False Peace

Villagers refer to Baw Ga Li Gyi as Kler Lah, Baw Ga Li Gyi or simply Baw Ga Li. In the interviews villagers often refer to ‘loh ah pay’; literally this is the traditional Burmese form of voluntary labour for the community, but the SPDC uses this name in most cases of forced labour, and to the villagers it has come to mean most forms of forced labour with the exception of long-term portering. The villagers also often mention ‘last year’; if the interview occurred in late 1998, this means prior to the rainy season, or October 1997 to May 1998. All numeric dates in this report are in dd/mm/yy format.

SPDC = State Peace & Development Council, military junta ruling Burma
PDC = Peace & Development Council, SPDC local-level administration
(e.g. Village PDC [VPDC], Village Tract PDC, Township PDC [TPDC])
SLORC = State Law & Order Restoration Council, former name of the SPDC until Nov. 1997
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 SLORC/SPDC
IB = Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
LIB = Light Infantry Battalion (SLORC/SPDC), usually about 500 soldiers fighting strength
Na Pa Ka = Abbreviation for SPDC’s Western Military Command from Rakhine State
Viss = Unit of weight measure; one viss is 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds
Bowl/Pyi = Volume of rice equal to 8 small condensed milk tins; about 2 kilograms / 4.4 pounds
Kyat = Burmese currency; US$1=6 Kyat at official rate, 300+ Kyat at current market rate
loh ah pay = Forced labour; literally it means traditional voluntary labour, but not under SPDC

Preface .....................................................................
Abbreviations ..............................................................
Table of Contents .........................................................
Map 1: Toungoo District within Burma ............................
Map 2: Toungoo District detail ........................................
Introduction / Executive Summary ......................................
SPDC-Controlled ‘White’ Areas and ‘Peace’ Villages .................
   Military Strategy ........................................................
   Restrictions and Punishments ..........................................
   Crop Quotas, Forced Labour Fees and Looting ......................
   Forced Labour as Porters and at Army Camps .......................
   Forced Labour on Roads ................................................
   Education, Health and Landmines .....................................
   The Struggle to Survive ................................................
Outlying Villages: The ‘Black’ Areas .....................................
   Forced Relocations and Village Destruction .........................
   Shootings and Killings ...................................................
   Landmines ................................................................
   Forced Labour ...........................................................
   Looting and Extortion ..................................................
   Destruction of Belongings, Crops and Food Supplies ...............
   Survival in Hiding .......................................................
Future of the Area .........................................................
Field Reports and Interviews ...........................................
Copies of Original Orders in Burmese ...................................

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Toungoo District (named Taw Oo in Karen) forms the northern tip of Karen State, sandwiched between Karenni State to the east, Shan State to the north, and Pegu Division to the west. The vast majority of villagers in this region are Karen. Many live in small, difficult to access villages in the very steep and forested hills covering most of the district. Further west, the hills let off into the gentler terrain of the Sittaung River valley near Toungoo town.

For two to three years now the villagers in the western plain of the district have faced heavy burdens of forced labour on roads, army camps and the Pa Thee dam project, while some of their villages just east of Toungoo town were forcibly relocated to make way for the dam. Things have been even worse for the hill villagers in the east of the district, as over the past two to three years the SLORC/SPDC has steadily increased its troop presence in this previously inaccessible area. Several villages in the region were destroyed to force the people to move to SLORC/SPDC-controlled areas, and villagers throughout the hills of Tantabin (Taw Ta Tu) township were forced to build a road from Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah) to Bu Sah Kee, opening up much of southeastern Toungoo District to the SPDC Army. Several Army camps were subsequently established along this road, at Kaw Thay Der, Naw Soe, Si Kheh Der and Bu Sah Kee. The new road is not passable during rainy season, so villagers have to do forced labour as porters carrying supplies to and from all of these Army camps, then they have to do forced labour rebuilding the road after every rainy season. They also face regular demands for Army camp labour from these units, and suffer from regular looting and extortion of money.

Battalions operating in the area include SPDC Infantry Battalions (IB) #26, 30, and 48, and Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) #535 and 707, all under the Southern Regional Command, and LIB #234 from the Western Regional Command. Their troops rotate every 4 months, and the Battalions are regularly changed; IB 39 was there in 1998 but was replaced by IB 48. There is one Strategic Command (usually consisting of 3 Battalions) from the Na Pa Ka, which is the Western Regional Command based in Arakan (Rakhine) State of western Burma, and there have been reports of troops from the Rangoon Military Command in the area as well. The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) is active in the hill areas of most of the district, performing guerrilla operations, harassment and ambush of SPDC columns. The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and other SPDC proxy armies are not present in the region.

Like in other areas, the SPDC forces try to undermine the KNLA activities by targetting the villagers. Most villages which do not have an SPDC camp and are not along vehicle roads have been ordered to relocate; more than 10 villages have been ordered to move to Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah) alone since the beginning of 1998. Rather than move as ordered, most people still stay in their villages or the surrounding forests, dodging the SPDC patrols which come through the area. Those who moved as ordered were provided with nothing at the relocation sites and could only build small bamboo huts in which to live. Unable to farm or earn a living and with no support, many of them have fled back to the forests around their villages. People found hiding in areas around the outlying villages and villages which are perceived as uncooperative have been treated brutally. Villagers found in their fields in outlying areas are either grabbed to be porters, shot dead or brutally executed and robbed on the spot. On 17 January 1999 troops from IB 48 opened fire on a group of villagers sitting talking in their betelnut plantation near Wah Paw Pu, wounding two and then executing them with a bullet in the head. On 16 January 1999 an SPDC column shot dead a 16-year-old boy and knifed to death a 60-year-old man on finding them tending cardamom near Htee Hsah Bper village, and after killing them brutally mutilated the bodies by cutting off the boy’s arm and carving off all the flesh on the old man’s face with a knife. In mid-1998 an SPDC column was ambushed by KNLA troops near xxxx village [a ‘Peace’ village] and responded by going into the village, calling out all the villagers, beating some and killing their livestock in front of them while taunting them to say anything. Hsaw Wah Der village has been ordered to move to Kler Lah since several years ago but has never obeyed, so in May 1998 the church and all of the best houses in the village (those with wooden construction and metal roofing) were burned. This village has been burned many times over the years. Now some of the villagers have fled to Toungoo town, while others live in hiding in the forest, dodging passing SPDC columns. Three years ago the villagers of Bu Sah Kee settled in the forest away from their village for fear of SLORC abuses, and they are still growing their hillside rice crops but fleeing further into the hills whenever SLORC/SPDC patrols come close. In response, troops from Infantry Battalion #26 went through their fields in September 1998 before the harvest, pulling up and cutting down their rice plants. All rice supplies found in outlying areas by SPDC troops are either confiscated or destroyed.

As a result villagers of Hsaw Wah Der, Bu Sah Kee, Klay Soe Kee and many other outlying villages are now all displaced, living in their farmfield huts or the forests outside their villages and dodging SPDC controls which come through the area. They survive by trying to grow cash crops such as cardamom and betelnut, then travel to SPDC-controlled villages to sell it and buy rice. The trip to the SPDC-controlled villages is dangerous; some have been killed or taken as porters when they encounter SPDC patrols on the way, and others have been arrested and tortured on arrival in the big villages. However, even more villagers could find themselves in these circumstances as the SPDC continues to clamp down on the area.

Larger villages along the vehicle roads, such as Kler Lah (Baw Ga Li Gyi), Kaw Thay Der (Yay Tho Gyi) and Naw Soe, are under tight SPDC control and have Army bases adjacent to the village. These villages are known as ‘Nyein Chan Yay’ (‘Peace’) villages, in reference to an informal agreement existing between the village elders and the local military that they will cooperate with all SPDC demands and in return will not be forced to relocate or have their houses burned. The leaders of these villages receive constant demands for ‘porter fees’ and other forms of extortion money, food and materials. The Army also sends regular demands for porters, and to avoid sending people on long-term frontline portering duty the villages have to pool their money and pay labour agents to hire itinerant labourers from Toungoo town to fill the Army’s demands. However, even after paying all this money the villagers regularly have to go for ad hoc forced labour portering Army rations to outlying camps; women often do this forced labour because the men fear that they will be held for several months if they go. The villages also have to provide rotating forced labourers for Army camp labour and as messengers. All vehicles transporting goods or passengers to and from Toungoo have to pay bribes to all of the SPDC checkpoints along the way. This causes the price of rice to be 1,000 Kyat more per sack in Kler Lah than it is in Toungoo, and has also led to a shortage of transport because some drivers have left to find work elsewhere. Villages which are slow in complying with demands for money and forced labour are threatened with having their people and vehicles prohibited from travelling to Toungoo, or with having their homes burned, despite their designation as ‘Peace’ villages.

People in the ‘Peace’ villages have also had to do forced labour clearing the route for a new road from Toungoo to Mawchi, over 100 kilometres to the southeast in southern Karenni (Kayah) State. A road already exists from Toungoo to Kler Lah, and they are now continuing this road towards Mawchi along the route of an old pre-war road. Much of the actual road construction is being done with bulldozers, but villagers have been forced to do all the initial clearing of the road route by hand. Many farmers with fields along the route could not plant a crop in 1998 for fear of being taken for additional forced labour by the soldiers along the road. Construction is still ongoing and is far from complete, and there have been reports that construction is also ongoing from the Mawchi end of the road using the forced labour of Karenni villagers.

