Human Rights in Rural Burma

Karen Human Rights Group
April 30, 1998

In November 1997 the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military junta ruling Burma changed its name to the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC). However, there was no change in the four key leaders of the junta, and judging by the testimonies of villagers throughout Burma and the continuation of all of the regime’s military operations, there has been no change in policy; in fact, the forced relocations and related abuses occurring in many rural parts of the country have only intensified, making it appear that the SPDC regime is even more ruthless and repressive than the SLORC ever was. Like many dictatorships, the SLORC/SPDC is an extremely paranoid regime, believing that it must control every inch of territory and the daily lives of every citizen of Burma; that if it relaxes its repression for one moment, the people will rise and destroy it. This mentality explains the junta’s refusal to negotiate or compromise with its opponents, even in situations where there would be nothing to lose by doing so. SPDC leaders regularly state that "only the Army can hold the country together", and they feel that to do this the Army must control absolutely everything which happens in the country.

In order to gain this control, the military continues to expand at a rate far beyond the means of the junta or the country. In many regions, particularly the central and urban areas, the military has already established near-complete control, but in remoter areas, such as the non-Burman ethnic areas towards all the borders, it has only partial or no control, and in some of these regions there is still armed resistance. The policy of the SPDC, and before it the SLORC, in the case of any form of armed resistance is to "drain the ocean so the fish cannot swim"; in other words, undermine the opposition by attacking the civilian population until they can no longer support any opposition. This is the fundamental idea of the Four Cuts policy (cutting supplies of food, funds, recruits and intelligence to the resistance) which General Ne Win initiated in the 1970’s. The current SPDC plan for consolidating control over areas where there is resistance appears to consist of the following steps: 1) mount a military offensive against the area; 2) forcibly relocate all villages to sites under direct Army control and destroy those villages; 3) use the relocated villagers and others as forced labour, portering and building military access roads into their home areas; 4) move more Army units in and use the villagers as forced labour to build bases along the access roads; 5) allow the villagers back to their villages, where they are now under complete military control and can be used as a rotating source of extortion money and forced labour, further consolidating control through "development" projects, forced labour farming for the Army, etc. If resistance attacks still persist at this last stage, retaliation is carried out against villages by executing village elders, burning houses and other means.

Throughout Burma we can see examples where this process is at various stages; in eastern Tenasserim Division the SPDC is still on a military offensive, while in parts of Chin State they are conducting initial forced relocations, and in central Shan State they are combining the two. In parts of central Karen State which they have now occupied for 1-3 years, they are constructing access roads and new Army bases with forced labour. In areas which the junta has controlled for longer periods and those where there has never been active resistance, the process is well into its last stage of systematic forced labour and economic exploitation of the local population.

Many villages now being burned by SPDC troops were first burned in 1975 when the Four Cuts were first implemented, and some villagers speak of having been on the run from Burmese troops since 1975; but even these villagers say that in the past 2 to 3 years things have grown much worse. The direct attacks on the civilian population, characterised by mass forced relocations, destruction of villages and the village economy, and completely unsustainable levels of forced labour, have now become the central pillar of SPDC policy in non-Burman rural areas of Burma. In the past, the regime would strategically destroy 2 or 3 villages at a time when there was resistance. Now when they perceive a possibility of armed resistance, they delineate the entire geographic region and forcibly relocate and destroy every village there is, as many as hundreds of villages at a time. In many cases, these villages have had little or no contact with resistance forces and do not even understand why they are being targetted.

The worst example of this is central Shan State, where SLORC and SPDC have destroyed over 1,400 villages since 1996, making over 300,000 people homeless. The campaign began by relocating and destroying about 400 villages in an attempt to undermine the Shan United Revolutionary Army (SURA). Villagers were given 3 to 7 days to move to Army-controlled sites, after which many of their homes were burned and anyone seen in their villages was shot on sight. When this operation failed to have any effect on the SURA, SLORC/SPDC expanded the relocation area and also forced many of those already relocated to move again, to even more crowded and tightly controlled sites. By early 1998 this forced relocation campaign had expanded to cover all the villages in an area of 7,000 square miles, totalling over 1,400 villages, and the area is still being expanded despite the fact that many of these villages have never had any contact whatsoever with Shan opposition groups. The SURA has now joined with other groups to form the Shan State Army (SSA) and is seeking negotiations with the SPDC, but the junta has refused negotiations and vows to crush them. The villagers are starving in the relocation sites, where the SPDC gives them nothing and uses them as forced labour building Army camps and an air base and maintaining and guarding roads into the area. Many villagers can be seen begging for food along these roads, while many others have been shot on sight or massacred by SLORC/SPDC troops because they try to return to their villages to find food. An estimated 80,000-100,000 refugees from the region have already fled to Thailand and more continue to do so, but there are no Shan refugee camps in Thailand so they have no option but to enter the illegal workforce, ending up as cheap labour on plantations, construction sites, in sweatshops and as bonded labour in Thai brothels. The SPDC freely allows the ethnic Shans to flee into Thailand, and has now begun a practice of stripping them of their Burmese identity papers as they leave, probably in order to ensure that they can never return.

