Villages Under the SPDC

"They designate it as a 'white' area. Even though they call it a white area they do whatever they want to do when they come so the villagers don't know what to do." - "Pa Taw Thu" (M, 36), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #152, 12/00)

SPDC control over Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts is limited to a few areas; the villages in the plains east of the Sittaung River in Nyaunglebin District, the area of Papun town, the villages along the lower Yunzalin River and the Papun - Ka Ma Maung road in Papun District, and the relocation sites along the lower Bilin River in Dweh Loh township of Papun District. Outside that the Army has many camps, but does not firmly control the hills between those camps. The SPDC has created a system for classifying villages; 'black' being resistance controlled, 'brown' being not fully controlled by either side, and 'white' being under full SPDC control. 'White' areas are supposed to have little or no resistance activity, but the reality in Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts is that even 'white' area villages have some contact with the resistance and there is military activity in the surrounding hills. The SPDC often refers to 'white' area villages as 'Nyein Chan Yay' ('Peace') villages, and sometimes tells village elders in 'brown' areas that their villages are to be 'Peace' villages. This is supposed to mean that the village will not be relocated or destroyed as long as all of the demands of the Army and SPDC authorities are met.

"They call it a 'white area'. This means they can control everything. It means there are no more enemies. The SPDC say they do not have any more enemies. It is the area they can control so they call it a 'white area'. They can force the people there [to do things] as they please. The village heads can't take a rest and do their own work. The Ya Ya Ka or Ya Wa Ta [Village Peace and Development Council, or Village Law & Order Restoration Council (the latter is the pre-1997 name)] often calls the village heads to come." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"They call it a 'white' area but they oppress the villagers. Whether we live in a 'white' area or a 'black' area they still force us to work for them. They hurt the villagers and oppress them." - "Saw Eh Muh" (M, 40), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #154, 12/00)

A general characteristic of villages under SPDC control is that there are one or more Army camps in or near the village. The villagers are called upon to provide forced labour, food, materials and money, and troops visit the village on a regular basis. The population consists of people originally from the village who have lived under SPDC control for some time, and those from the surrounding areas who have been forced to move there. Many of the people in SPDC-controlled villages have been through repeated forced relocations within the past 20 years. The relocations generally follow the same pattern. SPDC battalions issue orders to the surrounding villages to move closer to the Army camps, to major villages or to new sites along roads. This is to be better able to control the villagers as well as to provide pools of forced labour. Some of the villagers flee into the forest rather than go to the relocation site. Those who go as ordered are almost immediately forced to go as porters for the soldiers and to perform other forms of labour. In some cases the villagers are ordered to fence the relocation sites, and their access to their fields is either restricted or completely prohibited, at least at first. The relocated villagers eventually begin fleeing secretly back into the jungle near their old villages as they run out of food and the forced labour becomes too much for them. Local officers often see the relocated villagers starving and do not want to deal with the situation, so they turn a blind eye to their escape. If the villagers are lucky, they manage to re-establish some form of their home village without being hunted down by the Army, and in some cases the the Army begins to treat them as de facto villages and once again begins issuing orders to them. Eventually a higher commander may decide that the area is still not resistance-free and that these villages are supporting the resistance, so they will be ordered to be relocated again and the process starts all over again. When this happens, even the relocation sites and 'Peace' villages can find themselves suddenly ordered to move.

'Peace' villages are also regularly threatened with burning, shelling or forced relocation if they fail to comply with demands for forced labour and money, so there is no security in living in a 'Peace' village. Villagers throughout the region now avoid building anything but simple and poor-looking houses, partly because of this insecurity and partly because 'nice' houses are the first targets for looting and extortion by SPDC troops. As the SPDC expands its network of camps and roads throughout the region, it can be expected that villagers will be allowed to re-establish villages which are near the roads and camps, provided they are useful to the Army as forced labour and as a source of food, money and materials.

"They ordered us to move to B—, N—, P—, and T—. It was four years ago. Later, some families came back to stay. They didn't give them permission, but they just came back to stay. But if there is more activity they will not allow people to stay in the village. They order them to stay along the road." - "Saw Thay Po" (M, 31), villager from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #186, 4/00)

"I haven't decided to go back and stay in my village again, but some people went back to build their huts to come back and stay in. They are temporary. Even though they built their houses, they don't know what will happen." - "Saw Bo Lweh" (M, xx), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #10, 4/01)

The Role of the Village Head

"None of the villagers want to be the village head if that is possible, but the villagers like us and need us to do it. They help us and we do this work. If it weren't like this we wouldn't want to do the work. The villagers, village mothers and village fathers selected us. … For me, I don't like to do this job. The villagers elected us so we have to look after the villagers for everything. We have to face the [SPDC] leaders, like the soldiers who are very cruel, and when the other people dare not see them we have to go. When the orders arrive they don't arrive for the villagers, they arrive for the village head." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

The position of village head is perhaps the most difficult. Traditionally the village head is a respected individual in the village who is elected by the other villagers to be their leader. The village head can remain in that position for years. Villagers often distinguish between the KNU village head and the SPDC village head; these can be but are not usually the same person. The KNU village head is responsible for dealing with the KNU, while the SPDC village head is the one who has to face the SPDC soldiers. Dealing with the SPDC can be difficult, and the village head is the first one singled out for abuse when demands are not met or if fighting occurs in the area. Moreover, village heads often have to pay the SPDC's demands out of their own money or livestock if the villagers cannot meet the demands in time. For these reasons many villages have worked out a system whereby the villagers rotate being the village head every month or two. Many of the village heads are now women, particularly elderly women, because the soldiers are less likely to physically abuse a woman than a man or accuse her of being a rebel. Respect for one's mother is very strong in Burmese culture, and SPDC officers tend to be ashamed to behave too badly with village headwomen who remind them of their mothers; many village headwomen have become adept at exploiting this to lessen the demands placed on their villagers. However, officers who are not pleased with a village head often order that they be replaced with someone else, and the villagers have no choice but to comply. Answering the demands of the soldiers as well as handling administration of the village leaves very little time for the village heads to work their own fields. The village head also receives no salary, despite the SPDC's claims of paying them. The villagers support the village head by providing the head and his or her family with rice and other food as a form of 'salary'.

"I have been faced with many problems because I am the village leader. We have to deal with the upper leaders [the township leaders and the military] which is sometimes good but sometimes there is a lot of trouble. It is because we can't pay the taxes or we don't have enough porters to give them. If we don't have enough they say many things to us and we have to suffer what they say. In addition to this we don't have enough time for our own work and our families have problems and complain to us. … Sometimes we have to suffer from the sticks they hit us with. … I don't get a salary but I get many sticks. The villagers understand us and love us. They look after us and help us with rice and paddy. Like the last time when my brother and I didn't have any rice the village leaders, village mothers and fathers [village elders] and the villagers looked after us and we had rice. We didn't have time to work [for ourselves] and sometimes we are hungry and sometimes we starve. Because of this the villagers arrange it for us and we get good luck. About the government giving us a salary, even if we went and asked them to give us a salary maybe they couldn't give it to us." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

"The KNU elected me. The villagers were in agreement about me. I can't ask to leave. In the beginning I worked only temporarily, but later I couldn't leave." - "Zaw Min" (M, 26), village head from xxxx village, Bu Tho township (Interview #220, 4/01); he is both the KNU and the SPDC village head.

"We only dare to be the village head for a month at a time. Two people take turns at being the village head each time. It was our turn to be the village heads and we couldn't argue, we had to take our turn as village heads. The villagers chose us to be the village heads. Everybody has to do it, two people at a time." - "Saw Pa Aye" (M, xx), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #18, 4/01)

"I have been the village head for two years. … I don't know yet. I don't want to be the village head but the villagers chose me to be the village head. It is not that I wanted to be it. I asked to be allowed to resign because I can't run up and down anymore, but they don't let me go. I was not chosen by the SPDC government." - "Saw Nyi Nyi" (M, 37), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #13, 4/01)

"In the present situation, if a man is the village head and the soldiers are not satisfied with something then he will be tortured. They torture the men so the women have to do it. Women are a little weaker so they [the soldiers] don't do anything to them. If they are not satisfied they bother us a little bit. They haven't punched or beaten us [the village headwomen] yet. We change the head once a year." - "Naw Lah K'Paw Mu" (F, 48), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #198, 6/00)

"The villagers thought I should be the village head so they elected me. That is why I can't do anything. We are of the Karen nationality and we have to love each other and stay united. The villagers believed that I should be the village head so they elected me and I have to do it. The villagers accept me because I can speak Burmese to the SPDC and the soldiers are happy with that. The villagers are united, but when they have to do so much forced work, they are tired. When they can't do it, they sometimes find and hire other people. The civilians are very miserable. … They don't give me a single Kyat. They have never given me any Kyat. I am not lying about this. Go and ask. I dare to speak about this. Go and ask all the people living along the Baw Kyo Draw.

A: That isn't true. When they come to my home I have to cook and feed them chicken [which he has bought or raised himself]." - "Mya Aung" (M, 32), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #202, 6/00)

It is the village head who must directly confront the soldiers when they come to demand workers, rice or chickens. Order documents from the SPDC Army or authorities are always addressed to the village head, also called the 'Village Peace and Development Council Chairperson', and most of them contain phrases such as "Do not fail [to comply]. If you fail it will be the Elder's [your] responsibility." He or she must decide which people have to go for forced labour each time, or how a demand is to be divided among the villagers - a difficult task which can lead to bitterness. The SPDC considers the village head to be responsible for the villagers, so it is he or she who is the one blamed when demands are not met, money is not paid, or workers are not provided. The village head is often beaten on the spot, or if the soldiers deem it more serious, taken back to the Army camp and tortured. The torture can sometimes be very severe and village heads have been executed. Village heads are required to report regularly on all activities of their villagers and any resistance activities in the area, and whenever KNLA activity occurs in the area the village heads are accused of providing support. Occasionally village heads are forced to flee the village when they feel that the soldiers will kill them the next time.