"If battles occurred the Burmese came and beat and tortured our village head. They accused him of having contact with the ‘tha bone’ [‘rebels’] and feeding the ‘tha bone’." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #1, 2/99)

"The Burmese said that if they [KNLA soldiers] come to shoot at them they will force the villagers to move. Their commander, and sometimes Sergeant xxxx, often came to tell us that. … The Burmese commander also calls a meeting once a week and one person from each house must go. At the meeting they said that the villagers have to carry things for them and that if we don’t we will have to move or we will be fined." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

For decades now the policy of the Burmese military dictatorship has been to undermine armed opposition groups by targetting the civilian populations who allegedly support them, and Toungoo District has been no exception. The district is divided into SPDC-designated ‘white’, ‘brown’, and ‘black’ areas. ‘White’ indicates SPDC control with little or no incursion by opposition forces, ‘brown’ areas are SPDC-controlled but opposition forces can and do penetrate and operate there, and ‘black’ areas are either opposition-controlled or cannot be effectively controlled by the SPDC. The western part of the district, which falls within Pegu (Bago) Division and consists of villages in the Sittaung River valley near Toungoo, is considered a ‘white area’ by the SPDC; KNLA forces cannot easily penetrate this area so it is under complete SPDC control, and villagers have no option but to submit completely to SPDC authority or face harsh punishment. Villages along the access road eastward into the hills as far as Kler Lah, and some villages further into the hills along roads where there are SPDC bases, are considered ‘brown’, and all areas in the hills away from the military access roads and Army camps are considered ‘black’. Villages in ‘brown’ areas face heavy demands for forced labour and extortion by the military, particularly by columns which go to patrol the ‘black’ areas, and if there is any failure to meet these demands village elders can be arrested and executed or homes can be burned as though the village were ‘black’. In ‘black’ areas villagers are regularly tortured or killed on sight and villages are regularly forcibly relocated and burned.

"When the villagers don’t obey them they enter the village, threaten the villagers, steal their belongings and shoot their guns. That happened in our village 5 or 6 months ago. They fired carbines and G3’s [M1 carbine rifles, usually carried by officers, and G3 automatic assault rifles]. They didn’t shoot any big weapons. Two of the bullets they fired came down through the roof of the church. When they were firing their guns some villagers were afraid and said, ‘If you need us to do something for you, tell us and we will do it!’ Some villagers fled to their farms and gardens. They said that if we didn’t like them staying in their camp in Kler Lah they would shell the village with large shells. They threatened us." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

Whenever Burmese troops are attacked or otherwise suffer setbacks in the ‘black’ areas, they tend to retaliate in the easiest way possible: by going back to the ‘brown’ villages and demanding cash compensation, arresting elders, executing villagers, or burning houses. After suffering this for years on end, having no control over it and seeing no end in sight, the elders of many villages in the ‘brown’ areas of Toungoo and some other districts made their own informal agreements with local Burmese Army commanders: they gave promises not to help the resistance forces in any way, to report on all movements and activities of the resistance forces and to fully and quickly comply with any and all orders of the Burmese Army, and in return they were given assurances that they would not be arrested, their villagers would not be tortured or executed, their village would not be forced to move and their homes would not be burned. Villages which have made such agreements are generally dubbed ‘Nyein Chan Yay’ (‘Peace’) villages by SPDC commanders. In Toungoo District this includes most of the villages along the road from Toungoo to Kaw Thay Der, such as Thit Say Taung, Kler Lah (Baw Ga Li Gyi), Ler Ko (Kyaut Pon) and Kaw Thay Der (Yay Tho Gyi).

"Recently, IB #48 went to the front line and some of them were shot. Because of this, when they came back they were very angry and threatened the villagers. They beat the ducks and the chickens to death and then took them to eat. One soldier was shouting while beating the animals. He said, ‘I am going to do what I want to do to anyone who says anything to me.’ Then he beat 4 ducks to death and asked the owner of the ducks, ‘What do you want to say to me?’ The owner, Naw S---, answered that she wouldn’t say anything. She was afraid." - "Saw Kaw Doh" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #16, 9/98)

"About one or two hundred soldiers from Infantry Battalion #48 arrived on September 10^th from Taw Oo with 60 to 70 porters. Some of the porters were old and some were young. They carried ammunition, rice and other things that the military uses. The soldiers carried their rations and their guns. They stayed one night in the village. The soldiers tortured N---, a 22-year-old unmarried boy, because they’d been shot at. The Burmese Sergeant hit his head 3 or 4 times and took his watch, a Seiko 5, then they tied his hands behind his back. … He robbed the villagers’ things and then forced them to leave. He kept N--- tied under the house for half an hour and then demanded that he follow him to the Bu Ler Der road and to the betelnut gardens. They were going to Bu Sah Kee village to send food to the operations commander. After keeping him tied up for a day and a night he forced him to go back. When N--- came back to the village he said that the Burmese had tortured him." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

"[S]ometimes if battles have occurred in the hills of their area, they don’t give permission to buy rice. They say that we are feeding the resistance, so the resistance is becoming stronger and shooting at them with guns. Now they’ve closed the path to carry rice [from Kler Lah], so it’s not easy for those of us who stay in the hills to get food and we can’t eat rice regularly. Sometimes we eat rice once a day, and sometimes we don’t even have enough rice to eat once a day." - "Saw Tee Muh" (M, 48), xxxx village (Interview #3, 9/98)

In the past villages have been forced to relocate for any perceived failure to cooperate, or simply because they were close to the hills. A few years ago the villages of Zee Byu Gone, Sha Yi Bo, Taw Gu, Yay Sha and several others were forced to move to a site at Taw Ma Aye on the main north-south road, even though these villages were in SPDC-controlled territory on the edge of the Sittaung River valley. The people of these villages are still living a tenuous existence in the relocation sites.

"Sha Yi Bo, Zee Byu Gone, Taw Gu, Yay Sha and many villages around there had to go. All. They gathered us there and showed us the area where we had to live but they didn’t give us food. We had to go back and work our old fields, but it was difficult and we couldn’t get enough food to eat. … They gave us a pass for three days. Then we had to come back every three days to get another pass for another 3 days. But even during those 3 days, if their troop patrols saw you along their way they called you over and harassed you, so you couldn’t do your work." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #1, 2/99)

"Then they forced us to relocate from Zee Byu Gone, they forced us to go and live in Taw Ma Aye. We couldn’t work in Taw Ma Aye, so we had to get passes to go back and work in Zee Byu Gone. Our children had no chance to go to school because we didn’t dare to leave them among the Burmese in Taw Ma Aye when we went to work in Zee Byu Gone, so we got passes for them as well and took them with us when we went to work. We had to go back and forth in fear. … I couldn’t really work due to illness, but I had to work even if I was groaning in pain because if you don’t work you’ll have nothing to eat. I was sick of working while I was ill. Even so, we could have survived if they didn’t disturb us, but then they forced us to move to Bah Yah Na Thee to live there. They forced us to move from place to place, and we had to keep moving. … There is no safe situation, it just gets worse and worse each day." - "Naw May Paw" (F, 46), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #2, 2/99)

The ‘Peace’ villages are ordered to live under all kinds of restrictions which make it difficult for many of the people there to tend their crops and earn a living. On the following page is a direct translation of a typed and signed SPDC order sent to several of them in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract in January 1998 [see the original Burmese copy on page 96; this order is also published as Order #T1 in "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A" (KHRG #99-01, 10/2/99)]:

The SPDC is currently intensifying its clampdown on the outlying areas of the district, and this results in even further restrictions on the ‘Peace’ villages. Even sleeping away from one’s house at night can result in arrest for ‘contact with insurgents’. In the brown areas of Toungoo District, the ‘appropriate action’ taken against such people usually means execution, or at the very least prolonged detention under torture. The prohibition against sleeping in farmfield huts makes life very difficult for villagers in the cropping season, especially those whose fields are a significant distance from the village. The restrictions on travel to Toungoo make it very difficult for traders to bring any goods into the area or for villagers to shop for required items in town. In practice, this restriction is used to extort money from traders before allowing them to travel and to ‘tax’ everything they transport. In addition, there are at least 6 Army checkpoints along the road from Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah) to Toungoo, and every checkpoint demands money or goods from passing drivers. Villagers in the area complain that this causes rice to cost 1,000 Kyat more per sack in Baw Ga Li Gyi than it does in Toungoo; instead of 2,000 Kyat per 50-kilogram sack it costs 3,000, a 33% increase. Other goods have similar markups in their prices. Even in Toungoo the prices are already soaring due to commodity shortages in Burma, making this markup even harder to bear. To further worsen matters, the few vehicles in the villages are often commandeered by the military or banned from travelling the road whenever there are military operations ongoing, and whenever a village fails to send money or forced labourers as demanded one of the most frequently used punishments is to ban the people and vehicles of the village from travelling. There are very few vehicles in the villages to begin with, but some of the vehicle owners have already left to move to the plains because they can no longer face all these restrictions and pay all the extortionate fees required to transport people and goods to and from Baw Ga Li Gyi.

