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[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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Landmines are a rapidly worsening scourge in several parts of Burma, particularly in Karen State. Research done by Non-Violence International for the Landmine Monitor (part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines) estimated that there were more landmine casualties in Karen State alone in 1999 than in all of Cambodia. As a landmine hotspot, researchers now place Burma second only to Afghanistan in all of Asia. Villagers throughout Karen State are beginning to speak more and more about their fear of landmines, and there are few villages now which have not lost people to landmines. Most of the victims die before they can reach any proper treatment, but hospitals on both sides of the Burma-Thai border are also seeing greatly increased numbers of landmine victims each year.
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Landmines are used both by the SPDC Army and by several resistance groups in Burma. Neither the SPDC nor any of these groups have signed the international treaty to ban landmines. In the past, SLORC/SPDC forces used mines mainly around the perimeter of their camps and resistance groups used them for similar purposes and to trigger ambushes. However, since the SLORC/SPDC captured much of Karen-held territory in 1995-97 and the KNLA adopted guerrilla tactics, the number of active KNLA troops has declined significantly and the KNLA began making up for this by using ‘landmine warfare’; protecting base areas and supply routes with mines instead of troops, mining pathways to restrict the movement of SPDC columns, and mining roads against military supply convoys. The KNLA produces most of its own mines from basic materials such as piping, explosive, scrap metal or shotgun pellets, a detonator and a cheap battery. None of these mines are mapped or cleared; the KNLA tells villagers which areas and pathways are mapped, but this information doesn’t spread quickly enough and many villagers are wounded or killed by KNLA mines.
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The SPDC responded to the KNLA’s increasing use of mines by radically increasing its own mine use. The Chinese government supplied the SPDC with a factory to produce landmines domestically so the regime no longer needs to rely on supplies of Chinese or American-made mines. The SPDC now produces two main landmines: the MM-1 and the MM-2. The MM-1 is a copy of the Chinese-made PMOZ-2 or ‘corncob’ mine, and the MM-2 is a copy of the Chinese-made PMN mine; both of these Chinese models have been heavily used in Cambodia (see photos under "The Mines" below). Prior to the introduction of the MM-1 and MM-2, the SLORC/SPDC primarily used PMN mines and American M76A1 mines. The MM-1 is buried until just the top of the detonator, topped by the small activation button, is at ground level; the MM-2 is buried so that the flat top surface is at ground level, and the entire flat top is the activation surface. MM-1 mines can also be rigged as booby-traps with tripwires, and are more powerful than the MM-2. SPDC troops are now laying thousands of these mines, particularly through the Dawna mountains of eastern Pa’an District, and their mine use now far exceeds that of the KNLA. The SPDC units lay mines along pathways used by villagers and never inform the villagers of their location. In areas where they have ordered villages to relocate, SPDC units are now landmining the ruins of many of the villages because they know the villagers will return, and they have also landmined rice fields to prevent villagers from harvesting their crops (see Photos #G11 through G19, F158, F78 through F83, F114 and F115). SPDC troop columns are now routinely using their porters to march in front of Army columns as human mine detonators. Women and children are sometimes gathered for this specific purpose, and many villagers have fled their villages in fear of this (see Photos #A56, A57, G17, A50, and D14). Porters trying to flee SPDC columns often step on landmines shortly after leaving the path to flee through the bush. Villagers are also regularly forced to sweep roads for anti-vehicle mines, either manually or by driving bullock carts full of rocks or women and children over them, and to clear wide ‘killing grounds’ on both sides of vehicle roads to prevent resistance forces from crossing the roads or mining them (see Photo #A11). A large group of villagers fled northeastern Pa’an District in January 2001 after being ordered to clear landmines (with no equipment) from the sites of potential Army camps and along a road route (see Photos #F116 through F122). At the same time the DKBA, not wanting to be left behind, have begun heavy use of landmines in Pa’an District.
