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Notes: Some details of this report have been omitted or replaced by 'xxxx', 'yyyy', 'aaaa' etc. for Internet distribution. To preserve formatting, the order translations have been saved in 'table' format, so this report is best viewed in a window maximized to your full screen width. Otherwise, you may have to scroll left and right to see the full text.
Following are the direct translations of just over 250 order documents and related
letters sent from State Peace & Development Council (SPDC), Democratic Karen Buddhist
Army (DKBA), and Karen Peace Army (KPA) military units and local authorities to villages
in Pa’an, Dooplaya, Toungoo, Papun, Thaton and Nyaunglebin Districts of Karen State,
southeastern Burma (click here to see a
map of the region). They were issued between mid-1999 and September 2000,
with the vast majority of them dated in the latter half of this period. Villages in Karen
areas receive a constant stream of order documents such as these almost every day, from
all the Army camps near their village as well as the various levels of SPDC authorities,
commanding them to provide people for forced labour, materials and supplies for the Army,
extortion money, food, crop quotas, intelligence and other forms of support for the
military. Many of the orders simply command village elders to rush to Army camps for
‘meetings’ at which military officers dictate lists of demands and threaten them
with punishment for any failure to comply. The orders translated in this report should be
seen as only a small representative sample of the thousands of orders issued to villages
in these areas during this time period. For every order reproduced here, hundreds more are
issued every week. 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.
All of the orders demanding forced labour were issued well after May 14th 1999, which is when the SPDC leadership claims to have issued ‘Order 1/99’ to all of their military and administrative units to halt conscription of forced labour under the Village Act and the Towns Act, colonial-era laws which allow authorities to press-gang labour under certain circumstances. In practice, most of the demands made by the military and SPDC authorities violate the conditions of these Acts (for example, that only able-bodied and unemployed men be conscripted), and when demanding forced labour the authorities almost never even make reference to the Acts. Since May 1999 there has been no abatement in orders issued demanding forced labour, and the fact that those included below were issued by many different SPDC battalions and authorities in 4 different regions shows that such demands are not isolated incidents. In June 2000 the International Labour Organisation gave the SPDC until November to take measures to bring an end to forced labour, but the orders in this report dated right up to the end of September indicate that no such measures have been taken.
The report has been divided into sections according to the types of orders. Some orders span two 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. For each topic a short summary has been included to explain the context in which the orders were issued. ‘Forced Relocation’ includes orders directly related to the forced relocation of a village in Toungoo District, while ‘Passes and Restrictions’ contains a movement pass of the type required by villagers whenever they leave their village, and demands for family lists and photographs as a means of controlling the movement and activities of villagers. In the section ‘Threats and Propaganda Letters’, the SPDC orders villagers to beat Army deserters to death and threatens to burn their villages if they don’t do it (Order #10), decrees that villages will be directly punished for any opposition activity in their area (Order #11), and vows to annihilate a Karen civilian organisation (Order #13). ‘General Forced Labour’ includes orders which directly demand that villagers do forced labour at Army camps, along roads and at other worksites, while ‘Forced Labour Supplying Materials to the Army’ includes those which indirectly demand forced labour by ordering villagers to cut, prepare and haul logs, planks, bamboo, thatch and other materials to local Army camps. The section ‘Rice/Crop Quotas and Farming Matters’ includes orders relating to the rice which farmers are forced to hand over to the SPDC, and the full text of a ‘paddy buying agreement’ (Order #159) which dictates a 17% interest rate on quota rice which is unpaid due to crop failures - thereby forcing farmers into an inescapable spiral of debt. Other sections contain orders extorting money and food and orders to provide intelligence. Under ‘Foreign Corporate Involvement’, Order #174 directly mentions a Dutch company’s involvement in the Burmese teak trade. Under ‘Education and Health’, we see an Artillery officer running a school Parent-Teacher Association (Order #176), demands that villagers give money and labour for SPDC schools and training courses, a list of political qualifications required for admission to teacher training (Order #181), an order that well-known writers not be allowed to give lectures on literature without prior military approval (Order #175), and an order threatening any villager who does not build and ‘systematically use’ a proper toilet (Order #182). The section ‘Summons to Meetings’ contains orders calling village elders to Army camps to receive all of the above types of demands, and sometimes threatening to label them as ‘hard-core’ or shell their villages if they fail to show up (see Orders #200 and 234). All orders issued by groups other than the SPDC have been separated out and placed in the sections ‘DKBA and KPA Letters’ and ‘Other Topics’.
Originals of most of these orders were obtained by KHRG researchers in each region, and a significant proportion were also gathered by field researchers for the field offices of the Federated Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB). KHRG would like to thank the field researchers of the FTUB for their extensive help in gathering these orders, and for working with KHRG to translate many of them. With the exception of those under ‘DKBA and KPA Letters’ and ‘Other Topics’, they were issued by local SPDC 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".