"We are staying under Burmese control and they don’t allow us to buy rice freely. If we need rice we have to report to the main office in Kler Lah in order to be permitted to transport rice. We must pay 200 Kyats tax to transport one sack of rice. A sack of rice costs 2,000 Kyats [in Toungoo] but we have to pay 2,600 or 2,700 per sack. All of the villagers have to buy rice from Taw Oo, which is 38 miles from Kler Lah. Drivers buy the rice and transport it for us. The driver makes the report and must give the taxes to the Burmese. One vehicle can carry 50 sacks of rice so the driver must pay 10,000 Kyats each time. The driver asks for about 600 Kyats [per sack] for the transport service because of all the fees he must pay on the way. There are many gates [Army checkpoints] between Kler Lah and Taw Oo, such as Payar Chay Yine gate, Infantry #39 gate, T’See Ther Milah [13-mile] gate, Kee See Milah [20-mile] gate, Paleh Wah gate and finally Kler Lah gate. At some of the gates they demand 50 Kyats for each sack of rice the driver is transporting. Sometimes there is an understanding between the driver and the Burmese soldiers so all they ask is that he bring them curry. The money that they collect is for the Burmese officers who stay here. When they go back to town they use that money to build themselves houses. They can do that because they take money from the villages." - "Saw Tee Muh" (M, 48), xxxx village (Interview #3, 9/98)

"We have to give money on the way from L--- to xxxx. Sometimes I have to give 2,000 Kyats and other times I have to give 3,000 Kyats. I also have to pay taxes when my goods arrive in the village but I can’t say how much, because sometimes they take many things and other times they only take a few things. … Sometimes they, both the soldiers and the commander, come and buy things from the village. They have borrowed things from my shop and sometimes they pay me for them but other times they don’t. Sometimes they borrow things worth up to 10,000 Kyats. They still have a few thousand Kyats outstanding that they haven’t paid." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village, describing all the payoffs she has to give to get goods to her small shop (Interview #4, 9/98)

"Rice is very expensive now. We can buy rice when they [SPDC] give us a chance to buy it. For example, when they gave us permission to buy 10 sacks of rice they taxed us 200 Kyats per sack. The cost of one sack of rice in Taw Oo is now 2,000 Kyats but we must pay 3,000 Kyats per sack in the mountain villages. There are many Burmese gates [Army checkpoints] on the way and the Burmese soldiers demand money from the driver. … A driver from Kler Lah said that one time the Burmese from A’Mila Kee See [20-mile] gate told him to buy one sack of rice for them. When he brought the rice they told him that he hadn’t bought the Kao Gyi rice, that’s the name of the good rice. They were very angry at the driver and they told him to go and buy them Kao Gyi rice. The driver groaned. … The police and intelligence officers also ask for food." - "Saw Lay Ghaw" (M, 43), a village elder from xxxx village (Interview #18, 9/98)

"When the vehicles go to Taw Oo, they demand fruit from the drivers and then order them to bring them fish and many other things. They ask for so many things that some of the drivers have left [to go and live elsewhere]." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

"I suffered because I am a farmer and I was working my fields, but then the Burmese soldiers told us that the fields we were working were fields of the government. That means fields of the Burmese. Then they decreed that one acre of field can yield 70 baskets [of unhusked rice] so we must give them 50 baskets from each acre. But our fields do not even yield 50 baskets per acre, so we couldn’t give them what they demanded from us. Fifty baskets was the very top yield we could ever get. Therefore they made problems for us. If you couldn’t give it they captured you and put you in the stocks, they forced you to dig their ponds and do other work." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village, describing the situation in strongly SPDC-controlled areas near the Sittaung River (Interview #1, 2/99)

Like other villages under SPDC control all over Burma, those in the strongly-controlled ‘white area’ of the Sittaung River valley near Toungoo have to pay heavy quotas of rice and whatever other crops they grow to the Army, either for nothing or for only 20-25% of market value. Some villages are being forced to dig irrigation to grow a second crop each year, and the quotas exacted on these second crops are even heavier. The quotas often even exceed the farmers’ total production, particularly in recent years. While the ‘Peace’ villages of the ‘brown’ areas face much less systematic crop quotas, they do face a constant stream of demands for forced labour, food, building materials and large sums of money from the local SPDC military, and the elders are still arrested and their villages threatened whenever they cannot comply, which is often.

"When they finish their rations they force us to give them rice. They tell us that they will repay us for the rice when their rations come, but they never do. They also steal the livestock when they enter the village, they never ask for it. They do that every time they come. The villagers see them stealing their livestock but they don’t dare to say anything." - "Saw Htoo Wah" (M, 22), xxxx village (Interview #5, 9/98)

In Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah) village tract a complex system has developed of actual forced labour, fees to hire substitutes for forced labour, and ‘porter fees’, which are simply extortion money paid to the Army with the understanding that failure to pay is punishable by arrest and an indefinite term of forced labour. This village tract is a group of over 10 villages administered by the Village Tract PDC in Baw Ga Li Gyi, a large village of several hundred households. The Village Tract PDC is clearly working closely with the local SPDC Battalions; the PDC officials receive orders from the Battalions, then pass them on to the elders of all villages under their administration, sometimes with extra demands tacked on to enrich themselves. Initially the local Battalions issue orders to the Village Tract PDC demanding numbers of forced labourers for a specific purpose. Knowing that the villages do not want to do the labour and will be slow to comply, the Village Tract PDC often hires day labourers through agents in Toungoo, pays for their ‘car fees’ (i.e. transport costs) to Baw Ga Li Gyi, and supplies them to the SPDC military. The Village Tract PDC then issues orders to the villages under their administration to pay their share of the cost based on the relative size (number of households) of their village; for example, a village may be ordered to pay for 10 of the 80 people hired by the Village Tract PDC. The amount is usually 4,000 Kyats for each short-term porter plus 250 Kyats for his ‘car fee’. At any given time there are well over 100 people doing forced labour assignments for the Army camps in this village tract alone, and this only includes the regular monthly demands for rotating labourers. Written orders related to this system can be seen in the report "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A" (KHRG #99-01, 10/2/99).

"[E]very house must pay fees every month. In addition, if we don’t go for forced labour or go when they urgently require people we have to pay them money. The taxes for one month are 2,000 to 2,500 Kyats [per family]. Villagers who can afford to give the higher amount must do so. … When they come and need people urgently some people can’t go. Those who can’t go must give 4,000 Kyats each. If they demand 5 people, the villagers have to give 20,000 Kyats. I have had to pay for the urgently required people myself, but I don’t remember how many times. There are many different kinds of fees. Sometimes I’ve had to pay 2,500, 2,000 or 1,000 Kyats. Now they’re going to carry things to Naw Soe village and have asked 5 villagers to carry for them. If the villagers don’t go they’ll have to pay 4,000 Kyats; sometimes they must pay as much as 4,250 Kyats. … This month our village had to pay 50,000 Kyats. Last month we couldn’t give them all of the fee and they knew it, so this month they’re also demanding the balance from last month. When people flee from working for the Burmese, they [the Burmese] go to the village headman and the village headman has to collect money from those who fled [from their families]." - "Saw Thaw Thi Wah" (M, 26), xxxx village (Interview #19, 9/98)

"For each person we must pay 4,000 Kyats [if they don’t go to work for the Burmese] so if they demand 5 people the village must pay 20,000 Kyats. … Sometimes our work doesn’t provide us the money when we need it. We only get money when we can sell our betelnut, we have no other way to get money. However, this month we have already given the 20,000 Kyats that they demanded. I don’t know how much we still owe them [from before], but they just tried to force 5 people to go with them and carry their rations." - "Saw Muh Htoo" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #20, 9/98)

"I’ve had to pay once a week and once a month, sometimes we have to pay very often. They collect porter fees, 4,250 Kyats for each person that they want. They usually collect 18 villagers per month to porter for them and we must pay 4,250 Kyats for each person." - "Naw Ghay Muh" (F, 25), xxxx village (Interview #21, 9/98)

"In the meetings they talk about carrying things for them and tell us to be united with them. … They say that we have to give porter fees regularly, and then when they arrest people to be porters they call that an ‘emergency’ or ‘urgent case’. If the villagers don’t want to go when they are urgently required they must pay 4,250 Kyats. Sometimes they require 4 or 5 people for ‘urgent’ duty and sometimes it’s only 2 or 3 people. The regular payment is for 18 people per month. Each house has to pay 500 Kyats. We collect our fees and send them to the village headman in Kler Lah village, … and then he sends it to the Burmese, to Infantry Battalion #30. I have to pay 1,000 Kyats this month but I haven’t paid it yet." - "Naw Eh Htoo" (F, 52), xxxx village (Interview #22, 9/98)

Under this system even small villages must pay 30,000-80,000 Kyats per month, and many simply do not have the money to do so because of all the other SPDC demands they have to meet. As a result, most villages are delinquent in their payments, and once payments fall behind by a couple of months the Village Tract PDC often tells the village ‘we will no longer take any responsibility for you’ and reports the village to the military for failure to ‘perform their duty’. A military column might then storm the village to loot and burn houses as punishment.

"…all villages around Baw Ga Li Gyi village must pay the fees for (53) servants hired by the villages collectively and sent to the frontline in the month of (6/98). The fees for (20) servants to be hired later in this month from Baw Ga Li Gyi are apportioned as follows to each village, and this is to inform [you] that the Chairperson / Secretary from each village must collect the fees and send them on (15-6-98). … xxxx village has been irresponsible for a long time. If you do not hire the number of servants according to your allotment, the local battalion will take appropriate action against you. The leader of xxxx village must be rechosen and the result must be reported to Baw Ga Li Gyi village on (15-6-98)." - text of a typed order sent to villages in Baw Ga Li village tract by the local PDC on 12 June 1998; similar orders are received at least once per month in every village ("SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A", Order #T43).

"Sometimes they lie to the villagers and say that they must either go to be porters or give them money so they can arrange replacements. It’s not true. They just lie to the villagers because they want their money. … For porter fees, but you must understand that the porter fees are going to the Burmese commanders and not to the porters. I have a house in Taw Oo as well as xxxx and I must give porter fees for both houses, but still they force us to go for forced labour. Whether they call it portering or ‘loh ah pay’, we still have to carry their things the same." - "Saw Tee Muh" (M, 48), xxxx village (Interview #3, 9/98)

"[T]hey force people to do it every week. Sometimes 40 people must go and sometimes as many as 70 people must go. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to go. I have to go every month, and if we can’t go we must give money. We have to pay 500 Kyats for each day so it costs two or three thousand Kyats each time if we can’t go. … We also have to pay porter fees of 200 Kyats every month. We have to pay that every month and still we have to work for them whenever they require us to porter or to do [other] labour." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

In addition to these fees, villages must give money directly to the military under the name of ‘porter fees’ and other ‘fees’ whenever it is arbitrarily demanded. Soldiers from the camps on the outskirts of the villages regularly wander into the villages and demand or steal livestock, food, valuables and money. Army camps send written demands for rice, meat, vegetables, fruits, cheroots, condiments, and building supplies such as bamboo and roofing leaves. When livestock is taken, the village head often collects money from all the villagers in order to reimburse the owner; in this way the heavy cost is distributed more bearably among the villagers. Livestock is taken so often that some villages have a regular contribution system for this, with each family having to contribute a certain amount after each visit by the troops, the amount set by the village head depending on how much livestock has been stolen. One villager reported that in Taw Ma Aye village in the ‘white’ area along the Sittaung River, those who cannot pay this contribution are ordered by the village head to take rotations of forced labour more often than other villagers.

