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SURVIVING IN SHADOW: Widespread Militarization and the Systematic Use of Forced Labour in the Campaign for Control of Thaton District
VIII. Food Security
"They find food day by day. They can't think about any longer than that. They are satisfied if they can find food to eat day by day."
"Saw Hla Wah" (M, 40), Karen relief worker based in Thaton District (Interview #8, 1/04)
One of the most common complaints being related to KHRG field researchers by villagers in Thaton District is their inability to get enough food to feed their families. Most villagers in Thaton District live in old, well established villages that have been settled for many years. In Bilin township in the northern and northeastern portions of the district, many villagers practice hill field farming. In the flatter western portions of the district villagers tend flat fields and have plantations of fruit trees or other cash crops. Traditionally farmers have been able to harvest enough paddy to get them through to the harvest the following year. If there was not enough then they may have to eat rice gruel during the last month or two before the harvest. Many farmers also keep livestock and grow cash crops like fruits, chillies, betelnut, or betel leaves which they can sell or barter for more rice to see them through to the next harvest, while others will weave roofing thatch for the commercial markets. Thaton District has become known as a source of thatch to commercial markets outside the district. Life under the SPDC has produced tremendous strains on this subsistence agricultural system and many families are now not able to get enough rice to eat. A KHRG researcher from the area estimated in 2004 that only about 25% of villagers in Bilin township were able to get enough food. Many villagers are usually forced to eat nutritionally poor rice gruel known locally as meh klaw starting in October, but many more villagers are now having to resort to eating meh klaw or baw k'paw (rice porridge boiled with bamboo shoots) earlier in the year than they have had to do in the past in order to stretch their rice supplies further.
"They [villagers in his village] don't get enough to eat. They buy food to eat. They do logging [to get money]."
"Saw Dee Kay" (M, 50), refugee from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #53, 3/03)
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| A villager from Bilin township surveys the smouldering remains of what were his fields. Soldiers from LIB #118 swept through the area in March 2002 burning and destroying all fields and food supplies that they found. Many villagers lost what was most likely their only source of income. None of the villagers whose fields were burned were compensated for their loss. [Photo: KHRG] |
"We [the villagers] are working flat fields and hill fields. As for us [her family], we don't have a flat field, so we are working a hill field. We get only four or five baskets [of paddy; 84-105 kgs. / 184-230 lbs.] in one year. My rice is gone now [the harvest will not be until November, three months away]. The villagers don't get enough. Most of them don't have enough. That is why the villagers are very poor. The villagers have to go and carry rice from yyyy. They have to work poorly. That is why when the Burmese come to eat we [the village heads] are embarrassed to ask for rice from them [the villagers]. We can't do anything because they oppress us."
"Naw Ber Kaw" (F, 52), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #39, 8/02)
"Don't believe that the villagers have enough food each year. There are only 10 people who have enough food. All of the villagers don't have enough food. My village is very poor. I can tell you about this myself. Each villager comes to me and says, 'Give me one bowl [1.6 kgs. / 3.4 lbs.]of rice. I don't have rice to eat. If I work like this and I eat like this, I will die.' They come to ask me for food. I said, 'We can't do it, but take one bowl.' Another one comes, but I can't give that many bowls. The people [SPDC] demanded five baskets [125 kgs. / 275 lbs.] of rice from us. I told them I couldn't do it. We already used all that we had. I told the people to come and work at my place. My tears were falling down."
"Daw Lay Wah" (F, 50), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #54, 4/03)
"They trade food with each other. They work for daily wages. They work in the morning and eat in the evening. When they get a little money they go and buy rice."
"Saw Taw Lay" (M, 50), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #68, 11/03)
"Not everyone gets enough food to eat. In a few houses there is enough food. Some of them share rice. Now, many of them don't have rice to cook. In the beginning they didn't have anything. They work and eat. Then they work hill fields. They finished doing them and they ate until it was gone. They exchanged green paddy for rice. In the rainy season they work for daily wages and they can eat."