In Karenni (Kayah State), over 200 villages have been forcibly relocated and destroyed since 1996, after the SLORC broke a ceasefire agreement to attack the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP). Almost every hill village in the entire state has been destroyed. First the Army issued orders that all villagers move to military-controlled camps within 7 days or be "considered as enemy". Patrols then went from village to village, burning and destroying everything and capturing or killing any villagers found. Some villagers are still struggling to survive in hiding in the forests, but most have fled to the towns or gone to the relocation sites, where they live in starvation conditions and are used by SPDC troops as forced labour maintaining Army camps and as servants for soldiers. Since the beginning of 1998, SPDC troops have swept and destroyed villages in the south of the State where the relocation orders had not previously been strongly enforced, and have now begun expanding the relocations to include villages in northern Karenni along the Shan border, which had previously not been relocated because they are in an area partly controlled by the Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front (KNPLF), a group which has a ceasefire deal with the SPDC.

In northern Karen State, SLORC and SPDC have destroyed at least 200 Karen villages since March 1997 as part of their campaign to consolidate control over this rugged region adjacent to the Thai border. Villages close to Army garrisons in Papun, Nyaunglebin and Toungoo districts were ordered to move to Army sites by mid-1997, and some were used to build military access roads while others were taken as porters by troops setting out to destroy all villages in the region. However, most of the villages are small and remote in the forested hills and troops can never catch villagers there, so Army columns have never even given them relocation orders; the columns simply approach each village, shell it with mortars, then enter and burn down every house. As stated in a typed and signed SLORC order issued to 64 villages in 1997, "The abovementioned villages must move and consolidate. … Small villages, even those not included in the above list, must move and consolidate to nearby consolidation villages before May 6^th. Villages which fail to move will be destroyed." Food supplies are systematically hunted out and burned and villagers are shot on sight. Most villagers have fled into the forest where they hide in groups of 2 or 3 families, trying to stay near their ancestral fields so they can grow some food. However, SPDC patrols sweep the area at least once a month to hunt out and destroy their shelters, destroy any crops or food supplies, and shoot villagers and livestock on sight. An estimated 30,000 villagers are still living in hiding in the forest, and the area of village destruction continues to expand. About 2,000 people have escaped to refugee camps in Thailand, but this is difficult and dangerous because of landmines and SPDC patrols. In March, Thai authorities moved these refugee camps further south and barred non-governmental organisations from this part of the border, so it is likely that any new arrivals will be forced back across the border at gunpoint by Thai troops.

Similar forced relocations and village destruction campaigns have been occurring in other parts of the country as well, such as southern Tenasserim Division, where at least 100 villages have been relocated and destroyed and are now being used as forced labour building a road network and Army camps throughout their home area, and Chin State, where some strategic forced relocations are now occurring. In Pa’an and Dooplaya districts of central Karen State, the SPDC is in the next stage of consolidating its control and is currently using villagers as forced labour building road networks and new Army camps, while continuing to conduct localised forced relocation and destruction of villages wherever villagers are to be more tightly controlled or punished for opposition activity in their area.

Another tool now being used by the SPDC to consolidate its control over ethnic rural populations is the creation and support of "proxy armies" in order to divide the ethnic-based resistance. In Karenni State, the Karenni National Democratic Army was created in 1996 at the instigation of SLORC and used to attack Karenni refugee camps in Thailand. In 1994 the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) formed of its own in Karen State but was promptly made dependent on SLORC for material support, and since that time it has primarily been used as a form of SLORC/SPDC militia and to attack Karen refugee camps in Thailand. The most recent such attacks occurred in March 1998, when Huay Kaloke (Wan Kha) refugee camp was burned, leaving four refugees dead and 9,000 homeless, and Maw Ker and Beh Klaw (Mae La) camps were also attacked. In late 1997 in central Karen State, the SLORC helped to form the Karen Peace Army (KPA) under the command of a Karen Army officer who was known for corruption. The SPDC has now given this new proxy army control over a large territory in central Karen State, ejecting the DKBA from the area in the process. The KPA still has only 200 or 300 soldiers, but they are actively recruiting by promising that the families of all recruits will be exempt from forced labour for the SPDC. It appears likely that the SPDC may pit the KPA against the DKBA in the future, and if the KNU (Karen National Union) continues to fight both groups, then the SPDC will likely take a step back, simply supplying and encouraging the war in Karen State until all of the resistance movements are so weak that they can be crushed and controlled one by one.