"Dear Chairperson, I am xxxx, the Intelligence Officer from #xxx IB. I want (15) durians today, so send them with this messenger who comes from xxxx village. I will come there later because I have no time right now. Help appropriately." - Written order sent to a village in August 1998 (Order #T58, "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A")

"Sometimes they enter the village during the night and steal the villagers’ things. They stole my livestock but not much. … We didn’t know exactly which ones, but we know that they were Burmese soldiers. When we told the Burmese soldiers who were in our village about it, they told us that it is normal for troops on the move to steal the villagers’ livestock when they enter any village." - "Saw Kaw Doh" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #16, 9/98)

"I just stayed quiet without talking to them and smiled at them because I’m afraid of them. I can’t speak much Burmese, so I was afraid that if I spoke to them and they asked me more questions I wouldn’t be able to answer, and then they would beat me." - "Naw May Paw" (F, 46), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #2, 2/99)

In July 1998 villages throughout the village tract were even ordered to form teams to compete in the "Battalion Commander’s Cup Volleyball Tournament". Usually when villages are ordered to form teams for SPDC competitions, those villages which form teams are forced to pay a heavy ‘entry fee’ to enter their team, while villages which do not form teams are forced to pay an even heavier ‘fine’ for failure to obey the order.

"According to the above reference, to hold the volleyball tournament for the Battalion Commander’s Cup of Advance #30 Infantry Battalion, let us know if your village can/cannot form a volleyball team. You must organise your villagers to form a volleyball team to take part in the tournament. … To start the tournament, volleyball teams from all villages must be formed, so you, Chairperson / Secretary yourself, must come and report on progress to Baw Ga Li Gyi Village Tract Peace and Development Council on (27-7-98)." - Typed order sent to villages throughout the village tract in July 1998 ("SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A", Order #T64)

"They are Infantry Battalion #xxx and their commander, who stays in the camp, is Company 2^nd-in-Command xxxx. He comes to visit, he comes and orders people to go and carry things. I had to carry things to Bu Sah Kee. It took 3 days to go there and 2 days to come back. 30 or 40 people have to go each time and we carry ammunition, milk, sugar and tobacco. Both married and single women have to go. Sometimes there are 20 or 30 women and only a few men among them. Women have to carry 15 viss [24 kg / 53 lb] while men have to carry 20 viss [32 kg / 70 lb]. If people don’t go and carry for them they confiscate rice and things from the house and then damage the house. They did that to 2 people from 2 houses, K--- and L---. There are 4 people in K---’s house from whom they took many things such as rice, pots and plates. They also took her livestock. She didn’t dare to say anything. They took the livestock and some of the rice to their camp, and they sold some of the rice. Sometimes we have to carry once a week and other times once a month. Sometimes we must go for two days at a time. They threaten the villagers that if we don’t carry things for them they will fire their guns, burn the houses and drive all the villagers out of the village. Even when people don’t have to go carry things they never allow us to go to do [our own] work." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

Some of the ‘fees’ which villagers have to pay are called ‘porter fees’ but really have nothing to do with porters; it is simple extortion, and all the money is taken by the local military officers. Other ‘fees’ are those used directly by the villagers, or paid to the village or village tract authorities, and used to hire people to go in place of the villagers to fill the military’s regular quota of ‘permanent porters’ and frontline porters. In Toungoo District, the ‘permanent porters’ are demanded monthly by each Army camp and kept at all times on a rotating basis, while frontline porters are taken by mobile columns for as long as 2 or 3 months at a time. The going price for a replacement for a shift of ‘permanent’ portering is 4,000 Kyat, plus 250 Kyat or more to pay for the porter’s car fare up from Toungoo to the Army camp. If villagers cannot pay the required ‘fees’ to avoid this labour then they must go themselves. However, even if they manage to pay all the fees they are still forced to go as porters whenever the Army says it has ‘emergency’ or ‘urgent’ need, such as every time the supply convoys come in and supplies must be carried to outlying camps. The Army summons porters directly for this ad hoc forced labour by grabbing them in the villages or the fields, or by sending written orders in which they say they ‘urgently’ need porters for ‘emergency purposes’. Usually this occurs once a month or so, though it can happen at any time. Villagers are especially afraid of being grabbed by the mobile columns on long patrols, and for this reason are always afraid when working in their fields and will flee if they can from any troops they see.

"[The village headman] is not here because he has gone with 9 other people to Bu Sah Kee to carry things for the Burmese. 2 men and 8 women went. One had a child still breastfeeding and she had to leave it at home. The Burmese told them that they would have to go for one day, but they’ve been gone for 4 days now." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

"People in Kler Lah don’t have to carry things as much as those in xxxx. We’ve heard that people in Kler Lah give money every month instead of going as porters. Each month the whole village of Kler Lah must give two to three hundred thousand Kyats. The very least they ever have to pay is 200,000 Kyats. Our village, xxxx, is very small with poor villagers so we don’t have money to pay like that, we don’t even have enough money for ourselves. That’s why we always have to carry things." - "Saw Tee Muh" (M, 48), xxxx village (Interview #3, 9/98)

"They captured me and told me to stay with them for only one day but then forced me to live with them for a week, sometimes more than one week, and they didn’t give me enough rice to eat. Each time I came back home after that I felt sick of that kind of thing, because it took away the time I need to work for my family." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #1, 2/99)

Although a road was recently completed from Baw Ga Li Gyi and Kaw Thay Der to Bu Sah Kee, it is impassable during rainy season (June-October) and for several months thereafter. During this season the passable road ends at Kaw Thay Der, so the people of this village face some of the most regular demands for forced labour hauling the supplies. The demand is usually for at least one person per household and the men often do not dare go because they are afraid that they will be accused of being Karen soldiers, kept for months as porters and generally treated very brutally. Therefore it is usually women who do this labour. The trip to Bu Sah Kee and back can take a week or longer carrying heavy loads, facing brutality from the soldiers and travelling through the heavy rains over slippery and treacherous paths through the steep hills of the region.

"In accordance with the instructions of the Battalion Commander of #xxx IB at xxxx Base, you are informed that you must collect one voluntary labourer per house from your village and send them with their own food for 4 days; they will have to transport food [carry rations as porters] from Yay Tho Gyi to Maung Daing Gyi Camp and they must come without fail. Send them right now." - text of a written order sent from Infantry Battalion #xxx to several villages in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract in November 1998 ("SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A", Order #T7)

"Those who go for forced labour have to carry rice. I’ve had to go also. They also forced the villagers to build a vehicle road to Bu Sah Kee. The villagers had to go everyday, and we had to sleep on the road. The villagers have to go to Bu Sah Kee very often [as porters]. When we go we have to take along our own food. The Burmese tell the villagers to go for 3 days but they have to go for 10 days or more. If the villagers run out of the rice that they brought they have to buy more rice from the soldiers." - "Naw Eh Htoo" (F, 52), xxxx village (Interview #22, 9/98)

"Sometimes 40 or 50 people and sometimes only 10 or 20. Both men and women must go. Every village must provide people in this way. The people who go must carry rice and many other kinds of food. … When they went to Bu Sah Kee, which took 2 days, they forced each person to carry 1 sack of rice [a sack of rice weighs 50 kg]. When they returned they all felt a lot of pain in their bodies." - "Saw Thaw Thi Wah" (M, 26), xxxx village (Interview #19, 9/98)

"I haven’t gone but my only child has had to go for forced labour. She is 18 years old and single. Sometimes she has to carry things for them to Bu Sah Kee and sometimes to Si Kheh Der. They force the villagers to go for 3 or 4 days or even one week at a time. My daughter has had to go for one week. … Every time they come back they say that it’s better if they only have to go once, because they say it’s very hard to do. On the way, sometimes it rains and other times the sun is very hot. As they are women, it’s hard for them to sleep on the way [for fear of rape]." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 48), Kler Lah village (Interview #24, 9/98)

"We had to carry rice, ammunition, alcohol, milk and tinned meat. I had to carry 15 viss [24 kg / 53 lb]. The women had to carry 12 viss [19 kg / 42 lb], and we all had to carry our own things as well. They tied us up because they were afraid that we would run away. Sometimes they tied us up during the night. They allowed us to sleep, but they watched over us with guns. … [T]hey threatened us. They were worried that we would escape and they said to us, ‘Don’t run. If you run I will shoot you dead and burn your house.’" - "Saw Htoo Wah" (M, 22), xxxx village (Interview #5, 9/98)

"Whenever they need to send food [rations], the villagers have to go. The soldiers go together with them. They force at least 20 to 40 people to go. They call for one person from every house. People have to go very often so they complain, but they don’t dare tell the Burmese that. They must go whether they can or not, but some people don’t go. If villagers complain or don’t go they [the Army] scold the village headman. When the villagers don’t go as porters they torture him. Last year [Infantry Battalion] #39 beat the village headman once when the villagers didn’t go. They beat him with a gun until they broke the butt of the gun." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 48), Kler Lah village (Interview #24, 9/98)

"Last year they went to capture students in the school to be porters but the students didn’t want to go. They captured them anyway, but the students punched the soldiers and tried to grab a soldier’s gun. The gun broke into two pieces. In the end the students didn’t go. I saw that with my own eyes." - "Saw Htoo Wah" (M, 22), xxxx village, describing an incident he saw in Kler Lah (Interview #5, 9/98)

"[The villagers] have had to go to Naw Soe, K’Law Kaw, K’Law Soe and to Bu Sah Kee. It’s a week’s walk to Bu Sah Kee. Sometimes we must go and carry their things and other times we must go and work for them. Women must go as well … [S]ometimes they say they must come for a week but then force them to stay longer, so the villagers finish the food that they brought; then when the soldiers give the villagers food, they don’t give them enough." - "Saw Lay Ghaw" (M, 43), a village elder from xxxx village (Interview #18, 9/98)

Villagers are also regularly summoned to do one or more days of forced labour at Army camps. They have to act as messengers, build and maintain the camp buildings and surrounding fences and defences, clear the ground around the camps and do other servant work for the troops. People are forced to go on a rotating basis for ‘gkin’ [‘patrol’], which means forced labour standing sentry and delivering order documents to villages and messages or packages between Army camps. Demands for these kinds of labour as well as portering and the payment of fees are often dictated at regular meetings which are called by the Battalion officers and must be attended by village heads and sometimes by the leader of each household in the village.