"Saw Thaw Min" (M, 66), village head from xxxx village, Pa'an township (Interview #89, 5/04)
Villagers cite the heavy demands for forced labour as the main reason for not being able to get enough food. The time spent working for the SPDC or the DKBA is time that the villagers could be spending in their fields. Village heads often draw up rotating shifts to enable the villagers to have some time in their fields, but sometimes there are too many demands for labour and even with this system there is just not enough time. The SPDC often demands that the villagers porter supplies to their outposts during harvest time in November, making it impossible for the villagers to be able to harvest all of their paddy before it is eaten by birds, wild animals, and insects. In order to make up for shortfalls in their rice supply many villagers hire themselves out as daily wage labourers. Villagers work in other villagers' fields seeding, transplanting rice seedlings, cutting the grass in the fields, and cutting bamboo and wood. The daily wages for this type of work usually amount to around 1,000 Kyat per day, or they may be paid in rice. Other villagers hire themselves out as manual labourers to carry produce to the markets. Villagers who have bullock carts hire themselves and their bullock carts out to carry things for other villagers. Villagers say that at this stage they are only able to get enough money to buy food for each day and that if they are unable to find work their families may go hungry that day. However, most villagers are able to borrow some rice from relatives or neighbours to help allay the threat of starvation until they are able to produce or acquire their own food.
"In the beginning of the dry season when the paddy is ripe, the villagers have to harvest and dry it because otherwise the wild pigs will come to eat and destroy it, but the villagers don't have time to do it because they have to work for the DKBA and SPDC soldiers. They have to cut firewood for them. In the beginning of the rainy season, they have to cut wood, bamboo, and thatch for them."
"Saw Htoo Klay" (M, xx ), KHRG field researcher (Field Report #2, 6/05); concerning Thaton and Bilin townships
"They found enough rice to get a milk tin [195 grams / 7 ozs.] or a cup. They hire themselves out and buy one milk tin or enough for one pot. They eat like this. They work and they get only enough for one or two pots. They don't earn a lot of money. They get it if they can cut a tree or bamboo. They get money only for a day. They have to endure it like this. ... In my village one basket of paddy [21 kgs. / 46 lbs.] is 1,600 Kyat. One basket of rice [25 kgs. / 55 lbs.] is 5,500 Kyat."
"Saw Ni Maw" (M, 29), refugee from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #50, 3/03)
"They have to hire themselves out to collect betel leaves and vegetables. The people who have money grow betel leaves and hire other people. The people who are strong and can carry a lot get enough money for rice. As for me, your uncle [her husband] can't walk. He has paralysis. I have to do everything, but I can't do it. Two of my eldest children are females. It would be better if they were males."
"Naw Ber Kaw" (F, 52), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #39, 8/02)
"They don't have enough food, so they work when the people hire them. They carry goods by bullock carts. Sometimes people hire them to carry coconuts and jaggery. When they receive money they eat poorly. The people who have enough food take care of the people who don't have enough. They are sharing food with each other. They are selling food to each other and then the people have to repay it the next year."
"Saw Kwee Tha" (M, 56), village head from xxxx village, Pa'an township (Interview #90, 5/04)
"They work for other people. They take food in advance and work for them. Some people hire themselves out day by day. People ask them to work seeding, pulling out rice seedlings for transplanting, cutting the grass in the fields and cutting bamboo and posts. Daily wages are 1,000 Kyat per day."
"Saw Hsa Shwe" (M, 46), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #72, 5/04)
"Some of them weave bamboo hats and sell them. Some of them weave bamboo baskets. Some of them dig out stumps. They go to get daily wages. They go to work for the other villagers, and then they buy food for their wives and children. Sometimes they go to work in the other villages for a month. When they come back they bring rice for their wives."
"U Lah Paw" (M,40), village head from xxxx village, Pa'an township (Interview #91, 5/04)
Natural disasters have also had their role in the district. In recent years, flooding every year has destroyed many of the plantations and flat fields. Many villagers do not have any more seedlings to plant anyway. Flooding may also bring infestations of insects which can destroy much of what is left of the paddy, as happened in Bilin and Pa'an townships after floods in 2003. In 2004, many flat fields were flooded for too long resulting in yet another reduced harvest. In 2005, steady rains continued into mid-November, well over a month past the normal end of rainy season, preventing much of the crop from ripening properly and causing many of the rice grains to sprout while still on the stalk. Heavy rains can also cause landslides in the hills where the land has been cleared of trees for logging or to make way for hill fields. The heavy demands for forced labour make it difficult for villagers to find enough time to plant their fields again if they are destroyed due to flooding, drought, or landslides.
"The paddy was dead this year [2001]. It died because of flood water. Also because when we were working, the SPDC forced us to work. Everything is weak in the village. If this lasts for a long time we must flee up to Beh Klaw [a refugee camp in Thailand]."
