Photos of Forced Labor

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]

 

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]

 

 

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]

 

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]

 

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 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 #). After they are squared, the villagers load them onto an SPDC Army truck 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]

 

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]

 

 

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 # 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]

 

 

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]

 

 

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]

 

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]

 

 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]

 

 

Photos # 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]

 

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]

 

 

 

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]

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