Notes on the Text
Within each section below, we have sorted the orders chronologically, beginning with the oldest and proceeding to the most recent, with any undated orders included at the end of the section. The heading for each order includes its region of origin in parentheses: Pa’an, Dooplaya, Toungoo, Papun, Thaton or Nyaunglebin. The map shows the relative location of these districts.
Most of these orders were handwritten, some typed, and carbon-copied or copied on a cyclostyling machine if sent to more than one village. Many of them have been produced as form letters for distribution to many villages, with the village name and any other specific details written in afterwards by hand. The orders were written in Burmese with the exception of some of those included under ‘DKBA and KPA Letters’.
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 to have the exact same meaning in English. Moreover, 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 1362 is the period from April 2000-April 2001, 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 and Army camp names have been replaced with ‘xxxx’, ‘yyyy’, etc. where necessary to protect villages from retaliation.
Most orders are addressed to the ‘Chairperson’, who is the SPDC-appointed Chairperson of the Village Peace and Development Council (VPDC). This council, consisting of a Chairperson, Secretary, and Members, is supposed to administer the village for the SPDC, which mainly consists of arranging whatever the Army demands. Other orders are addressed to the ‘Village Head’, who is head of the village elders, and is often the same as the VPDC Chairperson. 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. The local Army often dictates demands to the Township or Village Tract PDC leaders, who then divide the demands among the villages and issue the written orders.
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 recipient of the order (usually the village Chairman) using a polite term which directly translates as ‘Gentleman’, or ‘in Gentleman’s village’. 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.
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
KPA Karen Peace Army, a
small group under SPDC control in Dooplaya District
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)
You may proceed sequentially through the report, or click on
any of the headings below to go directly to that section of the report.
Preface (top of report)
Terms and Abbreviations
Table of Contents
Map
Forced Relocation
................................................ (Orders
#1-5)
Passes and Restrictions
.......................................... (#6-9)
Threats
and Propaganda Letters
............................... (#10-14)
General Forced Labour
.......................................... (#15-95)
Forced Labour Supplying Materials to the Army ............ (#96-112)
Orders
to Provide Intelligence and Support .................. (#113-124)
Extortion
of Money, Food and Supplies ....................... (#125-158)
Rice/Crop
Quotas and Farming Matters ....................... (#159-173)
Foreign Corporate Involvement
................................ (#174)
Education and Health
............................................. (#175-182)
Summons
to ‘Meetings’
........................................... (#183-239)
DKBA
and KPA Letters
............................................ (#240-254)
Other
Topics
........................................................ (#255-257)
[You may proceed sequentially through the report, or click on any of the headings above to go directly to that section of the report.]
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For the past 2-3 years in Toungoo District, the SPDC has divided villages into those they can directly control with Army camps (‘Peace villages’) and those which are harder to reach in the hills (‘Hiding villages’), and all of the latter have been ordered to move and destroyed, forcing the villagers to flee into hiding in the hills where they still struggle to survive. In addition, even ‘Peace villages’ which are perceived as being uncooperative or where opposition activity has occurred nearby are then ordered to relocate. The sequence of orders below began when one such village in Toungoo District was ordered to relocate in July 2000, most likely for failure to comply with demands for forced labour on the xxxx - yyyy vehicle road and for the continuing KNLA activity in the region. At present, we have been unable to confirm whether this village is still in place or not. For more information on events in the area, see the KHRG report "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/00).
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Stamp: To: The higher authorities have ordered that your village be relocated. Important. Bring the family list of the village and report to yyyy [camp] as soon as you receive this letter, you are informed. [Sd.]
21-7-2000 [This relocation order was followed by a sequence of orders as the Army tried to implement the relocation, including Orders #2, 3, 4, and 5. It appears that the villagers may have tried to pay their way out of being relocated, but the officers became increasingly frustrated with the headman until they threatened to shoot him in Order #5.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #2 (Toungoo) Stamp: To: Chairperson and Secretary, come as soon as you receive this letter. If [you] don’t come, it will be the exclusive responsibility of the Chairperson and Secretary. We will continue to do what must be done. Now [I] know what the Chairperson and Secretary are doing. Don’t put the blame on us. [Sd.]