" Daw Way " (F, 53), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #9, 3/01)
"They don't have enough food. None of the houses have enough. It is because of the earth. If there is a heavy rain, it floods. When there is no rain, we don't get any paddy. We don't have [irrigation] ditches to get water. We don't have forests because the villages are close. The villagers planted one or two baskets of paddy [seeds], but they only got 15 or 20 baskets of paddy. The villagers from our village have little knowledge. There is no one who has passed 10 th Standard [Grade]. There is no one of high level among the monks. We can't build up the village. The villagers work, but there is no improvement."
"Pa Hsa Ker" (M, 70), village head from xxxx village, Pa'an township (Interview #92, 5/04)
"They called us to a meeting this week. They wrote a letter. The letter said, 'The place where you are living is a forested region and you are not doing the correct hill field system.' He said he would show us the right system. He built a mound as big as this [showing the size]. I looked at it and I wanted to laugh. He and his soldiers brought it from their army camp. It looked like a mound. Then he dug the earth step by step. It looked like when people build a pagoda. It was a terraced paddy field. He said, 'You are not doing the correct hill field system, so you don't get enough to eat. You do the hill fields and you also can't cut and clear your weeds.' We couldn't clear it, but they didn't see that it was because they are forcing us to work. We looked at it. He said on the top we have to block it with a line like this so that if it rains the water will stay."
"U Dah Lay" (M, 65), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #73, 5/04)
"Some of the paddy dies because of the weather: heavy rain or no rain or if the paddy gets infested with insects. Some of the villagers are not free to work for themselves because they have to go and work for the SPDC."
"Saw Bah Heh" (M, xx ), KHRG field researcher (Field Report #3, 6/05)
The DKBA and SPDC have placed almost yearly movement restrictions on the villagers. These restrictions are felt most heavily during the later part of the year when the villagers need to be in their fields to harvest the paddy and keep the animals away from eating it as the grains ripen. In 2004 the DKBA prohibited villagers in Bilin township, from Khaw Po Pleh village down to Pa'an township [see Map 3 of Thaton District] , from leaving their villages and going to their fields. They let it be known that villagers caught outside their villages would be fined and tortured. The villagers did not dare to go to their fields anymore and much of the paddy was destroyed by birds and animals as a result. One KHRG researcher estimated that villagers were only able to harvest about half of their paddy. Villagers often only stay in their field huts when they know SPDC units are far away. When SPDC units come to stay in their or nearby villages, the villagers go back to sleep in their own villages at night. They do not dare to stay in their field huts because the SPDC officers have told them that they would shoot people they see in their field huts.
"In the past we worked and we could eat. Since the Burmese have come to stay, a person can't get as much food as in the past. Now we do flat fields. The pigs come and eat the paddy. We go to watch for the pigs, but they [SPDC] do not allow us to go. When they do not allow us, we don't dare to go. When we don't dare to go, the pigs eat the paddy and destroy it. We work but we can't sleep at the field huts."
"Saw Eh K'Noh" (M, 57), refugee from xxxx village, Pa'an township (Interview #85, 1/03)
"When the paddy was red and bright [ripe] they announced their prohibition, 'No one should go outside the village. If we see you, you will be shot dead.' No one dared to go, so the animals ate the people's paddy. They did it recently. It was after the people had finished doing the paddy, but the sugarcane and the sesame were left [to be harvested]. The rich people were doing sugarcane and sesame. When they prohibited it, the people didn't dare to go."
"Naw Hla Win" (F, ?), refugee from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #58, 5/03)
"Right now we can't tell yet. We are ploughing. The time hasn't arrived yet. Every year, sometimes we can sleep and sometimes we can't sleep. We are like this every year. Sometimes they say we can work and sleep [in the fields]. Sometimes the KNU comes and makes noise [shoots at the SPDC] and they say, 'Hey! No one can sleep at the field huts.' We stayed in the village, but we had to go and plough. Some flat fields are near and some are far. We have to go for one mile, over one mile or two miles. Sometimes we plead with them to be able to sleep there. Now they haven't spoken and we haven't asked them yet. It has started raining. We will ask them later when the time arrives and the people start transplanting the paddy whether the people can sleep in the huts or not."
"Saw Cho Aung" (M, 49), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #64, 7/03)
"They don't get enough food. The reason is because they have to do many kinds of work. Now there is a unit of Burmese encamped here. The second thing is that they can't have enough time to go and stay [in the fields]. We can't go in the early morning when we can only see our feet. They specified that we can go at 8 o'clock in the morning. We must come back at 4 o'clock in the evening. It is not easy for our villagers to work. They do not allow us to sleep in the field huts. The said that they would shoot us dead if they saw us in the field huts. We villagers are afraid and we don't dare to travel. Another thing is that the pigs and insects ate it. We don't go in the night. When we go in the daytime, they [the animals] don't come."
