ILO: FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA-39

[darnott@xxxxxxxxxxx]

[ILO COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA, SLICE
39]

151
 
Ethnicity:          Karen
Age/sex:            41, male
Family situation:   Married with four children
                    Kayin State

The witness had been in Thailand since early 1997 with his
entire family. He fled because of forced labour and abusive
treatment by the military. He did both portering and forced
labour. All kinds of work were required by the military, from
cutting and transporting bamboo and wood, to cultivation of
crops: as many different kinds of work as you could imagine.
Because of these ongoing tasks "... we had nothing to eat
ourselves and were forced to leave". Each house had to send
someone once or twice a week, for one to seven days. Sometimes 
two separate orders came at the same time, so more than one
person from the household had to go, or pay someone else to
go: from 200 to 500 kyat per time. Normally, someone would go,
unless they were sick and then they had to pay. Women and
children were included. Orders were transmitted from the
military to instruct the village head that so much wood was
needed, that such and such had to be built or done. Then the
village head would divide the work among the villagers.
"Whenever one work assignment was finished another came. It
was unending." This was the same for all the villages in the
area. The authorities would not always require every household
to send someone at the same time. Who went was determined by
rotation. If the required number was not sent, then the army
would come to the village to arrest the people. When they came
they would take and kill animals and sometimes shoot people.
He saw three people killed in this way on porter recruitment
visits by the soldiers. They would accuse them of being rebels
even if they were not. If porters could not carry the loads or
keep up they would be punched, kicked and beaten. He had not
seen porters killed, but had heard stories. Mostly men were
used as porters, rarely women. Porters were treated much worse
than other forced labourers. With forced labour, there were
fewer problems since the army was just there to guard and was
not on manoeuvre. For portering, the food given was very
meagre, only a handful or a small bowl of rice, just enough so
that the porters did not die. No food was provided during
other forced labour. People brought their own food and tools.
Other types of work included constructing army camps, digging
trenches, cutting bamboo, building roads, working on rubber or
sugar plantations. He personally did all this work except for
that in the sugar plantation. The rubber plantation work was
especially extensive. The army brought the seedlings and the
workers did all the rest: planting, cultivation, staking the
trees, harvesting. The rubber was sent to battalion
headquarters for the 549, 547, 548 battalion units. These were
located in the village of Nabu. He had to do forced labour for
all three of these army camps on demand. They were all within
two miles of the village. The military had completely
controlled the area for only one year. That was when the camps
were placed there and when extensive forced labour assignments
started. In 1996, when he first arrived the first thing the
military ordered was to clear the jungle area for the camps.
Then they started ordering the road building work. He did this
for one year before leaving. The road was a two-lane all-
weather road with a broken rock surface. He did portering many
times, usually carrying things between the camps. He also did
portering before the camps were set up and before the other
forced labour assignments began. He was at the  front line
several times. During the battles some porters were injured
and some ran away. The wounded porters would be treated.
During offensives, porters would be used with soldiers on
"point" duty in advance of the main body of troops for
scouting. Porters sometimes were sent in front of the troops
to clear mines. Sometimes one or two porters a week were
injured or killed this way. Portering lasted from a few days
to as much as a month. It was done on a rotation basis two or
three times a year. Other forced labour took place two or
three times a week, for one or two days, but sometimes five
days at a time if work sites were further away. Villagers had
to do on average more than two weeks per month of forced
labour. 
                    __________________________


152
 
Ethnicity:          Karen
Age/sex:            36, male
Family situation:   Married with four children
Occupation:         Labourer
                    (village had 50 households)