"At the meeting they ordered the villagers to go for forced labour. Usually when they hold meetings they demand people for forced labour, cleaning and other things in the village." - "Pati Lay Kyaw" (M, 50), xxxx village (Interview #7, 9/98)

"People have to do road construction and build and fence their camps. I went to do forced labour last month, in August. We had to work for a whole week. Some people didn’t have time to go so 20 or 30 villagers went at a time in turns. Women, men, boys, girls, old people, married people and unmarried people all went together. They said that it was the duty of one person from each house to go. The fencing work is finished now but they ordered the villagers to go and do other work for them. Today 8 of our villagers were forced to cut the bushes around their camp. … We start work at 8:00 a.m. and work until 12:00 noon when we can stop and eat rice. After lunch we have to work again until 4:00 p.m. They don’t give us food, we have to bring our own. … Another job the villagers must do is that 2 people from our village must go each day to Naw Soe as messengers to take messages, tobacco, food and anything else they need to fetch or send anywhere. If you aren’t carrying anything heavy it takes about 3½ hours to walk up the mountain to Naw Soe." - "Saw Kaw Doh" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #16, 9/98)

"Every day, two villagers from each village have to go to SPDC Army camps for ‘patrol’ [‘gkin’]. ‘Patrol’ work means to do anything the soldiers force them to do. In Kaw Thay Der village, only the girls and women go for ‘patrol’ and portering." - Report by KHRG monitor (Field Report #F1, 10/98)

"Both the men and the women have to go and fence the camp, cut and carry bamboo and clear the grass around their camp. They demand that we work for a certain period of time and then we return to our homes in the afternoon for lunch. They don’t even give us tea." - "Naw Tamla" (F, 20), Kler Lah village (Interview #23, 9/98)

"[T]hey’ve called meetings twice this year. They talked about us having to cut bamboo and firewood [for them] and about us having to go to Kler Lah to clear the road. We had to cut wood for their bunkers, and we had to cut 500 bamboo poles. We cut the bamboo in xxxx and then they came by car to get it. They used it for their bunkers." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

"Go dig the road, go dig ponds [fishponds for the Army] and many other kinds of labour, whatever they forced you to do. I had to go and dig dirt on the path. They put big piles of dirt on the path and forced you to dig. If they said to do one armspan then I had to dig one armspan. It wasn’t a car road, just a path for them to travel along. … They don’t have a camp there but they often travel to Zee Byu Gone, so they force people to dig [repair] that path every year when it is destroyed." - "Saw Min Shwe" (M, 56), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #1, 2/99)

"They sent us by car and we had to go to build the road at Ler Hta Gwin. We had to fill the holes in the road. We had to bring our own food and find our own water. The women, children and old people also had to go, the eldest was 60 years old and the youngest was 15 years old. We went in the morning and then they brought us back in the evening. … If we were not finished they told us to keep working until we were finished. They planned for xxxx village and Kler Lah village to finish in the same day. We had to cook and work, sometimes they came to have a look and they ate with us." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

People in the ‘Peace’ villages also have to do forced labour on any of several different roads. The road from Toungoo up to Baw Ga Li Gyi is maintained with forced labour, as is the new road from Baw Ga Li Gyi to Bu Sah Kee. This road was built entirely with the forced labour of villagers in the area and was only finished in 1997. Not only did it cause a great deal of suffering in terms of forced labour, but it allowed the increased militarisation of the area and has caused the displacement of many people from their villages as a result. The road passes through very difficult terrain but was mostly built by hand; like all roads in this area, it is incompetently engineered by military officers, made only of dirt with no proper drainage. It is largely destroyed every rainy season and must be rebuilt, usually with the forced labour of villagers, every November-December. Since its construction Army camps have been established along the road route at Kaw Thay Der, Naw Soe and Bu Sah Kee, and the main use of the road is in supplying these camps and rotating troops.

"Last summer [March-May 1998] they forced the villagers to clear the trees and bushes along the sides of the road. They were building the road themselves with their bulldozer. 40 to 50 people had to go for a day each day; all men, women and children who were able to work. They built the road from Kaw Thay Der to Bu Sah Kee. Cars cannot yet drive on the road. This season they haven’t forced us to go for that yet." - "Saw Kaw Doh" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #16, 9/98)

"[I]f the car road is destroyed the villagers have to repair it. My daughter and other children, who are all students, have had to go and do that but I haven’t. My daughter has already gone to do that twice this year and each time she’s had to take her food with her. Last week she went to repair the road to the east of Klay Soe Kee, between Yay Tho Gyi and Yay Tho Lay. Another time she went to build a road at Paleh Wah. When they go, one person from each house must go. A driver takes them to where they are going and then they must dig and carry the dirt. The Burmese don’t even give the driver any petrol [for the trip]." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 48), Kler Lah village (Interview #24, 9/98)

"The car road goes from Kler Lah to Paleh Wah, which is far. Sometimes a driver picked the villagers up and took them there by car and then returned them to the village. The villagers had to take their own food when they went to work on the road." - "Naw Tamla" (F, 20), Kler Lah village (Interview #23, 9/98)

"According to the instruction of the Battalion Commander from xxxx Camp, to repair the damaged parts of the road between Paleh Wah and Baw Ga Li, xx servants from your village must come to xxxx [village] bringing with them the following items and wait there. We will go by vehicle to repair the road." - Village tract PDC written order to villages in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract, July 1998; the ‘following items’ listed were hoes, saws, machetes and spades ("SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A", Order #T5)

At the beginning of 1998 the SPDC also ordered construction to begin on a new road from Toungoo to Mawchi, the main town of southern Karenni (Kayah) State. This is following the route of an old pre-World War Two road which is no longer usable. The straight-line distance is about 80 kilometres, but when completed the total length of the new road will probably be 150-200 kilometres because of the difficult terrain it has to pass through. The exact purpose has not yet been made clear to the villagers, though its probable intent is to open up more direct access to southern Karenni from central Burma, without having to go further north to Loikaw and then southward. Mawchi area has Burma’s largest wolfram mines. The new road is to use the existing road from Toungoo as far as Baw Ga Li Gyi, but in early 1998 villages began receiving written orders demanding people for forced labour on a permanently rotating basis to clear a new road route east of Baw Ga Li Gyi. Following is the translation of one such order [see the original Burmese copy on page 97; this order was also published as Order #T3 in "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A" (KHRG #99-01, 10/2/99)]:

Additional work on the road was then carried out using bulldozers by the Army’s General Engineering Corps, who also took villagers as forced labour to help them. Many villagers from Hsaw Wah Der village with ricefields along the road route did not dare plant a rice crop in 1998 because there were so many troops along the road that they were sure they would be taken as forced labour if they went to their fields. Work was suspended during the rainy season from June to October 1998, but has now resumed. Recently there have also been reports that SPDC troops at the other end of the route in Mawchi have been forcing villagers there to do road construction labour as well, using both Mawchi townspeople and villagers from surrounding areas who have been forcibly relocated to Mawchi since 1996 (these Karenni forced relocations have been documented in KHRG reports in 1996, 1997 and 1998).

