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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 tend 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, tractors or elephants for use by the Army, because such orders implicitly force the owner to go along and do forced labour driving his/her bullock team, tractor or elephant (see Orders #21, 115, 116, 121, 182, and 186, among others; Orders #115 and 116 clearly state that the demand for bullock carts means "people, bullocks, and cart"). Also included are some notes written by village heads on the forced labour they have been forced to send; some of these they have written on the order papers themselves (we have noted where this occurs), but they have also written up some of their own lists (see Orders #168 and 220). In addition to all of 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". 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.
Each of the orders below demands anywhere from one to over 100 villagers at a time for forced labour. Most of the demands specifying one or only a few people are for rotating forced labour as messengers and general servants at an Army camp or as porters with mobile patrols. Demands for larger scale projects, such as transporting a rations shipment or clearing the scrub along roadsides, often demand one person per family (for example, Orders #155 and 181) or specify a total of 20, 30, 80 or 100 people per village (see Order #144). The orders do not usually discriminate by gender, though some orders specify men only (such as #141, 144 and 162) while others specifically demand women, such as Orders #150 and 157, or Orders #55 and 201, which specify that if no men are available then women must come. Facing several demands for forced labour at once, many villagers have no alternative but to send their children so that the parents can work their fields. SPDC officers generally show no reluctance to force children to do hard labour, though they prefer adults because they can do more work. For this reason, Order #201 specifies that if there are no men women can be sent, but not children. Order #1 is more explicit: "When you sent the loh ah pay from the village, they were children, so the work is not going well. Therefore, send adults when loh ah pay is to be done." Though he is not happy with their work, the LIB 308 officer who wrote this order makes no mention of exempting the children from the work until the adults arrive.
Many of the orders are not specific about the nature of the labour, simply calling a group of people to come. In most cases these are for forced labour as servants, messengers and doing sentry duty and general maintenance at the Army camp, or carrying supplies. Some orders specifically demand villagers to carry Army supplies (Orders #130 and 156) or to build Army camps (Orders #59, 75, 145, 146, and 147). Those for larger scale labour are usually more specific; for example, there are several demanding forced labour on road and bridge construction (see Orders #54, 101, 138, 149, 160, and 197). 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. Apart from building and maintaining roads, villagers are also forced to clear wide ‘killing grounds’ along both sides of roads used by the Army. For example, Order #185 orders everyone in 6 villages to work for 6 days clearing all vegetation for 75 yards to either side of an Army road. Other similar orders include #2, 9, 10, 13, 26, 84, and 209. These ‘killing grounds’ are intended to make it more difficult for resistance forces to mount ambushes on Army convoys or landmine the road, and they also make it difficult for anyone, including fleeing villagers, to cross the road. Orders #2 and 140 demand that a village return to do the work again because they didn’t cut the area clearly enough; Order #2 goes on to threaten that if the village fails to do so it will be forcibly relocated. Order #206 demands that villagers build fences along both sides of the road for the same purpose. Once these security measures are taken, the villagers are forced to do rotating 24-hour or 48-hour shifts of forced labour standing as unarmed sentries every few hundred metres along the road (see Order #24, which also orders them to build sentry huts for the purpose, and Order #22); they are supposed to report any movement to the Army camp, and if anything subsequently happens along their stretch of road their village is held responsible and punished. Order #184 warns that "If anything happens along the road, it will be the Chairperson’s responsibility so [you] will have to pay compensation."
SPDC Army units are also confiscating farmland and calling on villagers more and more to grow food for them; see for example Order #317 under "Set to a Village II: Village B, Papun District", which calls villagers to weed the Battalion’s ricefield, and Order #30, in which an officer tells the village headwoman to hand over the chickens he has ordered her to breed for him. Forced labour demands even include the absurd or trivial; for example, the demands of an LIB #xxx officer for a village headwoman to sew his clothes expressed in Orders #218 and 219.
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.