The witness left Myanmar a year ago but returned in early
1998. He left Myanmar again in mid-February 1998. He was
arrested and subjected to torture by LIB 96 one year and three
months ago, just before he originally left. They accused him
of being a KNU soldier. He was beaten, tortured with the flame
of a kerosene lamp, and had water poured down his nostrils.
There had been an army camp in the area of his village since
1988, so portering for them was frequent: several times each
month for four or five years, for about three to ten days each
time, at least. One time it lasted three months. It became
pretty continuous. During the three-month assignment he
carried rice at the front line. He was grabbed by the soldiers
as he was walking along the road from his village and forced
to do this work. The other times he either was arrested in a
similar way or it was done by order through the village head.
The three-month stint was three or four years ago. He was
picked up in Thaton and sent to Bilin by truck and then had to
walk to the front line in Papun district. He was given no
water (porters had to find their own) and very little rice:
one handful each day, with one spoon of yellow pea curry. The
porters had no strength because of the strenuous work and so
little food. So many were beaten and killed by the soldiers.
Ten porters were beaten to death by the soldiers during the
three month period. If porters were too slow they were kicked
or beaten. He himself was beaten. Women were not used as
porters at front line, but were used for shorter distances in
village areas. He did not see any porters injured or killed in
the fighting. He carried two backpacks filled with rice, one
on his back and one over a shoulder. It was possible to pay
600 kyat for three days to avoid the work. No medicine was
given if porters were sick. He last had to work as a porter
one year ago. Other forms of forced labour included digging
trenches and building fences at the army compound, only one
hour's walk away. He did both forced labour and portering
sequentially. There was also a nearby DKBA camp set up one
year ago and they had forced labour demands in addition to the
rest. For the DKBA there was work at the camp on fences,
clearing brush and digging trenches as well as road building.
Overall, in one month on average, there would be ten days
required work at the army camp, 15 days required work at the
DKBA camp, plus portering thrown in. So there were no more
than five days a month left to do his own work to earn a
living. He was a farmer working for others. He had to cut wood
to sell in order to get more income. Even with that he could
not make ends meet anymore. That is why he came here to
Thailand. The level of forced labour is greater now than ever
because there are two army bases to serve. Back in 1989 the
village began working on the Mawlamyine (Moulmein) to Yangon
road. The village was assigned to complete a 1,000 foot-long
section of the road with a width of two-arm spans. The village
head gave out the assignments on a rotating basis. His last
forced labour project was doing fencing work at the DKBA base.
Just before leaving he paid 4,000 kyat to be released from a
second arrest by the army. On that occasion he had money from
selling sheets of roofing thatch.
                    __________________________


153

Ethnicity:          Karen
Age/sex:            28, male
Family situation:   Married with one seven-month old daughter
Occupation:         Farmer
                    (village had more than 300 families)

The witness left Myanmar in early January 1998 because he was
no longer able to provide for his family, on account of the
time required for the work which had to be done for the
military and the taxes which had to be paid. He had to do
portering and road building. In both cases, the village head
passed on the order from the military, although the military
sometimes came directly to the houses or to public places to
seize the porters. He was not paid and received no form of
compensation for this work. He acted as a porter on one single
occasion for a week in the rainy season. The other times he
managed to escape. The portering had to be done in a
mountainous region of the Kayin State. The porters were male,
aged between 14 and 60. They were not paid. It was however
possible to hire a replacement. The sum for this varied
according to the number of days to be worked, but was between
500 and 1,000 kyat. It was also possible to pay the village
head to be exempted. He had never paid and hence did not know
the sum that had to be paid. They had to carry ammunition and
march all day. There was never enough food. In the beginning
each porter got one tin of rice. After a few days, three
porters had to share one. They had to sleep in the jungle,
without shelter. No one could take care of his family in his
absence. During this period, his wife gave birth to their
daughter. He was not personally ill-treated. Friends had
however been beaten with a stick for not going quickly enough
and for being too tired to carry the load allotted to them. He
had to carry food to the military who lived in the camp in the
mountains one to three times a month over the last two years.
It was about an hour's walk to the camp. He did this work with
other men in rotation. The number involved could vary, but
might even exceed 100. He also had to work on the road between
his village and Meh Pleh. This was a road for cars. The work
site was three hours' walk from his house. He had to work
there several times over the last year, even though the
building of the road began three years before. This road had
to be repaired after each rainy season. More than 20 people
from his village worked at the same time as he did. However,
he could not say the total number of men or women who worked
on the road. The day began at 8 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m. with
a one-hour break at noon. He had to bring his own food, but
could go home at night. It was possible to pay a substitute.
He did not know the amount, as he did not have enough money to
hire one. It was also possible to pay the village head so as
not to have to go: the price was 100 kyat per day. Over the
last year, he also had to put up fences along the road and
stand guard against the KNU. To do this, he had to go along
the road each morning with a plough to check whether mines or
other explosives had been laid. A mine exploded last year,
killing a worker and two soldiers. He also mentioned that he
had to pay between 200 and 300 kyat per month since his return
to his village in 1995. He did not know why these taxes were
levied. To pay them, he had to sell land and take work as a
day labourer. 
                    __________________________


