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I. Forced Labour
[Clicking on the sample photos shown in the introduction below will take you to the description of that photo. Clicking on a thumbnail above a photo description will provide an enlargement of the photo. It is recommended that you view this set with your web browser window maximised.]
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Forced labour is probably the most systematic abuse inflicted by the SPDC, and the one which is foremost in the mind of villagers throughout the country. As though it were not enough that villagers are given nothing and treated brutally during forced labour and often die as a result, it also takes them away from their livelihood and leaves them not enough time to grow a crop or earn a living, and it strips them of whatever money they have in the form of ‘fees’ to avoid some of the forced labour so they can do their own work. Demands for many kinds of forced labour come from many different Army camps and SPDC authorities at the same time, so most villagers end up paying high ‘fees’ to avoid some of the forced labour but must also go for forced labour regularly. The forced labour takes many forms, including portering for the Army, building and maintaining bunkers, trenches, defenses and barracks at Army camps, doing sentry duty at Army camps and along roads, farming for the Army, building and maintaining roads and other infrastructure, and many others. One form of forced labour which takes up much of the time of rural villagers is filling the constant demands they receive from SPDC Army camps and authorities for large quantities of logs, planks, bamboo, roof thatching, stones and gravel, and other materials. Some of these materials are used for constructing roads, Army camps and other SPDC projects, and some of them are simply sold on the market for the personal profit of military officers.
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Since 1999 the SPDC claims to have issued various ‘secret directives’, ‘orders’ and initiatives to put an end to forced labour, the most recent being an order they claim to have issued on November 1st 2000 outlawing the practice and imposing punishments on those who demand forced labour. These photos, all taken after 1999 and some taken as recently as May 2001, help to show that there has been no enforcement or effect on the ground of these alleged orders and initiatives. It is extremely difficult and dangerous to take photos of forced labour, and those presented here should be seen as a small sampling; for every photo presented here, thousands more could be taken if it were possible to safely do so. The stories of forced labour told by the villagers in these photos are consistent with well over a thousand interviews done by KHRG since 1999 on the subject, and are also supported by the texts of the thousands of SPDC written orders still being issued each month demanding all forms of forced labour. Some of these interviews can be seen in reports recently issued by KHRG, and the translations of several hundred SPDC orders demanding forced labour can be seen in "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/2001), "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" (KHRG #2000-04, 12/10/2000), and other previous order sets published by KHRG. See also Photo Set 2000-B, Photo Set 2000-A and other previous KHRG photo sets and regional reports for additional pictures and information on forced labour.
The photos in this section have been divided into 3 subtopics: Non-portering, Portering, and Convict Porters. Each subtopic contains an explanation of the photos therein.
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This section contains photos related to many forms of forced labour, such as building and maintaining roads (Photos #A1, A2, A9, A10, and A11), gathering rocks (Photos #A3 through A5), maintaining Army camps (Photos #A6, A14 through A20 and others), and guiding troop columns (Photos #A7 and A8), and carrying rations to outlying Army posts (Photo #A9). There are also many photos involving forced labour cutting bamboo or making hundreds of thatch shingles and delivering them to Army camps (Photo #A21 and thereafter). Village heads receive written orders demanding hundreds or thousands of these at a time, and then must spend days cutting, processing and delivering them to the Army camps by the specified deadlines, or their village elders are arrested. They also receive regular orders to cut and haul logs and planks to Army camps (Photo #A29 and thereafter) under similar conditions. Some of these materials are used for construction (which the villagers are forced to do as well), and some are sold by the Army officers or SPDC officials for personal profit. The villagers themselves never receive any compensation whatsoever for these materials. In many Karen areas, SPDC military officers have learned that they can make large personal fortunes selling logs, and demands for logs from villages in these areas have been rapidly increasing in number.
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| A1 | A2 |
Photos #A1, A2: Villagers in Pa’an township, Thaton District, on their way to a shift of forced labour repairing a vehicle road in May 2001. While the young men carry mattocks for digging, the children and women (behind) carry bamboo baskets on their heads which they will use to haul dirt, and food which the villagers must bring for themselves. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A3 | A4 | A5 |
Photos #A3, A4, A5: Villagers in eastern Papun District doing forced labour gathering rocks for the local SPDC Army camp in May 2001. Army camps regularly demand rocks for camp and road construction, then force the villagers to do the construction as well. In this case, at least 3 villages in the area were ordered to provide rocks. Photo #A5 shows some of the rocks they have gathered organised into 1 ‘kyin’, measuring 10 feet square by 1 foot deep (10 cubic feet). SPDC units usually demand a certain number of ‘kyin’ from each village, so they are piled like this and then the villagers must transport them to the Army camp; as there are very few bullock carts in this region, these villagers will likely have to carry them to the camp on their backs. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A6 |
Photo #A6: Saw S---, 45, from xxxx village in southern Papun District. In late April 2001 he described to KHRG some of the many demands placed on his village by the SPDC: "On the 20th [yesterday, April 20th 2001] we went to fence their camp. Tomorrow or the next day they will order us to go again. They always demand thatch - on the 19th we had to send 20 shingles of thatch from each house, about 200 altogether from our village. They don’t pay anything, and they also don’t pay when we go for ‘loh ah pay’. If we don’t go, they send a letter with a bullet - the bullet means they are very angry". He said the deputy village head of a nearby village had recently been beaten almost to death because his villagers hadn’t performed their forced labour to the Army’s satisfaction. When he was doing forced portering in the mid-2000 rainy season, Saw S--- couldn’t carry his 40-kilogram (88 pound) load over the hills so they hit him in the head with a rifle butt, giving him a concussion. He bribed a soldier to lighten his load but it was still too heavy, and he was beaten again. Soldiers also fired their guns behind him to frighten him. He became thin and weak, lost his sandals and his feet were cut and bruised so he could no longer walk. In December 2000, Major aaaa and Captain bbbb from SPDC Battalion #xx forced him to follow them into the forest and put on a uniform; they then made him lay on the ground and close his eyes with an AK47 rifle they had bought from the DKBA, poured chilli sauce all over him and took his photo, apparently hoping to show their superiors that they had ‘killed a KNLA and captured his weapon’. When Saw S--- protested that the chilli sauce was going in his eyes and burning them, he was told, "Dead men don’t speak". [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A7 | A8 |
