Karen Human Rights Group

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SPDC Strategic Operations Command #2 commander Aung Kyaw Nyein inspects villagers doing forced labour building a brick wall around the village football ground. This photo was taken in April 2005 in Kya In Gyi village of Kya In Seik Gyi township, Dooplaya district. Throughout 2006, Aung Kyaw Nyein was responsible for ordering many kinds of forced labour like this, and was also behind orders for villagers throughout the district to plant dry season paddy crops and castor bean for the Army (see Setting Up the Systems of Repression, KHRG, September 2006). [Photo: KHRG]

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Part of the 'Asian Highway', a UN-sponsored project to build road links all over Asia, where it passes through Thaton district in Burma. This particular piece of land (above and left) was confiscated for the highway from Uncle M---, a 62 year old farmer of K--- village. He was not consulted or paid any compensation for his destroyed rice field. The people of his and the surrounding villages were then forced to do unpaid labour levelling the roadbed, laying gravel on it, and digging the ditches the entire length of the road as it passes through their area. They were ordered to make these drainage ditches 4 cubits (6 feet) deep by 3 cubits (4.5 feet) wide on both sides of the road (see photo B-3). Local villagers were also forced to build the wooden bridge visible in photo B-4; this included cutting and milling the logs and providing all required materials and labour without any payment.

Villagers throughout the area say the road has destroyed many of their fields without any consultation or compensation. Among them, 37 year old Saw S--- (photo B-5) stands in the middle of his nipa palm plantation, now significantly reduced by the swathe cut through it for the Asian Highway. In photo B-6, he sits on one of the palm trunks of his plantation that were torn up and cast aside to make way for the road.

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These photos were taken in March 2006. Similar destruction can be expected along the Asian Highway's entire route through Burma. According to the UN Economic and Social Council for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP), the main sponsor of the project, "the Asian Highway promotes social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom as laid down in the preamble to the Charter of the United Nations." The villagers along the road route might have something to say about that, but no UN body, including ESCAP, has ever done any impact study or any consultation with local people regarding this project. The real beneficiaries of the highway will be the SPDC military and foreign businesses, not local people. [Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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This body of an unidentified convict porter was exhumed by local villagers in Thaton district three days after he had been murdered by SPDC troops on March 31st 2006. Taken from prison, he was brought to the district by SPDC troops for use as a human pack-mule. He escaped in March 2006 and fled to a nearby Buddhist monastery. SPDC soldiers found him there and tortured him. Aung Lwin Oo, commander of Column 2 of SPDC Infantry Battalion #255, ordered his soldiers to execute the porter, and they dragged him outside the village of Dt'Maw Daw on March 31st at 8 p.m., smashed his head in and buried him where they had killed him. [Photos: KHRG]

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Sixty year old Naw M--- is the headwoman of H--- village in Thaton district. After an armed skirmish between SPDC and KNLA troops near her village, SPDC troops from Infantry Battalion #320 Company #3 (Thura Aung Nay Win commanding) came to her village on April 5th 2006. She told KHRG,

"They showed me bullets, landmines and mortar shells shaped like banana-tree flowers, and they threatened that they would force me to cook them and eat them. They went around the village calling one person out of every house, and the Sergeant who had threatened me announced that if the KNLA shot at his unit again we would all be seriously punished. I thought he would beat me, but he didn't because there was a DKBA officer following him around. While he was threatening us, his soldiers were forcing villagers to find alcohol for them, they were getting drunk and threatening us at the same time. They didn't eat anything, they only drank alcohol, and then they left that night. Now that group is gone [rotated out] so things are a bit better."

This photo was taken in April 2006. [Photo: KHRG; ignore the incorrect date burned on the photo]

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Ler Poh villagers Naw N---, Uncle Y--- (age 57), and Naw E--- (age 49) in their rice fields in Thaton district after these were prematurely burned off on April 3rd 2006 by Column #2 deputy commander Zaw Zaw Lin of SPDC Infantry Battalion #235. Zaw Zaw Lin burned off many villagers' fields in the area, claiming that the rice might be used to feed opposition forces or that opposition forces had camped in the fields. The premature burn prevents the full burn which is needed later in order to plant a full crop when the rains come in June. To recover from this disaster, the villagers said they would have to cut and haul large amounts of wood into their fields and dry it there in the hope of getting a more complete burn later. [Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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Rice fields belonging to villagers of Ler K'Dter and surrounding villages in Thaton district which were prematurely burned off by the DKBA in early 2006 to prevent the villagers being able to get the full burn required to plant a full crop when the rains come. These photos were taken in late April 2006. [Photos: KHRG]