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The result is an increasingly desperate situation for villagers and internally displaced people, particularly in Papun, Pa’an and Dooplaya districts. It appears that most of the casualties of landmines are villagers, followed by SPDC soldiers, porters being used as human minesweepers or during their escape from SPDC columns, and KNLA soldiers, in that order.
The photos below have been divided into two subsections: "The Mines", with photos showing some of the anti-personnel mines currently being used, and "The Victims", showing their effect on villagers. For more details on landmine use, see KHRG Information Update #2001-U1 (20/2/2001), KHRG Information Update #2001-U3 (9/4/2001), "Beyond All Endurance" (KHRG, December 1999), "Uncertainty, Fear, and Flight" (KHRG, November 1998), "Dooplaya Under The SPDC" (KHRG, November 1998), "False Peace" (KHRG, March 1999), "Caught in the Middle" (KHRG, September 1999), "Starving Them Out" (KHRG, March 2000), "Death Squads and Displacement" (KHRG, May 1999), and photos on the subject from previous KHRG photo sets.
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| G1 | G2 | G3 |
Photos #G1, G2, G3: An SPDC-manufactured MM2 antipersonnel landmine obtained in Pa’an township, Thaton District, in May 2001. The writing on the side shown in Photo #G3 reads "Ma Ma 2" (MM2). The MM2 is possibly the SPDC’s most-used mine at present, with the MM1 ranking second. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| G4 |
Photo #G4: A landmine laid by SPDC Light Infantry Division #44 in Papun District, found in April 2001 (the ballpoint pen alongside is for size reference). KHRG has not yet been able to identify the model or point of origin of this mine; though it is similar in size and shape to a US-made M76A1 (see Photo #G5 below), we have not encountered this model before. Representatives of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines replied to an inquiry by stating that they also could not identify it, so it is probably manufactured in Burma. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| G5 |
Photo #G5: Two SPDC landmines unearthed by KNLA soldiers in Papun District in March 2001. On the left is an American-made M76A1 mine, which the SPDC formerly used extensively until the Chinese government built mine production factories for them in Burma in the mid-1990’s. On the right is a Burmese-made MM1 mine produced by these factories; the most common mines presently used by SPDC troops are the MM1 and MM2. In the photo, both mines have had their activation pins unscrewed from the top. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| G6 | G7 |
Photos #G6, G7: SPDC landmines found by internally displaced villagers in southeastern Toungoo District. In May 2001, displaced villagers near Bu Sah Kee spotted an MM1 mine (Photo #G6, left) and an MM2 mine (Photo #G6, right) along a path they normally used, so they called in KNLA soldiers to dig them up. The mines were planted by SPDC Infantry Battalion #30, apparently with the displaced villagers as their targets. Photo #G7 shows three MM2 mines unearthed by displaced villagers in the same area in July 2001. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| G8 | G9 |
Photos #G8, G9: Two Burmese-made MM2 landmines laid by SPDC troops and unearthed by the KNLA in Papun District. The Burmese-made MM1 and MM2 mines are now those most commonly used by SPDC forces, and in Papun District they often plant these around ruined villages, ricefields, and along pathways with the aim of killing internally displaced villagers. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| G10 |
Photo #G10: A Burmese-made MM2 landmine unearthed near Kaw Thay Der village in Tantabin township, southern Toungoo District. There are not many KNLA soldiers in this area, but there are many internally displaced villagers. SPDC troops now use landmines extensively to kill or restrict the movements of the internally displaced. For more on the situation in the area see "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/2000). The MM2 mine is manufactured in Burma by the SPDC with Chinese assistance; it and the Burmese-made MM1 are the models most used by the Burmese Army at present. For more on the MM2 mine, see KHRG Photo Set 2000-A (photos #5-1 and 5-2 under ‘Landmines’) and KHRG Photo Set 99A (photos #P1 and P2 under ‘Pa’an District’). [Photo: KHRG researcher]
Warning: These photos are graphic.