Photos #A7, A8: Saw T---, age 43, from xxxx village in Papun District. In early February 2001, he went to a wedding and was selling small goods when SPDC officer Bo aaaa of LID #44 summoned him and forced him to go with the column as a guide. The officers constantly scolded him along the way, so when they reached yyyy village he asked to be released. Second Lieutenant bbbb refused, cursed him, punched him in the face, giving him a bloody nose, and then beat him on the head with a bamboo stick. A Corporal then came over and punched him again in the face. Saw T--- then told them that live or die, he’d had enough and was leaving, grabbed his bag and began to run. The troops yelled to him, then opened fire - Saw T--- estimates that they fired at least 10 or 20 shots. He was hit in the right buttock but kept running, and when he got further away they fired two small mortar shells or M79 grenades at him. He became dizzy and his buttock and nose were bleeding, but he managed to reach a village and the villagers treated the wound with traditional oils, and he remained in hiding nearby. When these photos were taken 3 days later, he said that the bullet or shell fragment was still inside the wound and it still bled whenever he walked. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A9 |
Photo #A9: The SPDC Army supply road from Kaw Thay Der to Bu Sah Kee in eastern Toungoo District. This road was built in 1995-98 using the forced labour of area villagers, and once it was completed new SPDC Army camps were built all along it, also using forced labour. The officers in these camps then ordered all hill villages not near the road to be forcibly relocated and destroyed, causing thousands of people to flee into hiding in the hills, where they still remain. People from the villages along the road also fled because the Army began using them as forced labour at the camps and as porters. At present, most of the people in the region have been internally displaced, and patrols are regularly sent out from the camps along this road to hunt them and destroy their food supplies. During the dry season, all vehicle owners from the larger SPDC garrison villages at the northwest end of the road, such as Kler Lah and Kaw Thay Der, are forced to use their vehicles to haul supplies to the Army camps along the road without compensation; when the road is impassable to vehicles in rainy season, people from those villages are forced several times a month to haul supplies along the road on their backs. After each rainy season, the same villagers are forced to rebuild the road. For further information, see "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/2000) and other related KHRG reports. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A10 |
Photo #A10: The new road in Mone township which follows the east bank of the Sittaung River from Na Than Gwin north to Mone town. It was built starting in January 1999 entirely with the forced labour of villagers and materials they were forced to provide. Much of the construction was supervised by members of the SPDC’s notorious ‘Short Pants’ or Sa Thon Lon execution squads, and village elders were threatened with death if they failed to complete their portion of road on time. The road was built because the main road further west was seen as being too close to the hills, making the SPDC forces vulnerable to KNLA ambush. Most villages along the road route were forced to relocate, and the villagers are now forced constantly to maintain the road, keep the roadsides clear, and do rotating shifts as forced labour sentries along its entire length. More details on the forced construction of this road can be found in the report "Death Squads and Displacement" (KHRG #99-04, 24/5/99). [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A11 |
Photo #A11: Villagers of xxxx village in southern Papun District, gathering to go and do forced labour cutting and clearing the Papun - Ka Ma Maung vehicle road. Villagers in the area say that they have to cut wide ‘killing grounds’ along both sides of the road at least twice a year, and also have to fill potholes with rocks, build fences all along both sides of the road, stand sentry along the road on rotating shifts, and regularly sweep the road for landmines. At the same time they are also forced to do regular forced labour as porters and working at local Army camps, logging for the Army and supplying the Battalions with thatch roofing and other building materials. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A12 | A13 |
Photos #A12, A13: Karen villagers from xxxx village in southern Papun District head for the SPDC/DKBA Army camp at yyyy in mid-April 2001 carrying the 300 shingles of thatch they have been ordered to make for the Army. Villages in the area are regularly ordered to provide hundreds or thousands of shingles of thatch, some of which is used at the camp and some sold for the profit of the officers. To make the thatch shingles, the villagers must gather the leaves and bamboo in the forest, split the bamboo to make the shingle frames and weave the leaves onto the frames. Some of the villagers in these photos said they were also carrying miscellaneous water jugs and containers because when they arrive at the camp they are always forced to carry water from the stream up to the camp at the mountaintop. The SPDC units never pay them anything for all of this work. For examples of written orders demanding thatch, see "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/01) and "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" (KHRG #2000-04, 12/10/00). [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A14 | A15 | A16 |
Photos #A14, A15, A16: Only a week after the photos above (in the last week of April 2001), yet another group of villagers from the same village heads off for forced labour at the SPDC’s yyyy Army camp. This time they have been ordered to go to cut bamboo and build fences, but they are also taking along a few more shingles of thatch they have been ordered to bring. Note the young girls and boys among the group; many parents have no option but to send their children so that the adults can continue working to produce food for the family. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A17 |
Photo #A17: Saw P---, 25, from xxxx village in southern Papun District. People in his village are always ordered to do forced labour for all of the local SPDC Army units. In early April 2001 he and other villagers were forced to go and cut bamboo to build fences and buildings at the SPDC’s yyyy Army camp. During the work, he cut himself badly with a machete just below the knee; however, the SPDC gave him no treatment or compensation and he had to keep working and then return home to treat himself, even though there is no medicine in his village. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A18 |
