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FORCED LABOUR ORDERS SINCE THE BAN
A Compendium of SPDC Order Documents Demanding Forced Labour Since November 2000
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights
Group
February 8, 2002 / KHRG #2002-01
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Below are the direct translations of 453 order documents and letters received by village
leaders in Karen State and Pegu Division of Burma. All but a few of them are demands for
forced labour issued by State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military units and
local authorities, while the remaining few are letters and notes written by village heads
about the forced labour they have been ordered to provide. All of these orders and letters
were written and issued after November 1st 2000, which is the
date when SPDC Secretary-1 Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt signed an order prohibiting the further use
of forced labour by military and civilian authorities (see Appendix B). The orders translated here carry
dates up to November 2001, more than a year after Khin Nyunt’s order was supposedly
implemented, and a perusal of all of them shows that there has been no reduction in forced
labour in any of the regions covered by this report. Villagers and village heads
throughout these regions also consistently testify to KHRG that there has been no
reduction in forced labour in their areas, and their testimonies are presented in other
KHRG reports. Meanwhile, though the most recent documents translated herein are dated
November 2001, similar orders are still being issued and gathered by KHRG.
The orders translated herein are only a small representative sampling; for every order produced here hundreds more are issued every week. From over 1,500 order documents examined for this report, we have selected only those which specifically involve some form of forced labour since November 2000. The translations below are from original order documents in Burmese obtained by KHRG field researchers in Toungoo, Nyaunglebin, Papun, Thaton, Pa’an and Dooplaya districts of Karen State and Pegu Division. They were issued by dozens of different military units and SPDC authorities over an area spanning more than 500 kilometres. Their consistency of theme and similarity of wording indicates that they are representative of state policy; yet, as the SPDC admits, as of February 2002 not a single case of the illegal use of forced labour has been brought forward for prosecution under the terms of Khin Nyunt’s November 2000 order banning forced labour. Appendix A contains excerpts from the Village Act and the Towns Act, colonial-era laws which allow the conscription of forced labour and are still on the SPDC’s law books, despite pressure for over 30 years from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to remove or revise them. Appendix B contains the texts of three SPDC orders which claim to ban forced labour: Order 1/99, the Order Supplementing Order 1/99 (October 2000), and Khin Nyunt’s order of November 1, 2000.
We have divided the orders demanding forced labour into two sections: "General Forced Labour", which contains orders directly demanding people for forced labour or bribe money to avoid forced labour, and "Forced Labour Supplying Materials", consisting of orders which implicitly require forced labour by demanding materials which require intensive labour to produce, such as logs, planks, bamboo posts and ties, and thatch roofing shingles.
Within each section we have sorted the orders chronologically from the oldest (starting at November 1 2000) to the most recent (November 2001). A few of the orders are undated, and we have inserted these in the sequence based on when they were most likely issued, judging by the other documents with them and interviews with the village leaders who received them. We have translated the orders as directly as possible and have tried to retain the visual formatting of the documents as well. The heading of each order translation indicates its sequential number and the region where it was issued. Printed copies of this report, and copies of the full set of Burmese orders translated in this report, are available (with appropriate details blacked out) on approved request from KHRG.
To see additional orders on a broader range of topics, see "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/2001) and other preceding Order Sets published by KHRG.
The online version of this report has been divided into three HTML files. You may scroll down sequentially through the report, or click on a heading to go directly to that section (to see the maps you must click on 'Map 1' or 'Map 2' below).
Preface
Table of Contents
Notes on the Text of the Orders
Terms and Abbreviations
Map 1:
Burma, showing military commands
Map 2: Karen Districts
General Forced
Labour (Orders #1-344)
Forced Labour Supplying Materials (Orders #345-453)
Appendix A:
The Village Act and the Towns Act
Appendix B: SPDC Orders ‘Banning’
Forced Labour
Notes on the Text of the Orders
Most of these orders were handwritten, some typed, and carbon-copied or copied on a cyclostyling machine if sent to more than one village. Many of them have been produced as form letters for distribution to many villages, with the village name and any other specific details written in afterwards by hand. The orders were written in Burmese.