"We’ve had to carry things and build a road. Women had to go also. We had to work on the road in April and May [1998], during the hot season. We had to cut and clear the road and where cars couldn’t pass we had to dig the dirt [to repair the road]. They used both the vehicles of the villagers and the vehicles of the Burmese to build the roads. There were soldiers in the army vehicles and they got angry if the villagers weren’t working hard. … They fired their guns. Before they fired their guns they said, ‘I will shoot you!’ Then they fired off 4 or 5 shots. I was afraid. They showed their anger in front of me. When I ran to go back to my house, he [a soldier] shot at my feet but I was not injured. They aimed their guns at us while we were working. They were worried that we would run away." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

"They came recently, 2 months ago, to build a road from Gko Day which is in the area of Hsaw Wah Der. They will build the road to a place below Gko Day. People who had farms there had to stop working their farms. They looked for us but we ran into the jungle when they came because we are afraid of them. If they saw people they would have killed them. They’ve killed 18 people already." - "Pi Lwee Paw" (F, 63), Hsaw Wah Der village (Interview #14, 9/98)

"When the villagers of Hsaw Wah Der had just finished clearing their fields the SPDC came to build the car road at Gko Day, so the Hsaw Wah Der villagers could not sow paddy in their fields and do not dare to work in those fields anymore. The car road construction starts at Kaw Thay Der and goes to Mu Kee [Mawchi]." - Report by KHRG monitor (Field Report #F1, 10/98)

"My children couldn’t go to school because we had to relocate from place to place like that. All my children finished Grade One, and my third son finished Grade Two. That’s all, because we had to live like wild animals. Now my children are trying to teach themselves to read and write in Sunday School." - "Naw May Paw" (F, 46), Zee Byu Gone village (Interview #2, 2/99)

Education and health services available in the region are minimal. In the ‘Peace’ villages people have access to primary school, and to some higher levels in large villages such as Baw Ga Li Gyi, but all the costs must be paid by the parents and the curriculum is strictly Burman. People in the SPDC-controlled areas have access to basic medical facilities at Baw Ga Li Gyi and a few other places, but while these ‘hospitals’ have a doctor or two the villagers have to buy the medicines at high prices which most of them cannot afford. In addition, when people from the village are injured or killed during forced labour it is not the SPDC which pays to treat the injured or compensate the families of the dead, but the villagers themselves. This occurs frequently when porters step on landmines, which are laid by both SPDC and KNLA troops in the hills. Usually these are porters who have been hired by the villagers to take their place doing long-term forced labour for the military in patrolling operations; however, villagers from the ‘Peace’ villages doing ‘emergency’ portering labour are also sometimes maimed or killed. When it happens, the Army sends demands to the villages under their control (including the village of the victim) to collect compensation money and hand it over to the Army, so that the Army can pass it on to the family of the victim. Not only does the Army then claim credit for paying compensation, but in reality they often keep most or all of the money collected. In a similar case in February 1998, a truck driver’s assistant named Saw Da Maung was killed in a road accident while doing forced labour after his boss’ truck had been commandeered to carry supplies in a military convoy. The Army then ordered the village tract to collect 100 Kyat from each family in all the villages to pay for his funeral, though the resulting amount, well over 100,000 Kyat, was much more than was needed. In cases like these most of the money is usually stolen by the local Army and Peace and Development Council officials.

"1. A truck driver’s assistant named Saw Da Maung, the son of Saw Maung Oh, from Yay Tho Gyi village was killed by a vehicle (Pa/6315) which was part the convoy from Baw Ga Li to Bu Sah Kee on food carrying duty. 2. The authorities have instructed us to raise a funeral fund by collecting it from all villages to help his remaining family for all necessary things required for the funeral. 3. Therefore, you are informed to collect 100 kyats from each family in all villages and send the funds here." - Written PDC order sent to villages in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract dated 10/2/98 ("SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A", Order #T55)

"Many people have stepped on landmines when they have gone to porter. While portering, 7 of our villagers carrying Burmese rations have stepped on both Burmese and KNLA landmines and some of them have died." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

"While we were portering for the soldiers we had to walk in front of them. I had to walk in front of them. They forced us to go in front because of landmines. If there are landmines the porters get injured. They forced us to walk in front of them to clear landmines in Bu Sah Kee. I never found any but my friend May May was injured. She is 16 years old and from Kler Lah village. Saw Ler Ler, a 19 year old also from Kler Lah, was also injured. They sent the villagers that got injured back home, but those who weren’t injured had to keep going." - "Saw Htoo Wah" (M, 22), xxxx village (Interview #5, 9/98)

"The compensation paid for villagers who are killed or die while serving as porters has changed from 10,000 kyats to 5,000 Kyats. … ‘Special’ porter fees and ‘emergency’ porter fees we have to pay have increased from 2,000 Kyat to 4,500 Kyat per porter." - Notes by a village elder in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract (Field Report #F3, 9/98)

The following SPDC written order is typical of compensation demands [see the original Burmese copy on page 98; this order was also published as Order #T54 in "SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A" (KHRG #99-01, 10/2/99)]:

"I see them very often because they come very often. The NCO’s [Non-Commissioned Officers, i.e. Corporals and Sergeants] are old but the soldiers are children, they are about 14 and 15 years old." - "Naw Ghay Paw" (F, 48), Kler Lah village (Interview #24, 9/98)

‘Peace’ villages have no option but to comply with the demands for forced labour or suffer severe punishments, including prohibitions on buying food from town, restrictions on movement, arrest of elders or burning of homes. All of these forms of repression and corruption are making it difficult for villagers in the ‘Peace’ villages to survive. Their financial resources have been drained directly by the constant extortion and hiring of replacement porters, and indirectly by the grossly overinflated prices of goods resulting from the Army’s extortion against traders. Many of them no longer have money to pay the fees, strength to do the forced labour or patience to endure the constant punishments, yet all of these can only get worse as the Army continues its militarisation and clampdown in the area.

"Villages which fail to send the voluntary labourers will have severe action taken against them. The Chairperson and the Secretary themselves must come and bring the voluntary labourers. … You, Chairperson / Secretary, are informed that motor vehicles from your village are not allowed to travel starting from 30-8-97 because your village has failed to send voluntary labourers. If there is a similar failure in future, appropriate action will be taken against you." - text of a written SLORC order to a village in Baw Ga Li Gyi village tract ("SPDC Orders to Villages: Set 99-A", Order #T23)

"Sometimes they threaten us and force us to go and be porters. The commander of Battalion #48 told the villagers that if we don’t go they will drive us to a relocation site. They will force villagers from xxxx village to T’See Ther Milah and then they will force the Kler Lah villagers to Mah Ner site. They said they will move them. They said, ‘If you’re not afraid, look down our G3 and G4!!’ [G3 and G4 are SPDC Army assault rifles.] They also threaten us and demand that we give porter fees. They collect the porter fees but still sometimes we have to go [as porters]. One or two months ago they captured and tied up some people to be porters. The people gave them one or two thousand Kyats each and they released them. Those soldiers were from Infantry Battalion #26 under Major Htaw Win, Infantry Battalion #20, and Infantry Battalion #48 under Major Aung Win. If they shoot their guns the villagers are afraid of them and give them money." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

"[T]hey shout at the village heads and get very angry. They shout at people and force people to guide them. … If they see people sleeping in a farmfield hut they shoot them." - "Naw Eh Krih" (F, 18), xxxx village (Interview #17, 9/98)

"The SPDC soldiers ordered the villagers from Bu Sah Kee, Hsaw Wah Der and Klay Soe Kee to move to Kler Lah. Some villagers went to the relocation village but most of them ran to hide themselves and live in the jungle now. Whenever the SPDC soldiers see them in the jungle they capture them and kill them, and they also destroy their paddy fields and gardens when they see them. The SPDC soldiers accuse the villagers who stay in the jungle of helping the KNU, so they burn their paddy and fruit gardens and they also burn down their huts." - Report by KHRG monitor (Field Report #F1, 10/98)

All of the villages in the hills away from the vehicle roads and Army camps are considered by the SPDC to be part of the ‘black’ area, and these villages face even more direct forms of repression than the ‘Peace’ villages. The SPDC has not yet been able to extend its control effectively into the hills so it would like to see the entire area depopulated, and to accomplish this the troops have been ordering villages to move, capturing or killing villagers they find in the hills while on patrol, destroying crops and food supplies and sometimes burning houses.

"They said that we were in contact with and working for the KNU. They said that we must help them by portering and then they demanded that we give porter fees, but we couldn’t give them anything so they got angry with us and forced us to relocate. There are 50 houses in our village, and they gave us 15 days to get out. We could go any place we wanted, they never said we must go to a particular place. Some people went to Kler Lah and Taw Oo but some people didn’t move. I moved [to Taw Oo], but I still come back to collect cardamom and cut grass in my peanut garden. … If they knew that I’ve come back they would be angry. I must come secretly." - "Pu Lay Ko" (M, 65), xxxx village (Interview #25, 9/98)

"[T]hey have relocated villagers from Klay Soe Kee, Ko Pler Der, Bpeh Gkaw Der, and Der Doh villages to Kler Lah village. When they moved, the soldiers didn’t help them to move their things and the villagers had to cut bamboo [for building houses] themselves. … Some villagers had problems moving and the Burmese said that if they didn’t move they were going to shoot at them. … [T]hey burned Ko Go Der and Sho Ko villages, and they destroy things that villagers have hidden at their farms." - "Naw Tamla" (F, 20), Kler Lah village (Interview #23, 9/98)

The villages of Hsaw Wah Der, Bu Sah Kee, Wah Tho Ko, Der Doh, Maw Ko Der, Bpeh Gkaw Der, Ko Pler Der, Ko Kler Der, Kler Kaw Day, Kaw Soh Ko and Klay Soe Kee have all been ordered to move to Baw Ga Li Gyi (Kler Lah). This list is far from complete, and at present we have no information on villages in the north of Than Daung township; it appears that in fact every village in the hills of Toungoo District which is not adjacent to a road or Army camp has been ordered to relocate. Some, such as Hsaw Wah Der and Bu Sah Kee, have been repeatedly ordered to move over the past 3 years, while most of the others received orders to move throughout 1998. The number of forced relocation orders appears to have increased since completion of the road from Baw Ga Li Gyi to Bu Sah Kee in 1997. Following orders to move, villagers say that troops burned houses and farmfield huts in several villages, including Bu Sah Kee, Hsaw Wah Der, Sho Hta, Paw Baw Soe, Si Kheh Der, Plaw Mu Der, Ghaw Kee, Tha Aye Kee, Maw Ko Der, Blah Kee, Pwih Kee, Oo Per, Htee Hsah Bper, Ko Go Der and Sho Ko. In most cases only some of the houses in the villages were burned, but afterwards each passing patrol burns down more houses and farmfield huts, particularly wherever they see evidence of continued habitation. After burning houses in Tha Aye Kee village in May 1998, troops from Infantry Battalion #26 laid landmines on one of the paths near the village, and in September 1998 one Tha Aye Kee villager was killed and two others wounded by these mines. After burning some houses in Paw Baw Soe village in June 1998, troops from Light Infantry Battalion #707 booby-trapped the village by laying a mine right in front of the steps of a house, and one of the villagers was killed. In May 1998, LIB 707 also selected all the best houses in Hsaw Wah Der village and burned them, and also burned the new church which had cost the villagers 300,000 Kyat to build. Villagers say that in Bu Lu Der village LIB 707 singled out the church and burned it while leaving the houses alone. After burning the church and several houses in Hsaw Wah Der, one of the troops took a piece of charcoal and scrawled in Burmese on one of the houses left unburned, "You stupid people who follow Nga Mya, come into the light (says LIB 707)". "Nga Mya" is a derogatory name for Saw Bo Mya, president of the KNU [See KHRG Photo Set 99-A, Photo #T9].