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| G11 | G12 | G13 |
Photos #G11, G12, G13: A villager killed by a landmine in mid-April 2001 in Bu Tho township, eastern Papun District. This young man is an internally displaced villager. SPDC troops now routinely plant landmines around villages and crop fields they have destroyed and along paths they know are used by the internally displaced. Many of those who step on the mines bleed to death before they can be carried to any kind of medical help. Local villagers believed that this particular mine had been laid by DKBA soldiers; the DKBA receives most of its landmine supplies from the SPDC. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Warning: These photos are graphic.
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| G14 | G15 | G16 |
Photos #G14, G15, G16: Saw H---, a 24 year old displaced villager from xxxx village in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, receiving treatment from a mobile medical team after stepping on an SPDC landmine on March 28th 2001. A rice farmer, Saw H--- fled his village with the other villagers in early 2001 when SPDC troops based themselves nearby, and was living in hiding in the jungle. When they fled they had no chance to carry their rice supply, so on March 28th he and two friends headed back to their village to try to fetch some of the rice stored in their houses. Half an hour from the village, he stepped on a landmine. His right lower leg was blown off, and he suffered serious fragment wounds in his left leg and his face. [Photos: 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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| 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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| 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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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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Photos #G18, G19: Saw T---, 36 years old, a Karen Buddhist from Dweh Loh township in southern Papun District. After fleeing his home in xxxx village because of the oppression and demands of the SPDC forces, he was living in hiding in the forest. In July 2000 he was walking along a path alone when he triggered a tripwire rigged to a blast mine. The explosion blew shrapnel into his knee and broke his leg, but he was lucky - such devices usually spray shrapnel over the entire body and often kill. He lay wounded until he was found by other villagers, who carried him a long distance to a KNLA field hospital. He was treated there for 10 months, but due to lack of medicines and proper doctors and facilities, the wound never healed properly. Finally in May 2001 he was taken out to a refugee camp in Thailand. He says he is certain the mine was planted by SPDC troops because they were mounting operations trying to kill the villagers hiding in the area where he was injured. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F48 | F49 | F52 |
Photos #F48, F49, F52: Saw K---, age 38, fleeing through Papun District in March 2001 toward Thailand with his fellow villagers from Maw Kee village in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. They say that SPDC Light Infantry Division #77 troops came from Shwegyin to base themselves near their village in mid to late 2000 and began demanding forced labour, extortion and other things. When the villagers fled outside the village, LID 77 sent out patrols to hunt them and shoot at them. They fled to another village, but the troops followed them there, shot at them and burned the village, so they fled back to their home area. Then the troops found them and shot at them again so they continued fleeing, and in October 2000 Saw K--- stepped on a landmine near Thay Ko Pu village and lost his lower left leg. While he was recuperating and the villagers were staying in field huts where they didn’t even dare light a cookfire for fear of detection, the 77 Division troops located them again and began shelling them so they fled up further into the hills. The troops found them again, shot 2 of them dead and wounded 7 others. When these photos were taken in March 2001 they had been on the run for about 6 months nonstop, and had decided they had no choice but to make for a refugee camp in Thailand; they had been joined by some villagers from Thay Ko Pu, Meh Yeh Kee, Tee Blah and Kaw Mu Der villages, also in Nyaunglebin District and facing a similar situation. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and a very small quantity of rice. In Photo #F52, the group takes a rest to eat. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| G20 |
Photo #G20: Saw P---, a 22 year old from Nyaunglebin District who stepped on a landmine at the beginning of rainy season in June 2000. Living among the internally displaced, he eventually joined a group of people fleeing toward the border with Thailand in March 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F158 |
