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Print:This list provides descriptions of the attached photos, which are provided to accompany the existing Karen Human Rights Group reports. These photos many be duplicated, distributed or published for non-commercial purposes in the interest of spreading information on the plight of people in Burma.
This list provides descriptions of the attached photos, which are provided to accompany the following existing Karen Human Rights Group reports:
| Related Reports | Reference Term |
| "SLORC’s Attack on Halockhani Refugee Camp" (30/8/94) (see also the "Last Minute Update" of 13/9/94) "SLORC in Southern Shan State" (20/8/94) "Testimony of a Karen Political Prisoner" (25/8/94) "Testimony of SLORC Army Defectors" (7/8/94) "Refugees at Klay Muh Hta" (24/6/94) |
"Halockhani" "Shan" |
The peoples’ names given in this list correspond to the names used for them in the reports; these are not their real names. These photos many be duplicated, distributed or published for non-commercial purposes in the interest of spreading information on the plight of people in Burma. Prints of most of the photos can be provided on request, but please send a contribution to cover transport, duplication and postal costs, and allow for the time it will take us to send the negatives out to be copied. Photos can also be sent via email upon request.
Photos #1-5: The remains of houses burned down and destroyed by SLORC troops on July 21 in Plat Hon Pai section of Halockhani refugee camp ("Halockhani"). Some houses were burned completely to ash, while others were only partly burned or partly torn down. Most of the houses in Plat Hon Pai were destroyed.
Photo #6: Nai Win Nai (42) and his son Nai Shwe(18, on left) refugees from Plat Hon Pin who were taken as a human shield by the SLORC troops who went to attack the main Halockhani camp. Nai Tin Shwe has a cut on his knee because a soldier kicked him down on a rock for not walking fast enough. The two escaped when Mon troops cut off the advance of the Burmese and fighting broke out, even though they knew the soldiers had been authorized to shoot escapees. ("Halockhani", P.3 & 4)
Photo #7: The section leader of Plat Hon Pai section of Halockhani refugee camp showing the scars on his upper leg from being tortured with a burning cheroot (Burmese cigar) by SLORC troops. They had arrested him because he was a camp leader and were interrogating him. They also kicked, punched, and slapped him, scratched his eye with their fingernails and beat him with rifle butts, then too him as their prisoner and porter to Ye. ("Halockhani", p.6)
Photo #8: Mi Mee Ong, age 57, shows the only belongings she managed to save when the soldiers burned down her house in Plat Hon Pai: "When they left I went to my house while it was still burning and managed to save a couple of plates and one basin. That’s all I could save". They also took away her son as a porter and threatened to beat her sick husband ("Holockhani", p.10).
Photo #9: Nai San Lin (20), another son of Nai Win Nai (see photo 6). He was taken as a porter by the troops going from Plat Hon Pai to Halockhani but couldn’t escape when fighting broke out. The troops then kept him as a porter for several days on their way to Ye. Along the way he was beaten, threatened that he would be shot and almost drowned in the Krain Thaung River because of his load. He escaped after a few days and spent 4 days in the jungle without food. ("Halockhani", p.4)
Photo #10: Mon/Indian U Mya Aung (47), who was kidnapped from his home in Ye town by SLORC troops taken as a porter to Three Pagodas Pass, and was then a porter with the troops who attacked Plat Hon Pai before he escaped the next day and made his way back to Halockhani. He was a porter for 19 days. ("Halockhani", p.12)
Photo #11: Part of "Old Halockhani", which the SLORC attempted to attack but failed. This view is from the hilltop, which forms the Thai/Burma borderline. At the time of the photo, the houses were abandoned. Thai authorities later announced that the border had "moved" so they could impound the food stored at Old Halockhani and starve the refugees back across the border. ("Halockhani")
Photo #12: A view of part of "New Halockhani" on the Thai of the border. Four to six thousand Mon refugees fled here and set up camp around a Thai Border Patrol Police post after SLORC troops attacked their camp at Halockhani. They were sheltering under plastic sheets provided by foreign Non-Government Organizations until the Thais forced them back across the border into Burma in early September by impounding their food supply with armed guards ("Halockhani").
Photo #13: The refugees had to flee to Thailand in mid rainy season, when it is almost impossible to build proper housing. Making things worse, 1994 saw the heaviest rains in years. "New Halockhani" was a mudbowl. In the background of the photo you can see the overcrowded living space of several families ("Halockhani").
Photos #14,15: More of the overcrowded housing at New Halockhani- several families live in each of these shelters. ("Halockhani")
Photo #16: The only road out of Halockhani, which goes to Sangkhlaburi in Thailand. It is often impassable, and the nearest hospital (River Kwai hospital) is a 6-hour walk. The Thai authorities barred all supplies and outsiders from coming in along this road as part of their tactics in forcing the refugees back across the border ("Halockhani").
Photo #17: A Thai soldier stands guard over the newest batch of deportees from Thailand’s notorious Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) prisons, dumped in Halockhani for forced repatriation to Burma. Thai authorities were dumping 400 to 500 IDC prisoners in Halockhani every week, many of whom were in appalling physical condition and suffering severe mental trauma after robbery, rape, and other serious abuses by their Thai guards. They were left to be cared for by the refugees themselves, and the Thais continued dumping hundreds there every week even after the Thai Army impounded the camp’s food storehouse, right up until all the refugees returned to the Burma side of the border from September 7th to 9th. The group in the picture has just been unloaded from the open cattle trucks that brought them, put behind the fence and ordered to squat in the mud by their Thai guards ("Halockhani", p.2).