22-7-2000 [This order followed the day after the order to relocate the village (Order #1). It appears that the village leaders have failed to accept the order, and may be trying to avoid it by going over the head of the local officers.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #3 (Toungoo)
Stamp: To: Chairperson U xxxx Date: 5-8-2000 Come and report to the Column as soon as you receive this letter to discuss village relocation and buying and selling matters. If [you] do not come, the Column will come [to you]. [Sd.] [This order came approximately 2 weeks after Order #1 ordered the village to relocate. It is normal in such cases for villages to drag their feet, to attempt to ignore the order and then to try to pay their way out of it. At this stage, it appears that the village leaders may have begun negotiating a bribe to be paid to the Battalion in order to avoid being relocated, possibly subject to some restrictions on their ‘buying and selling’ movements.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #4 (Toungoo) To: Chairperson 15th
Aug. ’00 The Major is asking U xxxx, you were told already to meet on Sunday, so why did you fail to meet the Major? Therefore, come quickly to meet as soon as you receive this letter. Yours. [no signature] [This order followed the order to relocate the village (Order #1) and subsequent orders #2 and 3. The village head still didn’t show up, possibly because he knew the Army was intent on forcing them to relocate, so 4 days later Order #5 was sent.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To: U xxxx 19-8-2000 You failed your promise to meet, so I will come when your village is holding the hill god ceremony. As compensation, a bullet will be received. Meet now. [Sd.] [At this point it is clear that the village head is not planning to comply with the forced relocation order, and it is possible that he and many of the villagers have already fled into hiding. If the village tried to pay their way out of the forced relocation, it apparently has not worked.] |
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The documents translated below illustrate some of the means which the SPDC uses to control the movements and activities of villagers. Further examples of such orders can be seen in "SPDC and DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-A" (KHRG #2000-01, 29/2/00). Orders #6 and 7 demand lists and photos of all families in the village, which are later used by SPDC units when they arrest anyone around the village - if the person arrested is not on the list or among the photographs, he or she is automatically accused of being a ‘rebel’ and faces torture and possible summary execution. This often results in the execution of visitors, or villagers who were not around during the registration process. Order #8 relates to one such case, where a displaced person from a relocated village in the hills has been captured in an SPDC-controlled village. After interrogation the SPDC must have realised he is just a simple villager so he is to be released, but probably only after the village head pays a heavy ransom. Order #9 is an example of a movement pass which villagers must always carry when they go anywhere outside their villages. Villagers caught without such documents face summary detention and torture, being taken as porters for indefinite periods, or possibly an accusation of being a ‘rebel’ followed by summary execution. Villagers can do nothing without a pass issued by the military or by a Village or Village Tract Peace & Development Council which has been authorised by the military. If a villager carrying a pass issued by his/her Village Peace & Development Council is subsequently arrested and accused by the military, the village authorities who issued the pass will also be arrested; because of this, the military can feel confident that the village heads are too afraid to issue passes to anyone who may be subject to military suspicion. As an added burden, villagers are often forced to pay for these passes.
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To: Date:
20-6-2000
Respectfully, [Lists such as these are used when villagers are arrested, to see if they are actually from the village they say they are from. As a result, visitors to villages are often suspected and tortured.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Chairperson - Calling for family photographs Regarding this call for family photographs, the Gentleman’s village is informed to send 5 families each day to xxxx Army Camp to be photographed. Date: xx/2/2000 [Sd.] [These photographs will most likely be used as a reference so that anyone found in the area who has not been photographed will be summarily arrested and accused of being a ‘rebel’. Each family will also probably be forced to pay more than the cost to be photographed.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To: U xxxx U xxxx! Your Ywa Bone [‘hiding village’] villager is to be released. Come and meet at xxxx [Army camp] as soon as you receive this letter. If not, …… [Sd.] [In Toungoo District, villages are specified as either ‘Nyein Chan Yay’ (‘Peace’) villages or ‘Ywa Bone’ (‘Hiding’) villages. ‘Peace’ villages are those under the direct control of an SPDC Army unit, while more remote villages are declared as ‘Hiding’ and SPDC units are under orders to destroy the houses and crops and capture or shoot their occupants on sight. This order to the headman of a ‘Peace’ village indicates that they captured someone from a ‘Hiding’ village but will be releasing them - most likely after demanding a heavy ransom from the headman. ‘If not, ......’ is exactly as it appears in the order, implying that if the headman doesn’t come they will probably execute the ‘hiding’ villager. For more information on ‘Peace’ and ‘Hiding’ villages in Toungoo District, see the report "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/00).] ______________________________________________________________________________ Stamp: aaaa, age xx years, (Father) U bbbb, from xxxx village (xxxx village), is one of the ten-house leaders (village heads) from xxxx village, so help [him] with whatever is needed, we recommend. [Sd.] [This is a movement pass issued to a sub-village head. Such passes are required by anyone going from one village to another.] |
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Threats and Propaganda Letters
The orders in this section use both threats and propaganda to demand that the villagers support the SPDC Army and that they give no political support to any opposition group. They give insights into the SPDC military mentality and the intimidation tactics used by the regime. Order #11 makes clear that villages will be punished whenever SPDC columns are attacked. Order #10 gives a shocking insight into the SPDC’s treatment of its own soldiers by ordering villagers to beat any SPDC Army deserters to death, and threatening that if they fail to do so their village may be burned and forced to move. In Order #13, SPDC authorities announce their intention to annihilate a civilian organisation set up by the KNU, and try to intimidate villagers by pretending to know everything about the organisation (disregarding the fact that if they really knew as much as they claim, there would have been no reason to issue this order). Finally, Order #14 is a propaganda leaflet given by SPDC troops to a young boy they kidnapped from the hills of Nyaunglebin District after shooting at him and his father.