Photo #A18: A villager looks at some of the sharpened bamboo spikes his village has been ordered to make and deliver to the SPDC Army camp, April 2001. Each village in the area was ordered to send 2,400 spikes, which the Army will use to lay perimeter defenses and man-traps. This picture is from xxxx village, just east of the Sittaung River in Mone township, Nyaunglebin District. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A19 | A20 |
Photos #A19, A20: Sharpened bamboo spikes which villagers were forced to make and plant in the ground to protect a camp of SPDC Light Infantry Division #44 in Bu Tho township, eastern Papun District, in April 2001. Villagers in the area were forcibly relocated to a fenced site near the camp in early 2001 and were then forced to make perimeter defences and do other labour at the camp. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A21 | A22 | A23 |
Photos #A21, A22, A23: On the morning of February 25th 2001 the people of seven villages in xxxx township (Thaton District) received orders from Bo aaaa, a camp commander for Column x of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx, to cut 1,000 bamboo posts per village and deliver them to yyyy Army camp within 3 days. He threatened that any village which failed to comply would be shelled with mortars. In Photo #A21, the people of one of the villages gather and check their machetes before going for the labour. Photos #A22 and A23 were taken after some of them had returned and were setting out to deliver the bamboo to the camp. When they arrived at the camp they were ordered to do forced labour erecting fences and buildings using the bamboo they had brought. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A24 |
Photo #A24: In April 2001, villagers in xxxx village (southwestern Dweh Loh township, Papun District) carry bamboo to the riverbank, where they will tie it into rafts and float it to the camp of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx (part of Division #33). On April 27th the Battalion ordered the village to cut and deliver 1,500 pieces of bamboo by the following day, the 28th. Despite the near-impossibility of cutting and delivering so much bamboo in such a short time, the villagers must drop everything they are doing and try to comply or their village may be forced to relocate and destroyed for being ‘uncooperative’. At the same time they face regular demands for thatch and various forms of forced labour and extortion; even after delivering this bamboo, they will be forced to go to the camp to build things with it, while the officers may sell some of it for their own profit. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A25 |
Photo #A25: Naw D---, 50, from xxxx village, Lu Thaw township, Papun District, lays out the thatch shingles she has just made to dry in the sun. On March 12th 2001, each of the over 20 families in the village was ordered to supply 10 shingles of thatch for the local SPDC Army camp and 50 shingles for the DKBA. She and the other villagers were under orders to deliver them to the SPDC Army camp the following day, and if they dry in the sun they will be a bit lighter to carry. Every village in her area was forced to supply hundreds of shingles of thatch in March 2001, just one of the many forms of forced labour they are ordered to do. Thatch roofing must be replaced at least every 2 years, so SPDC camps are constantly ordering villages to send hundreds or even thousands of thatch shingles at a time to roof their barracks and other buildings. The villagers must then gather the leaves and bamboo in the forest, split the bamboo to make the shingle frames and weave the leaves onto the frames. The SPDC units never pay them anything for all of this work. For examples of written orders demanding thatch, see "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/01) and "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" (KHRG #2000-04, 12/10/00). [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A26 | A27 |
Photos #A26, A27: Villagers in xxxx village (southwestern Dweh Loh township, Papun District) bring shingles of thatch they have made to the riverbank and stack them on a bamboo raft for delivery to the camp of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx in late April 2001. Battalions regularly send out orders to every village in the area to supply several hundred shingles of thatch at a time, an indirect form of forced labour making villagers gather leaves and bamboo, split the bamboo into frames and ties, then tie the leaves onto the frames and deliver the shingles to the camp. They receive no payment whatsoever for this work. Villagers are then called for forced labour roofing the Battalion buildings with the thatch, though some is also sold by the officers for their own profit. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A28 |
Photo #A28: On April 23rd 2001, a villager from xxxx village in southern Papun District delivers some of the hundreds of thatch shingles his village has been ordered to supply to the SPDC’s yyyy Army camp. Villages in the area are regularly ordered to provide hundreds or thousands of shingles of thatch, some of which is used at the camp and some sold for the profit of the officers. To make the thatch shingles, the villagers must gather the leaves and bamboo in the forest, split the bamboo to make the shingle frames and weave the leaves onto the frames. The SPDC units never pay them anything for all of this work. For examples of written orders demanding thatch, see "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/01) and "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" (KHRG #2000-04, 12/10/00). [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A29 | A30 | A31 | A32 | A33 |
Photos #A29, A30, A31, A32, A33: Forced labour logging in southern Papun District, April 2001. Villages in the area are regularly ordered to provide several tons at a time of raw or milled teak and ironwood logs to SPDC Army camps, which are then sold for the profit of the officers, or occasionally used for building. In Photos #A29 and A30, villagers from xxxx and yyyy villages lever a large teak tree they have cut onto a bullock cart for transport to a sawmill owned by a villager or trader, where the logs are squared at the expense of the owner (Photo #A31). After they are squared, the villagers load them onto an SPDC Army truck (Photos #A32 and A33) by night for transport to the Army camp the following morning. The people of these villages say that because they live around the zzzz forest they are constantly forced to do logging for both the SPDC and the DKBA. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A34 | A35 | A36 | A37 |
Photos #A34, A35, A36, A37: Villagers from four villages in southern Papun District haul logs to the SPDC’s yyyy Army camp on April 23rd 2001. Villages in the area are regularly ordered to provide several tons at a time of raw or milled teak and ironwood logs to SPDC Army camps, which are then sold for the profit of the officers, or occasionally used for building. In this case, villagers were ordered to cut the logs and then each village was ordered to provide 2 carts, each with a team and driver, to haul the logs to yyyy camp. This camp is particularly notorious for its constant demands for logs, thatch and other goods which the officers sell for their own profit. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A38 | A39 | A40 | A41 |