Photo #F158: Naw K---, age 11, who has lost both of her parents to the SPDC’s campaigns to depopulate Nyaunglebin District. Originally from Yah Aw village in Shwegyin Township, she went to stay with her Aunt and Uncle further east in KNU-controlled territory because it was the only way she could attend school. When the SPDC began its campaign to depopulate the hills of Nyaunglebin District in 1997, her parents were displaced into the forest and her father fell ill and died because there was no access to medicine; he was in his forties. Then during the October/November 2000 harvest her mother, aged in her thirties, went to a hut where she had hidden some belongings in the forest. She found the hut already looted and destroyed by SPDC troops so she headed back to where she was staying, but on the way stepped on a landmine and was killed. Naw K--- was notified by people from her home village who had heard the explosion and found her mother’s body. At present she is in 3rd Standard (Grade 3), and says she hopes to continue school and will stay with her Aunt and Uncle but has little idea of her future. She already had to flee SPDC troops a few months ago and head further into the hills with her Aunt and Uncle, her teacher and the other villagers, and she says her new school is not good, it is just in the open air and they sit on straw they have laid on the ground. She has a younger brother aged 5 or 6, a kindergarten student who now stays with their grandparents. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E65 | E66 | E71 |
Photos #E65, E66, E71: Widows of Papun District with their children. These 3 women all lost their husbands to SPDC landmines, the first two in 1997 and the third (Photo #E71) in 1999. Taken in April 2001, these are just a few of the hundreds of women whose husbands have been killed by SPDC troops since the SPDC began operations to depopulate the Papun hills in 1997. Not only do they have to raise their children alone, but all of them are internally displaced and must still run whenever SPDC troops enter their area. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #D14: Saw T--- from xxxx area, Papun District. Saw T--- was stopped on a path with his friend Saw Y--- (age 35) by Light Infantry Battalion #xxx troops on June 6th 2000. Even though Saw T--- is 74 years old, they tied him up, beat him and accused him and his friend of planting landmines. The troops then forced the two men to go along with them. Along the way they saw 3 villagers and shot at them, killing a 70 year old man named Pa Nyunt though his companions, a woman and a boy, escaped. Later the column captured and detained a couple and their two small children and also took them along. Later they shot dead another villager they saw, 20-year-old Saw Pweh Kaw Mu. The prisoners were force-marched through the night, even though Saw T--- says he is too old to see in the dark and kept stumbling off the path. Finally the next morning, Saw T--- and the other men were released, but the troops continued to hold the woman, Naw S--- (age 33), and her two small children, telling Saw T--- and the others that if they were ambushed or encountered landmines along their way they would kill Naw S--- and her children. She and her children were later released. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F116 | F117 | F118 | F119 |
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| F120 | F121 | F122 |
Photos #F116, F117, F118, F119, F120, F121, F122: Karen villagers cross the Moei River from Pa’an District into Thailand in mid-January 2001, on their way to a refugee camp. They told KHRG they were fleeing forced labour portering, building Army camps and clearing landmines for SPDC Battalions which had just moved into their home area of Meh Kreh and Kwih Law Ploh in northeastern Pa’an District. To support the new Army camps, they had also been used as forced labour to build a new military supply road from Shan Ywathit to Kha Leh Dee, both clearing the road route and walking in front of a bulldozer to detonate any landmines. More information based on interviews with these refugees can be found in KHRG Information Update #2001-U1. [Photos: 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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| F78 | F79 | F80 |
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| F81 | F82 | F83 |