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Stamp: Frontline
#xxx Light Infantry Battalion To: Chairperson Subject: Informing to let you know 1) If one or two of our Army people run away from the Column Company and arrive at the village, reassure them and coax them nicely, then when they aren’t looking beat them until they lose consciousness. Then give their weapons to the nearest Column. When you are doing this, if the soldier dies, we won’t take action and we will even give you a reward. 2) If you do not follow and carry out as specified above, we will designate the village as being in contact with rebels and take serious action under articles of the law. Moreover, we will take action up to and including the destruction and relocation of the village. Letting you know and informing you. [Sd.
‘xxxx’] 13/3 Copies to: #xx Military Operations Control
Headquarters [Whenever SPDC soldiers desert, which is becoming more and more common, elders of all the surrounding villages are interrogated under torture, and if any village is suspected of harbouring the deserters then that village is severely punished; in addition, heavy fines are randomly imposed on all surrounding villages. Deserters who are caught are usually extrajudicially executed, though they are sometimes imprisoned. This order goes quite a bit further by ordering the villagers to beat any deserters to death.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Chairperson Subject: Giving a warning Regarding the above subject, if something happens when our Column is travelling it will be the Gentleman’s [your] village’s responsibility. Letting you know and warning you that if this happens again our Column will not be responsible [for the consequences], you are informed. [Sd.] [‘If something happens’ means if the Column is ambushed, encounters landmines or any other opposition. It is normal SPDC procedure to punish villages in the area for any military setbacks suffered by their troops.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #12 (Pa’an) To: Chairperson Stamp: 17-5-2000 The cattle from the Battalion village [the village where the battalion camp is located] trespassed and caused damage. So when you receive this letter, come and meet. Come quickly to look after the cow or we will go to shoot and capture it. We give you our last warning.
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Stamp: Frontline
#xx Light Infantry Battalion To: xxxx village Subject: To abolish the group being
organised by KNU rebel troops in the concerned 1) According to the records captured from Pado Pay Gyi [a KNU official], we know that in Kawkareik township, the "Nabu township PP21, Working Group #5" has formed the groups shown [below] to organise and assign duties to the village tracts and villages. Therefore, you must sign to agree that you have left these groups by 20-3-2000. You must also promise that you won’t do this again later. (a) Village tract (single
female/single male Karen national organisation) (b) Village (single female/single
male Karen national organisation) (c) Village tract justice group (d) Village
tract and village Karen national organisation (e) Township and village tract
sangha [order of monks] group (f) Group to cause dissension
and organise enemy troops (g) Supplies assistance group 2) For the groups shown concerning the village tract/village, we have a register of the names. We also know the names registered which are not shown [those other than the positions mentioned above]. [They] organise and operate as they please, and the village population is forced to carry out duties, and we have also seen people carry these out willingly. We have to operate to abolish this organisation forever (forever). 3) According to this order, we will designate anyone who does not come to give their promise [not to be involved with the above groups] to be one who continues to carry out these duties, and we will take serious (serious) action. You are strongly warned. [Sd.] Copies to: [This is a carbon copied order sent to many villages. Nabu township is in central Pa’an District. ‘PP21’ stands for People Power 21st Century, a small movement started several years ago by some of Burma’s armed opposition groups to organise non-violent resistance among civilians mainly outside urban areas. Despite the claims in this order to ‘know everything’, it is clear from the vague wording of the subgroups named that the SPDC is largely guessing at the operations of the PP21 group.] ______________________________________________________________________________ [On February 23rd 2000, SPDC troops were patrolling in the hills of eastern Nyaunglebin District. They sighted a villager named K--- in the fields and immediately opened fire on him. K--- ran and escaped, but the troops captured his young son and took him with them. Later they gave the boy 500 Kyat and a propaganda leaflet and let him go. The text of the leaflet is translated below. The leaflet consists of 5 short panels, as reflected by the 5 sections below; the first four are in Burmese, and the final panel is in Sgaw Karen. Bold face text and other formatting are shown as they appear in the original.] Words for light A. Ray of light which breaks the
darkness B. Let brothers of the same race
meet and gather again C. Break the darkness and take
the light Agreement If [you] bring information to the Army or Government Authorities, you will be designated as one of the peace [nyein chan yay] representatives and we won’t give you any danger [trouble/abuse], our Army will welcome you warmly and snugly, [we] make this agreement.