"Saw Taw Lay" (M, 50), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #68, 11/03)
"They restricted us when the villagers were harvesting. They entered the village and gathered the villagers. Then they told the villagers, 'No one should go outside tomorrow.' So the villagers didn't dare to go out. The remaining paddy was destroyed. The cows, buffaloes, pigs and chickens ate it. Some of it was destroyed and some of it remained so we harvested it, but it wasn't enough to eat."
"Saw Ni Maw" (M, 29), refugee from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #50, 3/03)
Many villagers must buy additional rice with money raised from working as day labourers or from growing cash crops. However, before a villager is permitted to leave his or her village in order to buy rice from markets in nearby villages, they must first get permission from the SPDC. The SPDC demands that the villagers go and see them first, and questions them before approval is granted and a pass is issued. During the interrogation, the villagers are asked how many people are living in their household. This number is written down on the pass, permitting the villagers to buy just enough rice for these people and no others. The pass is checked by SPDC soldiers every time the villager encounters a military checkpoint, camp, or patrol on their return journey. If they are caught carrying more rice than they are allowed to, it is confiscated and eaten by the soldiers and they will likely be arrested and tortured. The SPDC fears that any surplus rice that the villagers have will be supplied to resistance forces, so they restrict the amount of rice that the villagers are allowed to purchase at any one time to the bare minimum. The somewhat obvious fact that most villagers do not have enough food to even feed their families, let alone give it to the KNU, seems lost on the SPDC. This paltry ration is never enough for the villagers to stave off the all too familiar hunger that many of them must now face. Many villagers now teeter on the brink of starvation and malnutrition rates, particularly amongst children, are alarmingly high [also see the 'Education and Health' section] . In October 2003 the Burmese Border Consortium (a Thailand-based aid organisation), in conjunction with numerous grassroots organisations working along the Burma-Thai border, released the report entitled: "Reclaiming the Right to Rice" (7) . This report looked at the issue of food security and internal displacement in Eastern Burma . As part of the report, the findings of a survey conducted by the Backpack Health Workers Team (BPHWT) were published to illustrate the nutritional impact of internal displacement. The survey found that in all areas where the survey was conducted, with parts of Thaton District being among them, child malnutrition rates were as high as 11.4%. To put this figure into perspective the report pointed out that, "the World Health Organisation states that acute malnutrition greater than 10% of the target population indicates a serious problem" . Food insecurity and a poor dietary intake, with as many as 26% of the children surveyed having not eaten any protein-rich foods in the week prior to the survey were identified as the source of such high rates of malnutrition.
"They said we have to go and get a pass from them if we want to go and buy rice. When we go to get the pass they ask us how many people are in our house. He will only give it for them and he will confiscate the rest [only allow them to purchase a sufficient amount of rice for the number of people in the household]. They said we would go to feed the KNU soldiers. I told them, 'I can't buy enough rice to eat because I don't have money to buy rice. I have to work and find it. If I go to buy it, I have to carry it on your truck and I don't have money for the truck fees.' They pitied me. As I spoke I cried. They gave me five bowls of rice."
"Daw Lah Zin" (F, 48), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #28, 3/02)
Some villagers also grow small gardens of cash crops which they sell to be able to buy more rice. These crops include betelnut, betel leaves, chillies, taro, dogfruit, sesame, sugarcane, and soybeans. Sometimes people come up from the towns to buy the produce and other times the villagers have to go down to the towns to sell it. Those who are unable to get permission to travel must either risk the journey without the permission of the SPDC or settle for selling their produce within their own village, where prices are considerably lower. One basket [25 kgs. / 55 lbs.] of soybeans is worth 4,000 Kyat and a basket [25 kgs. / 55 lbs.] of sesame is 9,000 Kyat. Some villagers near rivers are able to earn extra money by fishing, catching freshwater shrimp (prawns) or frogs which they then sell. One viss [1.6 kgs. / 3.6 lbs.] of fish fetches 800 to 1,000 Kyat. Other villagers cut firewood or bamboo, or weave roofing thatch to sell. Villagers state that they are able to stack up to 500 shingles of thatch onto a bullock cart which they then drive to market, where during the rainy season they are likely to receive only as little as 4,000 Kyat for it, or they can sell firewood for 10 to 20 Kyat per bundle.