We have attempted to accurately reproduce the visual page layout of each order, and underlining, etc. are as they appear in the order. ‘Stamp:’ gives the translation of the rubber-stamped unit identifier affixed to many of the orders, while ‘[Sd.]’ denotes the usually illegible signature of the issuing official. The language of many of the orders sounds awkward because Burmese grammar is very different from English; for example, the ordering of phrases within a sentence is almost opposite, sentences are often very long and convoluted, and personal subject and object pronouns are often omitted in Burmese. We have translated the words and expressions as directly as possible, though we have sometimes had to make minor changes in the sequence of the words for the wording to make sense and to have the exact same meaning in English. Moreover, many SPDC Army officers and Non-Commissioned Officers are semi-illiterate so they write with terrible grammar and frequent mistakes, and misspell place names and people’s names. Where necessary, we have added notes in italics in square brackets for clarification, but all other text is as it appears in the orders. All text not in square brackets is in the text of the order document itself.
Names in the orders are usually prefixed with an honorific; in Burmese ‘Daw’ is used for married women and ‘Ma’ for young unmarried women, while ‘U’ is for older or respected men, ‘Ko’ and ‘Maung’ for men close to the writer’s age, younger men or to indicate a lower level of respect. In Sgaw Karen, ‘Saw’ or ‘Pa’ are prefixes for men and boys and ‘Naw’ for women and girls, regardless of marital status.
In Burmese, numerals are usually written in parentheses; in the translations these have been omitted in most cases where they would not be used in English. As in the originals, all numeric dates are shown in dd/mm/yy or dd/mm format. Some orders use Burmese dates: the year 1362 is the period from April 2000-April 2001, the months begin at each new moon and are divided into the moon’s ‘waxing’ and ‘waning’ phases. We have noted the equivalent Gregorian calendar date where it is not already specified.
Most of the orders were issued by local SPDC Army commanders and Peace & Development Councils (PDCs), which are local-level SPDC administration at the Township, Village Tract and Village levels. A village tract is a group of 5-20 villages, usually 10-20 kilometres in diameter and administered from the largest village of the group. A township is a larger area consisting of several village tracts centred on a significant market town, and a district is several townships covering a significant geographic region. While the Township and often Village Tract PDCs consist of SPDC officials under direct military control, the Village PDC chairperson and members are appointed, often against their will, by the local military. Most orders are addressed to the ‘Chairperson’, who is the SPDC-appointed Chairperson of the Village Peace and Development Council (VPDC), and/or the ‘Secretary’ of the same VPDC. This council, consisting of a Chairperson, Secretary, and Members, is supposed to administer the village for the SPDC, which mainly consists of arranging whatever the Army and the higher-level PDCs demand. Other orders are addressed to the ‘Village Head’, who is head of the village elders, and is often the same as the VPDC Chairperson. If a village fails to comply with an order, the Chairperson or Village Head is usually the first to be punished by being arrested and beaten or detained for ransom; this is what is meant by threatening phrases such as "if you fail it will be your responsibility".
Village heads have to spend so much time supervising the forced labour of their villagers and running back and forth to the Army camp whenever summoned by the officers that it is difficult for them to find time to farm their own fields. Moreover, whenever the Army demands money, livestock or goods, it is difficult for the village heads to get it from the villagers so they often end up paying for it themselves. Finally, the village head is at constant risk of arrest, interrogation and torture if he/she fails to comply with a single order or if there is any resistance activity near the village. Therefore, most villagers, especially in or near conflict areas, are too afraid to be a village head. Some villages now rotate their village heads every month if they cannot find anyone willing to take the responsibility. Another solution which is now used by many villages is to choose women as village heads, because the villagers feel that women, particularly elderly women, will be detained and tortured less often than a male headman would be. This is somewhat true, because Burmese culture requires that the young show great respect to parents and elders, and many Burmese officers feel intimidated when dealing with elderly women who remind them of their mothers; however, many of them will still not hesitate to detain or torture an elderly village headwoman. Some of the orders address the village headwoman colloquially as ‘Mother’, and the sender sometimes refers to himself as ‘Son’. Other terms such as ‘Uncle’ and ‘Auntie’ are usually terms of respect for elders or commanders, not actual blood relations.