Photos #A38, A39, A40, A41: Villagers in xxxx township, Thaton District, move logs and saw them into planks in May 2001. They were ordered to provide the planks to the local SPDC authorities, and were paid nothing. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A42 | A43 |
Photos #A42, A43: Each villager carries their one or two planks, as ordered by the SPDC, to the forced labour site where they are to build a large primary school in xxxx village, xxxx Township, Thaton District. Photo #A43 shows the building work half-completed in May 2001. While the villagers are forced to build these schools and provide the materials, they are also forced to pay extortion money in the name of the school project, most of which goes into the pockets of the SPDC authorities. Once the school is finished, they are forced to pay for the teachers and teaching materials and pay fees to send their children to the school, where Karen language is forbidden and a strictly SPDC-controlled curriculum must be taught. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A44 |
Photo #A44: Logs which villagers in Bu Tho township, eastern Papun District, were forced to cut and deliver to Light Infantry Division #44 in April 2001. Every village in the area receives regular demands for logs and other materials for use at the Army camp or for the officers to sell for profit. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A45 |
Photo #A45: Villagers in Bilin township (Thaton District) do forced labour on March 25th 2001 hauling logs to yyyy camp of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx, Column x. In this case, the owners of 3 bullock carts were ordered to do forced labour hauling logs. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| C19 |
Photo #C19: Saw T---, 45, a village head in xxxx village, Papun District, who described how an SPDC column came to his village on the morning of February 27th 2001, ordered everyone out of their houses and then looted everything from the houses and destroyed all belongings which they couldn’t carry away. They then forced many of the villagers to go with them as porters to carry ammunition and rice. His village and other villages in the area were also forced to supply 300 to 600 thatch shingles each for the Army camp, and Saw T--- says that in the past he has been bound and beaten for failing to comply with such orders. He says that on March 13th 2001 the SPDC commander called village heads to a meeting where he told them, "Make sure you give whatever I ask. If you don’t give it, things won’t go easy for you." [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #B4: Saw B---, age 50 (back, second from right), and his family, from xxxx village in xxxx village tract, northern Papun District. In October 1998 SPDC troops came to relocate his village and captured the whole family as well as some of the other villagers, totalling 16 people aged from 1 year to 67 years. They beat and interrogated Saw B---, then force-marched all 16 people to Mu Theh, an SPDC LIB #349 Army camp along the new Kyauk Kyi - Saw Hta road. The family was forced to settle there. For the first 3 months they were given some food, but after that they were told to find food for themselves. They were constantly forced to do labour making thatch, cutting and hauling logs and bamboo for the Army camp, and were forced to carry Army supplies to Maw Kyaw Ko at the top of La Lah mountain once every week. Every day the relocated villagers also had to send 3 people for forced labour sentry duty. While they were there, the Mu Theh villagers were selling some food to the people in hiding in the hills, and when the SPDC found out about this they executed village headman Pa Baw, who left a wife and two children. Eventually Saw B---’s family couldn’t bear the conditions anymore so they fled back into the hills, but they couldn’t dare go back to their village so they now live in the forest with other displaced villagers. This photo was taken in April 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A46 |
Photo #A46: A health clinic in Kya Ka Chaung village, Kya In Seik Gyi township, Dooplaya District, which the Army forced the villagers to build at their own expense in 1997. Money was probably provided for the project, but the Army officers kept it and simply ordered the villagers to provide the materials and do all the work. Once clinics like this are built, villagers must pay for medicines and treatment, and the doctors often leave after a few months never to return. The same villagers were also forced to build a school with their own materials and labour. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
As the SPDC military continues to expand and pursues a systematic program to militarise and subjugate all rural areas, its need for forced labour porters is always increasing. Entire villages are called out to carry supplies and munitions to outlying Army posts (see for example Photos #A48 and A49), and Army columns on the move and on patrol use anywhere from one to four porters per soldier. To get so many people, Army camps send out several orders per week to all the villages in their area demanding several ‘permanent porters’ on unending rotation from each village, and columns routinely grab farmers in the fields or people in the villages to go with them. Women and children are increasingly being used as porters, particularly in areas where the men are too afraid to confront SPDC soldiers for fear of being accused of opposition sympathies (see Photos #A47, A50 and photos thereafter). In many remote areas the villagers flee the soldiers, or the villages have already been destroyed and the people are internally displaced, so the Army cannot catch enough porters. To compensate for this, they have once again begun rounding up porters in the towns and villages of central Burma, ‘shanghai’-ing men in railway stations and teashops and sending them to the frontlines in Karen, Karenni and Shan States (see Photos #A60, A61, and A62). They have also been sending more and more convicts to the frontlines as porters (see the ‘Convict Porters’ section below).
Porters are forced to carry loads of up to 40 kilograms (88 pounds) in crude bamboo baskets that cut their shoulders open, and if they are together with soldiers they are driven brutally. Villagers going for one day’s labour carrying supplies from the roadhead to an Army post, or those going for a shift of a few days as a ‘rotation’ porter, usually take along their own food and manage to get through the shift without being too brutally abused. But for those kept for longer periods and those hauled out of their houses or fields without warning, the hard labour, abuse and sleeping on the open ground quickly take effect. As soon as they weaken or get sick they fall behind, and the soldiers prod them, kick them and beat them. Those who eventually collapse are beaten and left behind or executed (see Photo #A59). Those without food are given almost nothing, and treatment is almost never given to those who are sick or wounded (see Photos #A57 and A58). Porters are often forced to walk in front of the troops to trigger landmines or ambushes. For all of these reasons, portering is the most feared of all forms of forced labour.