Many military units and lower-level officers send their orders for forced labour directly to the heads of each village in the area, but some higher commanders and military units use the head of the village nearest their camp as a conduit, sending orders to him and leaving it to him to allocate the demands among the villages in the area. This is why some of the orders for forced labour below are addressed from a village head or village tract head to another village head. In the end it is usually the village head receiving the order who must 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 ‘permanent’ or ‘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. Villagers forced to go for ad hoc forced labour are often kept much longer than originally specified, and ‘rotation’ labourers often have to keep working longer than their shift because the village fails to send replacements on time; in these cases, they run out of food and the Army sends orders to their village to send food for them (see for example Orders #76, 88, and 89). Orders for work such as road building or clearing often specify a length of road or a specific assignment and a deadline instead of specifying the number of workers; in these cases, it is up to the village head to decide how many people must go to finish the work in the specified time. 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 ‘Chairperson, 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 second or 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. The threats for failure to comply are often vague, such as "If you fail it will be the Chairperson’s responsibility", but some are more explicit: for example, Order #203 tells the village head that if he/she doesn’t send 8 people for forced labour by 2 p.m., "know that your village will suffer". Order #178 demands 2 villagers and adds, "If you fail, we will send a bomb", meaning they will shell the village. Orders such as #131 threaten "serious action", while Order #74 says that if the village head does not pay a fine for 2 villagers who failed to show up, "[I’m] not going to take any responsibility for xxxx village", meaning the village may be destroyed or relocated as punishment. Order #2 tells several villages that their work clearing the scrub from the roadsides was "not satisfactory", and threatens that if they do not come back to do it again their villages will be forcibly relocated. The anger of the SPDC officers at not being sent their forced labour is clear in orders such as Order #109: "Has your xxxx [village] not arranged the matter of rotation servants? Do you not understand that you are responsible for the village? Do we need to resolve this? Don’t act like you don’t care about us. We have already written letters to you twice. If we arrive at the village it will not be good for our relationship. You must understand that." One of the strongest threats is stated in Order #187: "No one came in accordance with the call for servants when the Strategic Command went back, so the Head yourself must come to clear [the matter]. If [you] don’t come, [we] will call you with the Mobile Column. … Every time [we] call for servants from the Village Head, [you] give many excuses and avoid it. In future, if battles or landmines occur concerned with your village, the village will be destroyed."
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. In addition to threats, villagers are also fined for failing to show up for work; sometimes this is stated as a fine (Order #74), while sometimes it is claimed that people had to be hired in their place and they must reimburse the cost (Orders #8, 15, and 52). Villages supposed to send people on a ‘permanent’ rotating basis for forced labour frequently fail to send a new shift of people on time because no one is available, and this results in orders from the Army to "come and replace the servants" with fresh people, particularly if the workers already at the camp have run out of food. Usually the Army will not release the rotation workers until their replacements arrive; for example, Order #170 states, "Yesterday I didn’t get the messenger that I asked for, so I didn’t release the bullock cart driver yet. In your village there are about 100 houses. I will tell [you] one more thing. One person is always a messenger for me, so send [one messenger] together with the messenger who comes now. When the day is finished come to change [the messengers]. If you don’t send one with the messenger who comes now, we won’t release the bullock cart driver."