[Sd.] Peace Pass Caution When the one holding this pass is travelling, be careful not to confiscate their belongings, abuse them physically, or insult their moral character. If this prohibition is broken, serious action will be taken. Peace Pass All leaders of Kay Eh Nyu [KNU], privates, commanders and soldiers, Right now, Zweh K’Bin land [Zweh K’Bin is a famous mountain near Pa’an] of your brothers, Kayin [Karen] State, in the peaceful red light the whole State is starting to walk on the way to development……. Brothers, for the Karen people’s welfare and Karen State’s welfare, give up the way of violence, join and work urgently with the Tatmadaw [Army] …… Brothers, your parents and relatives and the Karen people can’t escape from the problem of poverty if [you] continue to fight….. Brothers, to work and feed the Karen people whom you love, build up the peace…. Look for the benefit of Karen people, who need the taste of peace, come to join with the Tatmadaw. Brothers… Don’t waver… Don’t think. For the Karen people’s welfare, hold on to this peace pass and come quickly to the nearest Army camp. Tatmadaw [Army] Peace Pass [This final section is a loose Sgaw Karen translation of the preceding section in Burmese] All the Kay Eh Nyu [KNU] leaders and soldiers, Brothers in Kweh K’Baw area, our Karen State - peace and light are appearing. The whole State is developing. All Brothers - for the welfare of Karen people and Karen State, give up the weapons and come to gather, join hands and work with the Tatmadaw. All brothers, for all of your parents and relatives to escape from trouble, don’t continue fighting. All Brothers, for Karen people to stay peacefully, build up the peace. The Karen people need peace and the benefit of work, so look forward, come back to gather and join hands with the Army. All brothers - don’t think or waver. For the Karen people to stay in peace, bring this signature letter and come to the Army camp. Army |
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The most systematic and burdensome abuse inflicted on villagers by SPDC military units and authorities is forced labour, and the orders included below give some impression of the constant stream of demands for all kinds of labour which villages have to face. They include demands for one person per family to go for forced unpaid road labour or to harvest crops for the Army, various numbers of villagers to go as porters carrying munitions and supplies for mobile military columns, forced labour building and maintaining Army camps, carrying Army rations and supplies, acting as unarmed sentries, military messengers and general servants at Army camps, and various other forms of labour. We have also included orders which demand bullock carts or ploughing tractors for use by the Army, because such orders implicitly force the owner to go along and do forced labour driving his/her bullock team or tractor. In addition to all these forms of direct forced labour, villagers are also ordered to provide building materials and other such things to the Army, and producing and transporting these materials is forced labour in itself; these orders have been separated out and included in the next section, "Forced Labour Supplying Materials to the Army". Even orders demanding that village heads run to Army camps to report intelligence or to deliver food, which are included in the other sections of this report, can in their own way be considered forms of forced labour.
Two of the main forms of forced labour are building and repairing roads and working in crop fields for the Army. Roads throughout Karen areas are usually built using forced labour under inept military supervision, so they are washed out every rainy season and have to be rebuilt by more forced labour. Orders #59, 73, and 88 relate to rebuilding roads and clearing the roadsides for the military access road network in central Pa’an District, and Orders #34 and 82 relate to rebuilding damaged roads and bridges in Toungoo District. Over the past few years the Army has also been confiscating plots of farmland everywhere, then forcing villagers to grow crops to feed the Battalions and for the officers to sell for profit; some of this is reflected in Orders #40, 70, and 71. Many of the orders below relate indirectly to these two forms of labour, while the remainder involve forced labour at Army camps and as porters.
SPDC military units demand so much forced labour from the villagers that in many areas there are ‘turf wars’ between different Army camps over the limited number of villagers available for forced labour. One such battle can be seen in Orders #23 and 24 below. In Order #23, SPDC Infantry Battalion #xxx in aaaa [village] demands that villagers cut and haul firewood for brick-baking, claiming it is for the use of Military Operations Command #xx in bbbb [village]. However, when Military Operations Command #xx got wind of this three days later, they sent Order #24 to the Infantry Battalion telling them to lay off the villagers because they were already doing forced labour "to fence the front entrance gate of #xx Military Operations Headquarters with wood, to harvest the fields belonging to the Headquarters Company, and to repair the [soldiers’] family quarters". Order #56 gives a similar example, with one SPDC officer writing to another demanding that his forced labourers be sent back as soon as they’re free so he can put them to work building booby-traps around his camp perimeter. With several different battalions fighting a tug-of-war to use every villager for forced labour, it is difficult to imagine how the villagers are supposed to work for their own survival.