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| A47 |
Photo #A47: Four women from xxxx village northeast of Papun (Bu Tho township, Papun District) who were forced by SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx to go to Papun town and carry supplies back up from the town to the battalion’s camp at xxxx on May 30th 2001. Our researcher met them when they were taking a rest from their loads at a village along the route. They said that they were forced to carry loads as heavy as 25 kilograms (55 pounds) each, and that it was so heavy they could barely carry it but they were so afraid of the soldiers that they had no choice. If they fail to arrive at the camp with their loads, their entire village may be destroyed as punishment. Women often go for forced labour such as this because the men do not dare face the soldiers for fear of being accused as ‘suspected rebels’. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A48 | A49 |
Photos #A48, A49: People in xxxx village, southwestern Dweh Loh township, Papun District, leave their fenced-in village on March 27th 2001 to go for forced labour. They have been ordered to carry rations from the roadhead to outlying Army camps of SPDC Light Infantry Division #33, a type of forced labour which most villages must do at least once or twice a month. The order usually specifies either that one person from every house must come, or everyone above age 12; hence the large numbers of women and adolescents. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A50 |
Photo #A50: Women from northern Toungoo District whose villages were forcibly relocated to an SPDC garrison village in 1998, and who have been forced to porter supplies to outlying SPDC Army camps many times both before and since their relocation. Naw K---, second from left, is only 14 years old yet she has had to go several times already, and says that she often cried when she couldn’t carry on with her load but the SPDC soldiers shouted at them to keep going and kicked the men. Two of the women had seen other porters killed or maimed by landmines, and all of them say that when they were forced to go there were more women than men among the group of 50 or more porters. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A51 | A52 | A53 | A54 | A55 |
Photos #A51, A52, A53, A54, A55: Young and old, all of these women from central Toungoo District described in late November 2000 how they are regularly forced to go as porters and to do Army camp labour for SPDC troops in the area. From left to right, Photo #A51 shows a 21-year-old woman and her friends, who go portering together; Photo #A52 is Naw L---, age 46; then Naw L---, age 60; Naw T---, age 67; and Naw K---, age 38. Naw K---, a widow, says she can’t even count the number of times she has been forced to carry supplies in the past 2 years; she sometimes has to go together with her 13-year-old daughter, and has been forced to carry loads as heavy as 30 kilograms (66 pounds). [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A56 |
Photo #A56: Naw M---, an 18 year old villager from xxxx village in Toungoo District. In April 2001, she described to KHRG how she and others in her village are regularly forced to porter supplies for up to 10 days at a time to outlying SPDC Army camps at Naw Soe, K’Law Soe, Dta Kwih Soe, Kyauk Taung and Bu Sah Kee, all along the road from Kler Lah (Bawgali Gyi) to Bu Sah Kee. She says that she herself has been forced to do this regularly for 7 or 8 years already. She and the other porters are forced to walk in front of the troops in case of landmines, and she has witnessed several villagers killed by mines while portering; she also saw a new mother, forced to porter shortly after giving birth, die from the strain of the load. She says that since January 2001, 10 to 20 people from her village have to go every day to do forced labour clearing and maintaining the road route to Bu Sah Kee, and that 2 people must be sent every day for forced labour as messengers. Even when there is no work to be done, the people are forced to go and sit on standby at the Army camp, so they cannot work their fields anymore. Anyone who cannot go must pay fines of 400 to 5,000 Kyat, and if no one shows up for forced labour then the troops come and start beating up the villagers, including the elderly. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A57 |
Photo #A57: Naw D---, who was forced to go as a porter in March/April 2000 by SPDC troops and stepped on a landmine while portering, blowing off her lower left leg. She is from xxxx village in Papun District. After stepping on the mine she received no proper medical attention from the SPDC, and she still has no prosthesis so she cannot walk and her children must bring food to her and care for her. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A58 |
Photo #A58: Saw P--- from xxxx village, Papun District. In April 2001 he was forced to go as a porter with an SPDC Army column patrolling the hills. His load was so heavy he could barely carry it, so along the path he fell and smashed his leg open on a rock. He was given no treatment for the wound, and when this photo was taken 2 weeks later he had still not been able to get any treatment. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E11 | E12 |
Photo #E11, E12: Saw L---, 45, from xxxx village (yyyy township, Papun District). In February 2001 he was heading home from his ricefield when he met a column of 50 soldiers from SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx (under Light Infantry Division #77) commanded by Major aaaa. The Major ordered him to go with the column as a porter, and he tried to refuse but they forced him to shoulder a load of almost 40 kilograms (88 pounds) and go with them. On the morning of February 23rd they encountered KNLA soldiers near zzzz village and there was a battle. During the fighting Saw L--- tried to flee, but the SPDC soldiers saw him and shot him in the thigh, so he fell and was recaptured. After the battle they punished the zzzz villagers by opening fire on the completely undefended village, killing a 28-year-old woman named Naw Bleh and wounding a woman named Ma T--- (see Photos #E13 and E14), then entered the village and looted the houses of rice, clothing, gold jewellery and other belongings after the villagers had fled. They left Saw L--- behind with no treatment. Photo #E12 shows one of the wounds on his left thigh. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A59 |
