LNDO Interview

My family are originally from the Murng Tum village tract of Murngt Hsat, from the village of Mae Kyob, in the hills. But in 1994, there was fighting and we were forced by the SLORC military to be porters, so we moved to the village of Pak Book, in the San Kang tract of Murng Hsat township. Then we moved to the village of Bulu, where we stayed for about 5 years before coming to Thailand.

We were continually having to work as porters for the SPDC before we came. If we couldn’t carry our loads, we were beaten and kicked like animals. You can see the scars on my back to prove it.

Apart from having to pay various taxes to the SPDC, we also had to pay opium tax to the Wa Army. Whether or not our opium fields were large or small, we had to pay 10 ticals of opium to them. Also, we had to pay them two tins of rice per year, and a “people’s” tax of 250 baht per house. (When we sold opium to the Wa, we were paid in Thai baht.) If we could not pay that, we were told we had to give our son (who was 14 years old), to the Wa Army as a soldier.

We couldn’t afford to pay the taxes, and we didn’t want to lose our only son, so we ran away to the Thai border on December 3, 2001.

It was in December 2000, on about the 18th day of the month, that the Wa started arriving in their thousands to our area. They came in about 80 ten-wheel trucks, which were rented from Thailand, and in about 100 6-wheel trucks, rented from China. There were altogether about 7,000 Wa families, or over 40,000 people in all. I was told by a Wa friend that they came from various areas, including the Ai Soi and Murng Mao areas, of the northern Wa region.

My friend said that in some cases, entire Wa villages had been resettled, and in some cases, only part of the villages. The people had not come of their own free will. They had no choice but to obey the Wa leaders. Some were told 6 months in advance that they would be moving. Some had no warning at all. In the case of one village called Yaung Gayor, which had 230 houses, the order had been given that about 100 families should move. But on the day of the move, actually 150 were ordered to move. They simply forced people out from other houses at random. In some families, there were children who ran away secretly from their houses because they didn’t want to go, and so were left behind. Thus, families ended up being split up by the move. Some had heard that after the move south in 1999, many people had died, and they were afraid to move, but did not dare disobey the order. No one dared speak out about all the problems caused by the move. People were only allowed to say that things would be better in the south.

The new Wa settlers brought old coins with them. They had more money than us. When they first arrived, they were each given 1,000 baht. But this was only in the first year. They were not given money again. They were also given monthly rations of rice: adults were given 35 cups of rice each, and children 15 cups of rice.

When the new Wa settlers arrived we were able to sell our chicken, pigs, dogs and cows to them at double the usual price. For one chicken, we could get one old coin (worth 900 kyats). But as for the fruit and vegetables we had planted, they simply took what they wanted without asking us. If we tried to stop them, they just shouted at us.

Our area was very good for growing opium. The Wa Army told the new settlers that they could grow opium for 3 years. Also the SPDC had told people: “You cannot grow opium on the forehead (i.e. in full view), but on the nape of the neck (i.e. out of sight)”. As a result, the new Wa settlers planted large areas of opium. They were allowed to sell the opium freely, even to Thailand, but the local Lahu, Akha and Shan villagers were not allowed to sell their opium freely. They were given the order that they must sell it directly to the Wa Army. If they disobeyed the order, they were arrested and imprisoned.

The main problem was with our rice fields. The newcomers simply seized the fields and cleared the trees in the areas around them without asking who the owners were. As a result, within a year, most of the original villagers had simply abandoned their farms and crops and moved elsewhere. The whole area between the Mae King stream and the Nam Kok River was taken over by the Wa 214 Division, comprising 1,000 troops. They were under the command of the Wa leader named Ta Rong.

The Wa settlers themselves had to pay tax to the Wa Army. In one year, they had to give 10 ticals of opium, 2 tins of rice and 200 baht. But they did not have to pay any taxes to the SPDC.

The Lahu, Akha and Shan, however, had to pay tax to the SPDC. Each house had to sell 8 baskets of rice to the SPDC at a rate of 300 kyats per basket. In fact the market price of rice was 1,500 kyats per basket. As for opium, whether their fields were large or small, they had to give 10 ticals of opium to the SPDC. If they couldn’t give opium, they had to give the equivalent market price of the opium in cash.

Apart from this, the SPDC made the villagers buy horses to use as porters. The horses were not fed properly, and were overworked, so many died. Sometimes the SPDC soldiers killed and ate the horses, but told the villagers that they had died at the front line, so they had to buy new horses to replace them. Often each house ended up paying 1,500 kyats more than twice a year for the horses. Furthermore, even though it was announced loudly by the local district officials that they would not be using people as porters any more, on September 7 of this year, they ordered all the people in the village tract of Pha Phe to come and work for a week building a new camp for the SPDC 527 battalion.

In the area to which the Wa had resettled, along the Mae King stream, there were originally about 33 villages, which had been there for generations. There were about 1,428 houses, or about 5,679 people in all. The number of Wa newcomers was far greater. There were about 7,000 new Wa families, or about 42,000 people. The result was that many of the original inhabitants moved out to other places. Those that could not move far away, set up new villages in the area.

The Wa authorities told the people who were moving away that they were only allowed to take what they could carry on their bodies. Everything else, such as their fields, paddy, and other crops, they had to leave behind. No one was given any money as compensation.

The Wa people can work much harder than us, in rain or shine. But soon after the newcomers arrived, within two months, they started getting sick in their thousands and dying. Just around our village alone, there must have been over 300 who died. Some Chinese doctors came, but there was not enough medicine, and people kept dying. In 2001, fewer people died, but still each month about 5-6 people were dying, mostly among the new arrivals, not among the people who had arrived first.