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In April 2006 villagers in the Lay Kay area of Thaton district were ordered to provide large quantities of wood and bamboo to SPDC troops based at Lay Kay army camp. This photo shows one of the sites where each family piled their quota of wood and bamboo for later transport to the Army camp. Some of these materials were used for camp repairs, others were sold for the profit of the officers. [Photo: KHRG]

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Villagers from Baw Kwaw, Thay Koh Muh Der and Dt'Lay Gaw Der villages in the upper Bilin River valley of Papun district heading through the rain to hiding sites in the forest on June 6th 2006 as SPDC troops attacked their villages.

Nine days later, photos B-22 and B-23 below show some of them preparing to return to their villages after the SPDC column had moved on.

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Though they returned to the villages, many left some supplies and essential belongings in huts hidden in the forest in anticipation of being displaced again (photo B-24 below).

[Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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The remains of a temporary post built by SPDC soldiers in villagers' rice fields near Thay Koh Muh Der, in the Bilin River valley in Papun district, when they were destroying the villages along the valley in June 2006. This makes the crop inaccessible to its owners. Photo B-26 (above right) shows some of the rice plants the soldiers uprooted to create a 'mat' to sit on, and photo B-27 (right) shows part of the field where they uprooted rice and planted vegetables for themselves; clearly they were planning to stay longer than they did.

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They also looted rice from the villagers' storage barns and brought it up the hill for themselves (photo B-28, above left). Firing positions like the one shown in photo B-29 (above right) command a wide view of the valley and are used to snipe at displaced villagers.

Photos B-30 and B-31 (above and right) show some of the mortar shell canisters left behind by the troops, after firing the shells at nearby villages.

Among the abandoned shelters, villagers found the body of a murdered convict porter (photo B-32 below) still in a blue prison uniform; during the offensive several hundred convict porters have been killed when they are no longer of use to the troops. Local villagers believe that the rubber slippers, basket and bits of clothing seen in photo B-33 (below right) probably belonged to this or another convict porter murdered at the camp by the troops.

[Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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On June 15th 2006, SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #363 fired mortar shells and machine-gun rounds into Gker Ghaw Koh village in northeastern Papun district, and also fired mortar shells across the Yunzalin River into Thaw Kee Der village. This is one of the 60-millimetre mortar shells which failed to explode. [Photo: KHRG; ignore the incorrect date burned on the photo]

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Naw M---, 41 (photo B-35), lives in K--- village of Bilin township, Thaton district. One night in mid-2006 she was ordered out of her house by DKBA officer Moe Kyo. He interrogated her under her own house. While pointing his gun at her, he accused her of giving information to the KNU and threatened to kill her.

Moe Kyo and other DKBA officers frequently use such accusations to extort money and goods out of villagers. Naw K--- (age 50; photo B-36) of Bilin township says he accused her of giving information to the KNLA and then stole belongings of hers worth a total of 50,000 Kyat.

Saw K--- (age 42; photo B-37) was tied up, beaten, punched and kicked at gunpoint by Moe Kyo before being ordered to point out KNLA hiding places; when he could not, he was released on payment of two viss (3.2 kg) of pork.

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After being accused of harbouring KNLA soldiers, 50-year-old Saw K---'s village (photo B-38) was ordered as punishment by DKBA officer Htoo Lu to hand over 1,000,000 Kyat and pay 3,500 shingles of thatch every year.

Maung H--- (age 37; photo B-39) was detained in a cell under harsh conditions for 8 days at the DKBA camp by K'Saw Wah battalion officer Htoo Lu on a spurious accusation that he had been giving the KNLA information about the DKBA camp.

Saw A--- (age 53; photo B-40) said he and others in his village regularly have to go as porters for 8 to 12 days for Moe Kyo's troops, including at crucial times in the cropping season. As a result he and several others were not able to plant any rice crop this year. [Photos: KHRG]

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Throughout 2006, DKBA officer Moe Kyo continued to lay landmines throughout Bilin township of Thaton district, including in villagers' rice fields and along pathways used by villagers. On June 26th 2006, forty year old Saw Pah Dt'Pya of K--- village, Bilin township, Thaton district, was working in his rice field when he stepped on a DKBA mine and was killed; photo B-41 shows his wife, 35 year old Naw M---, and their six surviving children.