Photo #A59: Saw P---, age 40, from xxxx village in eastern Papun District. On January 9th 2001, a column of SPDC Battalion #xxx came to his village at night and dragged him away as a porter even though he was sick at the time. After climbing several hills with a heavy load in the dark, he was exhausted and started coughing, then he fell under his load. The soldiers slapped his face and started kicking him until he tumbled down the steep path. Then they started throwing rocks at him and he fell unconscious. When he awoke he was still where he fell, and the Column was gone so he laid there for a while and then made his way home. When he was interviewed at the end of April 2001, he and other villagers had just been ordered to go for another shift of forced labour as porters. He said he had not yet decided whether to go for the forced labour or flee his village. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A60 |
Photo #A60: K---, age 20, a young man who was working in a shop in Rangoon when he was grabbed by the Army in May 2000 and taken to Karen State as an unpaid frontline porter. He was kept for forced labour for almost 7 months by Light Infantry Battalion #412 in Papun District, during which time he was forced to carry loads of 30 kilograms or more of bullets, rice and medical supplies. During that time he was often beaten, scolded, and thrown in the water, and when he became sick he was given no medicine or treatment. By the time he fled and escaped in mid-December 2000, it was clear that he was to be used as a porter until he died. [Photo: KORD]
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| A61 |
Photo #A61: Ko Z---, 28 (left), and his friend Ko M---, both Burman Buddhists. Ko Z--- is from Bassein township in Irrawaddy Division. One morning in February 2001, he went from his village to the outskirts of Bassein town to buy milk for his child, and while walking home he was stopped at a police checkpoint. The police tied his hands and sent him to the police lockup, and the next morning he was forced onto an Army truck and taken the long distance to Toungoo town. From there he was sent to Kyauk Kyi, where he and the others were saddled with loads and forced eastward into the hills of Nyaunglebin District en route to Saw Hta at the Thailand border. Each soldier had one porter, and they were kicked and beaten when they couldn’t carry their loads. They received almost no food, and when injured were given no treatment. Some porters died, others were injured in fighting, and one tried to escape and was shot in the shoulder. After 7 days carrying, Ko Z--- and Ko M--- fled and escaped in the middle of the night on February 16th, and eventually reached a KNLA unit. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A62 |
Photo #A62: Maung K---, 27, a Burman Buddhist from Pyu township in Pegu Division. On February 7th 2001 while eating breakfast in his village with his family, the Army came into his house and dragged Maung K--- away. Without being told anything, he was transported to Toungoo and then to Nyaunglebin, where he was given a load to carry into the Karen hills with an SPDC patrol. Four porters were given to every six soldiers, and for the next 7 days he and the others were forced to carry rice, beans, bullets and shells before he escaped. When this photo was taken in March 2001, he was staying with the internally displaced villagers in the hills wondering how to get home. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A63 |
Photo #A63: Saw T---, 40, from xxxx village in Papun District. On February 27th 2001 he was in his house with his wife who had just given birth, when an SPDC column arrived and ordered him to show them to the headman’s house. When they got there the troops detained him, and the next morning he was forced to go with them as a porter. They said it would be 3 or 4 days, but 20 days later he still hadn’t been released, and when he protested they said he would be kept for a month. He was forced to carry heavy baskets of bullets, cookpots and rice and was closely guarded at all times. He was finally released when his village head came to plead for him. This was not his first experience of SPDC brutality - one evening in 2000 he was with his family in their farmfield hut when SPDC troops opened fire on them without warning, killing his 6 year old son and one of his nieces and wounding Saw T--- (in the back), his wife, their infant child, one of their daughters (in her leg), and Saw T---’s brother. He says that this year the SPDC has demanded cash compensation of 5,000 Kyat for a gun they lost, and regularly demands porters, forced labour messengers and other labour, and extortion money. He says "If we don’t pay and do it for them, they will come to burn our village and drive us out". [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| D22 |
Photo #D22: Saw K---, age 61, from xxxx village in Papun District. On October 19th 2000 an SPDC patrol from #44 Division caught him working his hill field along with some younger men and women, accused him of being a ‘rebel’, and forced them to go with them and carry loads. After 2 days a Corporal interrogated Saw K--- and the others, punched all of them, held their heads under water, then wrapped their heads in nylon and poured water over it so they couldn’t breathe. After this the unit still detained them for more than 2 more weeks, during which the younger men were held in leg stocks for six days. For several days the unit went from village to village looting and burning houses, forcing them to carry loads and act as guides and slapping Saw K---’s face when he didn’t know the way. One of the women was released along the way, but the others were kept bound much of the time. Saw K--- finally managed to escape early one morning when his guard left him alone, and now lives in hiding in the forest. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A64 |
Photo #A64: Saw B---, age 30, a Karen Christian from xxxx village, Ler Mu Lah township, Mergui-Tavoy district in Tenasserim Division. After the SPDC occupied the entire region beginning in 1997 he tried to stay and live in his village, but he says they were regularly forced to porter for periods of up to a month at a time for Light Infantry Battalions #542, 371, and 342 as the SPDC tries to consolidate its hold over this part of Tenasserim. He told KHRG he couldn’t work enough to survive and couldn’t bear it anymore, so he fled his home and headed east into the hills in early 2001, where he is now displaced. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A65 |
