Death railway in northen burma

[tun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>From burma@xxxxxxxxxx Sun Mar  5 18:30:26 1995
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 18:18:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: News from Inside Burma: Another railroad of forced labor, sweat and death.

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To: David W., and Coban Tun
  >From : Ye Myint (burma@xxxxxxxxxx) Dave and Coban, this is a literal 
translation from Burmese. Please edit and correct as necessary.

Text: Another railroad of froced labor, sweat, and death is being built 
by the SLORC in upper Burma. The railroad under construction is going to 
connect two cities in the north - "Pa-Khok-Ku" and "Ka-Lay." People 
living near the planned trail, mostly those living in "Htee-Lin" township 
in "Pa-Khok-Ku" district, are being rounded up by the army almost 
everyday to be used in the construction. These people from approximately 
70 villages of "Htee-Lin" township are suffering from this latest phase 
of human-rights-abuse campaign of the SLORC. 

It was learned that at least 1,000 pelple died at the labor-camps for the 
railtrack due to such adverse conditiontions as lack of food, medicine, 
diseases and out-right torture by the soldiers. This situation 
immediately scared away almost all young people in the region because 
they were the most targetted ones. Most young people in the area fleed to 
other parts of Burma. Without youths, the army now is targetting older 
men in the area for forced labor. The thing which is even worse is that , 
because old people are being physically and mentally abused by the army 
despit their age and decreased energy, you women and girls are now 
voluntarily replacing their old fathers, grandfathers and uncles. As a 
result, the labor-camps of this new death-railtrack are swamped with 
women and girls (single or mairried, pregnant or non-pregnant) togther 
with poor old men who do not have  replacement. The worst thing is that 
those women and girls have become pleasure-targets for the soldiers who 
are in charge of the camps. Nobdy dares to speak out complaints to the 
gun-totting soldiers since every single word of complaint is ordered to 
be fined for about 250 kyats.

But there is still a choice  for the people in the area. If they choose 
not join the labor-camp, they could pay a dearly high "ransom" money 
to the army officers in charge. Most families are forced to give their 
traditional family-goldwares (only if they possess any) to the army 
officers to evade the forcible conscript. If not, just join the camps and 
brush with death. 

Thanks : Ye Myint (burma@xxxxxxxxxx). Sources : Two letters from that 
area which were sent to the two different families in California and to a 
monastery in California.