SPDC & DKBA
ORDERS TO VILLAGES:
SET 2000-A
Papun, Toungoo, Dooplaya & Pa'an
Districts
An
Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
February 29, 2000 / KHRG #2000-01
Note: Some details have been blacked out with ‘xxxx’ for Internet distribution.
Following are the direct translations of close to 300 written orders sent from State
Peace & Development Council (SPDC) and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) Army
units and local authorities to villages in Papun, Toungoo, Dooplaya and Pa’an
Districts of Karen State, southeastern Burma (click
here to see the Map). They were issued during the period mid-1998 through
December 1999 and have been selected from over 350 such orders. They include orders
restricting the movements and activities of villagers, demands for forced labour, support
for military operations, extortion of money, food, goods and building materials, and
orders summoning village elders to attend ‘meetings’ at which SPDC Army officers
or officials dictate demands for forced labour, money and materials and threaten the
village for any failure to comply. Many of the orders demanding forced labour were
issued well after May 14, 1999, which is when the SPDC leadership claims to have issued a
general order to all of their military and administrative units to halt conscription of
forced labour under the Villages Act and Towns Act, colonial-era laws which allow
authorities to press-gang labour under certain circumstances. In practice, the military
and SPDC authorities violate the conditions of these Acts (for example, that only
able-bodied and unemployed men be conscripted) in most of their demands, and almost never
even make reference to these Acts when demanding forced labour from villages.
Originals of these orders were obtained by KHRG monitors in each region. They were issued by local SPDC and DKBA Army commanders and Peace & Development Councils (PDCs), which are local-level SPDC administration at the Township, Village Tract and Village levels. While the Township and often Village Tract PDCs consist of SPDC officials under direct military control, the Village PDC chairperson and members are appointed, often against their will, by the local military. These are the village elders to whom the orders are addressed and sent, who are referred to as ‘Chairperson’ and ‘Secretary’ in the text. They are responsible for providing forced labourers, money, materials, intelligence etc. as demanded by the military and the higher-level PDCs, and they are the first to be arrested and tortured if they fail to do so; this is what is meant by threatening phrases such as "if you fail it will be your responsibility". Village elders are deluged with orders like these almost every day, from all the Army camps near their village as well as the various levels of SPDC authorities. For every order reproduced here, hundreds more are issued every week; these should be seen only as a small representative sampling. This report does not aim to provide a comprehensive picture of the human rights situation in these areas, but to provide a reference containing examples of several kinds of orders received by villages in several different regions. More information on the human rights situation in each District is available in other existing KHRG reports.
Orders in this report have been divided into main topics (see Table of Contents). For each topic a short summary has been included to explain the context in which the orders were issued. Within each topic, the orders have mainly been sorted starting from the most recent and proceeding to the oldest, with a few exceptions. Some orders span 2 or more topics, such as those which demand forced labour as well as extortion money; in these cases we have taken into account the main focus of the order in categorising it.
Notes on the Text
Most of these orders were handwritten, some typed, and carbon-copied if sent to more than one village. The orders were written in Burmese with the exception of some of those included under ‘DKBA Orders’, which were written in Sgaw Karen where noted. All of them were issued by SPDC authorities and military units except those included under ‘DKBA Orders’ and ‘Karen Peace Army Propaganda Letter’.
We have attempted to accurately reproduce the visual page layout of each order, and underlining, etc. are as they appear in the order. ‘Stamp:’ gives the translation of the rubber-stamped unit identifier affixed to many of the orders, while ‘[Sd.]’ denotes the usually illegible signature of the issuing official. The language of many of the orders sounds awkward because Burmese grammar is very different from English; for example, the ordering of phrases within a sentence is almost opposite, sentences are often very long and convoluted, and personal subject and object pronouns are often omitted in Burmese. We have translated the words and expressions as directly as possible, though we have sometimes had to make minor changes in the sequence of the words for the wording to make sense and have the exact same meaning in English. Furthermore, many SPDC Army officers and Non-Commissioned Officers are semi-illiterate so they write with terrible grammar and frequent mistakes. Where necessary, we have added notes in italics in square brackets for clarification, but all other text is as it appears in the orders. In Burmese, numerals are usually written in parentheses; in the translations these have been omitted in most cases where they would not be used in English. As in the originals, all numeric dates are shown in dd/mm/yy or dd/mm format. Some orders use Burmese dates: the year 1361 is the period from April 1999-April 2000, the months begin at each new moon and are divided into the moon’s ‘waxing’ and ‘waning’ phases. We have noted the equivalent Gregorian calendar date where it is not already specified. Village names, people’s names, Army camp names and some other details have been replaced with ‘xxxx’, ‘yyyy’, ‘aaaa’, ‘bbbb’, etc. where necessary to protect villages from retaliation. These different letter combinations are sometimes used to distinguish between several people or villages being referred to within the same order.