At the village level, the ‘Chairperson’ is usually victimised by the local military; however, at the village tract and township levels the ‘Chairperson’ is often a corrupt SPDC appointee who works closely with the local military. The local Army often dictates demands to the Township or Village Tract PDC leaders, who then divide the demands among the villages and issue the written orders; this is why many of the orders to village heads are sent by village tract heads, but merely repeat the direct demands of the Army. The orders often contain phrases such as ‘in the Elder’s village’ or ‘the Elder yourself must come’; ‘Elder’ here is our translation of the gender-neutral term Lu Gyi Min, a reference to the village elder who receives the letter, and though it may sound awkward it is the closest term we have been able to find in English.
Many orders call for ‘loh ah pay’, a Burmese term referring to a traditional practice of contributing one’s labour for small village or temple projects in order to earn Buddhist merit; however, the labour demanded in these orders is forced under threat and is not actually ‘loh ah pay’ at all. Rather than translate this misuse of the term, we have left it intact where it occurs in the orders. The term ‘wontan’ also appears frequently; we have translated this literally as ‘servant’, and it is used by the SPDC to refer to porters and other forced labourers. ‘Operation servants’ are forced labour porters for frontline operations. Some of the orders demand that the village head ‘bring information’ or ‘report information’ to the Army camp; this is a summons for the village head to report intelligence on opposition movements near the village, any visitors to the village, and all activities of the villagers. Reference is made to ‘servants’ fees’, also known as ‘porter fees’; these are the routine extortion fees which villagers must pay to all Army battalions in their area. If they fail to pay the fees, they are taken for forced labour. Many orders contain phrases like "if you fail it is your responsibility" or "we will not take any responsibility for your village"; these are threats that village elders will be arrested and detained under torture or houses will be looted and/or burned for failure to comply with the order. Some Battalions in the orders call themselves ‘Frontline’ battalions, indicating that they operate in conflict areas.
‘Set tha’ is forced labour as messengers and errand runners for the Army. Villages are normally forced to provide one or two villagers every day or two to each Army camp in their area for a 24-hour shift of set tha. Almost all of the order documents translated in this set were carried from the Army or local authorities to the recipient villages by villagers doing set tha forced labour. Many of the orders contain phrases such as "send 4 people with this set tha", "reply by letter with this set tha", "come along with the set tha who has brought this letter", or "give the money to this set tha"; meaning that the villager who delivered the order is to return to the camp with a reply, or money, or additional forced labourers.
SPDC State
Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
PDC Peace
& Development Council, SPDC local-level administration
VPDC Village Peace &
Development Council (abbreviated ‘Ya Ya Ka’ in Burmese)
TPDC Township Peace
& Development Council (abbreviated ‘Ma Ya Ka’ in Burmese)
IB
Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LIB
Light Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers
fighting strength
LID
Light Infantry Division (SLORC/SPDC), made up of 10 Light Infantry Battalions
Company Military unit of about 100 soldiers, though
often understrength in SPDC Army
Column Combination of Companies,
assembled for operations; usually 100-300 soldiers
Camp Army base or
outpost; from remote hill posts of 10 soldiers to Battalion HQ camps
of several hundred soldiers
KNU
Karen National Union, main Karen opposition group
KNLA Karen National
Liberation Army, army of the KNU
DKBA Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army, Karen group allied with the SPDC
KPA
Karen Peace Army, a small group under SPDC control in Dooplaya District
Nga Pway ‘Ringworm’,
derogatory SPDC slang for KNU/KNLA
loh ah pay Voluntary
labour to make merit, but used by SPDC for most forms of forced labour
set tha ‘Messengers’;
forced labour as errand-runners, messengers, and for some odd jobs
wontan
‘Servant(s)’, used by SPDC officers to mean forced labourers, usually porters
Kyat
Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat at official rate, 300+ Kyat at current market
rate
Viss
Unit of weight measure; one viss is 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds
Kyat Tha 16 grams; 100 kyat tha equals 1 viss
Pyi
Volume of uncooked rice equal to 8 small condensed milk tins; about 2 kg / 4.4 lb
Bowl Volume
of uncooked rice same as a pyi
Tin