"They burned the houses of many villagers, namely H---, S---, Saw B--- and other villagers in Sho Hta, which is a one hour walk from here. They did that on June 11^th [1998]. The Burmese went to Paw Baw Soe and burned all the houses on their way back. … They also burned 4 houses in Hsaw Wah Der that belonged to H---, L---, M--- and P---. They also burned a church that was worth about 300,000 Kyats. Those things were burned on May 10^th, when they came the previous time." - "Saw Lah" (M, 45), Hsaw Wah Der village (Interview #13, 9/98)

"They burned half of my house along with the others. They wanted to burn it all but the fire didn’t consume the whole house. I built my house there a long time ago, it cost me 3,000 Kyats. They also burned the church, which the villagers had built at a cost of 300,000 Kyats. They burned it on the same day that they burned my house." - "Pi Lwee Paw" (F, 63), Hsaw Wah Der village (Interview #14, 9/98)

"They burned all the houses in Si Kheh Der, which is above Kler Lah village. There weren’t many houses there, and when they burned the houses the villagers were not in the village. The villagers didn’t stay to face the Burmese because they were afraid of them." - "Naw Ghay Muh" (F, 25), xxxx village (Interview #21, 9/98)

"[T]hey destroyed many things, such as rice, fishpaste, salt, and clothing. They destroyed things in Bu Ler Der, Hsaw Wah Der and Kaw Thay Der villages. They also destroyed a wooden church with a zinc roof in Bu Ler Der last March or April, during the hot season. Light Infantry Battalion #707 burned the church. … They also burned everything that they found in the jungle below xxxx, all the things that the villagers there had been hiding in the jungle." - "Naw Ghay Hser" (F, 28), xxxx village (Interview #4, 9/98)

"Three months ago Infantry Battalion #48 came and took chicken, fish, pots, machetes and everything else they found that belonged to the villagers. They burned paddy barns in Maung Daing Gyi, Si Kheh Der and in the area east of Gyi Kyaut and Gho Kee village. … They destroyed many of the villagers’ things there." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

"[T]hey burned villages called Maw Ko Der and Blah Kee, on the other side of Gklay Wah." - "Pu Lay Ko" (M, 65), xxxx village (Interview #25, 9/98)

"[T]hey burned down the villages to the east of the Day Lo river such as Pwih Kee, Blah Kee, Maw Ko Der, Oo Bper and Htee Hsah Bper." - "Pati Lay Kyaw" (M, 50), xxxx village (Interview #7, 9/98)

"Not so long ago [Infantry] Battalion #48 and also the Na Pa Ka [Western Military Command] tortured villagers from Si Kheh Der, Plaw Mu Der and Ta Kwee Soe villages. They said that the villagers didn’t do any work for them, so when they saw the villagers they said that they were bad people and they killed them. The other villagers were afraid and fled the village and then they burned the houses. They also burned churches in Si Kheh Der and Plaw Mu Der. The bibles made a lot of smoke when they burned." - "Saw Tha Muh" (M, 52), xxxx village (Interview #6, 9/98)

Most of the orders to relocate were delivered directly by patrols passing through the villages, telling the villagers that they had to get out within 7 to 15 days and afterwards would be shot if seen in the area. Villagers who have moved as ordered say that on arrival in Baw Ga Li Gyi, a large village of 300-400 households, they were told to build bamboo huts outside the village but were given no assistance whatsoever by the authorities. Some people from nearby villages helped them, but for the most part they had to cut and haul the bamboo themselves. No bamboo was available locally because the large population of Baw Ga Li Gyi uses all of it, so this required going long distances to obtain bamboo and leaves for roofing. The relocated villagers had to survive on whatever food they had with them and most could find no way of growing food or earning a livelihood, so many of them left and returned to the area of their villages to hide in the forests.

"[T]hey forced villagers from Klay Soe Kee, Der Doh, Kler Kaw Day and [Ko] Pler Der to Kler Lah. They were moved about 2 or 3 months ago. They gave the villagers 10 days to relocate. All of the villagers moved to Kler Lah, they didn’t dare to stay in their villages. Kler Lah has about 400 houses, and the Burmese are camped on the hill beside Kler Lah. After forcing them to move the Burmese didn’t help the villagers to build houses. Our village helped them by cutting bamboo for 2 or 3 days and sending it to them." - "Naw Eh Htoo" (F, 52), xxxx village (Interview #22, 9/98)

"We could take some of our things, but other things we hid in the forest. When we arrived in Taw Oo they didn’t prepare anything for us, we had to walk 2 hours to cut bamboo and build our houses ourselves. We had to carry the bamboo ourselves, they didn’t help us." - "Pu Lay Ko" (M, 65), xxxx village (Interview #25, 9/98)

"Recently they drove villagers out of Klay Soe Kee and Ko Pler Der villages in Than Daung township. Ko Pler Der is a 2 hour walk from our village, and Klay Soe Kee is over one hour away on foot. They forced them to Kler Lah. They told the villagers they had a deadline for moving, and if they didn’t move by then they would burn their houses. When they arrived at Kler Lah they had to build their own houses with bamboo. The people who were staying nearby helped them to cut the bamboo. They could only build small houses. … In the past they also forced out the villagers from Ga Mu Der village [to Kler Lah], and the villagers there still haven’t returned." - "Saw Thaw Thi Wah" (M, 26), xxxx village (Interview #19, 9/98)

"[O]ur village had to move, and other villages as well. The first 3 villages to move were Nyein Chan Yay Gwin, Klay Soe Kee and Wah Tho Ko villages. The Burmese government didn’t give us a place to go so we had to find a place ourselves. I moved to stay in Lwee Milah [‘4-mile’], which is 10 hours away by car, and I had to build my own house. That was 9 months ago. There are over 300 houses in Lwee Milah. The bus fare to get there is 500 Kyats per person and we had to pay it ourselves. Lwee Milah is only one furlong [1/8 mile] from the Burmese camp. It’s very close, just a five-minute walk. The Burmese come very often. … Many hill villagers have gone to stay there from villages such as Thway Kaw Po, Oo Bper, Htee Hsah Bper and many other villages." - "Pati Lay Kyaw" (M, 50), xxxx village (Interview #7, 9/98)

"[T]he Burmese forced villagers from Klay Soe Kee and Ko Pler Der to stay in Kler Lah, and some also had to go to Taw Oo. They didn’t want to move but they didn’t dare tell the Burmese that. Some find other villages to stay in and don’t go to the relocation site. Most of the villagers went to stay in Kler Lah. Sometimes they return to their villages to work on their betelnut plantations. … The Burmese don’t know they are returning to work in their villages but they go anyway." - "Saw Muh Htoo" (M, 42), xxxx village (Interview #20, 9/98)

"Klay Soe Kee, Ko Pler Der, Lay Kaw Der and Der Doh villages had to relocate to Kler Lah. They didn’t provide us with houses. We had to go far to get bamboo and then build our own houses. The houses are built with 12 poles, quite small, and are very close together." - "Naw Eh Krih" (F, 18), xxxx village (Interview #17, 9/98)

"[T]hey have driven villagers from Der Doh, Maw Ko Der, Ko Pler Der, Ko Kler Der and Klay Soe Kee to Kler Lah village. Some villagers don’t go to stay in Kler Lah, the villagers who have only a little money flee to stay in Taw Oo. The villagers who have fled have no work to do where they are, they can’t do anything. They secretly return to their villages and work on their cardamom gardens there. If the Burmese see them, they will shoot them dead. … Last year they killed many villagers that lived far from here." - "Saw Lay Ghaw" (M, 43), a village elder from xxxx village (Interview #18, 9/98)

"When they came this year, they only killed Hsah Krih Pa [age 40, wife deceased, one child]. On May 30^th 1998 he went to see his betelnut garden. The Burmese shot and killed him, then they confiscated all of his belongings, his watch and his money, 20,000 Kyats. His child’s aunt is now taking care of the child." - "Saw Lah" (M, 45), Hsaw Wah Der village (Interview #13, 9/98)

People living in the hills in and around their villages are at constant risk of being arrested and tortured or killed on sight by passing SPDC patrols, who consider anyone seen in these areas to be ‘enemy’. For example, on 17 January 1999 thirty troops from Infantry Battalion #48 heard villagers talking in a field hut near Wah Paw Pu, surrounded the hut and opened fire. Six villagers escaped but two were seriously wounded, and the troops entered the hut and killed them by shooting them both in the head. They were just farmers who were gathering betelnut in their plantation. On 16 January 1999 a patrol of Light Infantry Battalion #535 came to the area of Htee Hsah Bper village in the hills of Than Daung township. When they saw 16-year-old Saw Htaw Say and his aunt heading back to the village from their cardamom garden, they immediately opened fire on the two. Saw Htaw Say was hit three times, fell and died, while his aunt ran away and escaped. While some of the troops went to Saw Htaw Say, others ran to a nearby field hut and found Saw Dtaw Law, age 60. They stabbed him to death, then grotesquely mutilated his body by cutting out his tongue and cutting off his entire face except his mouth, and ransacked and looted his hut. Villagers who found the bodies later say that Saw Htaw Say’s hut had also been ransacked and that there was evidence of mutilation on his body as well, with flesh cut off of his thigh and his right arm severed and taken away. Most of the killings of villagers in Toungoo District are not quite so brutal, but every month or so there are new reports from villagers of people being gunned down on sight and being left to die. Some people have been arrested on sight and tortured and then later released, usually after being used for some time as porters, and others yet have simply been grabbed as porters by the moving patrols. Sometimes the troops shout to any villagers they see; if the villager comes to them they take him as a porter, but if he runs, they shoot.