154
 
Ethnicity:          Karen
Age/sex:            44, male
Family situation:   Married with four children (all came
                    with him)
                    (village had 500 households)

The witness and his family had been in Thailand for the past
six years. In January 1998 he went back to his village to see
what the current situation was like. He stayed there for 20
days and then returned to Thailand. He found that the
situation was not good. The military was in firm control of
the area now. Before he left, he was a rice farmer. He had to
give a percentage of his crop to the army, and another
percentage to the land owner, leaving him with very little.
"It was difficult to survive on what was left." He could not
afford to go on portering or forced labour assignments, so to
avoid them he would sleep in the jungle. That strategy worked
to avoid being arrested by the troops directly. But he could
not avoid it when orders came down from the village head. He
was a porter on four occasions, three times through orders,
and one time through direct arrest. He ran away in each case
before the assignment was completed. So they lasted only four
or five days for three of the times. The fourth time was for
one month and five days. Four people had already died of
overwork and starvation and he was certain he too would die if
he stayed. So he evaded the guards and escaped and went back
home. When porters became weak and could not keep up they were
beaten. Sometimes after being beaten porters could not walk at
all and were left at the side of the road to die. It always
happened if porters slowed down, they were beaten. No medicine
was given if they were sick. Food was in very small amounts.
Porters cooked their own food. Soldiers did their own too. It
came to about half a condensed milk tin of rice per day plus
some yellow pea curry. The rice was rough and broken. Also,
sometimes there was some poor quality fish paste. There were
500 houses in the village and portering was done by rotation,
whenever the soldiers came through. They called five, ten or
15 people about once or twice a month. If there was no man in
the house that household had to pay 600 kyat. Now it was up to
2,000 kyat as more people refused to go and it was harder to
find substitutes. Only men did portering. Women were used only
for short distance work. There was a lot of portering then.
Now the villagers just had to pay porter fees once a month.
There was little actual portering work. There was, however,
lots of other forced labour, so the total amount of time spent
on forced work was about the same. Since the portering was
more oppressive he thought that, to some extent, there had
been some improvement. It used to be that forced labour was
mostly working at the army camp, cleaning, planting,
renovating buildings, doing agricultural work for the army.
Road building was now the biggest task along with army camp
work. There was forced agriculture work for the LIB 202 rubber
plantation. They had to do all the planting and cultivation
and harvesting. The rubber produced was sent to the 22
Division. The Hpa-an to Shwegun road was the main road they
were working on. It was three miles from the village. When he
went back to visit in January 1998, he had to spend three of
the 20 days doing forced labour on the road. Before the army
would come to the village to get people, now it was all done
through the village head. He gave the assignments out to each
house. The village was given a certain length of the road to
complete. There were no soldiers at the work site but they
checked on the work. If workers did not complete the work on
time, they got trouble from the soldiers. The village head had
to report on who was not working properly. There were no
beatings, only threats of beatings. Workers had to bring their
own food and tools. No pay of course. They had to pay money
themselves if they were sick and could not go. Some forced
labourers died at the work site as a result of accidents. When
the village head complained he was told that it was because
they were not good workers that caused the problem so there
was no compensation. It cost 300 kyat a day if you could not
go. Old people, children, everyone had to go. If workers were
old enough to carry things, around eight or nine years old,
they went. The army did not care if children were sent, since
the assignment had to be completed. It just took a child
longer than an adult (often other villagers felt sorry for
young children, and helped them to complete their assignment).
A minimum of one person per household was requested. He
considered that it was much harder to make a living now.
Farmers were having to sell what they needed to eat just to
survive. Forced labour was the root of the problem. Every day
spent on forced assignments was a day lost to feed the family.
Portering was currently limited. Four people were assigned at
all times from the village on a rotating basis as servant
porters at the camp: getting water, doing the cooking,
carrying messages. Before villagers had to do guard duty too.
Not now. During guard duty they were fined a certain number of
chickens if they were caught sleeping. Now the army was also
collecting a new tax for school construction and repairs. They
levied the tax based on income: 7,000 kyat for the rich down
to 1,500 kyat for the poor. But it was impossible to pay this
additional tax too. The villagers had to sell their
belongings, so it was impossible to stay anymore. They
had no choice but to leave. 
                    __________________________