Also ‘big tin’, volume of rice or paddy of 8 pyi;
about 17 kg / 37 lb of husked rice
Basket Volume of rice or
paddy equal to 2 Big Tins
Taun(g) Burmese unit of measurement
equalling 1.5 feet or ½ metre (elbow to fingertip)
Twa
Burmese unit of measurement equalling 8-9 inches or 20-22 cm (one handspan)
U
Burmese honorific prefix for older or respected men
Ko, Maung Burmese honorific prefix for younger or less respected
men
Saw, Pa Sgaw Karen prefix for
men and boys
Daw
Burmese honorific prefix for married women
Ma
Burmese honorific prefix for younger unmarried women
Naw
Sgaw Karen prefix for women and girls
This section includes direct orders for forced labour at Army Camps, on roads, portering, and other forms of forced labour, and related documents. Demands for bullock carts, tractors and boats are also included here, because these demands implicitly require the forced labour of the owner/driver of the cart, tractor or boat. Villages receive these types of orders from every Army camp in their area as well as from the local village tract and township authorities. Much of it is referred to as ‘loh ah pay’, a Burmese term for a traditional practice of contributing one’s labour on small village or temple projects to earn Buddhist merit; but in these orders and in the lexicon of the SPDC and the villagers, loh ah pay has come to mean most forms of forced labour with the exception of military portering and major infrastructure projects. With the apparent aim of diffusing international criticism, many SPDC officers have recently told villagers that portering is also to be called ‘loh ah pay’ from now on, which angers the villagers because they view portering as much worse and more dangerous than other forms of labour. Most villagers would go for loh ah pay but would do anything they could to avoid portering, but now the orders give them little idea of how they will be used until they arrive at the Army camp. ‘Wontan’, literally ‘servant’, can mean either porters or other forced labourers. In the order documents porters are commonly referred to as ‘operations servants’. ‘Set tha’ is forced labour as messengers and errand runners; Army camps keep several ‘set tha’ on call at all times, so most villages have to send one or more people each day for this labour. Villagers are also called for forced labour as unarmed sentries guarding Army camps and military supply roads; see for example Orders #55, 56, and 62, which demand that villagers build sentry huts and provide sentries on rotating 24-hour shifts, and Order #301, which demands additional bridge sentries and intelligence runners from every village in the village tract.
Many forms of forced labour, particularly set tha and some forms of portering, are done on a rotation basis; people must be sent for a shift of one or more days (taking along their own food), and are supposed to be replaced when the shift ends. The villagers draw up a roster and take turns for rotation labour. Sometimes people are sick, busy or unwilling to go when their turn comes, and in these cases the Army usually detains the current shift of workers until the next shift comes (Orders #178 and 272 give specific examples of this). This often results in angry letters from the Army to the village head, complaining that the workers have been with them for too long and are already exhausted or out of food (see Order #86). Such letters are not written out of any concern for the workers, but because the Army does not want to have to feed them and wants people who can work hard continuously.
In response to increasing international pressure, the SPDC has taken several steps in an attempt to make it appear that the Army has been demanding less forced labour. One of these already mentioned above is the new insistence that portering be called ‘loh ah pay’. In addition some officers have resorted to doublespeak; for example, the officer writing Order #104 states that the Army "Are not using or calling 2 loh ah pay people from the Elder’s village, so do it as we have ordered by this messenger now. If [you] fail we will call and use 4 loh ah pay people." Yet another tactic is for the Army to dictate its demands to the village tract authorities, then have the village tract issue the order documents; Orders #185 and 442 give clear examples of this. The reality, however, can be seen in the fact that of the over 1,500 order documents examined for this report, not one makes any reference to the SPDC’s Order 1/99 or its orders of October and November 2000 banning forced labour, even though those orders actually make the demands in most of these documents illegal (transcripts of these orders can be seen in Appendix B). The only reference occurs in Order #328 and comes not from the SPDC officer who wrote the order but from the village head who received it; the village head wrote the list of SPDC demands on the order and then noted "This is not covered by loh ah pay 1/99".