Photos #18-19: Some children whom the Thais had been holding in an Immigration prison and are now deporting through Halockhani. They are not the youngest. There are also toddlers and infants who have been imprisoned in heavily-barred concrete prison cells by the Thais ("Halockhani", p. 2).
Photo #20: Maung Win Htun (39), a Karen small goods trader from Pegu Division who was wrongly imprisoned as a political prisoner in Bassein Prison, Irrawaddy Delta, from 1992 until June 1994. Note his deformed and swollen left arm, broken in beatings by SLORC Intelligence and Police during his interrogation. It was never treated except by the other political prisoners in his cell. ("Prisoner", p.1).
Photo #21: The shoulders of a porter from SLORC’s offensive against the Mong Tai Army (MTA) in southern Shan State - Sai Naw Suk, age 30, from Tachilek ("Shan", p. 5). He still has visible scars on both soldiers from his load of heavy shells. He was beaten regularly, and saw SLORC troops massacre civilians and beat several other porters to death.
Photo #22: Fragments of one of the 80-pound bombs dropped on the civilian village of Ban Akhu, near Tacilek in southern Shan State, by SLORC’s Pilatus PC7 turbopropeller bombers from Switzerland ("Shan", p.1). Four of these planes based in Kengturg conducted the attack on July 10, dropping 8 of these bombs, firing rockets and strafing with machine-gun fire. Two Akhu boys, 7 and 14, were killed. The attack was part of the SLORC offensive against Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army (MTA), but there were no MTA in the village, and the villagers claim the pilots could see this. The pilots were probably afraid to be shot down by MTA missiles so they attacked a civilian village instead of their target, which often happens in the SLORC Air Force.
Photo #23: Buddhist monastery in the village of Mong Hta, south of Mong Kyot in southern Shan State. Mong Kyot has been a major fighting area between SLORC and the MTA, but Mong Hta is just a simple civilian village. SLORC planes attacked it on June 1994. Four bombs were dropped around the monastery, killing 4 civilians who had come to worship the Buddha and pay respect to the monks. The bare area in the foreground, and another closer to the building, are bomb craters. Three other bombs were also dropped on the rest of the village, damaging some houses and killing some cattle.
Photos #24,25: Two civilians who were killed instantly by bomb shrapnel in the raid on Mong Hta village. They were taking cover underneath the monastery when it was bombed. Their shirts are drenched in blood, and the pile of timber in the background of photo #25 also has a large blood stain behind the man’s body.
Photo #26: Another civilian victim of the bombing. The bandage on his head is stained with blood. Photo #27: A patient in surgery who was wounded in the abdomen by the bombs. He later died. Photo #28: Naw Paw Paw Htoo (Karen, age 25) and her son. She fled her home in Hlaing Bwe Township of Karen State to become a refugee at Klay Muh Kloh (the new Karen refugee camp formed on the Karen side of the border because Thai authorities will allow no more refugees to cross) in March because of slave labour. She has been taken as a porter several times, as well as for forced labour at army camps and building and repairing roads. She had to carry her son all the way to the camp, a two-day walk. ("Klay Muh Koh", p.12)
Photo #29: Saw Hla Maung (Pwe Karen, 37), who fled his village in Hlaing Bwe Township because of constant slave lobour, looting and extortion by SLORC troops. He and his brothers had to sell their farm field, ceded to them by their grandmother, just to pay SLORC demands for "porter fees". ("Klay Muh Kloh", p.13) Photo #30: Four Burman porters who were taken from Bilin, Thaton and Myaingalay towns in April 1994 by SLORC, three because they couldn’t pay demands for "porter fees", and the fourth was rounded up with the crowd in Thaton Train Station. During their month as porters they were treated brutally, until they escaped and found a village where the people sent them to Klay Muh Kloh refugee camp. ("Klay Muh Kloh", p.7-9) Photo #31: Naw May Hla (Karen, 25) from Pa’an Township, now a refugee in Klay Muh Kloh camp since February. She fled with her family because her husband’s three friends had been murdered by SLORC troops, her cousin had been brutally beaten, and her family was constantly forced to cut logs and firewood and provide other labour for the SLORC Army camp. ("Klay Muh Kloh", p.11).
Photo #32: Refugees at Klay Muh Kloh lined up for vaccinations for their children, which were being given by foreign medics. In their villages in the SLORC-controlled area, no such services are allowed. ("Klay Muh Kloh") Photo #33: Building a house in the new Karen refugee camp of Klay Muh Kloh, on the Karen side of the border due to recent Thai policy barring refugees from entering Thailand. Over 5,000 refugees arrived in the camp in the first three months. When this rainy season ends, thousands more will certainly arrive - however, Thai authorities have already threatened to cut off supplies crossing the border for any new arrivals. This man’s house will have very little security - SLORC troops are still just a few hour’s walk away. ("Klay Muh Kloh") Photo #34: Some of the new houses at Klay Muh Kloh camp. ("Klay Muh Kloh").
Photo #35: The group of 11 young soldiers from SLORC 434 Battalion, who shot their two Lance Corporals and a Warrant Officer at Hill 1653 north of Papun on 6 June 1994 and fled to Karen forces to surrender. Front L-R: Thein Mya (16), Maung Hla Tint (18), Ye Kyaw (17), Maung Tin Shein (17). Back L-R: Zaw Myint (25), and others (some of whom are not in the report). ("Defectors"). Photo #36: Thein Mya, age 16, was grabbed on his way home from school by a group of soldiers when he was 14 and carried off to join the Army. He was regularly and severely beaten by his NCOs, particularly because he was often sick. ("Defectors", p. 7&8). Photo #37: Maung Tin Shein, age 17, who was conscripted into the Tatmadaw over a year ago and regularly beaten during his time as a soldier. ("Defectors", p.11).