Five days earlier on June 21st, another of Moe Kyo's mines had killed the husband of 42 year old Naw M--- (photo B-42), shown here in her home village of D--- in Thaton township, Thaton district.

As a result, the owner of the rice field shown in photo B-43 said in July that he no longer dared work this field despite having already sown a crop there in June. [Photos: KHRG]

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54 year old Saw Pah Bu of Htee Theh Lay village, K'Dtaing Dtee village tract, Dweh Loh township in southwestern Papun district stepped on a landmine planted by troops under DKBA #777 Brigade officer Hla Maung in July 2006, wounding both of his legs seriously. The mine had been planted in Saw Pah Bu's thatch plantation and he stepped on it when he went to harvest leaves for thatch. This photo was taken several days later when his wounds were being treated by a mobile medical team. [Photo: KHRG]

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Saw M---, 63, lives in P--- village in Papun district but like most others he works a rice field some distance from the village. This photo was taken in July 2006, when he was staying in his farm field hut to tend his crop. Every few days he has to return to the village and pay to get an SPDC pass, like the one he is holding, stating that he is allowed to be outside the village. Villagers are regularly warned that anyone found outside the village without such a pass will be shot as an 'insurgent', including women, children, and the elderly. The pass provides little protection, however, because even villagers holding passes are routinely taken away as porters or killed when found in their field huts. [Photo: KHRG]

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SPDC commander Yan Naing Soe at Wah Mu army camp in southwestern Papun district regularly demands bamboo and thatch from villagers throughout the area. These photos taken in late July 2006 show bamboo and thatch being piled at several villages near Wah Mu for transport to the camp. In this instance, each village was ordered to provide between 300 and 500 bamboo poles, each with circumference of two handspans, and between 100 and 1,000 shingles of thatch. Firewood was also demanded for the army camp (photo B-50). These demands are divided between the households of the village, so each family must provide its quota. The bamboo is tied together and rafted down the Bilin River to the SPDC camp at Wah Mu. Yan Naing Soe claims that it is needed to 'repair the camp', but the massive quantities he demands on a regular basis indicate that he is selling most of it for his own profit. [Photos: KHRG]

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Villagers evacuate the homes and riverside shops they used to make their living along the banks of the Salween River in southeastern Papun district in July 2006 after hearing that SPDC #931 battalion had set up a new camp just downriver at the junction of the Salween and Moei rivers. [Photos: KHRG]

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One of the major problems of the ongoing SPDC offensive against northern Karen villages is that it has continued through the rainy season, when SPDC forces would normally retreat to their camps and the villagers would therefore be able to work their rice crop. In 2006, however, SPDC forces remained active in and around people's villages and rice fields, making it too dangerous for many people to continue tending their crop. These photos show hillside fields and irrigated flat fields belonging to people from the villages of Ku Day (photo B-53), Oh Day (photo B-54), T'Ku Der (photo B-55), and Kaw Loh (photo B-56), all in northern Papun district. They had already sown their hillside rice crops and transplanted paddy seedlings from the nursery beds to the irrigated fields, but by the time these photos were taken at the end of July 2006 they had been forced to abandon these fields for fear of SPDC landmines and patrols who would shoot them on sight. The rice will likely rot or be destroyed by insects, weeds and wild animals. Without even having to physically destroy the crop, SPDC forces have managed to wipe out the harvest in large regions simply through their continued presence. They are fully aware of this, as shown by their activities when harvest time came in November 2006: in many areas, they sent small patrols out to the rice fields which would simply fire off a few shots in the air, presumably to frighten off the villagers, then repeat this action in the next block of rice fields, in order to ensure that the harvest could not be brought in and would be destroyed (see SPDC forces attack rice harvest to force villagers into 'new towns', KHRG, November 20th 2006). The massive destruction of food supplies for tens of thousands of people are one of the less documented crimes against humanity which form part of this offensive. [Photos: KHRG]

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Photo B-57 shows Dtee Thu Der villagers in Nyaunglebin district on their way to another village on July 24th 2006 after SPDC troops destroyed their village. Afterward, some of the villagers returned to fetch some rice from their hidden rice storage barns near their village; because SPDC forces were still in the area, they went with a KNLA escort for security (photo B-58). [Photos: KHRG]

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These villagers from Ku Day in northern Papun district moved to this shelter at their buffalo grazing ground after SPDC troops set up a temporary camp in their village in July 2006. [Photo: KHRG]

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Displaced village teachers carry on school in their hiding site in northern Papun district, July 2006. [Photo: KHRG]

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Children studying in Dtaw Ku Mu Der school, near Kay Pu in northern Papun district, on July 7th 2006. The SPDC established two new camps near here in 2006 and destroyed several nearby villages, so the students and teachers told KHRG they always have to be ready to flee. The school had only begun for the year on July 4th, two months late, because prior to that there had been too much SPDC activity nearby to open the school. Their parents are still determined to send their children to school, and some said that if the village is destroyed they will set up a school in the forest. See also photos below. [Photo: KHRG]

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Later in July the villagers of Dtaw Ku Mu Der (see preceding photo) had to flee because of the new SPDC camps. They built these huts at hidden sites in the forest within reach of their rice fields so they could continue tending their crops.