"The villagers do not dare to become village headman. When the situation was bad, they did it for 15 days or one month at a time. All the villagers have been the village head. The Burmese try to force us to choose a village head, but none of the villagers dare become village head now. Right now, a villager who becomes the village head must worry that they will have to face demands for 'loh ah pay', 'htain chaw' [porters kept in the camps to carry things whenever it is necessary], and also the Burmese guerrillas [Sa Thon Lon] who are killing the villagers."- "Saw Mu Wah" (M, 40), refugee from K— village, Kyauk Kyi township (Interview #9, 4/00)

"'Loh ah pay' is during the time when the [Army] trucks come and we have to go and clear the road. If your villagers are not united [everyone working], it is the village head's fault and he has to pay money. So if they told us to finish within a certain amount of time and we couldn't, we had to hurry. If we didn't hurry, the SPDC thought that we wouldn't work for them because we had contact with and were supporting Kaw Thoo Lei [KNU/KNLA]. If that happened they tied us up and beat us. We couldn't suffer that, so we had to go and do 'loh ah pay' for them." - "Pati Htay Htoo" (M, 35), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #189, 5/00)

"Sometimes I don't even have rice to eat. They order me to go and change the porters. They write two letters to me every day. I dare not sleep in my own house. The heart of a Burmese is the same as the Burmese themselves. If they kill, then we must die. If they slap my head and my face, I must suffer. I have become afraid of them." - "Saw Than Htoo" (M, 51), village head from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #190, 5/00)

Village heads are called as often as several times a week to go to the Army camp to receive orders, and they also receive written orders almost every day, delivered by villagers doing forced labour as messengers. Some of the villages receive orders from more than one camp at a time, making it difficult for the village head to answer all the demands at once. In some areas the demands of the DKBA and the Sa Thon Lon must also be met. Once the village head receives an order he or she must decide whether to comply immediately or try to put it off. Putting if off allows the village head to buy some time to assemble whatever it is that has been demanded, but it also usually results in another order being sent. If this one is also ignored, the soldiers may come and the village head is punished. At other times the village head is summoned to the Army camp to talk with the commander there. This also usually leads to punishment. The head is also usually instructed to accompany the people sent for forced labour and supervise their work, and is held directly accountable if the work is not to the satisfaction of the officers.

In many villages the village head is forced into debt to cover porter fees or other fees for the villagers. The villagers understand the village head's difficult position, but they are struggling to feed their families so they will try to avoid the labour and demands whenever possible. Some village heads have informed their villagers that the Army has demanded workers and that if the villagers don't want to go then they can flee, but the soldiers will come and capture someone.

"The Burmese do not live around all of them. The villagers live on the side of the road. It is the enemy's area. The other villages are a little farther away. Even the farther villages are considered Nyein Chan Yay villages [by the SPDC] and the soldiers can control them and hold their hands. These villages have a village head and the village head must go to them when the Burmese demand it. If the Burmese order the village head to come and the first time he doesn't come, they will order him a second time. If he still doesn't come, the soldiers will go to the village and call the village head and all the villagers [at this point the village head is often beaten and the villagers taken for forced labour anyway]. They go and call the villagers to work, they force them. The villagers in the plains area are ordered to work by letter. In the letter they say, 'Village head, you must come up.' If they write that you have to come on the date they give. Even if you are afraid you must go. If they do not go the Burmese go to them." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"He demanded five people to go and porter in the jungle but I didn't send any at all. … After three days, he [the officer] came and threatened to kick me. I told him that I was sick and he said, 'Is the whole village sick and about to die? The whole village? Everyone will die?' He was very cruel." - "Saw Tee Maung" (M, xx), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #133, 5/00)

"They write orders to the villagers to come and repair the road and cut the scrub, but they never come themselves. Usually they order the village head to go to them [to receive orders]." - "Naw May Wah" (F, 40+), refugee from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #204, 7/00)

"The village head can't rest. Today he arranges for me [to go and work]. On the next day he must arrange for another person. That is why he can't take a rest. He must go and arrange like this and if he gets a new person he must go again to the SPDC. He must go and come back like this and cannot take a rest. He must arrange the villagers and send them [take them to the Burmese]. After changing the people he must come back alone." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"The Ko Per Baw [DKBA] elected me. Nobody dared to do it because the people are afraid the Burmese would torture them. Everybody is afraid of them. … I am really suffering. When the Burmese come they eat chickens and pigs. They demand to eat chicken. When we don't have them we have to look for them until we are able to get them. They are always coming to ask if their enemy [the KNLA] is far or close. We have to tell them truthfully. If we don't tell them truthfully, they will kill us. … We are working in difficulty because of the Burmese. We have to look for many things. The Burmese are often demanding things. When the Burmese are not demanding the Ko Per Baw are demanding." - "Htun Htun" (M, 42), village head from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #213, 3/01

To: Date: 20-1-2001

Chairperson

Xxxx Village

The loh ah pay [people] from the Elder's village flee very often, so as soon as this letter is received the Elder yourself must come to send 2 loh ah pay people to the sawmill near K—, to arrive on 20-1-2001. If [you] fail, the Elder will be tied up with rope.

For the loh ah pay who fled, [bring a fine of] 2 packets of jaggery and and 2 bowls [4 kg/8.8 lb] of sticky-rice.

[Sd.]

(for) Column Commander

"They demand them but they don't get enough because the villagers can't do it. Sometimes the villagers know the situation early because the Burmese wrote an order to the village head and demanded 'loh ah pay'. The soldiers demand 70 or 80 people. Some people have just gone and recently come back, but then they have to go again. The village head looks and doesn't want to force them to go. So the village head says to the villagers, 'Do as you like. If you don't go, the Burmese will come and capture you.' Some people flee early, and the people who are left are all captured." - "Saw Maung Sein" (M, 40), KHRG field researcher from Papun District (Interview #4, 2/01)

The villages are still visited by KNLA units in search of food and by KNU officials doing community organising, and their demands have to be met as well. Although the KNU is fairer in its demands and does not abuse the villagers, the villages don't have much food, money or other things anymore and it is up to the village head to decide how to answer the KNLA's demands. Village heads in SPDC-controlled villages are under standing orders to report any KNU/KNLA activity in or near their villages. If a village head reports that a KNLA column came and demanded rice from his village, he is punished for supporting the KNLA; but if he doesn't report it, he is punished for withholding information. Village heads explain to the SPDC soldiers that because they live at the frontline they have no choice but to deal with the KNU/KNLA as well. This sometimes has an effect on the soldiers but is often simply ignored. Whenever fighting occurs or SPDC troops step on landmines the local village heads are blamed for helping the KNLA in the attack, giving intelligence to the KNLA, and withholding intelligence from the SPDC. Some SPDC units even tell the village head to tell the KNLA not to shoot at their soldiers. Whenever SPDC soldiers desert, all village heads in the area are accused of harbouring them. In some areas this is complicated more by the presence of the DKBA, which also punishes the village heads for contact with the KNU or casualties from engagements with the KNLA. Worst of all are the Sa Thon Lon execution squads, who have already shown their willingness to execute village heads for even the slightest contact with the KNU. The village heads are forced to walk a thin line between their support for the KNU, the welfare of their villagers and the demands of the SPDC, DKBA and Sa Thon Lon.

"If we see the KNLA, we tell them [the SPDC] that we saw them. When we didn't see them we told them so, but then they got angry. They said, 'You saw them but you are not telling us. You are the same kind of people as the KNLA.' I told them, 'I am not the same kind of people. I am a farmer and a villager. I do not have a gun.' They told me, 'That's not true. You hide them and feed them rice.' I answered them by saying, 'When I feed them rice it is the same as when I feed you rice. You ask for rice and I have to give it. They also have guns and I have to give them rice because I am afraid of them. As for you, you come and demand food and even if you don't ask for something you grab, destroy and burn. We can't do anything - just suffer. If you burn our things we can only watch the fire. If you destroy things, we just have to look on. We don't dare to complain to you and we can't complain to you.' … We stay here in fear. We can't do anything because we are just villagers. When the Burmese come to threaten us, the only thing we can do is suffer. For example, if I am a villager, and the village head asks me to porter for three days, then I have to go. Some of my friends are not well. If no new porter comes to relieve me after many days, I flee. When I flee, they [SPDC] see me and fine me. So the villager suffers and also has to pay a fine to the Burmese. Sometimes they can't do it because they have to feed their own families." - "Saw Than Htoo" (M, 51), village head from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #190, 5/00)

"The villagers elected me to be the village head on the SPDC side. It used to be a man but the Burmese beat him and he fled. He doesn't dare to be village head anymore. They haven't beaten me but they shout at me a lot. They even planned to shoot me. They pointed a gun at me, chambered a bullet but didn't shoot me. They said to me, 'You are the village head. If the Ko Per Thu ['black headbands'; villager slang for the KNLA] come and you don't tell us, we will do to you as we want.' I had to show them the Ko Per Thu's place. They accused me like that. As for me, how can I show them because I have never seen their place? I told them that I don't know where their place is and I couldn't show them. I just saw them travelling up and down. They said the KNLA had better not shoot them when if they did, they would burn all the villages." - "Naw Eh Kri Mu" (F, 34), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #196, 6/00)

"It was because we couldn't stop loving our people [the KNU]. If they came back, we hid them and they [the SPDC] say we give them food, taxes and rice. … When the Guerrilla Retaliation Group [the Sa Thon Lon] came up they hit my head with a coconut. Another time I had to go up to P— village and I had to stay in the stocks [mediaeval-style leg stocks]. I have been tied up with a rope because we gave first priority to our nation [to the Karen]. They complain to us many times that we have contact with them [the KNU]." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

"It was because we didn't send a message and we had hidden the rebel people. We hid the KNU. They blamed us when a bullock cart was burned. They blamed us because the incident happened near our village. We didn't send a message when they came in the village and destroyed the bullock cart. They said our Karen people love each other and were hiding each other and not providing information." - "Saw Kee Aye" (M, 39), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #23, 4/01); he was detained and badly beaten in April 2001 because of this incident

"I would like to tell a little more about when Division #11 came. They had seen that I was a village head and had contact with the KNU. I told them that we have to step on both sides of the boat. These are the words of the elders. Now we are stepping on both sides of the boat, but now there are three sides [before there was only the SPDC and the KNU, but now there is also the DKBA] so it is difficult to step on them all. We have to endure whatever they say because we are civilians. … When they [the SPDC soldiers] come to the frontline we have to prohibit the KNU from shooting them, but we can't prohibit it. The KNU are their enemies and the SPDC comes to fight so the KNU will fight them." - "Mya Aung" (M, 32), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #202, 6/00)

"I try to live a good life, but they took my buffaloes and accused me of contacting the KNU. We live at the frontline so we have to contact them [the KNU]. We can't stay here without contacting them, but when we contact them they [the SPDC] see it as our fault and make trouble." - "Saw Nyi Nyi" (M, 37), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #13, 4/01)