None of the labour mentioned in the orders below is paid. Nor is it undertaken voluntarily, but always under the direct or implied threat that the village elders or villagers will face serious punishments for any failure to comply. This threat is often left unstated, simply indicated by the use of red ink, or alluded to through statements such as "if you fail the responsibility will be yours". Order #97 demands money for forced labour which the villagers did not go to do, and warns, "If the delay becomes any longer, the money will not be good enough. It could lead to suspicion". In some cases it is made more explicit, such as "If [you] fail to come, [we] will take harsh action" (from Order #135), "If [you] fail, the Elder will be tied up with rope" (from Order #80) or "If [you] fail, [we] will send a bullet" (from Order #99). In addition to threats, villagers are also fined for failing to show up for work or for fleeing during forced labour; sometimes this is stated as a fine in cash or meat (see Orders #58, 84, and 194), while sometimes it is claimed that people had to be hired in their place and they must reimburse the cost. Sometimes the fines are combined with demands for additional labour as punishment (see Orders #44, 68, 79, 80, 119, and 144) and threats such as this one in Order #69: "If villagers with our Mobile Column escape or don’t come [for forced labour] and our Column arrives at their village, the Column will not be at fault [for whatever punishments it imposes], you are informed."
Men, women and children are generally accepted for forced labour as long as they are physically able to do the work. Very few order documents make any distinction; Order #31 says, "The loh ah pay volunteer must not be female. Not to be too young or too old.", Order #312 states that "Female servants will also be accepted", and Orders #163, 240, 258, and 307 similarly state that women can or should be sent. When villagers are wounded or killed doing forced labour it is generally the villages in the area who are called upon to provide compensation, while none is provided by the SPDC (contrary to paragraph 2h of the ‘Order Supplementing Order 1/99’, shown in Appendix B). Orders #186 and 294 give examples of this; Order #294 states that after the villages hired people to go in their place as porters, one man was killed and one stepped on a landmine, but it is the same villages who hired them who are expected to compensate the men’s families.
It is difficult for villagers to go for all of this forced labour, so they often try to pay bribes to the Army to get out of it, which the orders refer to as ‘paying to hire servants’. For some types of routine forced labour, money is accepted by the local Army officers. However, the Army officers then just pocket the money and demand the labour elsewhere. Eventually, they begin demanding the labour from the same village - so the village has to send the labour while also paying to ‘avoid’ it. Later the villagers may begin paying more in order to avoid the ‘actual’ forced labour as well, first on an ad hoc basis and then on a routine basis, until this too becomes a normal extortion ‘fee’, and the Army takes the money and begins demanding yet more ‘actual’ forced labour on top of it - and so on. In many villages this system has become so formalised that they now pay several types of weekly and monthly ‘servant fees’, ‘porter fees’, and ‘messenger fees’ to various Army camps, while simultaneously doing all forms of forced labour at those camps. Many Army units demand more forced labour than they really need, then insist that only half of the workers actually be sent and that they be paid money for the remainder.
Some villages also hire people to go in their place. When the Army channels its forced labour demands to small villages through a village tract head or the head of a garrison village, some village tract heads automatically hire people to go for the labour and then send demands for money out to the smaller villages to cover their share. This is most clearly exemplified by Orders #100, 131, 155, 187, 227, 251, 273, and 306, all of which were issued by a village tract in Toungoo District. In this village tract the Army demands porters from the village tract head, who then contacts labour agents in Toungoo town to hire the required number of people; at the end of every month, he then bills all of the villages in the tract for their portion (based on village size) of the total, at a rate of 4,000 Kyat plus 250 Kyat transport fee for each porter. The bill each month for this alone can add up to 1,000 Kyat or more per family, and as can be seen in these orders many villages are behind in their payments. If the villagers can no longer pay the money, all of these ‘fees’ which have piled up one by one suddenly start being converted back into real forced labour (see for example Order #117) - leaving the villagers with so much forced labour that they are left with little option but to flee the village.
