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Forced Labour
/ Attacks on Villages / Detention & Torture
Shootings & Killings /
Flight & Displacement
Landmines /
Soldiers /
Children / Food
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SPDC military units in Karen State and other rural areas have the power to detain, torture and execute civilians for whatever reason with impunity. Villagers in rural areas are often assumed by the soldiers to be in contact with resistance groups. Officers and NCO's often tell their soldiers that the civilians are the 'enemy'. Civilians are routinely detained and tortured for a variety of reasons, sometimes for no reason at all. Villagers in their fields and walking on paths are often caught and detained as suspected rebels. They are then interrogated under torture for information on resistance activities or detained as suspected rebels. Villagers who are unable to produce passes are accused of being rebels, tortured and often taken as forced labour, if not executed. Traders are particularly vulnerable to arrest because they are not native to the local area. Village heads and other villagers are summoned to SPDC Army camps and interrogated under torture for intelligence. Villagers are often blamed for not providing sufficient intelligence when SPDC units are attacked by resistance forces. The village heads are often arrested and tortured as a punishment (see Photo #C1). Village heads are also arrested and tortured when they are unable to provide enough forced labour, materials or pay enough extortion money. Officers often detain villagers in full knowledge of their innocence, for the sole purpose of extracting a ransom.
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Detention and torture does not only apply to the men; women and children are also sometimes held and tortured by SPDC soldiers. This is especially the case with women village heads. Although they are often elected as the village head because the men are afraid to do it and women village heads are generally treated better than the men, they are sometimes beaten or detained for not providing information or meeting the demands of the SPDC or DKBA (see Photos #C12 and C13, C16). Village women also must fear the possibility of rape when SPDC soldiers come to the village or when they go for forced labour. (see Photos #C7 and C9).
Villagers who are detained by the Army are usually kept in lockup rooms, pits in the ground or in small animal cages. Villagers detained by mobile columns are commonly kept tied to a post under a house or to a tree under armed guard. Mediaeval-style leg stocks are commonly used and detainees may be locked in them in a sitting position for hours or weeks. Villagers can be detained for anywhere from a few hours to many months, often with no charges being laid against them. Often if the villager is detained by a mobile column, he or she will be taken along as a forced labour porter until the column reaches its camp, where the detainee is then usually locked up for a period of time until a ransom is paid.
Various torture methods are used by the soldiers including beatings with fists and kicks, walking or stomping on the victim, beatings with lengths of bamboo, wood sticks, rifle butts and rifle barrels, and poking or slashing with knives. The victim's hands and legs are usually bound, and they are sometimes tied hanging upside down or blindfolded. Officers sometimes hold plastic bags over the victims' head until they are near to suffocation. More commonly nylon bags are used because this saves the trouble of constantly taking off and replacing a plastic bag - the victim can get just enough air through the nylon until water is poured over it, making it airtight and causing him/her to suffocate for 30 seconds or more until the water runs off. Some of the villagers below described having a flame lit under a plastic bag until burning bits of plastic dripped off onto their backs (see Photo #C2)
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C1 |
Photo #C1: P---, 35 years old, is the xxxx village head in Papun District. He was arrested on October 24th 2001 by the soldiers of LIB #xxx under battalion commander T--- and tortured at yyyy Army camp. He was beaten until his face became bruised, one of his teeth fell out and the rest of his teeth became loose. He was later released. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C2 |
Photo #C2: SPDC soldiers of Company #1 led by M--- of IB #xxx, Battalion Commander K---, accused xxxx villager (Papun District) Saw P---, 33 years old, of having contact with KNLA soldiers. He was arrested and then tortured by the soldiers late in 2001. They held a plastic bag over his back and set it on fire with a lighter so that drops of burning plastic fell onto his back. The lighter patches on his back are where he was burned by the plastic. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C3 |
Photo #C3: Saw S---, a villager from xxxx village, Papun District was tortured by soldiers from Company #1 led by M--- of IB #xxx, Battalion Commander K---. He told a KHRG researcher that he suffered greatly and as a result he can no longer work. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C4 |
Photo #C4: Saw T---, 48 years old, is a villager from xxxx village in Pa’an District. He is married and has three children, the eldest is 6 years old and the youngest is just over one year. DKBA soldiers accused him of hiding rice for the KNU and DKBA company commander L--- from Battalion #999 tortured him severely. He has now become mentally deranged because of the torture. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C5 |
Photo #C5: Saw P---, a 36 year old farmer from xxxx village, eastern Papun District, was arrested by SPDC soldiers in February 2002 when he was going to look after his buffaloes in his flat field. The soldiers accused him of being a KNU spy. They bound his hands and neck and forced him to porter for them. They also went to his hut and took 20 baskets [500 kgs. / 1,100 lbs.] of paddy and 10 chickens. The soldiers intended to kill Saw P--- but he was eventually able to escape. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C6 |
Photo #C6: Saw M---, 37 years old, is a married betelnut seller. On February 14th 2002 he was accused by SPDC soldiers of LIB #xxx under Company Commander Captain T--- of being a KNU soldier. He was arrested in xxxx village, Thaton District, and was beaten and tortured. The village head later went to guarantee his status as a villager and the soldiers fined the village head 10 viss [16 kgs. / 36 lbs.] of pork for his release. Saw M--- was then released. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C7 |