Facing increasing international censure for its systematic use of forced labour, particularly from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the SPDC has repeatedly claimed to have issued ‘secret directives’ and ‘special orders’ barring the use of forced labour. The most recent case occurred when SPDC leaders told the ILO that on May 14th 1999 they had issued Order 1/99, which they claimed instructed officials and military officers to cease conscripting forced labour under the Village Act and the Towns Act, and dictated that violators would be punished. However, as can be seen in the orders below, demands for forced labour never make reference to the Village Act or the Towns Act, and the SPDC admits that until now there has not been a single case of anyone being charged under Order 1/99 for demanding forced labour. Orders for forced labour continue to be issued throughout Burma as steadily as they ever were; this report alone contains over 80 such orders from many different battalions and SPDC authorities in four different regions, all of which were issued 6 to 16 months after May 1999, some as recently as late September 2000. There is no evidence at all that Order 1/99 was ever distributed within Burma, with the possible exception of Order #18 below, wherein Township authorities in Myawaddy town state that "other than calling [people] for military operation servants, matters concerning the whole population, or emergency ‘loh ah pay’ needed to face natural disasters, it has already been ordered not to call for ‘loh ah pay’". However, this order certainly is not calling for an end to forced labour, because calling for "military operation servants" and "matters concerning the whole population" such as infrastructure goes directly against the recommendations of the ILO and the supposed stipulations of Order 1/99. Furthermore, in Order #18 the Myawaddy township officials go on to say that this does not mean that villagers cannot be used for these and other forms of forced labour, but that they must draw up a rotation roster and do the forced labour, and will no longer be allowed to pay money to get out of it. If this is how Order 1/99 is being implemented in the field, it means an increase in actual forced labour, not a decrease.
The orders below usually refer to forced labour as ‘loh ah pay’, a Burmese term meaning voluntary community work such as clearing the path to the next village or repairing the Buddhist temple. By definition, ‘loh ah pay’ cannot be demanded by an Army or a distant central government, it has to be initiated within the local community. As can be seen from the orders below, none of the labour demanded is voluntary and it is demanded under threat; some of the orders threaten village elders with physical punishments if they fail to send the ‘loh ah pay’, or dictate punishments after forced labourers have run away. Rather than attempt to translate ‘loh ah pay’, we have left it as it stands in the orders. Some orders also refer to forced labourers as ‘wontan’ (‘servants’), a term more commonly used to refer to government civil servants; however, none of the labourers demanded in the orders below were paid or compensated in any way. ‘Sit seh nyay wontan’ (‘Military operation servants’) is used to refer specifically to frontline forced labour porters for Army columns, while ‘emergency’ labour usually means ad hoc portering to carry rations and supplies to Army posts. One type of forced labour is called ‘set tha’ (‘messenger’), which essentially means forced labour as military messengers, general servants, errand-runners and occasional sentries at Army camps. Most villages are forced to send one or more people each day on a rotating basis for ‘set tha’ labour at every nearby Army camp. Ironically, it is villagers doing ‘set tha’ forced labour who have to deliver orders such as those in this report from the Army camps to the villages.
Most of the orders are addressed to the village head, who must then decide which villagers must go to fill the quota demanded by the Army. A rotating system between the families of the village is generally used to do this, in order to spread the burden as evenly as possible. However, with so many different forms of forced labour being constantly demanded by every Army unit and SPDC authority in the area, families find that they must send someone for forced labour at least once every week or two. Some of the demands are on an ad hoc basis, such as orders to spend a week building a road or a day fencing an Army camp, while other orders demand ‘servants’ on a ‘rotating’ basis, which means that the village must provide a certain number of forced labourers on a rotation of a few days to a week. The villagers must take along their own food and stay at the Army camp for their rotation, doing labour as messengers, sentries, building and maintaining buildings, bunkers, trenches and fences, clearing scrub, cutting and hauling firewood, hauling water, short-distance portering and any other duties demanded of them. They are usually not released until their replacements arrive. Women often go because the men do not dare face the soldiers, and children often go so that their parents can continue to work in the fields. Some of the orders demand that the village elders or a forced labour ‘leader’ personally accompany the labourers from their village to the worksite (using language such as ‘Gentlemen, come yourselves to bring them’); this is so that the officers can simply give the assignment and then leave the elders to supervise the work, in full knowledge that if the work is not satisfactory the elders will be arrested and punished.