Photo #A65: Three men in Bilin township (Thaton District) just after returning from forced labour they were ordered to do carrying rations for SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx on April 12th 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A66 | A67 |
Photos #A66, A67: Saw P--- (photo #A66) from xxxx village and Saw P--- (photo #A67) from yyyy village in Papun District, both of whom were forced to go as porters for SPDC LIB #xxx and both of whom ran to escape. After arriving back at their villages, the Battalion sent orders fining each of them 5 viss [8 kg/17.5 lb] of pork and 2 viss [3.2 kg/7 lb] of chicken for running away. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A68 |
Photo #A68: Saw P--- from xxxx village in Papun District. He was forced to go as a porter for LIB #356 and IB #231, and says that when he couldn’t carry the soldiers beat him, kicked his back and punched his face. He couldn’t bear it any longer so he fled alone at night. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| G17 |
Photo #G17: Saw K---, 21, from xxxx village, Toungoo District. After his village was relocated to yyyy in 1998, Saw K--- and the other villagers were regularly forced to go as porters carrying supplies to outlying SPDC Army camps. He was 18 at the time, and while doing forced labour as a porter he stepped on a landmine near zzzz village. The mine blew off the bottom half of his left leg and wounded 3 or 4 other civilian porters, including Naw T---, a 30-year-old woman from Saw K---’s village who was permanently blinded. Unlike many porters who are left to die when wounded, Saw K--- was sent to hospital by the SPDC troops and later received a prosthesis. At present the people of his village have still not been allowed to return home and are still forced at least once a month to do forced labour portering over the same dangerous paths. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A9 |
Photo #A9: The SPDC Army supply road from Kaw Thay Der to Bu Sah Kee in eastern Toungoo District. This road was built in 1995-98 using the forced labour of area villagers, and once it was completed new SPDC Army camps were built all along it, also using forced labour. The officers in these camps then ordered all hill villages not near the road to be forcibly relocated and destroyed, causing thousands of people to flee into hiding in the hills, where they still remain. People from the villages along the road also fled because the Army began using them as forced labour at the camps and as porters. At present, most of the people in the region have been internally displaced, and patrols are regularly sent out from the camps along this road to hunt them and destroy their food supplies. During the dry season, all vehicle owners from the larger SPDC garrison villages at the northwest end of the road, such as Kler Lah and Kaw Thay Der, are forced to use their vehicles to haul supplies to the Army camps along the road without compensation; when the road is impassable to vehicles in rainy season, people from those villages are forced several times a month to haul supplies along the road on their backs. After each rainy season, the same villagers are forced to rebuild the road. For further information, see "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/2000) and other related KHRG reports. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
As the SPDC Army expands its need for porters increases, but as more and more Karen villagers flee into hiding in the forest it becomes harder to obtain enough porters to meet the demand. As a result the SPDC is now rounding up more porters from towns in central Burma, and sending more prison convicts to the frontlines as porters. More and more convict porters are beginning to appear with SPDC columns in Karen State, from prisons as far afield as Moulmein, Mandalay and Lashio. A few of those who have escaped are shown in the photographs below. Their sentences vary from ‘hiding in the dark’ and curfew violations to murder, but once taken as porters they are often kept until they escape or die, regardless of when their sentence ends.
In looking at convict labour in Burma it is important to note that many of these ‘convicts’ would not even be in prison in other countries. Several of those shown below were imprisoned for possession of illegal lottery tickets, a trivial offence considering that these small-scale local lotteries exist everywhere in Burma and Southeast Asia. Another common charge is ‘hiding in the dark’, a vague form of conspiracy charge applied randomly to those out at night or even in broad daylight. More are also being arrested on drug possession charges and convicted despite a total lack of evidence. The number of people imprisoned on these charges is rapidly increasing, and many of them are only kept in prison for a few days before being sent to the frontlines. This raises the question of whether SPDC authorities are arresting young men from the poorer classes on any pretext simply to imprison them and turn them into convict labour. If so, it makes the SPDC’s claim internationally to be replacing civilian forced labourers with convicts an extremely cynical manoeuvre.
The SPDC has also formalised the process of turning convicts into porters by creating what are known as ‘Won Saung’ porter battalions or porter-gathering camps, which are essentially transit holding camps for convict porters. Hundreds of convicts are brought to these holding camps behind SPDC lines in the ethnic states, and SPDC Columns can then take as many porters as they need when they head out into the remoter areas. When interviewed, escaped convicts have described ‘Won Saung 1’ and ‘Won Saung 2’ near Pa’an town in central Karen State, and another Won Saung camp near Thaton in Mon State, but there are almost certainly others elsewhere. Once taken as porters, the convicts are treated with unrestrained brutality, and it is not uncommon for one or more of a group of convict porters to die each day along the way. As one of them told KHRG (see Photo #A74), "Once the SPDC takes prisoners out to carry things, they consider them as people who are already dead".
For more information on convicts and forced labour, see the report "Convict Porters" (KHRG #2000-06, 20/12/2000).
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Warning: the photos below are graphic.