"They said that if the Kaw Thoo Lei shoot them it is because of the village head and villagers. They told us to tell the Kaw Thoo Lei not to shoot at them. We do not dare because they [KNLA] have guns and bamboo sticks. We are just villagers, so all we do is tell them [SPDC] if we saw any soldiers come. If we didn't see anyone, that's that, but they [SPDC] won't believe us anyway. If we didn't see anyone, they tell us that we saw them. But if we never saw anything, we can't tell them we did. … They also told me this; they told me that if the [KNLA] people shot them near B— village, they would consider it my fault. They said that they would lay responsibility on the village head. I told them, 'There's nothing I can do if we don't see people coming to shoot you. If we see them but can't tell you, we can't do anything. And since you shoot your enemies when you see them, we dare not tell you. You are making life terrible for us, we can't suffer like this.' We can't suffer but we have to suffer. Suffer and then die." - "Saw Than Htoo" (M, 51), village head from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #190, 5/00)

"They call the village a Nyein Chan Yay ['Peace'] village. When they come to this area they say they have arrived in a Nyein Chan Yay area so there should never be the sounds of gunfire, bamboo or bombs. If they hear that sound, they will take action on the village head and they are going to relocate the village and burn down the huts. When they arrive in this place they demand to eat chickens and pigs. As for us, we have to try to keep our place running well. We are afraid and we have to work for them." - "Saw Tha Htwe" (M, 36), villager from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #206, 9/00)

One aspect of the SPDC's pacification programme is the labelling of villages under SPDC control as Nyein Chan Yay or 'Peace' villages. The Nyein Chan Yay villages began when village elders struck individual deals with local commanders that the villagers would comply with SPDC demands for food, goods and labour as well as provide information concerning the resistance groups in return for not having their villages burned down or relocated. Nyein Chan Yay villages first sprung up in Toungoo District, but by 1999 villagers in Mone township of Nyaunglebin District and in Lu Thaw and Dweh Loh townships of Papun District were referring to their villages as Nyein Chan Yay villages. Now local SPDC commanders no longer seek such agreements, they simply impose the label on a village and order it to cease all contact with resistance groups, provide regular intelligence, and comply with all SPDC demands, or be burned and forced to relocate. Villagers have told KHRG that the Nyein Chan Yay villages are considered as 'white' villages by the SPDC. 'White' areas are an older SLORC/SPDC designation, meaning areas under their control where there is little or no opposition activity ['brown' areas are contested and 'black' areas are under resistance control]. This is wishful thinking on the part of the regime since KNLA units still do operate around these villages. The Nyein Chan Yay villages do not have any affiliation with the various SPDC-named 'Peace' groups organised from surrendered KNLA and KNU members which have appeared in Karen areas over the past four years. The labelling of villages as Nyein Chan Yay seems to be limited to those villages in the area of the Southern Regional Command, which encompasses Toungoo, Nyaunglebin and Papun Districts.

"As they say, these things shouldn't be occurring but they have their enemies. That is why the Nyein Chan Yay agreement came about. At that time, they [the KNLA soldiers] planted landmines between Papun and Klaw Htaw village. The SPDC came up to the area to operate. The people [KNLA] went to plant landmines near their camps. Some of the [SPDC] soldiers were injured by the landmines. They also ordered the villagers to go and send messages and information. They forced them to cut wood and bamboo to fence their camp. Our villagers were also hurt there [near the SPDC camps] by landmines. At that time, they [SPDC] saw and knew that there were problems in the Nyein Chan Yay area. So they took action. They ordered the village elders and the village chairperson to come. The chairperson's name is Saw T—. When the chairperson went, he [the SPDC interrogator] told him that he must know who came to plant the landmines and shoot their guns. The chairperson told him, 'They didn't come to me when they shot or planted landmines. Just as you didn't come to me when you went after them. So I don't know and I am not able to know.' But the soldiers told him, 'You must know about it.' The village head didn't know so he told them he didn't know. He told them truthfully and honestly. … They wanted the village head to accept their accusations, so they took one action. They put him into a dark room in the munitions dump. They say it is a munitions dump but when you go in it feels very cold and dark. You can't see anything. They put him in there for four hours and then took him out and interrogated him about the event again. They said, 'You must know about this. If you don't, you have to sign this [written statement]. Today and in the future, bombs better not explode and guerrilla fighting better not occur. If anything does occur, we will take action. That is why you must write your signature.' The village head told him that he wouldn't dare sign it. They told him that he must but he was afraid to sign it. But he signed it when he [the SPDC officer] forced him and looked angrily at him. He [the village head] was worried that they might hurt him, so he signed it. After he signed it, he thought that if the SPDC went up, their enemy [KNLA] would attack them. So he dared not come back. If he came back, he would have problems because he signed it. So he stayed in Papun for three or four days, nearly a week. … Later, the SPDC government needed the civilians to do 'loh ah pay' and work as messengers and porters. They demanded this and told the village head, 'Right now, you have to go back and tell your villagers to come and bring people for 'loh ah pay' and portering.' The village head responded, 'I dare not go back. I signed it and if I go back and your enemy does something, I will suffer. So I dare not go back.' He was supposed to get porters and 'loh ah pay' workers. Then the Burmese commander changed to a different one [the battalion rotated out and a new one came] and that one went to see the village head. He told the village head that the first commander asked him to sign the statement but he didn't do it sincerely. The commander said, 'Right now, there is a new one [commander] and the other left and it is not your fault. Go back and arrange 'loh ah pay' and porters for me.' When this other commander told him this, he came back and he arranged it. Before he came back, the civilians also dared not move."- "Saw Tha Htwe" (M, 36), villager from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #206, 9/00)

"They classify it as a 'white' area because this is a Nyein Chan Yay area. It is a Nyein Chan Yay area but sometimes they don't care. They are torturing a lot. It is no different from the 'black' area. Sometimes the soldiers come often and sometimes rarely. The unit which has come [now] stays not so far away. They are the military unit in this area. They stay here and sometimes become brutal. Sometimes they do things like this and sometimes they do stronger than this. They are always doing it. There is no time when they don't." - "Saw Kaw Kwee" (M, 23), villager from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #212, 3/01)

Nyein Chan Yay status only benefits the villagers in that they are less likely to have their villages relocated or burned down. The villagers are still subject to demands for food, thatch, bamboo and wood. They must also go as porters, messengers, guides, and do loh ah pay at Army camps and on the roads. Villagers are threatened that if they are seen outside the Nyein Chan Yay area they will be shot on sight and they have been. They are also told that their villages will be burned and the villagers killed if fighting occurs or landmines explode near their villages. Despite being labelled as 'Peace' villages, these villages are constantly faced with threats of violence from the SPDC soldiers.

"We are staying in the mountains. They come to us and tell us to do Nyein Chan Yay with them [to become a 'peace village', agree to cooperate with the military in exchange for not being forcibly relocated or having their houses burned]. Then they ordered us to work as porters. Moreover, they forced us to do it. Sometimes, we couldn't go and we dared not go but we had to. They called porters and people for 'loh ah pay' and 'set tha' [forced labour as messengers]." - "Saw Tha Htwe" (M, 36), villager from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #206, 9/00)

"Even the people who work together with them have to flee - the Karen villagers who are staying in Nyein Chan Yay ['peace'] villages. We were staying in many groups in the jungle. The villagers from the Nyein Chan Yay places, like K'Neh Khaw Hta and Klaw Hta, were also fleeing to our area because they were taking the people from those villages to be porters. They have to pay money even though they can't pay, and they have to carry as porters even though they can't carry, so they fled from their villages. They are all fleeing, because they have to pay 2,500 or 3,000 Kyat every month for each household, and the Burmese are using them like slaves." - "Saw Dee Wah" (M, 28), refugee from T— village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #64, 6/99)

Villages in the Plains of Nyaunglebin District

"There were a lot of villages which they forced to move. We live in separate places [separate relocation sites]. They can't go back to stay in their villages yet and they also don't allow them to go back and work for food to eat. But for our villagers, we can go back and work." - "Saw Bo Lweh" (M, xx), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #10, 4/01)

The plains of the Sittaung River have long been under some form of control of successive Burmese regimes. The Burmese Army has, however, never really been able to solidify its control of the area. KNLA soldiers regularly come down into the plains and are able to penetrate as far as the river itself. The SPDC even built a new road from Mone to Na Than Gwin because the old one ran along the base of the mountains and was too vulnerable to KNLA attack. Villages here are much bigger than those in the hills to the east and there are also Burman and mixed Burman/Karen villages as well as Muslim and Shan villagers. Few people fled this area before the late 1990's because the area is relatively fertile and prosperous and the villagers preferred to stay in their villages. In 1997 new heavier restrictions were placed on the villagers, heavy taxes and crop quotas were demanded, extortion increased and demands for forced labour became more frequent. Added to this was the appearance in late 1998 of the Sa Thon Lon execution squads which began hunting down and killing villagers with the slightest past or present connections to the KNU. New waves of relocations also occurred from 1997 through 1999 which resulted in many of the villages in the plains relocated to areas near SPDC Army camps. The living conditions in these relocation sites were such that the villagers began fleeing from them.

In 1999 KHRG documented the forced relocation of 16 villages in the area [see "Death Squads and Displacement" (KHRG #99-04, 25/5/99)], and most of these villages still lie abandoned. [Photos of some of these abandoned villages and of Lu Ah relocation site can be seen in KHRG Photo Set 2001-A under 'Forced Relocation and Restrictions']. However, due to the unsustainability of life at relocation sites such as Yan Myo Aung and Lu Ah, many of the villagers there have escaped and returned to stay in farmfield huts near their villages. The SPDC officers seem to have turned a blind eye to some of this, causing some villagers to rebuild simple huts in and around their old villages. Some of the villages in the northern part of Mone township were allowed by the SPDC to return to their villages in 2000, but they are still under the constant threat of being relocated again. They have also not rebuilt their houses as before but have built smaller ones or temporary huts in case they are ordered to move again.

"The Burmese don't allow them to stay in their village, but now they are coming back [they have secretly come back and are staying in their field huts]. They have had to relocate two or three times. When they relocated the first time they came back, then they had to relocate again. It was two or three years ago already. Now they have come back to stay in their village. They have just built small huts. They said the Burmese allowed them to come back, but it is not a sure thing. They just came back to build temporary huts. If they force the villagers to move again then they will move again. They don't dare to come back and build nice houses yet." - "Saw Ler Wah" (M, 26), KHRG field researcher from Nyaunglebin District (Interview #5, 6/01)

"Yes, they allowed it. I just came back to stay. I moved back and told them that when I stayed there [in the relocation site] I couldn't work and get food to eat. So I came back to stay in my own village where we have our own places and we can work to eat." - "Saw Nyi Nyi" (M, 37), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #13, 4/01)

The activities of the Sa Thon Lon appear to have decreased, with villagers reporting that they are killing less often [see the 'Sa Thon Lon' section above]. The DKBA, however, appear to have expanded their presence and have become yet one more group which the villagers have to satisfy. The demands for forced labour, extortion money, food and taxes have not lessened. Even villagers who are still in their villages are tightly restricted in their travel, and even in which of their fields they can work. Village heads reported to KHRG that many of the villagers have insufficient food and that some have been surviving on thin rice porridge despite the fertile fields in the plains around them. The SPDC has also apparently been able to instill in many of the villagers that same sense of fear which is prevalent in central Burma. Villagers told of people being informed upon and one villager said that they must now always look around before speaking to see who might be listening. A KHRG field researcher who travelled to the area commented that the villagers don't even trust their cousins or other relatives. This is unusual in Karen villages, where informers to the SPDC are far less common than in the Burman villages and towns of central Burma.