When villages are delinquent in complying with orders for forced labour, the Army or PDC authorities usually respond by sending threatening and angry letters, often written in red ink, until after the third letter the village has little option but to comply or face the possibility of very serious punishment which usually includes the arrest and torture of village elders. Several of the orders below threaten village elders after forced labourers have failed to show up for work. None of the labour mentioned in the orders below is undertaken voluntarily, but always under the direct or implied threat that the village elders or villagers will face serious punishments for any failure to comply. Some of the orders below warn that any failure to comply will be punished, while others mete out specific punishments to villagers who run away or do not perform, demand fines or replacement labourers from the villages, and demand the names of any villagers who have failed to appear or have run away from forced labour. Order #21 even threatens that if the village head fails to arrive at the camp with 3 forced labourers with their own food for 3 days, "we will call with the big gun", meaning that the Army will fire a mortar shell into the village.
It is difficult for villagers to go for all of this forced labour, so they often try to pay bribes to the Army to get out of it, which the orders refer to as ‘paying to hire servants’. For some types of routine forced labour, money is accepted by the local Army officers. However, the Army officers then just pocket the money and demand the labour elsewhere. Eventually, they begin demanding the labour from the same village - so the village has to send the labour while also paying to ‘avoid’ it. Later the villagers may begin paying more in order to avoid the ‘actual’ forced labour as well, first on an ad hoc basis and then on a routine basis, until this too becomes a normal extortion ‘fee’, and the Army takes the money and begins demanding yet more ‘actual’ forced labour on top of it - and so on. In many villages this system has become so formalised that they now pay several types of weekly and monthly ‘servant fees’, ‘porter fees’, and ‘messenger fees’ to various Army camps, while simultaneously doing all forms of forced labour at those camps. Orders such as #134 and #139 in the section ‘Extortion of Money, Food, and Supplies’ below demand regular ‘servant fees’ such as these, while the same Army units also demand actual forced labour. Many Army units demand more forced labour than they really need, then insist that only half of the workers actually be sent and that they be paid money for the remainder. In the case of rotating forced labour such as ‘set tha’ (‘messengers’), on days when the labour is not required the Army does not grant the villagers a day off, but instead demands that money be sent instead of a labourer on that day (see for example Orders #63, 78, and 80).
If the villagers can no longer pay the money, all of these ‘fees’ which have piled up one by one suddenly start being converted back into real forced labour - leaving the villagers with so much forced labour that they are left with little option but to flee the village.
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Order #15 (Pa’an) Stamp: (1) Gentlemen, now, as soon as you receive this letter, come to report information to the Column with 5 bowls [about 10 kg/22 lb] of rice. (2) It is for the servants. If you fail to come, the gentleman [you] will face the responsibility, you are informed. Place: yyyy
[Sd.] [The ‘servants’ (wontan) are forced labourers being held by the Column; the village is being ordered to bring additional food to feed them. Forced labourers are usually ordered to bring their own food, but the Army keeps them longer than the initially specified number of days so they run out of food.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #16 (Pa’an) Stamp: Gentlemen: Come with 3 loh ah pay servants from Gentleman’s [your] village to the Column on 6-9-99 at 0900 hours. If you fail, it will be the Gentleman’s [your] responsibility, you are informed. Place: yyyy
[Sd.]