Photos #F78, F79, F80, F81, F82, F83: Karen villagers flee their villages in eastern Shwegyin township, west of the Bilin River, in January 2001. A large column of troops from SPDC LIB #369 came from the west and stayed in the area of Kaw Mu Der, Thay Ko Hser Der, Hoh Lu, Tee Blah and other villages for a week, looting and destroying food supplies. Over 2,000 villagers fled east into Papun District, where most of them are still in hiding in the hills. The column appeared to be under orders to clear out all villages west of the Bilin river and drive the villagers to the west for use as forced labour. After the villagers fled, the column laid landmines around several of their villages and fields [see KHRG Information Update #2001-U3 for further details]. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Photos #F114, F115: Two families from different villages in Nyaunglebin District, interviewed while they were fleeing through Papun District on their way to the Thai border after SPDC troops made it impossible to live in their villages any longer. Saw N--- (Photo #F114, back left) said, "They came when the paddy was ripe and stayed until the villagers carried it to the paddy barn and pounded it. They burned the paddy barns and took the rice. They stabbed holes into some of the cookpots and took the others. The villagers had to flee without even gathering our clothes. We don’t have anything to wear. We are going to the refugee camp. All of the villagers are suffering like this. They destroyed most of the food but some people could carry some away." He says that after burning his village and destroying much of the crop, the troops landmined the village. He himself had been beaten and robbed by SPDC soldiers and his brother was murdered and beheaded by an SPDC unit in 1999 after taking Saw N---’s place as village head, leaving a wife and 5 children who are now in "a very serious situation". Saw P--- (Photo #F115, back right) described how the troops destroyed all of his rice and killed several villagers in his area without reason, as well as how Division 66 detained and tortured two sisters from Meh Kee village aged 17 and 19, the younger one of them mute: "It was 66 that did this. They tied both of them up and then hurt them. They burned them with fire and tied something around their heads. They finally escaped and ran back to us. When they got back, their hands and legs were burned and bruised. She just showed us - she can’t talk. N--- [the mute girl] just ran and escaped a week ago. Her elder sister was tied up and escaped the same night. N--- was left there alone. The people asked her if she was raped but she can’t talk and couldn’t understand them. She just showed her hands and legs and we saw that they were bruised." [Photos: KHRG researcher]
[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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The SPDC Army, the Tatmadaw, continues to expand as the regime tries to expand its direct control to every village in the country, but very few people are interested in joining anymore. The Tatmadaw now uses conscription and coercion to get most of its recruits, and as many as half of these are children aged 13 through 17. Recruiting quotas are given to townships in many areas and they divide these between the villages of the township, forcing each village to hold lotteries to decide who will be drafted. Soldiers are not allowed to leave the Army even after a 5 or 7 year term unless they bring in 5, or in some cases 10, new recruits, so they hang around schools and marketplaces cornering teenage boys and trying to trick them into joining. Recruiting agents trick teenagers with offers of employment only to get them to recruiting centres, where they sell the boys to the Army for a fee. Soldiers and police stop teenage boys on the street, accuse them of conspiracy or not carrying their identity card, and offer them the choice of ‘life imprisonment as a rebel’ or joining the Army. These are only a few of the methods presently being used.
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Once in the Army, the recruits are cut off from contact with the outside world and treated brutally. After their training they are assigned to field units, where the officers usually steal most of their pay and rations and order them to get their food by force from the local villagers. The officers treat the private soldiers as personal servants, ordering them to work on the officers’ personal money-making ventures, such as baking bricks or digging fish ponds, by day and still stand sentry duty all night; then beating them savagely if they fall asleep on duty. At the same time, many of the recruits cannot bear the human rights abuses they are forced to commit under orders. Many of them end by committing suicide, and others flee even though they have been told the resistance will kill them and their families will be punished by the SPDC for this. The photos below show a few of them along with brief details of their stories. For more detailed accounts, see "Abuse Under Orders" (KHRG #2001-01, 27/3/2001).
The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) also used to conscript child soldiers, but since becoming a much smaller guerrilla force after 1995 it has largely ceased this practice. Most KNLA soldiers who wanted to quit the Army have done so, and most of those still there are there voluntarily. Even so, child soldiers are still fairly common among the KNLA ranks, as can be seen in Photo #H7.