155
 
Religion:           Muslim
Age/sex:            38, female
Family situation:   Married with six children
Occupation:         Agricultural day labourers
                    (before village had 1,000 households, now  
                    the majority have left)

The witness left Myanmar with her family in late 1997 because
of the amount of forced labour for the military (including
portering), sometimes up to 20 days in a month. As day
labourers, if they went to do forced labour one day, they had
nothing to eat the next. The soldiers treated Muslims, Karen
and hill people badly, but Muslims even worse than the others,
making it very difficult for Muslims to stay in the villages.
They were subjected to harder forced labour and had less food,
so they fled from the villages into the towns. In her village,
there used to be 200 Muslim households, now only 15 or 16 were
left. Normally, the soldiers ordered the required number of
porters through the village head, but if the village did not
send them, or not quickly enough, they fetched them
themselves. At that time, if the villagers went with the
soldiers immediately, it was okay, but otherwise the soldiers
would chase the villagers and beat them In her family,
portering was always done by men. Her husband thus had to
carry ammunition and food for the army. For many years, the
practice had been to be required to do portering once a month,
normally for some five days, but often for a week or ten days
and sometimes over a long time, for two months or more.
Sometimes, for a very short distance, it could take only one
day (e.g. to the nearest army camp), but then they would take
two or three people from the same household, making it more
difficult. Sometimes they would instruct porters to pack up
food for so many days (e.g., 15 days) for the porters to eat.
Strong people who could do the work were usually okay. If
porters were tired, unable to do the work, they would be
beaten and kicked and sometimes shot dead. Some of her friends
from other villages were killed in this way. On one or two
occasions, her husband was beaten on the back with a bamboo
cane, opening the skin; she saw it, and it has happened a lot
to other people. Working as a porter, a villager would only be
fed a small amount and would be expected to do heavy work.
They would beat and kick the porters and sometimes leave them
on the roadside. She had seen a lot of injuries done to
porters from beatings and kickings all over the body that had
to be treated medically. When there was fighting, as in the
Kayin State, the soldiers put the porters in front so they
would die and the soldiers stayed alive. It had happened to
her husband. Even at other times, when the soldiers expected
an attack on the army camp, she had been used as a human
shield. They called the whole village, with the infants, to be
placed in front of the army camp. Villagers had died this way,
even from her own village about 20 people: Muslim, Karen, hill
people, some in the last few months before she left, some over
the last year. With regard to camp building and servicing,
three military camps were in the region, Yebu, Nabu and
Painkyone, (with smaller outposts around them). They had been
there for at least 20 years, but not always in the same
location. If any camp moved to a new location, people had to
build the new camp: men, women, children, everybody. In the
case of Nabu, the people from Nabu village, about 1,000
families also had to move themselves two or three years ago to
make a place for the army camp. Nobody lived there anymore.
Some moved to Kawkareik and other places, or nearby into the
hills. At Yebu there was a big camp, she did not remember it
moving, but little outposts around it where the soldiers went
on patrol had changed location. When they were building a
camp, people from far away villages also had to come and do
forced labour, but for the routine servicing, she only had to
go to Yebu camp, not Nabu or Painkyone. For camp service,
written orders were given to the village head, but if there
was a problem with compliance, the soldiers would come and
beat people. They did not always call up one person from each
house in the whole village, sometimes, for example, if they
wanted five people, it rotated among households. It was one
person from the household, they did not care whether her
husband was away (e.g. working far from the house as a day
labourer, or serving as a porter). In his absence, and if she
had no money to pay them off, they would not accept no for an
answer, she had to go. Her eldest son having left long ago,
her second child, a daughter, also had to do forced labour;
sometimes even young children had to go. In the camp, men also
had to do portering, and men and women alike fetched water,
were on standby for messenger service, cooked rice for the
soldiers and did any kind of work needed. When the soldiers
changed (i.e., a different army unit moved into the camp) it
meant more work, new things. They also had to cut and split
bamboo and make things from it. Sometimes, men would be sent
deep into the forest to fetch trees, cut them and deliver the
logs to the soldiers. Often, there was much more of this than
needed in the camp, and the soldiers had it transported
elsewhere, she does not know whether it was for use elsewhere
or sale. The witness also had to do all kinds of forced
cultivation. The villagers had to do all the work and deliver
the harvest to the soldiers for sale. They also had to provide
chickens and meat asked for by the soldiers. If someone did
not, the soldiers would put him in the lock-up and kill and
eat his cattle. She, her husband and children had all worked
on the Nabu to Painkyone road. After she left, people in her
family still had to do it: one person per family, even
children 12 and 13 years old. She knew of ten-year-olds who
had done forced labour. If nobody from a house went, they had
to pay a fine, but nobody had money to pay, so a child had to
go; if not, the soldiers came to the house and beat people and
swore. Villagers quite far from the road also had to do the
work. From her village, they would take one person per
household, but not always all at the same time, maybe 50 at a
time, by rotation depending on how many were needed. This road 
running from Nabu through the Yebu area was close enough for
her to go home at night, others had to make their own
arrangements, building shelters or sleeping in the open air.
The treatment was different from portering, which was much
worse, since porters could only rest when the soldiers rested,
and the soldiers did not care whether porters were tired, hot,
cold, hungry, and gave only a small amount of food. Here, the
villagers could arrange themselves for eating, sleeping, and
could rest, provided they did the work. They were assigned a
particular stretch of road, normally without a deadline, but
sometimes a given amount of work had to be finished within
five days. The money/fine to be paid for not providing forced
labour was about 100 kyat per day. If the work was farther
away, one had to pay for three days: 300 kyat. Other times the
sum may have been only 60 to 70 kyat. The amount also depended
on how hard the labour was, for portering one must pay more,
both because it was often longer, up to two moths, and because
it was harder work, so maybe 200 to 300 kyat per day was paid
for portering. If there were three villages, the soldiers
would go to the first village and, if the villagers could pay,
take the money. Likewise in the second. Only if they came to a
village that could not pay did they take the workers. They
much preferred money over workers, but if they really needed
workers, they would get them. Even if people payed, someone
had to do the forced labour. 
                    __________________________