SPDC officers get particularly angry when forced labourers flee before their shift or their work assignment is done, and usually fine the village or demand that the people be identified and brought back for punishment. Order #44 demands a fine of rice and pork for villagers who fled, while Order #60 demands a fine of 5,000 Kyat in cash; Order #73 demands that the 2 villagers who fled be brought back, plus an additional 2 people for forced labour. Other similar orders include #29, 61, 64, 189, 210, and 212, the last of which states, "All of the sentries went back. Uncle is angry. As soon as you receive this letter now, send back all the sentries. Send them effectively, Mother." Order #133 is angrier: "The Mother [Village] Head has sent the 5 villagers and [they] arrived yesterday and [we] are asking them to cut bamboo, but [they] didn’t cut the bamboo and fled back [to their village]. I am very angry about this. As soon as you receive this letter, give quickly 10 villagers to me and include those 5 villagers [who fled the day before]. We are treating the villagers from xxxx well, but think that we can’t continue like this. We are the soldiers, if [you] want us to deal [with you] brutally, we can. [We are] Not satisfied at all on this matter. … [We] Asked for thatch and it didn’t arrive. [We] Asked for people, but [they] didn’t do anything and ran back. So, there is no reason to accommodate [you]. If [you] can stay without coming, stay [in your village]. That is all there is to tell."
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. Demands for such ‘fees’ can be seen in the section ‘Extortion of Money, Food, and Materials’ below. 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. Some villages also hire people to go in their place. When the Army channels its forced labour demands to small villages through a village tract head or the head of a garrison village, some village tract heads automatically hire people to go for the labour and then send demands for money out to the smaller villages to cover their share; systems like these can be seen in the sections "Set to a Village I" and "Set to a Village II" below, and in both cases the village tract head tries to force the villages to send people instead of money. 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.
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. 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 Villages 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 Villages 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. In June 2000 the ILO voted to implement Article 33 of its constitution beginning in November if the SPDC failed to show concrete progress in reducing forced labour by that time. Article 33, which had never before been used in the ILO’s 83-year history, stipulates that the ILO will press its member governments, labour and employers’ organisations, and United Nations agencies and others to review their relations with the SPDC to ensure that these do not encourage the use of forced labour.
In response, the SPDC claimed again to be acting against forced labour, and this time there were reports from some SPDC Army deserters and villagers that vague orders had come down that forced labour should not be used for personal profit, but would still be used for everything else. Even these same villagers and deserters stated that nothing was done to reduce forced labour as a result. For example, a 19-year-old Lance Corporal who fled SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #549 in Pa’an District in December 2000 told KHRG, "The SPDC said they won’t call Wontan [‘servants’, meaning porters] after November [2000], but it isn’t true. They call Wontan [porters] and Loh Ah Pay [other forced labour]. They forced the civilians to dig toilets. They forced them to dig the earth, to build the road and forced them to weave baskets for the porters. They force them to do everything. They force them to send firewood for charcoal and firewood for the brick kilns [brick kilns owned by the Army. The bricks made there are sold by the officers for personal profit]. After the villagers cut the wood they have to send it by bullock cart. Later, they don’t want do it anymore. They are tired of it. … I heard that the senior leaders ordered it [a reduction in forced labour]. But they didn’t stop it. They still call people to go." [see Interview #2 in "Abuse Under Orders: The SPDC & DKBA Armies Through the Eyes of their Soldiers" (KHRG #2001-01, 27/3/01)]. In practice there has been no restriction placed on forced labour for the military, which the ILO has repeatedly stressed as its strongest concern, and no mention of punishment for those using forced labour. Orders for forced labour of all kinds continue to be issued throughout Burma as steadily as they ever were; this report alone contains approximately 300 direct orders for forced labour (contained in this section and the three ‘Set to a Village’ sections) and over 50 orders requiring forced labour to supply wood, bamboo, thatch and other materials (contained in the section ‘Forced Labour Supplying Materials’). These orders come from many different battalions and SPDC authorities in six different regions, issued up to and including January 2001. Of all of these orders, the only one making any reference to cutting back on forced labour is Order #151, issued in October 2000, which states, "Except for operations and security affairs which require operations servants, civilian servants/carts are not allowed to be used for administrative affairs." No further explanation or details are included in this order, and it is important to note that the exceptions of ‘operations and security affairs’ include all forced labour for the military. Similarly, Order #18 in "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" (KHRG #2000-04, 12/10/00), issued in October 1999, states, "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’". Again, the stated exceptions of "military operation servants" and "matters concerning the whole population" such as infrastructure go directly against the recommendations of the ILO and the supposed stipulations of Order 1/99. Furthermore, in this order 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. After reviewing the situation once more in November 2000, the ILO decided to implement Article 33 and since that time has been communicating with governments, ILO member organisations, and international bodies regarding their relations with the SPDC.