"I think about them alone and I dare not tell. In my heart they are useless. If they are going to rule like this there will be no improvement. … I want to report a lot of things but I dare not say them. Sometimes when we talk we have to look around before we talk." - "Saw Bo Lweh" (M, xx), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #10, 4/01)

"The villagers from the lower places, like Twa Ni Gone, do not trust each other. When we went to them they didn't let their friends know about it. They are afraid someone will report them to the SPDC. Their cousins and relatives do not trust each other. It was a problem for me. I had to go in the nighttime and I also had to be afraid of vipers. I wore slippers, nobody wears jungle boots there." - "Saw Ler Wah" (M, 26), KHRG field researcher from Nyaunglebin District (Interview #5, 6/01)

Relocation Sites

"They kept us in the fields at H——and K——. There were 138 families from our village. They had already built little huts for us, and they had built a fence around the place. … Every day we had to submit an exact family registration. They didn't give us food to eat, we had to find it ourselves. The place flooded, and our rice, pots and other things were destroyed. … When we stayed there we had no way to plant any crops, that's why we came back to stay in our own village. All of us came back. They forced us to give them 80,000 Kyat so that we could come back, and we paid them and then came back." - "Pu Taw Lah" (M, 68), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #27, 7/99)

Areas which the SPDC does not feel are under its complete control are usually subjected to periodic relocations until firm control is established. The villages relocated are those which are too far away from Army camps to be effectively controlled or which are believed to be assisting the resistance. Villages which have never been under SPDC control before are only notified of the relocation when the soldiers arrive in the villages, burn them down and leave notes in the ruins that the villagers should come to one of the relocation sites. Villagers notified in this way do not usually go but flee into hiding in the surrounding forest. Most of the villagers in western Dweh Loh township were relocated in this fashion. The SPDC then sends out patrols to capture the villagers and bring them in. The villages under some form of SPDC control are sent orders telling them to move to a particular relocation site, usually a larger village or a site along a vehicle road, and setting a deadline. On or shortly after this date the soldiers come to make sure the village is abandoned. Villagers who don't move fast enough and whose houses are not yet fully disassembled have seen their houses burned by the soldiers. Villagers in Mone township did not report much violence during their forced relocation moves but they were shouted at to keep them moving. Some villages have been able to avoid having their villages moved by paying large bribes to the local military. Yay Leh village in Mone township has been paying large bribes to the soldiers for four years now to remain in their village while all the other villages around them have been relocated. This is too expensive for most villages and sometimes the Army relocates the village anyway despite having already been paid off.

KHRG has compiled a list of 42 villages in Nyaunglebin and Papun Districts which have been relocated since 1998-99. This list is not complete and only contains those villages which have been reported to KHRG in interviews and field reports. Many more villages have been relocated and the relocations are continuing in some areas. Some of these villages may have been allowed to return, but most are still in the relocation sites. The list can be seen in Appendix B.

"In the past before the SPDC came and destroyed the things in the village, we just worked our hill fields and betelnut plantations so that we could live. Since March 28^th 2000, the SPDC came to our P— village and didn't allow us to stay in the village. If they see somebody, they shoot. If they do not shoot, they catch them. If they see families, they capture them and drive them [to relocation areas]. For example, if the SPDC troops are from Pway Pwah then they drive the villagers to Pway Pwah. If the soldiers are from Wa Mu, then they drive the villagers to Wa Mu. If they are from Meh Way, they drive the villagers to Meh Way. They don't let us stay in our villages anymore. Right now, the people who remain don't know what to do."- "Saw Mi Taw" (M, 41), internally displaced villager from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #138, 9/00)

"I thought that I would live there [outside the village] and work because I couldn't do anything when I saw their letter [the order telling them they must move to the relocation site]. We saw that they wrote a letter and left it there. They said for us to come down and live together in the place they have arranged. 'If you live there, you can't flee anymore,' they said. All the villagers thought together but couldn't do anything. We thought about it together but we couldn't do anything. We couldn't live there anymore. Even though it is hard for us to live, we had to try to live. … No, I'm not happy to stay here. It is not my place. I am happy to stay in my own place. My own place is at my village. I have my own work to do and I have a field to work. I live in xxxx, but it is the other people's place. I have no place to work. They don't give me any job to do." - "Saw Nuh Po" (M, 23), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #143, 9/00); interviewed after he had been captured by the SPDC soldiers and forced to go to a relocation site.

"Why don't know exactly why they don't have to move. We heard that they went and met with the officer and fed him [paid him a bribe] so they didn't need to move. I heard they fed him duck and chicken and money. They asked the leader from our village [the village headman] to go and see them, but he ran away and none of us dared to go and see their faces so we had to move. We didn't need to feed them." - "Saw Bo Lweh" (M, xx), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #10, 4/01)

"First the battle occurred on the other side of K— village, so they [SPDC] shot dead a village headman, and then they asked for money. At the time they demanded 200,000 Kyat and 30 baskets of rice, then they forced us to move. They gave us a deadline of 10 days to move. Then they came and forced us to the new place. … First they forced us to relocate to N—, but the villagers didn't like staying there. That's why the villagers went to stay at K— beside N— [a.k.a. M— village]. They [SPDC] said that we could stay there if we paid them money. We had to pay them 50,000 Kyat, and then we stayed there in a field beside the car road. They forced us to build small huts. 150 families from K— village moved there. … They didn't feed us. The water wasn't clean. We had to drink dirty water. There was very little water there. We dug a well, but it didn't produce any water. The villagers faced problems with hunger and sickness. They didn't give medicine, we had to cure ourselves." - "Saw Law Po" (M, 35), internally displaced villager from K— village, Mone township (Interview #26, 7/99)

Villages are not always relocated for control, it is also used as a punishment for not providing workers for forced labour, not meeting demands for money, food or materials, or if fighting occurs near the village. A village head in Mone township was told that his village was to be relocated under Article 17/1, and that if they failed to move as ordered the villagers would be killed. Article 17/1 of present Burmese law prohibits contact with 'unlawful' organisations, but it is imposed upon individuals and does not authorise forcible relocation of villages as a punishment. Another village in Dweh Loh township was told that it was being relocated to be near a school which the SPDC was building as a development project. The school wasn't built. A village head from Bu Tho township was told by the SPDC that the villages had to be relocated so that the Army could go into the area and attack the KNU.

"They came and told us that it was by Law 17/1, that we had contact with rebels [Article 17/1 prohibits contact with 'unlawful' organisations, but does not authorise forcible relocation of villages as punishment]. That's why they forced us to relocate. We had to move everything within 10 days. We had to move within the prescribed time, by military order. If we didn't move, they ordered that we be 'cleared' [killed]. They allowed us to take whatever we could to Kyauk Kyi, and whatever we couldn't take with us, they took for themselves." - "Pu Taw Lah" (M, 68), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #27, 7/99)

"They were going to force us to B--- again. They said, 'If we leave you villagers like this, it is the same as if we were feeding Kaw Thoo Lei. Kaw Thoo Lei is eating rice and gaining strength.' They told the village head this. They have never called a meeting with all of us. They just called the village head, and then the village head repeated it to us. They told us, 'In your village, live well. If you can't live well and then we can't eat, we will pour sand over you.' If they can't eat, they will destroy our village." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 40), refugee from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #185, 4/00)

"They said that if the KNU shot at them, we must relocate. But that has never occurred so they haven't forced us yet. They said that they would burn down the village and shoot dead all the villagers. That was Battalion #356." - "Naw Eh Kri Mu" (F, 34), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #196, 6/00)

"They say that they will build a school as a development project so they need to drive the villagers together. But up to now, nothing has changed so people don't listen to them anymore and have fled." - "Toe Hlaing" (M, 40), internally displaced villager from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #139, 9/00)

"They said that once we stayed gathered together [in relocation sites], they would go to shoot the Nga Pway [KNU/KNLA] and the Nga Pway would run. They said it before we left. They said we must come to stay gathered together because if we stayed like this [spread out in separate villages] they couldn't shoot the Nga Pway." - "Pu Ler Ku" (M, 60), village head from xxxx village, Bu Tho township (Interview #221, 4/01)

The years 1997-99 saw large-scale relocations in Mone, Kyauk Kyi and Shwegyin townships of Nyaunglebin Districts. Interviews conducted by KHRG in Mone township indicate that many of these villagers have been allowed to return to their villages. Villagers in the southern part of the township who relocated to Yan Myo Aung and Lu Ah relocation sites, have not yet been allowed to permanently return to their villages. They have been allowed to go back and farm their fields and even to stay in their field huts for limited amounts of time as long as they have passes to do so. KHRG has been unable to obtain information from Kyauk Kyi and Shwegyin townships, but it is likely that some of the relocated villages in these two townships have also been allowed to return to their villages [For more information on these relocations see also "Death Squads and Displacement: Systematic Executions, Village Destruction and the Flight of Villagers in Nyaunglebin District" (KHRG #99-04, 24/5/99)].