"It was on the 16^th of January, in the afternoon at about 2 p.m. I first saw him lying dead on the path. His clothes were on him, but the 4,000 Kyats he’d had in his pocket had disappeared. He didn’t have anything else with him. … Saw Htaw Say. He was 16 years old. He was single. He was one of 6 brothers and sisters. He was the third [eldest]. … The Burmese shot him three times with a gun. Once in the temple, once in his chest and once in his leg. He was shot in the right temple and it [the bullet] came out the left side. When he died, one of his arms had been cut off and there was a hole in his chest. He still had his left arm, but his right arm had disappeared. I don’t know if his arm was ripped off by the bullets or if they cut it off. It is an even cut." - "Saw Thay Ler" (M, 29), Htee Hsah Bper village, who found Saw Htaw Say’s body (Interview #9, 1/99)

"They stabbed him two times in the back and once in his chest. There was also one hole on the top of his head as big as this. I think maybe they smashed his head open with a gun [butt]. … His legs and arms were there, but his left arm was broken. Normally you couldn’t twist a person’s hand like that even when they’re already dead, but his left hand was twisted around completely backwards. On his face, both of his cheeks had been carved off all the way to the ear, so his ears had been cut away and his nose was cut off as well. The top of his throat was cut open, and they’d also cut out his tongue. I didn’t dare to touch his head. They’d also taken out his eyes." - "Saw Lay Htoo" (M, 23), Htee Hsah Bper village, after he found the body of Saw Dtaw Law, age 60 (Interview #10, 1/99)

"Around the village of Wah Paw Pu in Hsaw Dtay Der area of Tantabin township, some villagers are staying in farmfield huts and some are staying high in the hills instead of in their villages. They gather betelnut and betel leaf from their plantations and sell it so they can buy rice to eat. On 17 January 1999 at 10 a.m., a group of eight villagers had met and were sitting talking in one of their farmfield huts. A group of 30 SPDC soldiers from Infantry Battalion #48 heard them talking from a distance and quietly approached until they were only 5 armspans [about 10 metres] from the hut. Then the villagers saw them and Saw H--- shouted, "Burmese are here!" just as the troops opened fire. The villagers tried to run without even looking behind them. … Saw Bee Dteh had been hit in the stomach, and Saw Gko Dtoh Gkeh had been hit in the thigh and couldn’t walk anymore. The SPDC soldiers then shot both of them in the head, and their brains had spilt out. … After they stopped shooting, the troops took the villagers’ money from the hut and moved on. At that time, Infantry Battalion #48 was rebuilding the vehicle road from Kler Lah to Kaw Thay Der and Bu Sah Kee, and that’s why they ordered their soldiers to secure the area. These villagers were innocent but they had to die like animals." - Incident report from Karen relief worker (Field Report #F2)

"At that time elder Ghay Htoo [a.k.a. Saw Ba Chit] was the secretary of the Village PDC chairman. He went to get porters for the SPDC Army and took those porters to Kler Lah, then he came back to Bpeh Gkaw Der after handing the porters over to the SPDC Army. It was the time of the forced relocation, so some people had already relocated to Kler Lah and there were few people in the village. While he was working in his cardamom garden, some SPDC soldiers who were going from place to place looking for things [looting] saw him, and they hit him and eventually killed him. In my mind I thought that they killed him because they wanted the money he had with him. He had 50,000 Kyats, which was the porter fees that he had collected from the villagers and had to give to the chairman of the local SPDC. … Just after they killed him they dug a pit, put him in the pit sitting down and covered him with dirt. Then they put cardamom plants on top of the dirt and went away. Two days later his children were looking for him but they couldn’t find him. In the end there was a bad smell in their garden, so they checked the cardamom and pulled up the cardamom on the place where he was buried. The cardamom plants came out too easily when they pulled them up, so they dug deeper and then they saw him." - "Saw Eh Tee Kaw" (M), Bpeh Gkaw Der village, describing the murder of the village secretary by LIB 234 troops in September 1998 (Interview #11, 1/99)

"Huay!! If they captured people they would kill them all! Recently they tried to capture some people but the people ran to the other side of the river to escape. The Burmese shot and killed 3 of the villagers. They were from Bu Sah Kee. One of them left a little daughter and a wife here. That happened about one and a half years ago. … The man who died, Hsa Bpaw Tay, he left a wife and a small daughter, and his two other daughters were captured. Their names are Naw Paw Heh and Nyi Nyi Po. They were both single, one was a teenager and the other was in her 20’s. They captured them about a year and a half ago. They have been gone all this time. I don’t know if they are dead or not." - "Naw Dah" (F, 50), Bu Sah Kee village (Interview #12, 9/98)

"They have raped girls in other villages and last year they raped a woman in my village when they came to the camp nearby. The Burmese have arrested 2 or 3 women in the village and called them to follow them to their camp and carry things. The time they arrested those women the rest of the villagers had fled the village to hide. Women sometimes have to go carrying things for 2 or 3 days or sometimes one week." - "Naw Eh Htoo" (F, 52), xxxx village (Interview #22, 9/98)

"Some villagers have stepped on landmines while they were portering for the SPDC soldiers. Some of them have died and some have lost their legs but survived." - Report by KHRG monitor (Field Report #F1, 10/98)

Both the SPDC and KNLA regularly plant landmines in the hills of the district, and the villagers suffer from this. SPDC columns use their porters as human minesweepers, generally sending them out in front of the military columns to detonate any landmines that may be there. Villagers report that many have been maimed or killed in this manner while portering (see also above under "SPDC-controlled ‘White’ Areas and ‘Peace’ Villages: Education, Health and Landmines"). In addition, SPDC troops have on occasion laid landmines specifically targetted at villagers in hiding in the hills. After burning down Tha Aye Kee village in May 1998, SPDC troops laid mines on a path near the village which the villagers always use. The villagers had fled into hiding in the forest, and in September one man from the village was killed and his two companions wounded when he stepped on one of these mines. In June 1998, after burning some houses in Paw Baw Soe village, SPDC troops laid a landmine right in front of the steps of one of the remaining houses, and the house owner was killed when he returned to the village.

"[T]hree people from our village, Hsar Nee, Win Maung and Ko Moe Aung, have stepped on landmines. Hsar Nee is single and 30 years old, and the other two are over 50 years old. The SPDC soldiers didn’t take care of them so the other villagers that had gone to porter with them had to bury them." - "Naw Eh Htoo" (F, 52), xxxx village (Interview #22, 9/98)

"One villager, Bee Tay Lay, was killed by a landmine on about June 11^th of this year [1998] at Paw Baw Soe. He was 60 years old and had 2 children, his wife had already died. Burmese LIB 707 planted a landmine at the foot of the steps in front of his house." - "Saw Lah" (M, 45), Hsaw Wah Der village (Interview #13, 9/98)

"In May 1998, SPDC troops from Bu Sah Kee camp of Infantry Battalion #26 … went to Tha Aye Kee village and burned down the houses, causing the villagers to flee and live in hiding in the forest. After leaving the village, the SPDC troops laid landmines 30 minutes’ walk west of the village on the hillside path which the villagers always use. On 12 September 1998 three men of the village were heading to Kaw Thay Der village to try to buy some rice … Saw Y--- was walking in front, followed by Saw C--- and Saw L---. Just before 9 a.m. Saw Y--- stepped on one of the SPDC landmines on the path. He lost his leg, and half a day later he died. Behind him, Saw C--- was sprayed with dirt and shrapnel, blinding him and breaking his right leg. Saw L--- was hit in the mouth and the abdomen by shrapnel from the mine." - Incident report from KHRG monitor (Field Report #F2)

"They enter the village very often, the most recent time was a few days ago. When they enter the village, the villagers flee because they are afraid that they will be captured and have to work as porters. Even so, they still manage to capture people to be porters. Their camp is just over a mile away. Usually 5 to 10 soldiers come to the village and go to many houses. They often demand that we cook rice for them and they demand the villagers’ food. They have demanded rice of me also. I’ve cooked fishpaste and fried fishpaste for them." - "Naw Eh Htoo" (F, 52), xxxx village (Interview #22, 9/98)

In the past, outlying villages were used for forced labour in similar ways to the ‘Peace’ villages. At present, those outlying villages which have not been forced to move still receive orders for various forms of forced labour. However, as so many of the outlying villages have been ordered to move and so many of their people are now always on the run from SPDC troops, the forced labour in these areas tends to be less systematic than in the past. Villagers in the outlying areas are at great risk if they are sighted by SPDC troops; they face a strong chance of being shot on sight or tortured to death, and if they escape this fate then they will usually be grabbed to be porters. Patrols in the hills usually try to take villages by sur

Burmese	Karen
Toungoo Tantabin Than Daung Baw Ga Li Gyi Baw Ga Li Lay Yay Tho Gyi Yay Tho Lay Bu Sah Kee Naw Soe Si Keh Doh Saw Wah Doh Law Bi Lu Kyaut Pon Dtay Sein Taung	Taw Oo Taw Ta Tu Daw Pa Kho Kler Lah Wah Tho Ko Kaw Thay Der Klay Soe Kee Bu Sah Kee Naw Soe Si Kheh Der Hsaw Wah Der Law Bi Lu Ler Ko Kaw Soh Ko