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| A69 | A70 | A71 | A72 | A73 |
Photos #A69, A70, A71, A72, A73: Ko S---, 27, a Burman Buddhist convict porter who escaped SPDC forces in Papun District at the beginning of June 2001. A trishaw driver from xxxx town, he was sentenced to one year in Pegu prison after he beat a drunken passenger who engaged his trishaw and then refused to pay. After less than a month in prison he and 50 others were forced to the frontline as Army porters for SPDC Battalions #502, 506 and 17. He saw several convicts shot dead when they couldn’t carry anymore, as well as a former monk and another convict who were beaten and left behind to die, or may have been killed after the porters had passed. After several weeks he was handed over to Light Infantry Battalion #504. Several days later he ran to escape because he couldn’t carry any longer, but he was recaptured by Light Infantry Battalion #439, who kept him for more than another month before he finally escaped. During that time he was held at Tee Muh Hta camp; he fell sick, and when he couldn’t work anymore he was put in a pit and beaten repeatedly by SPDC soldiers, who stabbed him in the chest and back with sharpened bamboo sticks (see Photos #A70 and A71), hit him in the left eyebrow with a glass bottle (see Photo #A69) and beat him. One night in May he finally dragged himself out of the pit and escaped. In Photos #A70 and A71 he shows some of his scars from beatings by SPDC soldiers, and in Photos #A72 and A73 he shows marks of the skin parasite infection he got from never being allowed to bathe. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A74 |
Photo #A74: Maung A---, age 24, from xxxx, Pegu Division. In January 2001 he was sent to Thayawaddy prison for possession of a ticket in a local illegal lottery. He says that when representatives of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) were coming to visit the prison, the prisoners were unshackled and given good food and warned to give a good report to ICRC, and that those who told ICRC of bad prison conditions were later sent to ‘dark cells’, isolation cells with no light whatsoever. In March 2001 he and 50 other prisoners were taken to be frontline porters in Papun District. He says that the convict porters were treated brutally and he saw 4 porters killed because they couldn’t carry their loads. He told KHRG, "Once the SPDC takes prisoners out to carry things, they consider them as people who are already dead". He escaped in mid-April 2001. In the photo he displays some of the wounds on his shoulder from carrying heavy loads. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A75 | A76 |
Photos #A75, A76: Six convict porters who escaped separately from SPDC columns in Nyaunglebin District in late April 2001 and each found their way to KNLA forces. A---, age 41 (second from left), was a monk who was arrested and sentenced to prison so that a pagoda could be looted by the authorities (see Photos #A77 and A78 below). The rest of them had been imprisoned for selling illegal lottery tickets (1 to 2 years in jail) or buying an illegal lottery ticket (6 months to 2 years in jail). Small local privately-run lotteries are technically illegal but are common throughout Southeast Asia, though only the SPDC imposes such harsh penalties, leading to suspicions that they are only arresting people to obtain a source of forced labour. These men were sent to Toungoo, Thayawaddy, and Taunggyi prisons. After a short time in prison they were taken to the frontline in early April 2001 as porters, fed very little and seriously beaten whenever they could not carry their loads quickly enough. Maung A--- (third from left), a 40 year old farmer who was sentenced to 6 months simply for possessing a lottery ticket, says the SPDC officers beat the porters with branches of thorn trees, sometimes until their heads were bleeding. Several of them witnessed the soldiers take a Buddhist monk (who had been imprisoned by the authorities and then taken as a convict porter) who could no longer carry his load and pull him along by a rope around his neck; later they killed him and threw his body over a cliff. Another porter was shot dead for being unable to carry his load. K---, age 52 (second from right), says he saw two porters beaten to death. In Photo #A76, Maung T---, age 36, shows one of the wounds on his shoulder caused by carrying heavy loads in bamboo baskets for 2 weeks. Between them, they had to carry loads for Infantry Battalions #17, 60, 115 and Light Infantry Battalions #2 and 502. W---, age 36 (first on the left) said there were 165 porters in his group, but a quarter of them had run to escape by the time he fled. He said he was eager to get home because the school year was about to begin and if he didn’t get back to pay the fees his 3 children would not be able to go to school. Maung A--- (third from left) said he needs to get home because his wife and 5 children have nothing to eat. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A77 | A78 |
Photos #A77, A78: A---, age 41, was a monk in xxxx town in Pegu Division who was arrested in August 2000, disrobed by the police and sentenced to 5 years in prison because he found some valuable statues while repairing a pagoda; he was accused of trying to sell them, though he had only just found them when he was arrested (the authorities probably wanted him out of the way so they could take the statues). He was taken from Toungoo Prison by Infantry Battalion #115 and had to porter for them and Infantry Battalion #60 in Nyaunglebin District, and says he saw porters being tortured and abused by the troops and fell sick himself but was given no treatment. In Photo #A78 he shows some of the scars on his shoulders from carrying heavy loads in bamboo baskets. He escaped after 2 weeks of carrying. He says he still considers himself a monk and continues to wear the monk’s belt (see Photo #A77), that he only wants to work for religion and has no interest in doing anything political. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A79 |
Photo #A79: Ko A--- (left, age 25) and Ko M--- (age 32), two convict porters who escaped from an SPDC column in southern Papun District on April 18th 2001. Forced to carry loads of 35-40 kilograms each from Toungoo town through the hills all the way to Saw Hta at the Thai border, they said that they were fed just a bit of often rotten rice along the way. They were kicked and beaten with rifle butts and bamboo sticks to keep them going, and those who fell sick were given no medicine or treatment. They witnessed several porters shot or beaten to death, and said that by the time they reached Saw Hta after about 2 weeks of carrying only 63 of the original 165 convict porters were left; the remainder had either escaped or died. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A80 | A81 | A82 |
Photos #A80, A81, A82: Some of a group of 8 prison convicts aged 18-52 who escaped in March 2001 while doing forced portering for SPDC troops in Papun District, still wearing their coarse cloth prison uniforms. These convicts were taken from Bassein and Pyi prisons to do forced labour in combat situations; they say that their groups consisted of 75 prisoners from Bassein prison and 70 from Pyi prison. More and more convicts are being forced to the frontlines as porters for SPDC units; some are promised reductions in their sentences, but these promises are not kept and they are usually kept until they die or escape. Convict porters are treated particularly brutally and the death rate is very high. There are reports that police in Burma are arresting many innocent people on nebulous charges such as ‘hiding in the dark’ simply so they can be sent to the frontlines for forced labour. For more information see "Convict Porters" (KHRG #2000-06, 20/12/2000). [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A83 | A84 | A85 |
Photos #A83, A84, A85: The escaped convict porters in Photos #A80, A81 and A82 show some of the wounds they got from carrying heavy loads on the neck (Photo #A83), shoulders (Photo #A84) and feet (Photo #A85). [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A86 |
Photo #A86: Four prison convicts aged (left to right) 22, 38, 31, and 39, who escaped while being used as combat porters in Papun District in March 2001, most of them still wearing prison clothing. These four prisoners were taken from Pyi Taung, Hintha Da, and Bassein prisons. The SPDC has been making extensive use of convicts as porters, and they are treated brutally. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
Forced
Labour / Forced Relocation & Restrictions
/ Attacks on Villages
Detention & Torture / Shootings & Killings / Flight
& Displacement
Landmines / Soldiers
/ Children