"On the 6^th of April two years ago [1999] we had to relocate and they took us to a new place at Kwek Thit ['New Section']. It was near Y—. They made Kwet Thit beside Y—. It is in the flat fields beside the car road. Y— and here are one hour apart by bullock cart. If we walk it is half an hour. Five villages had to move there; N—, B—, A—, K— and A—. They are from our village tract. They all went to the same place. … We went there in April [1999] and came back in January [2000]. It was 10 months in all." - - "Saw Per Per" (M, 45), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #24, 4/01)

"We had to relocate two times already since I was born. The first time was in 1974 and the second time was in '99. We had to go and stay between the H—— and N—— flat fields. Not all our villagers have come back yet. Some went to stay in T——, some went to stay in M—— and some went to K——. The houses are not full like before. There used to be more than 200 houses, now we only have 74 houses." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

"We had to move because the big nationality [the Burmese] came and forced us to move so we had to go. They were the Burmese Army, not the Ko Per Baw [DKBA]. They forced us to move to xxxx. If we had to walk it, it is a three hour walk. … They are H—, B—, T— and T—. They moved at the same time as us. We went to stay in the same place [they all stay at xxxx but in separate places around it]. There are over 200 houses." - "Saw Bo Lweh" (M, xx), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #10, 4/01)

Many of the villages in eastern Dweh Loh township, southern Lu Thaw township and Bu Tho township were relocated to bigger villages with Army camps and even to Papun town in 1997. The villagers remained in those sites for up to three years and then slowly escaped and filtered back to areas around their home villages, living in hiding as IDPs. Some managed to re-establish small villages in some form and began to fall once more under the control of nearby Army camps, so the Army began treating them as villages again and making demands on them. In Bu Tho township, some of these 'new' villages have now been ordered to move to bigger villages near the Yunzalin River and the Ka Ma Maung-Papun car road simply because they are not marked on the SPDC's maps. Because they weren't marked on the maps the SPDC reasoned that they must be 'rebel' villages. One village moved on its own accord after being repeatedly threatened with relocation. The final straw was an effort by the DKBA to get the villagers to sign a document declaring themselves responsible for any trucks destroyed by ambushes or landmines along the road. They didn't want to sign the document and chose to move instead.

"I don't know if they do that now, but in the past they drove people. They drove the villagers from K— to go and stay with us at xxxx. They [the SPDC] didn't take care of them. They didn't feed the villagers. There was no medicine. The villagers had to work themselves. It was difficult for the villagers from K— to do flat fields. They went back and worked their own fields secretly." - "Saw Peh Yah" (M, 30), villager from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #211, 3/01)

"We have been suffering a lot for many years. We stay at P—, but 3 years ago the Burmese forced us down to B—. B— is a one hour walk away. We went down to stay at B—h and we couldn't suffer it. We stayed there for two years, then we came back to stay in our village over a year ago, and now we have come here. They didn't allow us to go back [to their village], but we went secretly." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 40), refugee from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #185, 4/00)

"The other villagers are coming to stay in our village. They forced them to come and stay there. They can't move. Those villagers are living very poorly. … M—, P—, T—, T—, P—, and L— [villages]. The Burmese forced them to come and stay in our village. Some are already going back. They came to stay over one, maybe two years ago. Some have gone back to stay in their own villages, and some never left them, because they couldn't suffer it [life in a relocation village]. They go back to stay there secretly, then if they hear that the Burmese are coming, they flee. They don't face the Burmese." - "Naw Wah Wah" (F, 41), refugee for B— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #182, 4/00)

"It was below, at xxxx [village]. In the beginning the Ko Per Baw wanted to relocate us. Then the Burmese also wanted to relocate us, so we couldn't stay. The Burmese said, 'This village is Ywa Bone, Ywa Shaung ['hiding village', a village not under SPDC control]. This village has not been here for a long time and it is not on the map. You villagers are staying as Ywa Bone, Ywa Shaung. We are going to drive you out to xxxx [village].' Later, the Ko Per Baw said, 'The landmines are always damaging the trucks. You must sign [an agreement that the trucks wouldn't hit any landmines, making the villagers responsible for any that do]. If you don't sign, we are going to drive all of you out to the main road.' We didn't know if they would drive us to the main road or to the lower place. That is why we gathered and decided that we would move to xxxx village. The monk also helped us. He said, 'You will move, but they [the DKBA and SPDC] are going to drive you to the main road. Never mind, I will speak with them and help you. Come and move to xxxx village.' We moved to xxxx. It is on the map." - "Zaw Min" (M, 26), village head from xxxx village, Bu Tho township (Interview #220, 4/01)

"They told us we couldn't stay in the village and had to go to stay in xxxx [village]. They gave us one week. We had to move everything within one week. We could carry all our belongings. They asked us to build our houses. They said to stay there when we finished building the houses. They didn't come to watch us, they stayed in their place. … They just said that if we stayed there [in our home village], it was not on the map and illegal. We had to go back and stay in xxxx [village] because it is on the map and legal they said. Where we stayed was a Nga Pway [slang for the KNU/KNLA] place, they said." - "Pu Ler Ku" (M, 60), village head from xxxx village, Bu Tho township (Interview #221, 4/01)

Villages in western Dweh Loh township were forcibly moved to relocation sites at Meh Way, Wa Mu, Meh Thu, Kwih T'Ma, Ku Thu Hta, Ma Lay Ler and Meh Thu in 1998, 1999 and 2000. While many of the villagers have gone to the sites, many more have fled into the jungle. Villagers have had to build their own houses at the sites with no assistance provided by the SPDC. After the houses are built the villagers are immediately put to work by the soldiers. Food is not usually provided, though some villagers said that they were given one sack of rice and 1,000 Kyat at first but never given anything after that. The villagers must then try to make a field if there is land available, or work for daily wages to get enough money to buy food. The demands for forced labour are usually so heavy that many of the villagers don't have time to do either of these things. In existing villages as well as relocation sites, the soldiers have forced the villagers to build fences around the perimeter and allow only two to three gates. This is not so much for the defence of the village as it is to restrict the movement of the villagers, and so that a few soldiers can block the gates while the rest of the patrol sweeps the village to catch forced labourers. At the time of writing this report, many of the western Dweh Loh villagers had fled into the hills or to Thailand but some were still in the relocation sites. The villagers have not been allowed to return to their villages and those who have are hunted down by the SPDC's soldiers.

A: T—, N—, K—, N— [villages]. They drove them all to there, to W—. When they arrived they had to build houses and the enemy forced them to work. They don't have time to work anything else. The SPDC doesn't feed them. They have to hire themselves out day by day and they eat very poorly. They don't have places to plant rice or do work. … They don't have time. They [the SPDC] don't allow us to go. They closed us in with a fence. When they need 'loh ah pay', porters or messengers they force us and then close the gate. There are only two gates, one way to enter and one way to get out. They arrest the people at their houses. They call the people down and force them to work. They are forcing the villagers to work until they don't have time to work their flat fields. They have always done this, until now." - "Saw Tha Wah" (M, 42), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #146, 9/00)

"[T]hey don't feed them. Some people who have entered there are given one sack of rice and 1,000 Kyat. They are just given that one time. After that they are never given anything again. We work and we have our own food. It is enough for us to eat, but there are some people who don't have enough food. We are not free to work for food anymore. We can't work freely like before. We have to search for food ourselves. They just give it to us once and then that's it." - "Aung Baw" (M, 50) villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #148, 10/00)

"There was no help. After they drove the people we had to build houses for the soldiers, we had to make fences for them, and we had to go for 'loh ah pay' [general forced labour] and 'set tha' [messenger forced labour]. People couldn't work their hill fields anymore. This year no one got any paddy." - "Saw Thi Oo" (M, 60), village head from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #157, 12/00)

"This was in January this year [2001]. The villagers from Meh Thu Kee and Ler Wa Ko have all gone to the refugee camp, to xxxx refugee camp. Last year they stayed in the jungle. The villages in Meh Way village tract such as Ka Hser Ghee Tee, Wa Law Kloh, Noh Bo Law, Wa Tho Law, Day Law Pu, Kloh Kee and Toh Kyaw Kee have been driven by the SPDC to below Meh Way in the plains fields. They have built many houses close together. It was three years ago. They have all built their houses there. … For 'loh ah pay' now they are forcing every village to fence around their villages. This started on November 3^rd or 4^th [2000]. The villagers have finished fencing it now. The villages which had to make fences are Wa Mu, Poh Kheh Hta, Nya Hsa Ghaw Hta, Kwih T'Ma, Ma Lay Ler and Kay Kaw. They haven't fenced Pway Pwa village yet. They also haven't fenced the villages to the south of Wa Mu. … Kwih T'Ma has three gates; the way from Nya Hsa Ghaw Hta and Wa Mu is one gate, to Ma Lay Ler is another gate and the third gate is for fetching water from the Bu Loh Kloh. In Poh Kheh Hta, Ma Lay Ler and Khwih T'Ma it is all the same. There are three gates at Poh Kheh Hta and two gates at Ma Lay Ler. One gate is for fetching water. … They don't guard the gates because there is no camp there. They planned to make the fences because when they need people from the village [for forced labour] they can capture them easily. Sometimes they come very quickly into the village, close the gates and capture the villagers. The always come to capture people. They come to capture people when they need people to carry things." - "Saw Maung Sein" (M, 40), KHRG field researcher from Papun District (Interview #4, 2/01)

"We were forced to build a fence around our village. I have no idea what their plan was but it may be that it could block the Nga Pway [KNLA] if they come. They ordered us to make only four entrances, but we keep more than four. We must try to be clever. It is difficult for us [to do our work] if we do everything as they order." - "Saw Tee Maung" (M, xx), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #133, 5/00)

"Starting last year and during this year the soldiers don't allow the people to go. They are conducting military operations sometimes. They give the villagers an opportunity when they are making the hill fields. The villagers can go and cut [their fields] and sleep in their field huts but when it is harvest time, the soldiers do it another way. They tell the villagers, 'If you go to your hill field, get a letter of recommendation [a pass].'" - "Saw Maung Sein" (M, 40), KHRG field researcher from Papun District (Interview #4, 2/01)

Even in SPDC-controlled villages, restrictions are placed on the villagers with the supposed intention of making it difficult for them to contact the resistance forces. The methods and extent of these restrictions varies between villages and areas, primarily depending on the local Army officers. The restrictions often change when one unit rotates out and another one moves in. Villagers are sometimes allowed by one battalion to go to plant their fields, but when they rotate out and the next battalion comes they are suddenly forbidden to go to their fields and the crops are destroyed by animals and insects.

"They don't ask the villagers to move. The villagers stay in M—. The enemy entered the village and ordered the villagers not to go outside the village. The enemy stays around the village so the villagers don't dare to go outside the village. It was at the time when the transplanting should have almost been finished, but they didn't allow the villagers to work until September [the delay throws the growing cycle off which will result in a much reduced harvest]. They allow the people to work at that time but it is too late for people to work their fields. That is why the villagers face a big problem. The villagers cannot suffer but they must suffer like this." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"[T]his year they allow us to plant, but last year, 1999, we planted, and they wouldn't allow us to work on our fields so it was useless. They said, 'If we see that you are working in your fields, we will shoot all of you dead. We told you already not to work on them again.' We had already cut and burned the fields, we just needed to clear a few things and plant, but they told us not to work on them anymore."- "Saw Shwe Pa" (M, 37), villager from xxxx village, Kyauk Kyi township (Interview #73, 3/00)

Karen villagers have their main house in the village, but during the growing season they spend more of their time living in their farmfield hut, a smaller and simpler house in their fields which may be an hour or more's walk from the village. The field work is all done by hand so it is labour intensive and time-consuming, requiring their almost constant presence.