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Photo #H1: A 15-year-old SPDC soldier who deserted from LIB #xxx in xxxx District in March 2001. In October 2000, he was in 5th Standard (Grade 5) at middle school when an Army Corporal forced him to leave his mid-term exams and ‘sold’ him to an Army recruiting centre for money. After a few months training he was sent to the frontline, but was not even strong enough to pull the bolt on his G3 assault rifle - "The Corporal had to do it for me". He says he was constantly beaten by the officers and NCOs because he wasn’t strong enough to carry his backpack and couldn’t keep up, so after only a few days at the frontline camp he fled. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #H2: Deserter from the SPDC Army Ko H---, 23, gives testimony of his experience after reaching a refugee camp in Thailand in May 2001. Ko H--- says he was at a teashop in Rangoon with friends at 9 p.m. one evening in May 2000 when suddenly the lights were doused, an Army truck pulled up and all the men and boys were forced onto the truck. Later all those over 30 were released, but all those aged 14 to 30 were told that "If you do not become a soldier we will accuse you under any political article and put you in prison". Afraid of imprisonment, he and the others joined. After training he was assigned to #xx Infantry Battalion and sent to xxxx District. "When I arrived at the #xx IB camp they ordered us, ‘If you see any men along the path shoot and kill them all.’ They said all the people in the jungle are rebels and that we must kill them, shoot and kill them all with our guns. ‘There are no friends - only our Army troops are your friend, all the rest are rebels’." He says his fellow soldiers ranged in age from 13 to 26, and that the four or five 13-year-olds in his platoon were constantly used for forced labour by the officers because they couldn’t do proper soldiering, that they cried often and wanted to go home. Ko H--- fell sick in February 2001, so he fell and spilled some of a sack of rice he was carrying with the Column, causing the NCOs to punch, kick, and beat him with bamboo sticks all over the body and face until his mouth was bleeding. After this he fled at the first opportunity. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #H3: Saw M---, age 19, a Pwo Karen who was a soldier in SPDC LIB #xxx in Papun District until he fled in December 2000. Originally from M--- area in central Burma, at age 18 he was staying with relatives in Rangoon when a group of soldiers stopped him in the street and told him he could either join the Army or they’d send him to prison for life. He chose the Army and was immediately put on a train to Thaton for training. Afterwards he was sent to the frontline with LIB xxx but couldn’t take the hard hikes over the hills so he was always sick and tired, and he was punished for this by being forced to carry water to the mountaintop camp, bake charcoal and dig trenches nonstop. Whenever he couldn’t do it anymore he was punched and beaten, until he fled his unit at night on December 2nd 2000. He now says he doesn’t dare return to his village for fear that the SPDC will kill him, and he just wants to go on living wherever he can. The SPDC is now getting many of its recruits by randomly stopping young men and threatening them with prison, and the desertion rate in the Army has been soaring in the past 2 to 3 years because of brutality like that suffered by Saw M---. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| H4 | H5 |
Photo #H4, H5: Z--- (left), age 17, and W--- (right), age 19, two SPDC soldiers who fled Light Infantry Battalion #xxx in xxxx District in March 2001. When W--- was a 14 year old schoolboy in August 1995, he went to visit his Aunt in Rangoon but was grabbed by soldiers and police the moment he stepped off the train in Rangoon station, and was told that if he didn’t join the Army they would send him to prison. He says he told them he was a student but they refused to listen, and he was forced into the Army where he remained for over 5 years. Z--- was also 14 when he was forced into the Army in 1998; he was grabbed after his 3rd Standard (Grade 3) midterm exams when he was visiting his Aunt, and says he is sad that he never got to go back to school. Z--- and W--- say they fled the Army together because their commander stole most of their salaries and beat them and tortured them every time he got drunk, which was often. Photo #H5 shows Z--- with his G3 assault rifle. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #H6: An SPDC deserter in Papun District; the badge visible on his arm says "66", for #66 Light Infantry Division. Desertion rates in Papun District are rapidly increasing, with most deserters complaining of brutal treatment by their officers. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #H7: A KNLA patrol in Papun District, including two child soldiers (second and fourth from left). Though the KNLA has stopped actively recruiting or conscripting child soldiers, there are still quite a few in the ranks. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
Forced
Labour / Forced Relocation & Restrictions
/ Attacks on Villages
Detention & Torture / Shootings & Killings / Flight
& Displacement
Landmines / Soldiers
/ Children