Then on August 24th, SPDC troops from Military Operations Command #15 (Light Infantry Battalions 535, 537 and 552) came to the village. They shelled it with high-calibre mortar fire, hitting the village church and a goat-pen, then entered the village and camped there for several days, during which they burned most of the houses.

Photos B-64 and B-65 were taken on August 30th, showing one of the mortar shell craters and one of the burned houses. Afterward the displacd villagers were afraid to return for fear that the departing troops may have booby-trapped their houses with landmines. The village was attacked again toward the end of 2006 (see photos B-317 through B-322). [Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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Huts built in the forest by villagers from Htee Si Kee village, near Kay Pu in northern Papun district, after SPDC troops from Miltary Operations Command #15 (Light Infantry Battalions #535, 552, and 537) came to the village on July 28th 2006 forcing the villagers to flee. The villagers also built a school hut so their children could continue studying (photo B-67). [Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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SPDC attacks against the villagers of Htee Si Kee (see above) have been going on for years; this photo shows huts of Htee Si Kee villagers who fled two to three years ago from a previous wave of SPDC attacks, and have set themselves up here at P--- ever since. [Photo: KHRG; ignore the incorrect date burned on the photo]

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Students from Boh Nah Der village, near Kay Pu in northern Papun district, carry a blackboard from their improvised school. After being displaced in July 2006, they set up this school in their displacement site in the forest. [Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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After destroying several villages in the area and forcing the villagers into displacement, the troops of SPDC Military Operations Command #15 abandoned their camp at Lay Gkaw Kyoh, on a hill overlooking Htee Si Kee village in the upper Yunzalin River area, and shifted to the nearby MOC #15 camp at Twee Mee Kyoh (see map).

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These photos were taken on August 30th, when a KNLA unit went to check the abandoned camp and demine it. They show some of the firing positions, covered bunkers, shallow trenches and defences built by the SPDC troops across a villager's already-sown rice field and in the surrounding bush along the hilltop.

The KNLA team unearthed five landmines left as booby-traps, including the SPDC-made MM2 mine shown to the right.

Photo B-76 below shows part of a mortar shell casing, also left behind by the troops.

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The bamboo stake enclosure visible in photo B-77 below may have been used to hold under guard the forced labour convict porters used to serve the soldiers in the camp. [Photos: KHRG; ignore the incorrect dates burned on the photos]

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Saw R--- from Klay Kee village in eastern Toungoo district stands in front of the temporary hut in the rice field where he was living in August 2006 to evade the SPDC Light Infantry Division #66 troops trying to establish control over the area. [Photo: KHRG]

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Naw M--- and her children heading south in August 2006 after leaving their home in Than Daung township of northeastern Toungoo district to escape SPDC Light Infantry Division #66 attacks against villages in their area. Naw M--- said they would try to reach the Thai border and a refugee camp. [Photo: KHRG]

Saw P---, 35 (right), and Naw H---, 28 (below), were among a group of people in Toungoo town who were tricked into joining an SPDC 'development' scheme in mid-2006. They were told that a new village was being established in the hills to the east on the outskirts of the large village of Kler Lah (Bawgali Gyi), that families settling there would receive 20,000 Kyat per month and rations from the Army to help build this new village, plus they would have the opportunity to earn added income in the nearby durian and mangosteen plantations.

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But they were not taken to Kler Lah or to any 'new village'. Instead, on July 18th they were transported to Kler Lah and the next day to Maung Daing Gyi SPDC Army camp, near Naw Soh village on the Kler Lah - Bu Sah Kee road, where they were put to work cutting bamboo and building perimeter fences around the army camp. SPDC troops at this camp have been destroying villages in the surrounding hills since late 2005. They were given no money nor any place to build a house, and only received two milk-tins of rice per person per day (only enough for one meal), plus cooking oil and yellow beans. When they asked to be taken back to Toungoo town they were told to shut up and stop talking about it.