However, most SPDC units restrict the amount of time they can spend in their fields by issuing passes for only short time periods and/or restricting the amount of food they can take with them. Some villagers can get passes for up to 3 or 5 days, but others are only allowed to stay outside the village overnight, or from dawn to dusk. This makes it very difficult, especially for those with fields far from the village. Even the process of repeatedly getting passes for each family member can be time-consuming and expensive. Making things worse, the Army frequently stops allowing the villagers to go to their fields at all for periods of days or weeks. Villages are limited in the amount of time which they can spend in their fields. Depending on the place, the situation and the Army

unit villagers are sometimes allowed to sleep in their field huts for up to a week, sometimes allowed to sleep there only for a day, sometimes not allowed to sleep there and in some areas they are not allowed to go to their fields at all. This has a direct impact on the crops. During their absence, weeds can overtake the crop or animals come and eat or trample it. Some villagers have said that they were allowed to go and plant their crop, but when harvest time came they were forbidden to go to their fields. The number of people who can go to the fields at one time is also sometimes restricted. In order to limit the time the villagers can spend in the fields, and supposedly to prevent them taking food to the resistance forces, some Army units only allow farmers to take small amounts of food when they leave the village. Villagers complain that in some cases the Army allows them a pass to stay in their fields for 5 days but only allows them to take one day's food along. If the villagers are caught at their field huts with more food than allowed, even if it is food they had stored at the hut, they are usually arrested and accused of supplying food to the resistance.

"They allow us to work on our own fields, but if they see people in the field huts, they don't like it very much. They misunderstand us and threaten us. We can go to the fields at 7 a.m. and come back before 5 p.m. They limit the time. They don't allow us to sleep in the field huts. We also can't take rice to the fields. We can just go to work and come back to eat at home." - "Saw Ra Doh", (M, 35), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #199, 6/00)

"They only allow the one person who has to tend the cattle and buffaloes to sleep there. They don't allow many people go and sleep. They don't allow the people who don't have cattle or buffaloes to sleep in the field huts. They said that if we take a lot of rice then we are taking it for the KNU and if we go to sleep in the field huts, we are going to give information to the KNU. They said like that." - "Naw Eh Kri Mu" (F, 34), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #196, 6/00)

"They have hill fields. Every house has a hill field which they cut. After they have finished cutting, burning and planting the enemy doesn't allow them to go outside the village when it is time to cut the brush [they have to cut the weeds away from around the growing paddy halfway through the growing season]. The enemy allows them to go outside the village after the paddy is all covered with scrub and the paddy is destroyed." - "Saw Po Hla" (M, 43), KNU township official, Bu Tho Township (Interview #219, 2/01)

"Because they force us to work. We can't work our flat or hill fields. Some people work their flat fields or hill fields for food, but at the same time they have to carry things [as porters] so when they go back and look at their fields, the pigs have eaten it all. The pigs and buffaloes eat it. We are not free to sleep in the fields to guard our huts and fields from the pigs and buffaloes. They don't let us sleep there. We also don't dare to guard [the fields] because the soldiers are around the fields. If they see us they will shoot us. We have to work for them. We have had to work for them for a whole month now." - "Aung Baw" (M, 50), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #148, 10/00)

For villagers in SPDC-controlled villages of Dweh Loh township the situation just became much worse. In late August and early September 2001, at least 3 village tracts were issued orders that no one is allowed to leave the villages for the three months from September to November 2001, not even to go to their fields. They were told to bring their livestock into the village and that they would not be allowed to go out for any reason. These three months comprise the end of the growing season and the harvest season, so if this order is enforced the entire rice harvest will be wiped out. There are at least 30 villages in these three village tracts (Ka Dtaing Dtee, Tee Tha Blu Hta and Ku Thu Hta) populated by well over 5,000 people. These are the only 3 village tracts which KHRG has definite information about thus far, but the order may be even more widespread than that. People from the area interviewed by KHRG just before this report went to print in October 2001 stated that everyone still in the villages is expecting starvation to set in within months. The local SPDC Battalions which issued the order stated that the purpose is to mount an all-out operation against the KNLA, but it is more probable that they simply want to wipe out the harvest in order to undermine the KNLA, and if the villagers starve in the process then they will simply be considered as 'collateral damage'.

Stamp:

#x Tactical Command To:

Military Operations Control Group Chairperson

Kalay Town xxxx [village]

Subject: To carry the hill paddy to the village

The villagers who have planted paddy in the hillfields must carry it to your villages by the deadline of 15-12-2000 to your villages ['to your villages' is stated twice].

After that date, if [we] see any paddy in the hillfields [we] will use it as Army rations, you are informed.

[Sd.] 2/12/2000

Stamp: Control Supervisor

#x Tactical Command

Military Operations Control Group

Translation of an order sent by an SPDC military command to a village in Papun District.

"Starting on August 31^st [2001] they stopped allowing the civilians to go outside the village. They did it in two village tracts, Ka Dtaing Dtee and Tee Tha Blu Hta. There are twelve villages in each of those village tracts and more than 3,960 people. It is Infantry Battalion #51 that prohibited it. They don't allow people to go outside the village. They ordered the people to bring their cows and buffaloes into the village and look after them inside the village. Children under 12 years old can go outside the village, but they don't allow people older than 12 to go outside. … When I came here people could no longer go to their hill fields or flat fields. It is nearly harvest time, but we can't harvest our paddy anymore. I don't know what I will do. I can't eat anymore. All the paddy will be destroyed. … They [the soldiers] say they have a three-month plan to cut the strength of the Kawthoolei [slang for the KNU/KNLA]. If they can't cut the strength of the Kawthoolei, then they are going to relocate all of the people living in the Baw Kyo Valley [the lower Yunzalin River valley], starting from the top and working their way to the bottom. They are going to drive the people to Baw Kyo Leh [village] where they have their big Army camp." "Saw Eh Kaw" (M, 34), village head from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #240, 10/01)

"They started to do it on September 9^th [2001]. They prohibited the villagers from going outside the village. They don't allow the villagers to go to their hill fields and flat fields. We have to stay in the village. They don't allow us to go to work. When people go outside the village, the soldiers say they are going to contact the Nga Pway ['Ringworm'; slang for KNU/KNLA]. … People have to stay like that because they ordered it. If people don't stay [inside the village] and they see us in the forest, they will torture and kill us. So people are afraid and have to stay. … If they make a prohibition like this all of us are going to starve. They said it would be for four months, until December. It is only in Ku Thu Hta village tract. … We can't go to the hill fields so all the paddy will be destroyed. We are going to starve. When everything is destroyed there is no way for us to live. We will have to go to buy rice in K—. It is difficult to find money. We have to find vegetables and go to sell them. Then we can get money and we can go to buy rice. There is no other way for us." "Saw Mu Htoo" (M, 26), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #239, 10/01)

Whenever villagers want to leave their villages to go anywhere they must get a letter of recommendation. These letters are passes usually written and stamped by the village head but also sometimes by the military. The passes have written on them how many people are allowed to go, to where, and for how long. When villagers are stopped on the paths or in the fields the soldiers demand to see their passes. Villagers who can produce a valid pass are allowed to go, though even the pass will not protect them if the patrol needs porters or if they look 'suspicious'. Those who have no passes are arrested and beaten, then either taken as porters or detained until the village head can vouch for them and pay the ransom for their freedom. If no one comes on their behalf, they may be executed. Village heads usually charge a small fee of 10-15 Kyat for these passes. The money is then used to help cover the costs of chickens and other things which are stolen or demanded by the soldiers.

"From the Burmese [SPDC-appointed] village head. The villagers from Wa Mu have to go and get it from them. One letter is 10 Kyat. At K— we get the letter from the K— village head. The Burmese seal it. If it is M— village, M— village tract, then they have their own seal. The soldiers say, 'If you don't get one, when we go up and operate and go around the mountains and see villagers with no letter of recommendation, then you will not be good people. You will have to suffer whatever I do to you.' … One letter is 10 Kyat and the village head takes it because the village head doesn't have time. The village head says, 'I write the letter and ask you for 10 Kyat. It is because sometimes when the Burmese come they ask for poultry. I don't want to collect it from you. I will gather the money and when we need to use it, we will use it. If they demand 1 viss of chicken, I will take that money and buy 1 viss of chicken.'" - "Saw Maung Sein" (M, 40), KHRG field researcher from Papun District (Interview #4, 2/01)

"We are not free to do our own work. They force us to do their work, so we have to do it. We can't do our own work. We are not free to look after our buffaloes. We have to work in fear of them. It is like we live in the bushes. If the soldiers are around us we do not dare to go anywhere. We have to sneak. We can't go and work like before when we looked after our buffaloes. We are afraid to meet with the soldiers. If they meet us in the village they smile at us, but if they meet us in the forest, they do whatever they want to do. We have to be afraid of them. There was one time when I went to carry cane [for making baskets] and I met them. They questioned me a lot. They asked us things but nobody could speak Burmese. They ordered us to lay down our cane and asked, 'Can anyone speak Burmese?' We answered that none of us could speak Burmese. They asked us, 'Where are you coming from?' They asked me, 'Where do you live and why are you coming here?' I told them that I had come to the forest to cut some cane. They told me, 'If you come here you have to make a pass. If you don't get a pass you can't come here. If you don't get a pass there are some Nga Pway ['Ringworm'; derogatory term for the KNU/KNLA], so we will mistake you for them and shoot you.' If the soldiers come I don't know. Since then I have never gone there again. We had thought we would cut the cane to sell to buy salt and fishpaste to eat. They force us to work and they don't feed us so we have to cut cane in order to buy salt and fishpaste." - "Aung Baw" (M, 50) villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #148, 10/00)

Restrictions are also placed on batteries and medicine. The SPDC soldiers accuse the villagers of providing medicine to the KNU and so have forbidden the villagers to carry medicine. In some areas this has extended to the selling of medicine even for personal use. This order has severely limited the villagers' access to medicine. Many are forced to rely on traditional herbal medicines as a substitute. Sometimes medicine can be bought on the black market but it is risky. Batteries are also forbidden because the SPDC believes the villagers will provide these to the KNU who will use them in their walkie-talkies and the detonators of their landmines. The penalty for carrying either of these can be death. Villagers are also given specific orders that if for any reason they are outside the village at night they must use a firebrand for light, not a flashlight. The SPDC soldiers tell them that anyone seen holding a flashlight will be assumed to be a Karen soldier and will be shot on sight.