For additional explanations and examples of the nature of these types of orders see "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/01). The orders below are presented in chronological order, from November 2000 to November 2001.
______________________________________________________________________________ Order #1 (Nyaunglebin)
Stamp:
Frontline
#xxx Infantry Battalion To: Subject: To quickly repair the car road Regarding the above matter, the Elders from each Village Tract have to take responsibility to eliminate potholes along part of the vehicle road. [You] Must carry stones from the (left/right) sides of the road and fill them, and there must be no water [puddles] left on the road. [You] Must carry this out and finish tomorrow evening, you are informed.
[Sd.] [This is a typed and carbon-copied order sent to several villages with the village name written in by hand.] ______________________________________________________________________________
Order #2 (Nyaunglebin) Stamp:
Date:
3-11-2000 Subject: The matter of coming and paying the money which is owed Regarding the subject matter, come to pay the money that the Elder’s village must pay by 4-11-2000 at the latest, you are informed. The Department Head has also ordered it. [You] Also didn’t complete your duty in the matter of Township servants, so it has been noted and apportioned among the [villages of the] Tract. Therefore, come to pay on the specified date. Movement
fee
5,000 This is the money that must be paid for the 10th month [October]. There is a lot of money which remains to be paid.
[Sd.]aaaa [All of the above fees are various forms of extortion, several of them related to forced labour. ‘Movement fee’ is supposedly money for Army patrols, ‘Bicycle porter’ is a fee in lieu of supplying a bicycle (and possibly a rider) to the Army at all times, ‘Township porter’ means money in lieu of supplying forced labour porters to the township authorities, and ‘Bone K’Htein’ is a Buddhist ceremony when new robes are offered to monks (the money is for the Army to buy robes to make their own offerings).] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #3 (Nyaunglebin) Stamp:
xxxx
Village Chairperson Ko aaaa, from the Elder’s village ten loh ah pay people led by one village head, each with a machete and bringing along a morning rice pack, [must come] without fail and report to yyyy Camp on 7-11-2000 at 7 o’clock. Note: [Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #4 (Toungoo) To: Date:
6/11/2000 Tomorrow (7/11/2000), gather 10 loh ah pay people to carry the rations up and down, you are informed. 7/11/2000
Daytime 10 people (Male) The above loh ah pay [people] should be kept at xxxx village, you are informed. [Sd.]Captain [On the back this order is addressed to "xxxx Village, Chairperson". The last sentence means that the 10 people are to come for forced labour during the day but sleep in their home village each night.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #5 (Papun) Stamp:
7-11-2000 To: [Village]
Head When [you] receive this letter, the Head yourself must summon one set tha [messenger] and come to contact yyyy [Army] Camp, you are informed.
[Sd.]
7.11.2000 ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #6 (Papun) To: Subject: Informing [you] to send 7 loh ah pay people As soon as this letter is received, send 7 loh ah pay people to yyyy Camp on 8-11-2000 to arrive at 7 o’clock in the morning, you are informed. When [they] come, each must bring along a mattock [large hoe], you are informed. Each should bring along a rice pack [precooked rice for the afternoon meal], you are informed. [Sd.] [The original of this order has very faint impressions of 2 overlapping SPDC Army stamps and one DKBA stamp at the top of the page; however, none of these were actually affixed on the order, the ink simply leached onto it when it was stacked with some other orders and the paper became wet.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #7 (Papun) Stamp:
9-11-2000 To: [Village]
Head When [you] receive this letter, today on 9-11-2000 the Head yourself must come and hand over 3 wontan [servant] people to the camp commander (or) into the hands of the responsible people at yyyy [Army] Camp, you are informed.
[Sd.]