Photo #C7: Naw E--- is a teacher in xxxx village, Thaton District. In early 2002 she was raped by SPDC and DKBA soldiers who came to her village. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C8 |
Photo #C8: Saw E---, 40 years old, is a xxxx villager, Toungoo District. On February 15th 2002, one of the SPDC's Sa Thon Lon ‘Guerrilla Retaliation’ units, special squads charged with executing villagers who have present or past contacts with the opposition, entered the village and questioned him. Saw E--- does not understand Burmese and was unable to answer their questions. For this reason he was hit with a piece of bamboo twice and punched behind his ear twice. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C9 |
Photo #C9: Naw K---, 21 years old, is a villager from xxxx village, Toungoo District. On February 25th 2002, A---, a Guerrilla Retaliation unit (see Photo #C8) commander, entered her house with five of his men and tried to rape her. She was able to fight them off and escape. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C10 |
Photo #C10: Saw H---, 32 years old, is from xxxx village, Toungoo District. On December 8th 2001, he was arrested by company commander K--- of IB #xxx. A rope was tied around his neck and both of his hands were tied behind his back. He was hit on the wrist, kicked in the buttocks, hit on his hands and legs and hit with a gun. He was then taken to the battalion’s camp at T---. He was kept there and had to suffer for nine days before being released. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C11 |
Photo #C11: P---, 33 years old, is a married hill field farmer from xxxx village in Thaton District. He was arrested by LID #77, LIB #xxx, Battalion Deputy Commander S--- when they came to the village. He was tied up, poked with a knife, punched, hit and kicked. They then placed the top of a mortar shell in his mouth and poked him with a bayonet until he began to bleed. He was released when they had finished with him. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C12 |
C13 |
Photo #C12, C13: Naw K--- (Photo #C12), 59 years old, and Naw D--- (Photo #C13), 30 years old, are both married Karen Buddhist farmers from from xxxx village in Thaton District. At 7 o’clock in the morning on September 25th 2002 SPDC and DKBA soldiers arrived in their village. In their village no one dares face the soldiers as village head, so they rotate the duties between them each month. Naw K--- was that month’s village head so DKBA #333 Brigade company commander Lieutenant A--- called her and one of her friends down from her house. They were asked, “Did the Kawthoolei [KNLA] come to your village or not?” Naw K--- told them they had not come and the DKBA left. They later fought with the KNLA and one DKBA soldier was killed. The soldiers came back to the village and said, “Every time we ask you, you say you don’t see them. Do you see them now?” The DKBA soldiers then picked up a one armspan length of bamboo and hit both of them until the bamboo broke into three parts. They then beat Naw K--- two times. She was kicked with their boots once, hit on her back and kicked in her buttocks twice. The second time they hit her three times. She then fell unconscious for five minutes. The other villagers thought she was already dead. Naw D--- was also hit many times. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C14 |
Photo #C14: Saw P--- is a 26 year old Karen Christian villager and father of two children in xxxx village, Thaton District. In January 2002, soldiers of Column #x, LIB #xxx, LID #44 entered the village monastery in yyyy village. They saw Saw P--- and one of his friends and accused them of trading cattle and buffaloes. Cattle and buffaloes are only allowed to be traded through the SPDC, all private traded is banned. They were both arrested and tortured with knives. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C15 |
Photo #C15: On February 23rd 2002, SPDC soldiers of LIB #xxx, LID #44 under S--- entered xxxx village in Thaton District at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. They saw Saw A--- on the ground and not in his house so they accused him of being a KNLA soldier. They bound his hands and tortured him before later releasing him. He is an 18 year old Karen Buddhist farmer. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C16 |
Photo #C16: Sixty year old Naw H--- was tortured by SPDC soldiers of Column #x, LIB #xx on April 4th 2002. The soldiers led by Battalion Commander H--- entered xxxx village in Thaton District and arrested village head Naw H---. They tortured her while ordering her to find a walkie-talkie, gun and many other things. SPDC soldiers sometimes force villagers to find weapons or walkie-talkies for them so they can report back to their superior that they fought with one of the resistance groups and captured a weapon. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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C17 |
Photo #C17: In July 2002, SPDC soldiers of LIB #xxx under Column Commander T--- and DKBA soldiers of #555 Brigade under M--- arrested Saw Y---, 57 years old, in the fields near his village in Pa'an District and forced him to show them where the KNLA was staying. When they arrived at yyyy in the forest he said, “I do not dare to go any further.” He thought that because they were near to a KNLA place there would be many landmines and he was afraid. At that point Commander T--- hit him on the head with a gun butt until he fell unconscious. When he came to again the soldiers were eating rice and not watching him so he ran away. The blood from the wounds on his head from the beating are clearly visible on his face and shirt. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photos #D8, D9, D10: Saw M---, a 37 year old married farmer from xxxx village in southwestern Papun District, was shot by soldiers of LIB #xxx who saw him coming back from his hill field on the evening of August 10th 2001. He was shot in the bottom of the left sole of his foot. The bullet passed through his foot and into his right thigh. From the angle of the wound he must have been running away from the soldiers when it happened and they tried to shoot him in the back. He was captured and interrogated by the soldiers who forced him to look for a gun and a walkie-talkie. He was tortured severely while being interrogated and almost died as a result. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
Forced Labour / Attacks on
Villages / Detention & Torture
Shootings & Killings /
Flight & Displacement
Landmines /
Soldiers /
Children / Food
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