156
 
Religion:           Muslim
Age/sex:            12, male
Family situation:   Family of eight (mother and seven          
                    siblings)
Education:          None

The witness had done forced labour for the soldiers since he
was ten years old. He left Myanmar in mid-1997. With regard to
forced labour, he worked on road building. To build the road,
they had to cut bamboo and trees. He had to cut the scrubs,
and dig and carry mud every day in the dry season from 7 a.m.
to noon, when they ate the rice they brought. Then again from
1 p.m. to 5 p.m. It was hard work, he was very tired.
Sometimes at 11 a.m. the children would hide in the bushes.
The soldiers did not see them, but other forced labourers did
and asked them to come back. Among the adults, there were
about five children, sometimes two to three, sometimes ten. He
himself had to go, because he had no father. If his mother
could not go, he had to. Also, sometimes villagers with money
hired him to go instead of them, paying him 30 kyat a day.
Most of the time he went for his own family. If the soldiers
told them to build ten arm-spans of road, they had to finish
it. The soldiers yelled at him but never hurt him. Once he saw
the commander beat the village head because she could not find 
enough people for forced labour. He tied her with a rope and
beat her with a bamboo cane on the back; other soldiers cried
because they pitied her. His father died when portering in a
battle, from a shell, when he was still a baby. He heard that
soldiers were beating porters who could not do the work. He
saw that some people had wounds on their skull and shoulders.
                    __________________________
 

157
 
Ethnicity:          Karen
Age/sex:            48, male
Family situation:   Family of nine (wife and seven children)
Occupation:         Farmer
                    originally 500 families in village, now    
                    only 100 left)

