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FORCED RELOCATION IN KUN HING
FORCED RELOCATION IN KUN HING
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Map of VILLAGES FORCIBLY RELOCATED IN KUN HING TOWNSHIP (1996 - 1998) |
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| Background of the area Most of the people of Kun Hing are farmers, cultivating the valleys of this mountainous region, which is thickly forested with teak. The 7th Brigade of the SSA ceasefire group still has an area of operation north-east of Kun Hing, north of the Kun Hing-Kali road. |
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| Relocation In 1996, relocation began in March, with villages between the Nam Pang and Salween Rivers and south of the Kun Hing-Murng Paeng road being ordered to move to 3 main relocation sites. In May, most of the villages south of Kun Hing and west of the Nam Pang were ordered to move to 4 main sites. Between March and May 1997, the SLORC began clearing all of the area south of Kun Hing. All of the relocation sites from 1996, as well as the remaining villages that had not been relocated in 1996, were ordered north to the town of Kun Hing, or to east of the town, on the Kun Hing-Murng Paeng road. Villagers in the Keng Kham area were ordered to move by May 9. They were given 3 days to move. Some of the villagers were ordered to be porters by the SLORC even during the move. "We were all ordered to come to a temple in Keng Kham. We were guarded in a group there. The SLORC commander told us we had just the next day and the day after that to move all our things. The last day was May 9... In the morning they took some people as porters. Just imagine - they had just been ordered to move, and yet they still had to go as porters. How could they move their things? Some of their wives even cried." (KHRG, interview with villager from Keng Kham, Aug 30, 1997) |
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| Extrajudicial killings in Kun Hing
township in 1997 Owing to the fact that Kun Hing was one of the main areas of operation of the SURA, the SLORC enforced the relocation with extreme brutality. Anyone found in their old village was shot on sight. Many of the villages were burned down. A killing by Shan soldiers of 25 Burmese civilians east of Kun Hing at Pha Lang on 13 June 1997, also led to a spate of revenge killings against Shan civilians in the ensuing weeks. SHRF has documented the following extrajudicial killings of villagers either found near their old villages or in the actual relocation sites in the Kun Hing area in 1997:
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| Conditions in relocation sites In 1996, at the relocation sites of Wan Lao and Sai Khao south of Kun Hing, villagers were allowed back for 5 days at a time to farm their fields. Following the March 1997 relocations to Kun Hing, villagers were strictly forbidden to travel farther than 3 miles from their sites. However, during the rice-planting season beginning in August 1997, some farmers in areas closer to Kun Hing were allowed back to their fields for 7 days at a time to plant and then harvest rice. Owing to fear of being shot anyway, farmers reportedly harvested in haste, simply cutting the paddy and putting it in bags, not leaving it in the fields to thresh. During 1997, villagers relocated around Kun Hing were forced to cut thousands of pieces of bamboo, weave roofing, cut hardwood for posts and build bases for SLORC troops at Kun Hing and Kali. They also had to build fences around the bases, and man check-points along the main roads. |
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Ceasefire groups beef up security