Most orders are addressed to the ‘Chairperson’, which is the SPDC-appointed Chairperson of the village PDC, while other orders are addressed to the ‘Village Head’ or ‘Headman’, who is head of the village elders; these are usually the same person, and often it is actually a woman because the villagers feel that women, particularly elderly women, will be detained and tortured less often than a male headman would be. Some of the orders address the village headwoman colloquially as ‘Mother’. At the village level, the ‘Chairperson’ is usually victimised by the local military; however, at the village tract and township levels the ‘Chairperson’ is often a corrupt SPDC appointee who works closely with the local military. For example, there are many orders below sent from the Village Tract Chairmen of some of the village tracts in Papun and Toungoo districts, passing on the Army’s demands for forced labour to the village Chairmen at the lower levels.
Many orders call for ‘loh ah pay’, a Burmese term referring to a traditional practice of contributing one’s labour for small village or temple projects in order to earn Buddhist merit; however, the labour demanded in these orders is forced under threat and is not actually ‘loh ah pay’ at all. Rather than translate this misuse of the term, we have left it intact where it occurs in the orders. The term ‘wontan’ also appears frequently; we have translated this literally as ‘servant’, and it is used by the SPDC to refer to porters and other forced labourers. ‘Operation servants’ are forced labour porters for frontline operations. Many of the orders demand that the village head ‘bring information’ or ‘report information’ to the Army camp; this is a summons for the village head to report intelligence on opposition movements near the village, any visitors to the village, and all activities of the villagers. Reference is made to ‘servants’ fees’, also known as ‘porter fees’; these are the routine extortion fees which villagers must pay to all Army battalions in their area. The texts of the orders often refer to the addressee using a polite term which directly translates as ‘Gentleman’, or ‘in Gentleman’s village’. People’s names are often prefixed with honorifics such as ‘Saw’, ‘Pa’, ‘U’, or ‘Maung’ for men, and ‘Naw’, ‘Daw’, or ‘Ma’ for women. Many orders contain phrases like "if you fail it is your responsibility" or "we will not take any responsibility for your village"; these are threats that village elders will be arrested and detained under torture or houses will be looted and/or burned for failure to comply with the order. Some Battalions in the orders call themselves ‘Frontline’ battalions, indicating that they operate in conflict areas. They also refer to the ‘Tactical Command’, also known as ‘Strategic Command’, a field operations command which usually controls 3 full Infantry or Light Infantry Battalions from a headquarters in the region.
Copies of the full set of Burmese orders in this report are available (with appropriate details blacked out) on approved request from KHRG.
SPDC State Peace &
Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
PDC Peace & Development Council,
SPDC local-level administration
VPDC Village Peace & Development
Council (abbreviated ‘Ya Ya Ka’ in Burmese)
TPDC Township Peace & Development
Council (abbreviated ‘Ma Ya Ka’ in Burmese)
DKBA Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, Karen
group allied with SLORC/SPDC
IB Infantry
Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LIB Light Infantry
Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
KNU Karen National Union, main
Karen opposition group
KNLA Karen National Liberation Army, army of
the KNU
Nga Pway ‘Ringworm’, derogatory SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA
Kyat Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat
at official rate, 300+ Kyat at current market rate
Viss Unit of weight measure; one
viss is 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds
Pyi Volume of rice equal to 8
small condensed milk tins; about 2 kilograms / 4.4 pounds
Taun Burmese unit of measurement equalling
1.5 feet or ½ metre (elbow to fingertip)
Twa Burmese unit of measurement equalling
8-9 inches or 20-22 cm (one handspan)
Click on any of the headings below to go to that section of
the report.
Note that the Orders are saved in Table format and longer sections such as
Forced Labour may take 2-3 minutes to come up on your screen.
Preface
............................................................................ 1
Terms and Abbreviations
...................................................... 3
Table of Contents
............................................................... 4
Map: Karen Districts
............................................................ 5
Restrictions on Activity and Movement
.......... (#1-14) ................ 6
Permits and Passes
................................... (#15-25) .............. 16
Forced Labour ........................................
(#26-132) ............. 23
A) General Forced Labour
.................. (#26-115) .............. 23
B) Forced Labour on Infrastructure
....... (#116-126) ............ 63
C) Forced Labour Fees
....................... (#127-132) ............ 69
Orders to Provide Military Support ............... (#133-152)
............ 75
Extortion of Food, Money and Materials ........ (#153-201)
............ 85
Rice / Crop Quotas and Taxes ..................... (#202-210)
............ 107
Health, Education and
Pagoda-building .......... (#211-221) ............ 111
Summons to ‘Meetings’ .............................
(#222-283) ............ 117
DKBA Orders ..........................................
(#284-291) ............ 141
‘Karen Peace Army’ Propaganda Letter
......... (#292) ................. 145
[Click on any of the above headings to go to that section of
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