The SPDC also claims to be using convict labour instead of civilians, but while it is true that they are using convict labour more than ever before, this has not reduced demands for forced labour on civilians; instead, they are simply using much more forced labour in total to support their ever-expanding Army [for more information see "Convict Porters: The Brutal Abuse of Prisoners at Burma’s Frontlines" (KHRG #2000-06, 20/12/00)]. The only order obtained for this set which makes reference to convict labour is Order #7, which tells village heads to report and hand over any convict labourers who arrive in their village after fleeing the SPDC.
This section contains most of the direct orders for forced labour, but some such orders have also been included in the sections "Set to a Village I", "Set to a Village II", "Education", and "DKBA Letters". Orders which indirectly require forced labour are included in all sections of this report.
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Stamp: When you sent the loh ah pay from the village, they were children, so the work is not going well. Therefore, send adults when loh ah pay is to be done. Send them early. Send them to arrive at 8 o’clock at the work place.
You are informed. [On the back this order says, "Help with 50 kyat tha [800 g/1.75 lb] of sesame paste." Note that the officer has not refrained from using the children for the work; he is only complaining because they are too small so the work is not going well.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To:
25-9-99 Subject: Informing you to come to 21-Mile [We] Have already given the villages the duty to cut the brush on the left / right sides of the road from 21-Mile to 18-Mile, but the cutting and clearing is not satisfactory, and [we] have already [sent] this letter three times for the [village] heads to come to meet. If [you] don’t come again now, according to the directive of the Strategic Operations Command, [we] will move [your village] to a better place for security reasons, letting you know. If the heads do not come, the xxxx Strategic Operations Command will arrange to move [the villages], we inform you again. Ko aaaa, come without fail.
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #3 (Papun) To: xxxx [village]
6-11-99 Mother, letting you know and informing you with this letter. Mother and 6 loh ah pay people must come together with the messenger who has come now. Come quickly to yyyy camp, you are informed. If [you] have green
chillies,
yyyy camp ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #4 (Papun)
Stamp: To:
11-11-99 1) As soon as you receive this letter now,
the Elder yourself must come quickly to meet at yyyy camp. Obey.
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________
Stamp:
To: As soon as you receive this letter now, send without fail 2 loh ah pay servants to yyyy at the zzzz river bridge, to arrive today at 17:00 hours. Place: yyyy
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #6 (Papun) To: Chairperson
Date:
20/11/99 From xxxx village send ([blank]) people as rotation servants, Chairperson yourself come to bring them to arrive on 20-11-99 at yyyy camp, you are informed.
[Sd.] [‘Rotation servants’ are villagers who must go for constantly rotating shifts of forced labour.] ______________________________________________________________________________
Stamp: The servants who are being used in our Columns/Companies are convicts who are being punished. If you see any servants who have fled and escaped from the Column, come quickly to report the information to the nearest Columns.
[Sd.]
21/11/99 [The SPDC uses prison convicts along with villagers to do forced labour, especially as porters and on major infrastructure projects; the convicts are treated brutally and are often forced to work until they die or escape. See "Convict Porters: The Brutal Abuse of Prisoners on Burma’s Frontlines" (KHRG #2000-06, 20/12/00).] ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Chairperson
Date:
24-11-99 1) For fencing duty, xxxx village must come and complete the fencing by 30-11-99. 2) You have already been informed to send 2 rotation servants to arrive on 20-11-99, but they have failed to come up until today. During the failure for 5 days from 20-11-99 through 24-11-99 [we] had to hire 2 servants from yyyy, so come quickly to give the servants’ hiring fees of 800 Kyat for each day. Send 2 rotation servants, you are informed.