In areas where there is full SPDC control and no resistance, the villagers become completely at the disposal of the Army. They must continually do rotating shifts of forced labour as servants at each of the Army camps near their village, and new Army camps are always being established. They must also go for up to two weeks per month of forced labour on infrastructure projects, such as roads, railways and hydro dams, which the Army implements to consolidate control and attract foreign investment. Villagers must also pay the cost of these projects; the SPDC-controlled media often describes "self-reliance basis" projects, meaning those which are constructed entirely with the forced labour and money of villagers; the money forced out of villagers for these infrastructure projects is listed as "people’s contributions" and usually amounts to one-third to half of the total budget. However, in reality any money provided by Rangoon is simply pocketed by local and higher-level authorities, while villagers are forced to pay anywhere from 100% to 300% of the actual cost of the project to these same authorities. In addition, many Army camps confiscate their farmland without compensation and then force them to do labour growing rations and cash crops for the Army or for export. They must also do forced labour gathering building materials for Army camps and participating in moneymaking activities for the local Army officers, such as logging and brickbaking. An average family must send one person for each of 3 or 4 types of forced labour every month; women must often do this labour because men are more likely to be beaten by soldiers at the worksite, and children must often go because their parents need to work the fields for the survival of the family. If the village fails to comply with requests for forced labourers, materials or money, the village elders are arrested and often tortured, houses are burned down, or the Army simply storms the village and takes two or three times as many people for labour as were originally requested.

In urban areas the SPDC has decreased its demands for forced labour, because it fears the possibility of uprisings in the cities and because forced labour in the cities is more visible to foreign visitors. Instead the regime uses convicts for forced labour in the cities or brings in villagers in from rural areas, while those who live in the cities simply pay cash in lieu of doing forced labour. In some forced labour projects on tourist routes the SPDC has even taken to paying forced labourers, though the amount paid is usually 20 or 40 Kyats per day, which is no more than 25% of the money needed for daily food. This allows them to show foreigners that forced labourers are "paid", even though in the rest of the country forced labourers are never paid.

In some rural areas thousands of acres are confiscated and the villagers must do forced labour establishing fishpond projects and rubber plantations. These projects are often promoted in the media as "local income generation", but all proceeds go to the Army. Officers also steal the wages and rations of rank-and-file soldiers and then order their soldiers to survive by looting the villages. All farmers who still have land must hand over 25-50% of their crops as a quota to the Army and are paid only 10-20% of market price. The quotas increase every year, even when there are bad crops and natural disasters, and farmers often have to sell their belongings to buy rice at market price just so they will have enough to pay the quota and avoid arrest. Many of the crops grown by forced labour and those handed over as quota are used to support the Army, but local officers take and sell a great deal of it, and it is likely that much of it is also sold to foreign companies for "countertrade" export; "countertrade" is a practice whereby foreign companies convert profits earned in Kyat, the local currency which cannot be exported, into exportable goods by buying agricultural products from SPDC agencies. Cash crops and rubber are often used for this.

Every Army camp demands money from every village in its area, and usually this is calculated to amount to all the money a village can raise each month. With the arrival of new Army camps, the amount increases proportionately. In 1995 the Karen Human Rights Group studied a group of 28 villages averaging 50 families in size and found that each village was paying an average of approximately 100,000 Kyat per month to local Army battalions just in established cash fees, not including extra fees to avoid forced labour, ad hoc extortion demands or forced contribution of food and other material goods. 100,000 Kyat is US$15,000 at official exchange rate or US$350 at market rate, but for a subsistence farming village it is a very large amount of money. This amount continues to increase because of the constant expansion of the number of Army camps near every village. Just looking at this amount and considering the number of villages in Burma, it appears that at least one to two billion Kyat per month is being robbed from rural villagers by SPDC field military officers, and this does not even include other money which these officers make by selling rations and village goods, or by stealing the wages of their soldiers. These officers have no expenses while in the field. They remit a portion of their profits to higher-level officers and send the remainder to their families, most of whom live in Rangoon, Mandalay or other large towns. Their families can then use these billions of Kyat flowing into the towns as seed money to start businesses, and it is these businesses which lead to the false impression of "economic growth" in the cities. In fact, all of the "growth" in the cities is financed by this steady flow of money and goods robbed from rural villagers, combined with the laundered profits of the narcotics trade.

The SPDC is systematically stripping rural Burma of all it can produce in order to finance a façade of economic improvement in the cities, while at the same time destroying the food production capabilities of most non-Burman ethnic areas. Even rural villages which have never been burned or forcibly relocated cannot sustain this system. Having to do so much forced labour that they no longer have enough time to farm, to hand over crop quotas which are often more than they can grow and cash which is more than they could ever obtain, and always facing the additional looting by SPDC soldiers, many villagers can only survive by selling off their livestock and valuables. When those are gone or when another Army camp comes to their area, they have no choice but to flee or face arrest. Many end up as beggars in the towns, internally displaced people in the forests, or "economic migrants" and refugees in neighbouring countries. Over 80% of Burma’s population live in rural villages, but the SPDC is looting the countryside until the village is no longer viable as a social unit. This is the key factor causing Burma’s current economic crisis. The SPDC apparently hopes to keep operating this unsustainable system, propping it up with money from foreign investment and aid. This explains their current attempts to attract investment and aid money. However, without political or policy changes, any outside support will only prop up an unsustainable system and ensure a greater disaster in the future.