagers who were simply foraging for food near the relocation sites. Examples include a woman blown up by a grenade when collecting bamboo shoots in a field (May 30, 1997, Kun Hing); 3 men shot dead when fishing in a stream (March 30, 1997, Nam Zarng); and 6 men shot dead when collecting wild honey in the forest (June 6, 1997, Nam Zarng).

Villagers have also been massacred in large groups. This has included those who were given official permission to return to their villages.

For example, on June 16, 1997, two groups of villagers who had been relocated to the town of Kun Hing were given permission to return to their old villages to collect rice. They left in two convoys of ox-carts. Both groups were stopped on the way by SLORC troops; one near Sai Khao, one near Tard Pa Ho waterfall. In one group, 29 of the villagers were massacred, in the other 27. One of the survivors, a woman with a small child, who was spared, related the horror of the massacre:

"We were made to stay in a house..They (the SLORC troops) came to the door and called out the people one by one. They called away 16 people first, 12 men and 4 women. Then they came and called another group of 10...Then to the west I heard bursts of machine gun fire. They were killing the 16 people. Then after just a bit I heard gunfire nearby...In the group of 10 my husband died. In the group of 16 my younger sister and her husband died...I was sure I would be killed too..I was shaking, shaking! I was sitting and shaking all the time. My blood was hot all over my body. I could not think properly. I would have run away but they were standing there guarding me...I think I would be dead if I hadn't had my son with me. One of the women who was killed had left her baby at home. She squeezed out milk from her breast to show she had a baby, but the SLORC commander said that her baby must have died (and killed her anyway)." (KHRG interview with villager from Keng Kham, August 30, 1997)

The extrajudicial killings also include people who were killed while inside relocation sites. For example, on February 21, 1997, at about 9.00 pm, 2 Shan families, including three young children, were blown up while sheltering in a ditch near their homes by SLORC troops at Kho Lam relocation site in Nam Zarng township. The troops had fired shells into the site in retaliation for a Shan Army raid in the area.

SHRF has recorded the following numbers of villagers killed in the relocation areas during 1997 (for details of killings see Appendix 6):

(Note: This is only the confirmed total. It is believed that many other killings have gone undocumented.)