[Sd.] [On the back is written, "Important. Send quickly." ‘Rotation servants’ are villagers who must go for constantly rotating shifts of forced labour. The camp wouldn’t pay to hire people from yyyy village, they would simply demand more forced labourers; however, they use the failure to send forced labour as an excuse to demand money from the village.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To:
Stamp: Subject: To cut the scrub along the right/left of the road Regarding the above subject, the Elder’s village must take the responsibility to cut the scrub along the right/left of the vehicle road. [You] Must come to clear until finished the miles which have been specified on the 27th/28th/29th. When finished cutting and clearing the scrub, the one who takes responsibility for the village must come to report to the Column, you are informed. Place: yyyy camp
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To
Stamp: Subject: To cut the brush on the right and left sides of the road Regarding the above subject, the Elder’s village must take the duty for cutting the brush on the right / left side of the road at the specified miles. Come to clear it completely on the 27th / 28th / 29th [of November 1999]. When the brush is cleared completely, one responsible person [village head or other village leader] from the village must come to report to the Column, you are informed. Place: yyyy Camp
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________
Stamp:
To: The village head yourself must come and bring 1 person from each house of civilians who are staying in xxxx to yyyy village with 3 days of rations on 27-11-99, you are informed. If they don’t come from your village, it will be the responsibility of the village head.
[Sd.] [The village heads of large villages, particularly if it is the centre of a village tract, are often ordered by SPDC units to issue the orders demanding quotas of forced labour from all the smaller villages in their areas. The SPDC-appointed village head is referred to as the Chairperson of the Village Peace and Development Council.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #12 (Papun)
Stamp:
30-11-99 The subject is that each village has to pay for the cost of boat diesel, [illegible] Kyat. [I] Have sent back the loh ah pay people. It must be carried by boat [it is better to carry the supplies by boat than by forced labourers]. If we use people, they are not free to work their paddy fields. Then send 1 loh ah pay servant from each village to yyyy village on 1-12-99, you are informed. If the people cannot come, you can come and hire people for 500 Kyat per day in yyyy village. You must come to send the price of the diesel and the servants. Therefore, I am insisting that you must send it. That’s all.
[Sd.] [This order followed Order #11, and the ‘loh ah pay people’ mentioned here are those who were demanded in that previous order.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Mother Head, xxxx [village] From xxxx [village], the scrub still has to be cut on the left and right sides of the road between yyyy and zzzz. Come to cut it tomorrow, 1-12-99, you are informed.
[Sd.] 30-11-99 ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #14 (Papun)
Stamp: To: As soon as you receive this letter now, the Chairperson yourself must come without fail with 1 servant for loh ah pay to yyyy village, to arrive today, 2-12-99, and meet with the Column Commander. Date: 2/12/99
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Chairperson
6-12-99 When you receive this letter, from 15-11-99 to 30-11-99 the two rotation servants failed [to come]. [People] Had to be hired from yyyy village in place of these servants, so for the servants’ fees send without fail 4,000 Kyat exactly to arrive on 7-12-99. Send it without fail. If the Chairperson cannot come a representative must bring it, you are informed.
[Sd.] [The servants’ fees are the money supposedly used to hire people to take the place of the villagers who didn’t show up for rotating shifts of forced labour as ordered during the 15 day period specified.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #16 (Papun) To: Chairperson
Date:
10-12-99 1) The rations have to be carried from the bank of the river at yyyy to the camp. Chairperson yourself come and bring 15 men from xxxx village together with 3 days of rice on 12-12-99, you are informed. 2) If [you] fail it will be the responsibility of the Chairperson.
[Sd.] 10-12-99 [Written on the back: "Important, send quickly. Pass on [to other villages]".] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #17 (Papun)
Stamp: To: Now, as soon as you receive this letter, the Chairperson yourself must come without fail to yyyy camp to bring replacements for the 3 servants who went back [to their village], you are informed. Place: yyyy camp
[Sd.]