Several people tried to escape twice but were captured and brought back both times to the Army camp. After over a month doing forced labour at the Army camp these two families (totalling nine people, all visible in the photo to the right) escaped on their third attempt into the surrounding hills, where they joined villagers in hiding from SPDC forces. These photos were taken shortly after their escape in late August 2006, when they were hiding together with the villagers of Hsaw Wah Der village. They told KHRG there were still 15 people from Toungoo being held at the army camp. [Photos: KHRG]

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In August 2006, Battalion Deputy Commander Yan Aung and Company Commander Min Thant Lwin of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #599 ordered all villages in their control area of Mone township, Nyaunglebin district, to fence themselves in by building perimeter fencing all the way around their villages with only one or two entrances/exits. The SPDC claims these fences are to keep 'rebels' out of the villages, but in practice they are used to restrict and monitor the movements of the villagers and prevent them from taking enough food out of the village to live in their farm fields. It also makes it easier for the battalion to round up forced labour by arriving at the village and closing off the gates. These photos taken on August 27th and 28th show the people of four of these villages working on the fences. To get them done on time, everyone including children had to help. Photos B-83 to B-85 were taken at Way Sweh village.

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The rains had been heavy and many of the villages were flooded, forcing villagers to work in and under the water; no delay to allow the water to recede was permitted. Photo B-86 was taken at Dta Kaw Pwa; note that here the villagers were forced to construct two parallel fences. Photo B-87 was taken at Si Pah Leh village. Photos B-88 to B-90 were taken at Noh Nya Lah village. [Photos: KHRG]

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On September 1st 2006, SPDC troops based at Twih Mee Kyoh camp, on a hilltop just east of the upper Yunzalin River in northern Papun district, began shelling villages in the upper Yunzalin River valley. Villages shelled with mortars included Thay Thu Kee (shelled on September 1st), B'Na Ku Bplaw (September 3rd), Nah Yoh Htah, and Ker Mee Htah. These photos show some of the people of those villages after they fled into the forest and built shelters. The woman and children above are from B'Na Ku Bplaw village, the father and child (left) from Thay Thu Kee; the young girl shown was very ill but received treatment from KNLA medics and recovered. [Photos: KHRG]

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In September 2006, a line of villagers in Ler Mu Bplaw village tract of Papun district heads into the forest yet again with everything they can carry. [Photo: KHRG]

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A 'jungle market' in the forest of Mone township, northern Nyaunglebin district, in September 2006. Since 2005 the SPDC has destroyed many of the villages in eastern Mone township and forced many of those in the west of the township into guarded relocation sites, leading many people in both areas to shift to a mobile life in the forests of the eastern half of the township. To trade their produce for dry goods from the SPDC-controlled areas they periodically arrange these covert 'jungle markets'. People sneak out of the SPDC-controlled villages with goods such as rice, salt, chillies, cooking oil and canned goods, and meet the forest people at a pre-arranged site to trade for produce like cardamom and forest fruits. For those who have chosen to live in the forest to evade repressive SPDC control, these markets are an important lifeline which make it possible to obtain needed supplies without having to venture into SPDC-controlled territory.

In photo B-95 above, a group of villagers with access to the plains arrives at the site with sacks of rice to sell. Photo B-96 shows the trading in full swing, while photos B-97 and B-98 below show villagers living outside SPDC control on their way to the jungle market with heavy loads of durian fruit. A few hours later the market will vanish as quickly as it appeared. [Photo: KHRG]

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These photos follow a group of villagers from Kho Kee area in eastern Toungoo district during the last four days - September 19th to 23rd - of their journey through Papun district to the border with Thailand. This journey occurred in the later part of rainy season, and photos B-99 and B-100 above show the horrendous sucking clay mud that villagers on the move have to wade and scramble through along many sections of the path, sometimes having to climb slopes on hands and knees and descend on their backsides, all the time picking up dozens of leeches on their legs.

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Even without the mud, much of the journey occurs in mist under an unending drizzle punctuated by downpours, with dampness soaking into everything (photos B-103 through B-105). Rest stops (photo B-106) are a chance to scrape off some of the sticky mud and knock off a few leeches using tobacco, salt or just fingers.

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The march often continues into the dusk (photos B-107 and B-108) in the hope of reaching a hut or somewhere to sleep off the ground, though this is not always possible.

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The next day in photo B-109, a stream brings another rest stop, but the march soon continues - this time with a rare bit of sunlight through the clouds (photos B-110 and B-111).