xxxx ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #17 (Pa’an) Stamp: To: Chairperson Gentlemen, to coordinate the matter of servants, now, as soon as you receive this letter, come quickly to the Column. If you fail, it will be the Gentleman’s [your] responsibility, you are informed. Place: yyyy
[Sd.] [This is a summons to a meeting to dictate demands for forced labour.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Stamp: Township
Peace and Development Council To: Chairperson Subject: The matter of drawing up a rotation roster for performing duties 1) Regarding the above subject, to provide fire sentries, village sentries, bridge and road security sentries from each group of sections/villages in Myawaddy Township, it is known that the concerned Section/Village Peace and Development Councils operate a system of giving wages monthly to fulfil the duties [collecting money monthly to hire people to go for forced labour, or paying in lieu of going]. 2) In the current situation, other than calling [people] for military operation servants, matters concerning the whole population, or emergency loh ah pay needed to face natural disasters, it has already been ordered not to call for loh ah pay. Therefore, regarding the matter of fire sentries, village sentries, sentries for road and bridge security, and loh ah pay concerning the population, it is not allowed to collect money from the whole populace. The people who live in the Sections/Village Tracts must use and implement a system of drawing up a duty rotation roster to start in October 1999. In order to assign duties by rotation to the sections/village tracts, present the roster drawn up to the Township Peace and Development Council in Myawaddy on 30-10-99, you are informed. 3) Moreover, regarding the calling of military operation servants, present the register of money received / money used concerned with military operation servants [for the period] up to 10/99, and carry out the closing of the record book of military operation servants called, you are informed again. [Sd.] Copies to: [This order is written in convoluted language, but the meaning would be fairly clear to village heads. Paragraph 1 acknowledges that the villagers largely collect money instead of going for forced labour for the authorities. Paragraph 2 starts out by claiming that orders have been given not to use forced labour except for portering (military operation servants), natural disasters, and ‘matters concerning the whole population’ (which could be loosely interpreted to include infrastructure projects and almost anything). However, rather than saying that other types of forced labour won’t be allowed, it just says that villagers will no longer be allowed to avoid other types of forced labour by paying money, but will have to do it themselves by rotation; and it goes on to say that a duty rotation roster must be submitted, so that anyone absent from forced labour can be punished. Paragraph 3 demands that the accounts of money paid in lieu of portering be presented and then that the ‘book’ be ‘closed’. In other words, destroy the records. Overall, it appears that orders may have been received that officials accepting money in lieu of forced labour will be punished, so the officials are telling the village heads that from now on they’ll have to give forced labour all the time, that money won’t be accepted, and that any records of money already paid should be ‘closed’. Note that this order was issued 5 months after the SPDC claims to have issued Order 1/99 (May 14, 1999) banning the recruitment of forced labour under the Village Act and the Towns Act; however, in reality they are issuing orders such as this one, demanding that actual forced labour be increased and that villagers no longer be allowed to pay their way out of it.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #19 (Toungoo) To: Chairperson 28-11-99 Subject: Calling for loh ah pay To repair Infantry Battalion #xx’s yyyy camp, yyyy village tract, Chairperson yourself must come and meet the yyyy camp commander to discuss loh ah pay from xxxx village, you are informed.
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #20 (Dooplaya) Stamp: Date Time Chairperson Sir: [Sd.]
xxxxx ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Date:
27-12-99
* List the total of families in the
village
[Sd.] Lieutenant, 27/12/99 [The following is written on the back:] If you do not come, we will call with the big gun. [Sd.] [The Army demands forced labour on a regular basis, but the villagers pay ‘the fees for hiring servants’ instead of going. However, rather than using this money to hire people, the Army then just demands more people, like the ‘3 servants’ mentioned, but still collects the money. The list of families in the village is used to allocate forced labour and extortion demands. The term used for ‘big gun’ implies a mortar which they will fire at the village.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #22 (Dooplaya) Stamp: Date Time Chairperson Sir: On 9/1/2000 (Saturday), IB xxx Captain aaaa (Adjutant/Quartermaster) will come to meet with the VPDC members in the villages of the IB xxx area of control, letting you know in advance, you are informed. All must attend without fail, letting you know in advance, you are informed. For loh ah pay, 3 villages have to work in rotation, so bring one person to lead the loh ah pay. This morning there were only 2 paut pya [a type of hoe used like a shovel] from xxxx [village] and the others had only machetes, so the work is not going well. Find this information [Sd.]
xxxx [This order was issued on December 26th 1999.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Stamp: #xxx
Infantry Battalion To: Chairperson Subject: Requesting firewood for brick baking For the use of #xx Military Operations Control Headquarters to bake bricks, each village must gather 4 piles of firewood at the nearest point along the Kawkareik-Kyone Doh car road. It has to be finished on 31-12-99. When it is done, come to report the information to #xxx Infantry Battalion on 30-12-99, you are informed. [Sd.] [Many SPDC officers make money for themselves by forcing villagers to provide wood and clay to bake bricks, then using their soldiers as forced labour to bake the bricks and selling them on the market. Most battalion camps have brick-baking kilns for this purpose. These villagers are being ordered to deposit stacks of firewood at the point nearest to them along the road, after which it will presumably be picked up by a military truck and taken to the camp. Though this demand is made in the name of Military Operations Command #xx in aaaa, the IB xxx officer in yyyy probably intended to keep most or all of the wood for himself, because Order #24 below shows that Military Operations Command #xx knew nothing of it.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Stamp: #xx
Military Operations Control Headquarters To: Number xxx Infantry Battalion Subject: Request to exempt from orders for firewood for bricks Reference: Number xxx Infantry Battalion letter number xxx/yy/zzz, dated 28-12-99 Right now at this moment, responsibility has been given to xxxx village and yyyy village to fence the front entrance gate of #xx Military Operations Control Headquarters with wood, to harvest the fields belonging to the Headquarters Company, and to repair the [soldiers’] family quarters, so with respect to the letter referenced [above], you are informed to exempt them from the request for firewood.
[Sd.] |