9.11.2000 ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #8 (Toungoo)
Stamp:
Subject: Calling loh ah pay Date:10-11-00 There is work at our IB #xxx [camp], so a strength of 10 people from xxxx village must come to the xxxx [village] square on the night of 11-11-00 to gather and prepare. Chairperson U aaaa must come without fail to meet with the Column Commander on 10-11-00 in the evening, asking for help, you are informed. [Sd.] [Underlined in red ink:] If the Chairperson is not there, any ten-houses leader or one [VPDC]
member [On the back of the above order the village head has written a list of 7 names with numbered spaces for 3 more, presumably the villagers who are going to have to go for the forced labour. The ‘member’ referred to in the note at the bottom means a member of the village council under the village Chairperson; villages are also divided into units of ten houses, each led by a ‘ten-house leader’.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #9 (Toungoo)
Stamp:
Date:10-11-00 There is work at our IB #xxx [camp], so a strength of 10 people from xxxx village must come to the xxxx [village] square on the night of 11-11-00 to gather and prepare. Chairperson U aaaa must come without fail to meet with the Column Commander on 10-11-00 in the evening, asking for help, you are informed. [Sd.] [Underlined in red ink:] If the Chairperson is not there, any ten-houses leader or one [VPDC]
member [This is identical to Order #8 but was sent to a different village.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #10 (Dooplaya) To: Date:
10-11-2000 Subject: Demanding loh ah pay power Regarding the above subject, [you] must help with 30 loh ah pay people from xxxx village. These loh ah pay groups must come to yyyy village to arrive on Nov[ember] 11th at 0700 hours, you are informed. [Sd.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #11 (Toungoo) Stamp:
13/11/2000 Subject: Asking the help of loh ah pay servants For Frontline #xxx Infantry Battalion’s Column x Base Camp at yyyy, [you are to] contact the authority in charge at Frontline #yyy Infantry Battalion’s zzzz rations storehouse camp at vvvv village, and organise the Village Heads from wwww Village and xxxx Village. Then use the required servant power to send 5 sacks of rice (five sacks) (without fail) without fail to yyyy Camp, to arrive on November 16th in the year 2000 (16-11-2000), Thursday, you are directed.
[Sd.]
13/11/2000 To send: Rice 5
sacks The Village Chairpersons will coordinate and arrange the 15 loh ah pay people. [Sd.] [The above order is from an IB xxx Army camp, telling the village head to gather 15 villagers from 2 villages for forced labour, then go to the rations storehouse camp of another Battalion, get 5 sacks of rice (50 kg/110 lb each) and carry them to the IB xxx camp. The officer has repeated phrases such as ‘without fail’ several times as shown above. Both signatures are the same. On the back this order is addressed "To Chairperson, xxxx Village". The people of the same village were forced to do this labour again just one week later (see Order #19).] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #12 (Nyaunglebin)
Stamp:
Date:
Year 2000, November 15th To: Chairperson Subject: To attend the special meeting Notes: [This is] The directive of the IB xxx Column Commander, so do not fail regardless.
[Sd.] 15-11-2000 [On the back the above order is addressed "To Chairperson, xxxx Tract. Come without fail to the Ya Ya Ka [VPDC] Office on 16-11-2000".] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #13 (Papun) Stamp:
Date:
16-11-2000 The Elder yourself must come without fail to deliver 2 loh ah pay people from the Elder’s village, each person with 5 bowls [11 kg/24 lb] of rice, to yyyy village on 16-11-2000 to arrive at (1600) hours. If [you] fail it will be the Elder’s responsibility, you are informed.
[Sd.] [The village head told KHRG that they obeyed and sent 2 people as ordered on November 17th. The 2 people were forced to porter for 15 days and then released. The village head said they only obeyed because if they had not, the soldiers would have come to the village to capture people instead, including women. The 5 bowls of rice is a significant quantity, and shows that the SPDC made them take their own food for the entire 2-week shift of labour.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #14 (Toungoo) Name: U
aaaa and 5 [sic: 4] companions This [group] totalling 5 people have been doing duty as Servants with our Army starting from 13-11-2000 through to 16-11-2000. [They] Have fully completed their duty, so have been released to go back, and [they] are recommended. [Sd.] [Group] Members (5) people [This is a pass given to a group of 5 villagers to allow them to return to their village after they have completed 4 days of forced labour. Without such a pass, they would have a good chance of being arrested and detained along the way for being outside their village, or grabbed for forced labour along the way by another Army unit.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #15 (Papun) To: [You] Have to coordinate and carry out the matter of clearing the scrub on the left and right sides of the road and filling the [potholes on the] road with earth, so come and arrive at yyyy village monastery on 19-11-2000 at (0900) hours in the morning, you are informed.