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When they finally arrived at a village by the Salween river - the border - everyone collapsed (photos B-113 and B-114). Later it was time to crowd onto boats for the final leg of the journey to Ee Thu Htah IDP camp (photos B-115 through B-117). [Photos: KHRG]

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Two men of S--- village in southern Papun district set out on September 8th 2006 to go for a shift of set tha ('messenger') forced labour at the SPDC Army camp at Gkay Gkaw. Villages throughout Burma are forced to send one or two people every 24 hours to each Army camp in their area for rotational labour as set tha, which includes delivering order letters to villages, performing services for the soldiers including gathering firewood, fetching water, cooking and cleaning, and tidying and maintaining the camp grounds. They are not paid for this labour and must take their own food; note the small bag of food being carried by the man on the right. [Photo: KHRG]

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Primary school students in Kwih Dt'Ma village of Papun district carry coconuts on a weekend in September 2006 for a coconut merchant. Their parents have no money to pay their school fees at the SPDC-controlled primary school, so they have to look for jobs like this whenever they can to make some money to pay the fees. [Photos: KHRG]

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This village school at Gk'Sah Kloh in rural Pa'an district was set up and is managed and financed by the villagers themselves with no help from SPDC authorities, though they do receive some supplies and curriculum from the KNU. These photos were taken in September 2006. [Photos: KHRG]

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DKBA-backed Buddhist monks in Kwih Dt'Ma village of southwestern Papun district announced that they would build a pond, so they began ordering the teachers and students of the local school to gather sand and gravel from the nearby riverbanks during school hours and transport it to build the required embankments. When this photo was taken on September 6th 2006, the teachers and students said that school had to close because of this forced labour. [Photo: KHRG]

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Two men from W--- village in southwestern Papun district arrive home on September 22nd 2006 after forced labour as porters for the DKBA's #333 Brigade, Moe Kyo commanding. [Photo: KHRG]

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Villagers in L--- village of Pa'an district slaughter a pig in October 2006 after being ordered to provide pork to Battalion #3 of the DKBA, Mya Khine commanding. The DKBA often claims to be vegetarian and sometimes imposes vegetarianism on villagers, but very few DKBA officers and soldiers are actually vegetarian. When villages receive demands like this, they must pool their money and reimburse the pig owner.

Meanwhile, another village has stocked a fish pond (right) to mitigate the effects of demands like this; when SPDC and DKBA units demand money or food there is usually a shortfall because the poorer households cannot give their share, and the fish are sold off or handed over to cover this shortfall. [Photos: KHRG]

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Semi-conscious and crying out, a teenage girl in rural Pa'an district suffers from cerebral malaria in October 2006. SPDC authorities provide no medical facilities in this region because it is not firmly under military control. The only medical assistance comes from KNLA medics and mobile medical teams crossing from Thailand, but these are underfunded and short on resources because most foreign governments and international aid agencies refuse to provide humanitarian aid to areas not firmly controlled by the SPDC military. Representatives of the British government and its aid agency DFID, for example, have funnelled tens of millions of pounds to the SPDC for humanitarian aid but until 2007 refused to finance any cross-border medical or humanitarian aid on the argument that it is 'divisive'; in other words, that this girl deserves no help if she is unwilling to live under SPDC control. In 2007 the agency finally announced that a small amount of funding would go to cross-border aid, though this is tiny compared to the amount of aid it channels to Rangoon. [Photo: KHRG]

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Castor bush seedlings and mature bushes in rural Pa'an district, October 2006. The SPDC leadership has decreed that growing castor bean is now a national duty, hoping that biofuel produced from these beans can replace much of the military's reliance on imported fossil fuels. Since early 2006 almost every village and army unit in the country has been ordered to plant thousands of castor bushes. Villagers report that they have been forced to buy castor seeds, produce seedlings and then plant thousands of these on productive land and along roadsides. It is unclear what is to happen to the harvest, but it will most likely be confiscated by the Army. Meanwhile, many adults and children have become seriously ill by ingesting the edible-looking but highly toxic beans. This nationwide project may be partly financed by a multi-million dollar grant to the SPDC from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) to implement oil crop programmes; in response to KHRG inquiries, the FAO regional office would state only that "to the best of their knowledge" their Burma office was not financing the SPDC's castor and jatropha bean programmes though they are financing other similar projects. See also the report Setting up the Systems of Repression (KHRG, September 2006). [Photos: KHRG]