"Last year they killed one villager from H---. S--- killed him. I never heard about it for medicine but that time was because of batteries [the villager was carrying batteries]. … People can buy them [medicines] but they buy them secretly with an understanding between themselves. We don't dare to do it openly. If you say it is for yourself they allow it, but they don't allow it to be sold. If people are sick we can send them to the hospital. They are doing this in the wrong way." - "Saw Nyi Nyi" (M, 37), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #13, 4/01)

"Batteries and medicine are forbidden. When the [Sa Thon Lon] guerrilla retaliation group came they ordered that it was a death sentence if villagers used these things. We have not been able to use batteries up to now. They are worried about our siblings [the KNU] who stay above [in the mountains] - that they will use them for their landmines [KNLA landmines often have battery powered detonators]. We don't know what the Burmese plan is. If we use torchlights we need batteries. But they forbid us to use batteries so we can't use batteries. They don't give us the right." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

Forced Labour

"They called the villagers to do 'loh ah pay'. They forced them to cut down the forest, dig out the roots and stumps of trees, and then burn or carry away the branches. They usually called 18, 19, or 20 villagers from each village, big or small. They called them once or twice a month, for 3 or 4 days each time. … When harvest time came, the people were called from Section 4 of T— village, in K— village tract, for 'loh ah pay' [forced labour harvesting the Army's crop]. … Aung Gyi gave very strong orders. He said, 'Don't pity them, look after them, think of them as your siblings or love the villagers. You are a soldier and you have to force them like a soldier.' Because of this, I ordered and forced the villagers to work." - "Saw Tha Ku" (M, 21), Private from Infantry Battalion #xx, Papun District (Interview #225, 3/00)

"Now we have to go and do 'loh ah pay'. We have many kinds of 'loh ah pay'. 'Loh ah pay' as porters, 'loh ah pay' to cut the brush along the road, 'loh ah pay' to build their camp and 'loh ah pay' to carry their food and rations. There are many kinds of 'loh ah pay'. You cannot count the amount of 'loh ah pay'." - "Saw Ra Doh", (M, 35), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #199, 6/00)

Forced labour is constantly demanded from the villages under SPDC control despite the regime's claims to be putting a stop to the practice [see 'Restrictions on Forced Labour' below]. The rugged hills of the region have very little infrastructure and there are no large-scale road or railway projects using thousands of people for forced labour at a time, but forced labour is nonetheless an everpresent burden in every village under the SPDC's control. A village head in an SPDC-controlled village must send villagers for labour at the local Army camp building barracks, digging trenches, fetching water and doing other work around the camp. The villagers go for this work on a rotating schedule. Many villages have two or more camps nearby and the village head may have to send people to work at more than one of the camps. He must also send villagers to stand as unarmed sentries at Army camps and along any nearby roads. The few roads which exist in the area are dirt and need a great deal of maintenance, which the villagers are forced to perform. They must also regularly clear scrub along both sides of the road in order to protect the Army from ambush. If the local Army unit has a farm or a money-making project like a brick kiln or logging, the village head must send people to work on those too. In addition to this, the village head is ordered to provide porters whenever the Army needs them, so he must find villagers who are not already working at the camp or doing sentry duty to go. Much of the portering is also done on a rotating basis. An Army column may pass through the village and demand yet more villagers to go with it as operations porters. While these forms of labour are not as visible or headline-grabbing as the building of a railway, the work goes on every day, it is just as difficult, and collectively involves the labour of thousands of villagers.

"They are forcing them, the same as in our village. It is no different. They wrote the same letters to us and the other villages. They ordered them to do 'loh ah pay' too. If they write one letter to M—, they also write one to T— and another to K—. They demand things from all the villages at the same time." - "Saw Tee Maung" (M, xx), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #133, 5/00)

"The villagers are called to go and work on the road for 'loh ah pay', 'ta won kyay' ['obligation'] and many kinds of work. We also have to go for 'wontan' [servants, which often means porters]. If we can't supply replacement villagers, they don't allow the workers to return to the village." - "Saw Kloh" (M, 56), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #188, 5/00)

"It starts from Noh Paw Tee, then to Poh Ma Heh, Tee Theh Lay, Tee Law Thay Hta, Noh Ghay, Wah Tho Klah, Hsa Law Dteh, Baw Tho Hta, Tee Tha Blu Hta, Taw Meh Hta, Bpo Leh, Bpo Khay, Bler Per, then down to K'Pee Kee, Pway Taw Ru, Tee Hsaw Meh, Noh Lah, Pah Loh, Taw Thu Klah. They all have to go. They can't take a rest." - "Pi San Nweh" (F, 53), village headwoman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #193, 6/00); talking about the villages in her area which have to go for forced labour

"I don't know all the villages near Ka Ma Maung, but all the villages on both sides of the road have to go. The villages of Wah Tho Koh and Maw Law Kloh always have to go. Even the villages near Ka Ma Maung have to stand sentry along the road. I know that the villages of Baw Kyo Leh, Taw Thu Klah, Pah Loh, Poh Mine Hay, Tee Theh Lay, Tee Law Thay Hta, K'Pee Kee, Pway Taw Ru, Tee Tha Blu Hta, Wah Tho Klah, Hsa Law Dteh, Taw Meh Hta, Bpoh Leh, Bpoh Khay and Bler Per always have to go. Of the villages above I know that Th'Wa Ko Law and Th'Wa Hu Law have to go. On the road from the east I know that Taw Thu Klah, Pa Loh and Meh Ku Hta have to do it. If they don't they will be moved." - "Mya Aung" (M, 32), village headman from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #202, 6/00); giving a list of villages near the Papun - Ka Ma Maung road which have to go for forced labour.

"This is 'loh ah pay' and every village has to go for it. The Army unit that camps in the fields [outside his village] often demand 'loh ah pay', and the Baw Bi Doh [Sa Thon Lon] also often order us to go on the west side of the car road. The DKBA also order us to work for them, so we don't have any time left to do our own work." - "Saw Plaw Doh" (M, 25), refugee from G— village, Mone township (Interview #7, 2/00)

"The next unit was #38 [IB]. The name of #38's commander is Maung Maung Aye. They ordered us to carry loads twice. Each time they demanded 20 people, 40 people in all. They also demanded 20 people for 'loh ah pay'. That is 60 people in all. Two people also had to go for 'set tha' each day. I don't remember the dates for the other things, but the 'set tha' is regular." - "Pu Ler Ku" (M, 60), village head from xxxx village, Bu Tho township (Interview #221, 4/01); 'set tha' is rotating forced labour as messengers and errand-runners

Both women and men go for forced labour. Men usually do most of the labour, but sometimes the men have already gone for some other form of forced labour, or the men are too afraid to confront the soldiers because they are more likely to be physically abused or accused of being 'rebels' than the women. Women going for a shift of forced labour must decide whether to leave their small children behind or carry them along; even women who show up for work breastfeeding infants are not exempted. Women are at risk of sexual abuse while labouring for the soldiers, especially while portering. Children as young as 10 or 11 and people as old as 60 are also sometimes forced to work. The children often have to go if their parents are not able to go due to illness or because they have to work in the fields. Some SPDC officers complain when children are sent, more because they cannot do a full workload than out of any sympathy for the children - and even though they complain, they still keep the children until replacements are sent or the shift ends. Allowances are not always made for widows or the elderly, but village heads try to arrange for them to be exempted. The number of villagers in a village is also not always taken into account when the local Army commander demands workers, resulting in some smaller villages having a high percentage of their villagers away working at any one time. One villager in Dweh Loh township told KHRG how in his village of 16 houses, 16 people had to go as sentries on the road every day. The result was that there were not even enough people to rotate the sentries, much less go for any other work which they might be ordered to do.

"They have to go to do 'loh ah pay' a lot. When the Burmese don't see any men, they order the women to do it. They also force the old people and children, they are all workers. Some people are 40, 50, and 60 years old and they must go. I saw a man named P—. His children are all grown up and he has grandchildren. He went to porter and his back was bruised. He is Shan. As for the Karen villagers, the Burmese don't call the people who are old and sick, but the people who can go and are healthy, they all must go. Children as young as 12 or 13 years must go. The people who go as porters must take along their own rice. The people who go to porter at the front line do not have enough to eat. They have to ration their food to survive. The Burmese don't give a salary." - "Pu Taw Lay" (M, 56), internally displaced villager from M— village, Shwegyin township (Interview #80, 3/00)

"They ordered the village head and the village head ordered the villagers to do it. Even the 10 year old children all went to work because some of their parents weren't free, so they asked their 10 year old children to go and work. The old people go sometimes and sometimes not. The women also go. They force everyone to do 'loh ah pay'." - "Htaw Say" (M, 43), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #210, 2/01)

"We had to do sentry duty during the last dry season. They didn't say how many days each person had to be a sentry. We only have a few houses and the [sentry] huts that they have for us along the road are the same number as the houses in the village. In all there are 16 houses in K— and N— villages. There are 8 huts and one hut is for two people so that is 16 people. We don't even have enough people to rotate the sentries. We have to stand sentry full time until the [Army] trucks are finished coming up [this is almost the entire dry season]." - "Saw Ra Doh", (M, 35), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #199, 6/00)

"When we went to do 'loh ah pay' to cut and sweep the road, they forced us to guard it when they were carrying their rations. Our village is small but they demanded 6 people. We didn't have time to rest. There are only 10 or 20 families in my village. They demanded 6 people for 2 days by rotation, so we didn't have any time to rest. … For example, if right now one of their columns came to call us, after they left another unit would come to call for someone the next morning. The other one [her husband] hasn't come back yet, so that's why his wife is alone in the house. So his wife has to go." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 40), refugee from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #185, 4/00)

"The children don't need to go but the adults do. The oldest people may be 50 or 60 years old. The youngest person is about 20 years old. The women also have to go. The men and women go together. In some houses if there are no men, then the women have to go. One person from each house has to go. If 30 people from K— village have to go, then 30 people have to go. They don't like it if less than 30 people go." - "Po Lah" (M, 25), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #12, 4/01)

The conditions of work vary depending on the type of work and on the unit demanding it. For rotation work at Army camps and portering, the villagers are kept for the length of the shift or the journey, or however long the unit wants them. Workers on rotation are usually not released until their replacements are sent, and officers often send written orders to villages complaining that the current shift of workers have been there much too long already and should be replaced immediately. For road work, each village is assigned a section of road and given a deadline to complete the work, usually either repairing the road or clearing the scrub on the roadsides. In this situation the soldiers do not usually oversee the work, but they check it after the deadline and if it has not been completed to their satisfaction the village is ordered to do it again and/or punished in some way. Food, tools and building materials are never provided and the villagers must bring their own. Salaries are also never paid to the workers. Villagers who get sick or become injured while working are never given compensation or medicine. They must find their own medicine, even though the transporting and selling of medicine is forbidden in most areas of Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts. Sometimes the villagers must sleep at the work sites. Portering may involve the villagers being away from the village for weeks or even months. Often when one project is finished, the SPDC finds something else for the villagers to do. This leaves very little time for the villagers to do their own work.

