Following are the direct translations of some written orders sent from SPDC Army units and local authorities to Karen villages in Pa’an, Toungoo, Dooplaya and Papun Districts of Karen State, southeastern Burma. They include orders for villages to move, threats that villages helping SPDC Army deserters or contacting resistance groups will be severely punished, demands for villagers to do forced labour as porters, messengers, road labourers, at Army camps and other forms of forced labour, as well as demands for food, building materials, and extortion money. Some are simply a summons for village elders to attend ‘meetings’ at which SPDC Army officers or officials dictate demands for forced labour, money and materials and threaten the village for any failure to comply.

This report does not aim to provide a comprehensive picture of the human rights situation in these areas, but to provide a reference containing examples of several kinds of orders received by villages in several different regions. More information on the human rights situation in each District is available in other existing KHRG reports. Originals of these orders were obtained by KHRG monitors in each region, with the exception of Orders #P1, P15, P16, P19, P20, P69, and P74, which were provided by the Karen Health Workers’ Union of Pa’an District, and Orders #D4, D5, and D6, which were provided by independent monitors in Dooplaya District. For every order reproduced here, hundreds more are issued every week; these should be seen only as a small representative sampling. Most of these orders were handwritten, some typed, and carbon-copied if sent to more than one village. They were issued by local Army commanders and Peace & Development Councils (PDCs), which are local-level SPDC administration at the Township, Village Tract and Village level (before November 1997, under the State Law & Order Restoration Council these were known as LORCs). A village tract is a group of villages making up a subarea of the Township and used as a local administrative unit. 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. They are responsible for providing forced labourers, money, materials, intelligence etc. as demanded by the military and the higher-level PDCs, and they are the first to be arrested and tortured if they fail to do so; this is what is meant by threatening phrases such as "should you fail the responsibility will be yours" and "if you fail we will take no responsibility for your village". Order #P39 below was sent together with a chillie pepper, as an additional threat that if the village headwoman does not obey the troops will kill livestock or loot food from her village. Bullets or pieces of charcoal are occasionally sent with orders to express similar threats.

Orders in this report have been divided by District, and within that by topic. For each District a short summary has been included to explain the context in which the orders were issued. The orders were written in Burmese except where noted otherwise (some of those from DKBA units and those written by village heads were written in Karen). Village names, people’s names and Army camp names have been replaced with ‘xxxx’ or ‘yyyy’ where necessary to protect villages from retaliation. 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 unit stamp affixed to many of the orders, while ‘[Sd.]’ denotes the usually illegible signature of the issuing official. Italic text in square brackets has been added by KHRG for clarification where necessary. Note that Burmese grammar is very different from English, and therefore some of the phraseology sounds awkward because we have tried to reproduce the wording as exactly as possible.

As in the originals, numeric dates are shown in dd/mm/yy format. 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. Many orders call for ‘loh ah pay’, which we have translated literally as ‘voluntary labour’, though it is the term used by the SPDC to call for forced labour. 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. 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. 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 "Advance" or "Frontline" battalions, indicating that they operate in conflict areas.

Many villages, townships and districts have both Karen and Burmese names; the SPDC orders use the Burmese names, and where there are none they frequently misspell the Karen names. For example, one reference to a military camp at ‘Htee Par Plaw’ should probably read ‘Htee Wah Blaw’. Baw Ga Li Gyi village (often shortened to Baw Ga Li) is Kler Lah in Karen; Yay Tho Gyi is Kaw Thay Der; Toungoo is Taw Oo; Than Daung is Daw Pa Kho; Nabu is T’Nay Hsah.

The orders have been broken up into regions to make viewing them more manageable.   To view the regional summary and the orders from each region, simply click on the district you would like to see:

Pa'an District
Toungoo District
Dooplaya District
Papun District
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