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Update of the situation in the Ta Sang area of the Salween River

December 15, 2002 by Salween Watch

Increased militarization

In the areas directly adjoining and above the Ta Sang dam site, there are now at least 17 SPDC infantry battalions, an increase of 6 battalions in the last year alone. Keng Tawng, a previously densely forested area north-west of the dam site, which formerly had no military presence at all, is now being developed as a military operations command centre.

There are now 4 battalions in Keng Tawng, and a network of new roads have been built from Keng Tawng, opening up the area for rapid military deployment, as well as for intensive logging. The logging can be said to be strategic defoliation, depriving the many internally displaced people of cover, and restricting movement of the Shan resistance.

Human rights abuses by the SPDC military

Forced labour

Local villagers, most of whom were forcibly relocated since 1996, have been forced to work without pay on the new roads which have been built from Keng Tawng during the last two years. Machinery and large numbers of prisoners were also brought in to build the roads.

During 2002, despite claims by the Burmese military government that it no longer employs forced labour, villagers have also been regularly forced to work building and maintaining the military bases in Keng Tawng, Kunhing, Murng Ton and Murng Pan.

There have been reports that on 11-12 May 2002, villagers from Wan Sala and Palao, immediately above and below the dam site were forced by SPDC LIB 519 troops to repair the battalion camps and buildings at the Ta Sang dam site.

Rape

Over half of the 173 cases of sexual violence committed by the SPDC military in Shan State documented in “Licence to Rape” (a report produced in June 2002 by the Shan Women's Action Network and the Shan Human Rights Foundation) took place in the areas close to the Ta Sang dam site and the potential flood area.

Troops of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion 519, which is directly in charge of the Ta Sang area, took nine Shan women as sex slaves during February  27 to March 3, 2002 (See Shan Human Rights Foundation newsletter April 2002: Mothers of small children conscripted as porters, and raped, in Murng Nai).  This was only the month before a 36-man team from Thailand arrived to survey the dam site at Ta Sang.

Killing

Killing and torturing of local villagers and internally displaced people by SPDC troops continues unabated in the areas near Ta Sang.

A recent incident, on September 24, 2002, in which 3 women were raped and killed and 5 men killed, by SPDC LIB 502, occurred in Tawng Kwai village, 15 miles southwest of Ta Sang Bridge.

The area of Kunhing which lies in the potential flood zone has been the site of the worst massacres of internally displaced villagers during the past 5 years. The single worst incident was in May 2000, when 64 men, women and children hiding near the bank of the Salween River, were shot and killed by SPDC Infantry Battalion 246.

Deleting local people's registration records/Depriving local people of citizenship

Closely connected to the SPDC's plans to build the dam at the minimum cost, is the practice of depriving local communities of their land and legal status, which would remove grounds for them to claim compensation. In the last few years, SPDC officials have been drawing up new household registration records in various parts of Shan State. Villagers who are not present in the household at the time of registration lose their right to be listed. Particularly in areas of forced relocation, this has meant that many internally displaced villagers and refugees who have fled to Thailand have lost their right to citizenship.

In early 2002, similar registration took place in the Keng Tawng area, north-west of Ta Sang. About 500 families from Central Burma who had been moved into the area by SPDC since 2001, became registered as local citizens, while thousands of local Shans who had been forcibly displaced from the area lost their citizenship.  Vacant houses belonging to Shan people were occupied by the Burmans with authorisation by the military.

Logging in the potential flood zone and surrounding areas

Areas of forest to the north and west of the proposed dam site have some of the best forest remaining in Shan State. Ancient teak trees remaining in the area are now being heavily logged by companies associated with families of senior SPDC military personnel and notorious drug warlords. The increased militarization of the area and extensive road building which are connected to the dam plans will inevitably lead to clearfelling of the remaining biodiverse ancient forests that grow in the Salween Valley.

Thai logging companies such as Thai Sawat continue to operate in this area, even building roads up to the Ta Sang dam site itself. Logs from the area are taken to Murng Ton and then on to Tachilek in trucks. They are then shipped via Laos to Thailand.

 
 

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