"Sometimes they demanded leaves, thatch and bamboo, and we had to go and build things and fence their garden. All of the people in the village had to do that, no one could avoid it. People had to go in turns. We all took turns, but we only had 3 days before our turn would come up again. People had to hurry to finish their own work [for their own living]. If the wife went to work for them, the husband had to do the work for the family, and if the husband went to work for the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] or the Burmese, the wife had to hurry to get their family's work done. People always did things like this to earn their living. We spent less time working for ourselves than working for them. Overall, we could only work for ourselves one third of the time. Sometimes our turn came up to guard at the sentry huts [along the road], and it was usually the men who went for that." - "Naw Say Muh" (F, 54), refugee from P— village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #203, 7/00)

"When they finished fencing the villages the SPDC found more work to do. They forced the villagers to cut the brush along the road and to clear the road. They forced the people to make small bridges. The villagers can't take a rest." - "Saw Maung Sein" (M, 40), KHRG field researcher from Papun District (Interview #4, 2/01)

"Last month they demanded 52 people for 'loh ah pay'. The villagers dare not go because sometimes they take the villagers to go with them for a long time, so we had to hire people. The villagers are afraid of the soldiers and dare not go. They say only three days, but it wasn't only three days, it was all month." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village tract head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

"Every village, all the villagers have to go. The whole village tract. The old people and the young people have to go. The older people are 50 or 55 years old. The youngest people were about 16 years old. They don't let the people younger than 16 years old work. They said they can't work and they are useless if they work." - "Saw Per Per" (M, 45), villager from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #24, 4/01)

"Q: They said they don't order people to go for 'loh ah pay' or portering anymore. Is that true?
A: Maybe they will comb their hair in front of the people and the other leaders like that, but here we have suffered it and there are many villagers who have had to carry loads in the mountains and many people have died along the way." - "Saw Ber Kaw" (M, 40), village head from xxxx village, Mone township (Interview #17, 4/01)

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was formed in 1917 to improve and protect labour standards, and since the creation of the United Nations it has operated as an agency of the UN system. Unlike most UN agencies, its membership includes trade union organisations and employers' organisations as well as governments. In 1955 the Burmese U Nu government signed ILO Convention 29 which bans the use of forced labour. Despite signing the convention, the use of forced labour in the country only became more widespread and systematic, and Burmese regimes have come under pressure by the ILO since 1964 to put a stop to forced labour in the country. Nothing has ever been done to stop it. The pressure gradually increased until by the mid-1990's the ILO was singling the Burmese regime out for severe criticism. In 1997 the ILO appointed a Commission of Inquiry which held hearings, interviewed over 300 witnesses in Burma's neighbouring countries (the Commission was refused entry to Burma itself) and studied over 10,000 pages of documentary evidence. In 1998 the Commission reported that forced labour is widespread and systematic throughout Burma and is operated by both the civilian and military authorities. The SPDC was given until May 1^st 1999 to take steps to put an end to forced labour and to punish those exacting it. The SPDC claimed to have issued Order 1/99 on May 14^th 1999 banning some types of forced labour throughout the country, but evidence indicated otherwise and the SPDC was told to put a stop to it or face the consequences. With no progress being made, in June 2000 the ILO voted to take measures in accordance with Article 33 of its Constitution, which had never been applied to any country in the ILO's 84-year history. Following a six month grace period in which it was determined that nothing had changed, in November the ILO enacted Article 33 stopping all technical cooperation with the Burmese regime and asking its member nations, unions and employers' organisations to review their relations with the SPDC to ensure that nothing they were doing would contribute to the continuation of forced labour. As they had done in 1999, the SPDC waited until the last moment and then claimed to be doing something about it in order to undermine the ILO action. This time the SPDC claimed that the Home Ministry had issued 'Supplementary Order to Order 1/99' on October 27^th 2000, and that this order imposes a broader ban on forced labour and prescribes punishment for anyone demanding it. This order was followed on November 1^st by another similar, but in some ways stronger, order issued by Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, Secretary-1 of the SPDC. The SPDC claims that all township, village tract and village heads in the country have been told about the order, and that if anyone demands forced labour from them they can complain to the appropriate authorities and that person will be arrested.

"I heard about it. I heard that they couldn't force the villagers, but they still forced them secretly. They still force them secretly and the leaders who stay there [in the Army camps] know about it. … It [the order] didn't leave the town. They let the towns know, but they are still forcing people in our place. … Our village head said, 'The letters they [the SPDC] are distributing are coming. Don't worry. Don't worry that the Burmese will force us.' But they are still forcing us to work secretly and the leaders in the town do not know about it." - "Nyi Nyi" (M, 27), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #237, 8/01)

As this report goes to print, an ILO High Level Team has just completed a trip of several weeks travelling throughout Burma to assess whether the SPDC has circulated the orders banning forced labour as claimed, and whether there have been any serious attempts to enforce these orders. According to information gathered by KHRG there has been some circulation of the orders, but most of it only occurred in August and September 2001 just before the visit of the High Level Team. Despite any circulation of the orders, villagers report that there has been no decrease in forced labour, and the SPDC has admitted that not a single person has yet been prosecuted for demanding forced labour. Interviews compiled by KHRG for this report from Nyaunglebin and Papun districts between November 2000 and October 2001 indicate that not only is forced labour still being demanded from the villagers, but that the villagers have no one to complain to about it. Some villagers have said that they were told there would be no more forced labour, but that it still continued. When asked whether forced labour had decreased in his area, one village head from Mone Township said that the SPDC may be 'combing its hair' in front of the world, but in his tract they are still portering for the SPDC Army.

"They do not go to complain to the higher leaders. They dare not go and complain. They stay in xxxx village and they dare not go anywhere. They dare not go because if the Burmese know that they are going to complain it will not be good for us. If they hear and know about it, they are going to kill us. Only this. The villagers are afraid and the village heads are also afraid. No one goes to complain. They dare not go to complain." - "Nyi Nyi" (M, 27), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #237, 8/01)

"No, they don't dare to go and complain about it. It is not near Rangoon. Meh Way is just a Karen village where Karen people live. The Burmese came and drove the people together at Meh Way. So even the village heads are just as afraid of the Burmese as the villagers. … They can't say anything. Even if they did speak, they wouldn't win. They complain but the officers don't listen to them. They are the frontline units and most of the people are afraid of the frontline units. … If they went and complained and said, 'You said you are not going to call for porters anymore,' then they [the soldiers] would say, 'Now we are not calling for porters, we are just asking you for loh ah pay.' The meaning [of loh ah pay] is to help, so the things the villagers help with is carrying loads the same as before.." - "Saw Nay Lay" (M, 51), Centre for Internally Displaced Karen Persons township leader, Dweh Loh township (Interview #238, 8/01)

"The Burmese who force us to work said that it is the Operations Commander who orders the work so we have to work. After that the soldiers went to report the names [of the people who went to work]. We couldn't stay without working. If we don't work we would have to move and if we move to another place the soldiers will take action and put us in jail [for not being registered to live there]." - "Mya Sein" (M, 21), villager from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township (Interview #209, 12/00)

"Q: Did they say there were to be no porters or 'set tha' [messenger labour]?

A: In the past they said there was to be no more, but they are demanding it again." - "Zaw Min" (M, 26), village head from xxxx village, Bu Tho township (Interview #220, 4/01)

The SPDC is also trying to play with words to both trick the villagers and to make its use of forced labour sound better internationally. Under successive Burmese military regimes the state-controlled media has tried to present the labour of villagers as being voluntary and done out of love for the country. There is a Pali term used traditionally for voluntary labour contributed by villagers to gain Buddhist merit, 'loh ah pay'; it normally applies to villagers getting together to maintain the temple or clear the path to the next village. However, SPDC authorities use the term loh ah pay when demanding labour at Army camps and other forms of short-term forced labour, so this is what it has come to mean to the villagers. Heavier or more long-term labour such as portering or road-building are never called loh ah pay by the villagers, but soldiers have now begun telling villagers that portering is now to be called 'loh ah pay' as well. This difference may sound subtle to an outsider, but it greatly angers many villagers in Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts, who have complained to KHRG that they have shown up for a short shift of 'loh ah pay' only to find themselves taken as porters. Portering is dangerous and can last weeks or months so villagers usually try to pay to avoid it, whereas they are less afraid of loh ah pay. By summoning the villagers for loh ah pay the villagers are less likely to try to get out of it and the SPDC can try to claim that the work is contributed voluntarily. The villagers resent being tricked in this way and have said that this 'loh ah pay' is synonymous with 'portering'. One villager from Lu Thaw township told KHRG that a meeting was held in late 2000 at which Karen State Peace and Development Council Chairman (and commander of the Southeast Command) Major General Thiha Thura Sit Maung said that there were to be no more porters, that porters would only have to carry light rations for the soldiers, and that the practice was henceforth to be called 'loh ah pay' and not 'portering'. According to a KHRG researcher from Papun District the terminology was changed in November 2000 - at the same time that the ILO enacted Article 33 and the SPDC claims to have banned forced labour.

"Some of the Karen village heads spoke about it. They said that the units which have come to the frontline have been ordered by Khin Nyunt to not use forced labour anymore. … They [the village heads] haven't received any orders. They just heard about it from people gossiping. … Some of the village heads asked them [the soldiers], 'Why if the people [SPDC] don't call for porters anymore, are you still calling for it?' They [the soldiers] said that instead of porters, they should call it loh ah pay." - "Saw Nay Lay" (M, 51), Centre for Internally Displaced Karen Persons township leader, Dweh Loh township (Interview #238, 8/01)

"I heard the villagers come back and speak about it. Sit Maung, the State Chairman [Major General Thiha Thura Sit Maung, the Southeast Command commander and the Karen State PDC Chairman until his death in February 2001], said there are to be no more porters. Only for carrying and delivering the small rations for them. They don't call it portering. We have to carry for free. That is 'loh ah pay'. They don't call porters now but if they do, we must pay." - "Maung Than" (M, 40), village headman from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township (Interview #205, 8/00)

"They always force us to do 'loh ah pay'. They force the villagers to go and carry things for them as porters. Before they called it portering, but now they said they don't call it portering, they call it 'loh ah pay'. 'Loh ah pay' is portering because you have to carry things the same way. Sometimes they have to carry things for three or

IV. Villages Under the SPDC

The Role of the Village Head

Villages in the Plains of Nyaunglebin District

Relocation Sites

Forced Labour