[Sd.] [On the back this order is addressed "To Chairperson, xxxx Village". The village head told KHRG that on the morning of 19-11-2000, 15 villagers from xxxx village went to the monastery as ordered and did the labour. He said that they have no option but to comply because the SPDC camp is very near their village.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #16 (Nyaunglebin) Stamp:
Date:
20-11-2000 Subject: Operations servant porters Reference: In accordance with the order of the Ma Ya Ka [Township PDC], send without fail operations servant porters (1 person and one fraction) as below, you are informed. Date: 27-11-2000 Pay quickly the rest of the money
[Sd.]cccc [Operations servants are porters for long term forced labour on frontline operations. Everyone is terrified of this kind of forced labour, and villagers cannot be coerced into doing it except at gunpoint, so whenever possible they pay to get out of it. In this case the village is being ordered to pay for ‘1 person and a fraction’, meaning the standard bribe for one person plus some fraction of a person; for example, if the village tract has been ordered to provide 6 people and there are 4 villages in the tract, each village has to pay enough for 1½ people. On the back this order is addressed to "U aaaa, U bbbb, Village Heads, xxxx [village]".] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #17 (Toungoo) Stamp:
20-11-2000 To: Subject: To clear the servant hiring fees to hire [forced labour] for the #xxx [Infantry Battalion] Column Regarding the above subject, from the Chairperson’s village the balance of servant fees to hire [forced labour] for the #xxx Column is 20,200 Kyat, send it to arrive this evening on 20-11-200[0], writing this letter to inform you.
[Sd.]20-11-2000 ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #18 (Toungoo) To:
Frontline
#xxx Light Infantry Battalion Subject: Calling loh ah pay
[Sd.] Copies to- ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #19 (Toungoo) To:
Stamp: Subject: Asking help for loh ah pay To send rations to the yyyy Base Camp of Frontline #xxx Infantry Battalion, gather a [group] strength of 10 people from xxxx village at the zzzz rations storehouse on the morning of 27/11/2000 (Monday), you are informed. * To send [On the back of this order the Commander has written "xxxx [village], 10 people for 4 sacks of rice". Each sack weighs 50 kg/110 lb, so it takes 2-3 people to carry it to an SPDC camp in the hills as this order tells them to do. The villagers of the same village had just been forced to do the same labour one week earlier (see Order #11).] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #20 (Papun) To: 29-11-2000 For a one-day return trip carrying rations for #xxx [Operations Command], send 1 loh ah pay person from the Elder’s village to deliver the rations, to arrive at yyyy tomorrow on 30-11-2000 at 6 o’clock in the morning, you are informed. If [you will] hire, send [the money] for one person today or tomorrow on time. [Sd.] [This order gives the village head the option of sending a person to carry supplies to an outlying camp or sending money so that the village tract can hire someone to go in their place.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #21 (Papun) To: 30-11-2000 [We] Have to continue delivering rations tomorrow on 1-12-2000, so not only one person from your Elder’s village is to deliver rations. Give 2 more people, you are informed. Note: Arrive without fail at yyyy on 1-12-2000 at 6 o’clock in the morning. Today, received the money (500K [kyat]).
[Sd.] [This concerns forced labour carrying rations to outlying Army posts. It is a follow-up to Order #20, which demanded only 1 person.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #22 (Papun) Stamp:
[You] Must give one person each day to yyyy [Army] Camp as regular set tha [messengers]. The Chairperson yourself must come to the Camp to clear the set tha fees that have been used to hire [messengers], you are informed.
[Sd.] 30-11-2000 [This means that the village has not been sending daily forced labour messengers as ordered, so the Army is demanding money and ordering that from now on these messengers must be sent or paid for.] ______________________________________________________________________________ Order #23 (Toungoo) Stamp:
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