"We climb to get betel leaves. The price of betel leaves is good. People say that we are rich. I say we are not rich. We don't have any elephants. Rich people don't have to climb trees. We don't have money to buy rice and the people call us rich. We like to listen to that. We have to climb to get betel leaves to buy rice to eat. We go to buy it from yyyyand zzzz. We ask for it from the people in zzzz. The people in zzzz go to get it from wwww. We take the whole sack. One sack [50 kgs. / 110 lbs.] is 6,000 Kyat."
"Naw Khu Kyi" (F, 50), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #42, 8/02)
"The villagers among the mountains are very poor. They don't have an income. They are working hill fields. After they do it, they eat and it is all gone. The next year they have to do it again. Most of them are selling some betel leaves to get money to buy salt and fishpaste. They climb trees to get dogfruit. If the dogfruit don't come out, they are poor. They can't send their children to school. They can't take any precautions for their health."
"Saw Eh K'Thaw" (M, 55), Karen district official (Interview #7, 11/03)
"We work a hill field. We get 10 baskets of paddy, but not every time. Some years we only get five baskets of paddy. It is not enough for us to eat. We then cut bamboo and sell it. For one day we can get 50 pieces of bamboo. We sell it in yyyy and Bilin. When we can't cut bamboo, we sell thatch. In the dry season we gather thatch. We cut it for three days and we get one bullock cart load of it. One bullock cart can carry 500 shingles. When we sell it in the rainy season, we receive only 4,000 Kyat. We sell it in our village."
"Naw Tah Tah" (F, 24), villager from xxxx village, Thaton township (Interview #99, 11/03)
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| In April 2003, soldiers from IB #11 burned all of the hill fields along the Kyaik Khaw – Ka Dtaing Dtee car road between Yoh Klah and Kaw Po Koh villages. In all, 11 hill fields were destroyed. This 50 year old woman was one of the villagers who lost her livelihood. She told KHRG that she was not sure how she would get enough food to survive. [Photo: KHRG] |
"Sometimes we get 40 or 50 baskets of paddy. It is not enough for us, so we have to barter [for food]. We climb the trees to get betelnut and betel leaves. We get 1,000 or 2,000 Kyat. One viss of betel leaves is 300 Kyat."
"Saw Soe Bee" (M, 40), villager from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #70, 12/03)
The widespread campaign of crop destruction is a key instrument employed by the SPDC in its ongoing attempts to control the civilian population. In other parts of Karen State , the SPDC destroys villagers' fields and crops in an effort to drive the villagers out of the hills and down into the SPDC controlled villages. The logic behind such a campaign is that by destroying the crops and food supplies, the villagers will slowly starve and have little other choice but to come down from the hills. In Thaton District, however, most villagers are already living in SPDC controlled villages. The destruction of their food supplies is not a move to flush them out of the areas that lie beyond SPDC control, but rather one of continued harassment by the SPDC to exert even greater control over the villagers. The SPDC maintains that the fields that they destroy are used to feed the resistance. They claim that the fields belong to 'rebels' and the 'sons and wives of rebels'. While it may be true that many of the villagers tending these fields may very well be the sons and wives of KNLA soldiers, this does not excuse the fact the SPDC is still targeting the civilian population over the actual combatants. Whenever an SPDC unit is ambushed by the KNLA, the SPDC turns to the villagers seeking retribution. For example, on April 3 rd 2003, soldiers from IB #11 claimed that the KNLA had laid landmines between Lay Kay and Ka Ter Ti villages at the site of where the SPDC would build their road. In retaliation, the SPDC burned 35 of the villagers' hill fields along the length of the road.
"They burned the hill fields along the path. They burned eight hill fields around Noh Ber Baw. They also burned fields at Yoh Kla village, Htaw Klaw Kee village and until Th'Waw Po village. ... The event [fighting] occurred with our nephews [KNLA]. When we went to meet them [SPDC], they said, 'Burn that hill field when you go back.' We didn't burn it. They burned it themselves when they came."
"Daw Khu Pu" (F, 50), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #56, 11/03)
"They destroyed all of the paddy when it was the people's harvest time. When it was the people's time for threshing the paddy, they burned the people's paddy ground [the area set aside in the fields for threshing the paddy], so we couldn't get anything to eat. We didn't dare to complain to them because we were afraid of them. We had to stay like that. We didn't dare to complain to them. If we spoke to them, they would have become angry and tortured us."
"Naw Maw Thee" (F, 20), refugee from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #55, 4/03)
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