15-12-99 [Three villagers have fled from forced labour, and this order demands replacements for them.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #18 (Papun) To: Chairperson Subject: Sending back the loh ah pay servant Regarding the above subject, the 1 loh ah pay servant from the Elder’s village who we are sending back now did his duty well, so for this 1 servant, give him a chance to be free from the [forced labour] rotation for 3 weeks, you are informed. Place: yyyy camp
Stamp: ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #19 (Papun)
Stamp: Now, when [you] receive this letter, send 3 servants from xxxx [village] with rice for 3 days. Moreover, send 4 bowls [6.4 kg/14 lb] of rice again. Date: 25-12-99
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #20 (Papun)
Stamp:
To: As soon as you receive this letter now, come quickly to yyyy to replace the 2 servants, and bring along the rice for the servants, you are informed. If [you] have any sticky-rice, bring one bowl [1.6 kg/3.5 lb] to give [us]. Place: yyyy
[Sd.] [To ‘replace the 2 servants’ means that the forced labourers from the village have already finished their shift, but they will not be released until the village provides replacements for them.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Informing you to send bullock carts Regarding the above subject, the Head yourself must come and bring 5 bullock carts to yyyy camp on 28-12-99 to arrive at 0600 hours, you are informed. Place: yyyy camp
Stamp:
[Sd.] 27-12-99 ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Chairperson
Date: 1-1-2000 As soon as you receive this letter now, the Chairperson yourself must bring road sentries and report without fail to the Column at yyyy. If [you] fail, it will be the responsibility of the Elder, you are informed.
[Sd.] [‘Road sentries’ are villagers for forced labour as unarmed sentries along the road. They must watch for any activity along the road and report it to the military column; if anything subsequently happens along the road, their village is held responsible and punished.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #23 (Papun)
Stamp:
To: Now, as soon as you receive this letter, replace the servants. Gather them at yyyy camp on 3/1/2000. Bring along ration rice. Place: yyyy
camp
[Sd.] [‘Replace the servants’ means to bring villagers to take over for those already doing forced labour.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Stamp:
8-1-2000 As soon as you receive this letter now, to build the vehicle road sentry huts and to sentry, send quickly 5 villagers from the Elder’s village with full rations. Chairperson, come to send 1 cart to the Company Commander at yyyy on the Kway Thay river. If [you] fail, it will be the responsibility of the Elder, you are informed.
[Sd.] [On the back this order is addressed "To Chairperson, xxxx village. Important/Urgent."] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #25 (Papun) To:
Chairperson
8-1-2000 The Chairperson yourself must come to bring the sentries from chairperson’s village along with food rations on 8-1-2000 to arrive at 1200 hours, you are informed. If [you] fail, it is the responsibility of the chairperson, you are informed.
[Sd.
8-1-2000] [On the back of this order it is marked ‘Important. Send Urgently’. ‘Sentries’ means villagers to do forced labour as unarmed sentries at the Army Camp or along the road.] ______________________________________________________________________________
Stamp: To:
Date:
9-1-2000 To cut the scrub on the left and right sides of the vehicle road, call one person per house from the Elder’s village. The Chairperson/Village Head yourself must come to arrive at the yyyy river tomorrow, 10-1-2000, at 7 o’clock in the morning, you are informed. If [you] do not come, it will be the responsibility of the Elder, you are warned.
[Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #27 (Papun) To: Chairperson (U aaaa) 10/1/00 - The Chairperson yourself must come at once tonight with 5 servants. If [you] don’t arrive before daybreak, it will be the responsibility of the Chairperson.
[Sd.] [On the back this order is addressed "To Chairperson U aaaa, xxxx village".] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #28 (Papun) To: U aaaa
10/1/00 - Now, as soon as you receive this letter,
there is an emergency so send 5 servants with the one who
[Sd.] |