The witness came to Thailand four years ago: stayed three
years, then went back to Myanmar for a few months in the rainy
season to pick up someone and came back in August 1996. He
went back another time and came back to Thailand once more in
October 1997. Four years ago he had to cut trees and bamboo to
make the road from Bilin to Papun. He had to work 15 days,
then had one day's rest, and again had to work 15 days. Then,
not having enough food, he could not do the work anymore and
fled. Three hundred people a day, one person from each house
had to build the road at the same time. The military had given
the order to the village head, and the villagers had to stay
quiet, although the soldiers yelled at them. He saw two women,
two girls, and five men killed all in one day four years ago
because they were tired and took a rest during work. The
soldiers yelled at them, they talked back and the soldiers
got angry and killed them. They beat them on their he ads,
raped the two girls and killed them, stabbing them with a
knife. The road building continued when he went back in
October 1997. When he first went back to Myanmar and his
village to fetch someone in the rainy season of 1996, he did
no forced labour, but saw other people fencing the military
camp, dig bunkers and trenches. In 1997, he, like others, had
to do forced labour ten days a month, one person from each
household, cutting and carrying trees, bamboo. The road was
not finished, the camp was completely finished now but they
still had to make bamboo spike booby-traps. Men who could not
carry bamboo were killed by the SLORC/DKBA troops, women were
hurt and kicked and beaten with guns. He once saw an old man
who told the soldiers and DKBA that he was very tired and
could not go again, so the soldiers replied that he was
willing to work for the KNU but not for them, slapped his
face, punched and kicked him and killed him with a knife. On a
day when all the villagers were in the forest cutting bamboo,
the soldiers drank alcohol and forced a woman to come to the
camp. The woman said she was very tired and asked to rest on
the way. The soldiers said they had no time, hit and beat her
with a bamboo cane. In the evening he went to her house but
she was not at home. A monk in the monastery said she was
killed by a SLORC soldier. Another day, he saw the soldiers
beat a woman twice with a gun on the head and she died. She
and other villagers had to split bamboo and she wanted to take
a rest, sit down. So a DKBA officer said the one who wants to
take a rest must die and the soldiers beat the woman's head
while she was sitting and the second blow killed her. In
September 1997, the soldiers burnt down several small villages
in Bilin township and forced the villagers to relocate to
different places. His village, Be Lay Noh, was a big village
with a big army camp, so small villages around Be Lay Noh were
relocated to that place. Later, the camp commander ordered
villagers to go back to their villages and they had to build
new houses, since the old ones had been burnt down by
soldiers. The villagers also had to cut bamboo poles, build
houses for DKBA and SLORC families and build fences around
them. He fled with his family, and 60 families from his
village and many from other Karen villages, altogether 300
families were staying in the same refugee camp, because they
did not have enough food. One year ago, DKBA and SLORC
soldiers took all their paddy, they had to go and get some
once a day, begging for their own paddy; the soldiers gave
them only once a day three small tins for the family. They
tried to go further away from the village to sow secretly some
paddy in the mountains, where the soldiers would not find it,
but the pigs came and ate it all.
                    __________________________


158
 
Ethnicity/religion: Karen, Christian
Age/sex:            55, male
Family situation:   Eleven (him, wife and nine children)
Occupation:         Former village-tract head

The witness came to Thailand in 1996. He went back to his
village in January 1998 and returned to Thailand in February.
Out of 300 families in the village, only 50 Buddhist ones were
left now; all the Christian ones had left. Four years ago,
SLORC and DKBA troops started driving villagers away, some of
whom then came back after a few months. This happened several
times but two years ago, the soldiers would not allow them
back, so some of the villagers also sold their houses and
never went back. He went to Thailand after having been
arrested for allegedly possessing hidden weapons. Before he
became village-tract head ten years ago, he did four portering
trips of between two and five days each. But his children and
other people had done portering for one month in a row.
Sometimes the soldiers called porters just for three days, but
in the end they had to go for a month. When he went back in
January 1998, villagers had to go portering every month,
usually for five days. If they could not go, they had to pay
450 kyat per day. The villagers had to do road construction
work, going on foot to the work site, working and sleeping
there for a week until another shift came. This meant they had
no time to do their own work. His children worked about three
years ago on the roads in Dawlan and Natkyun, as well as the
road between Ah Pou and Taun Zun, for about four days a month.
The authorities ordered the village head to find forced
labourers and if he could not find enough, soldiers came
and captured people in the village. During forced labour he
saw the soldiers only yell at the labourers, not kill them.
But when soldiers came to the village, the villagers ran away,
and the soldiers shot at them. The witness described several
killings of villagers running away or suspected of siding with
the KNU. When he was village-tract head, each family had on
average to do forced labour three or four days a month. Now,
people had to do forced labour every day in dry season, albeit
not always the same person, nor the same family. Money
exaction was now a major problem. If the KNU asked the
villagers to pay 10,000 kyat per year, both the SLORC/SPDC and
the DKBA asked each for the same, so most of the villagers
wanted to come to Thailand (but could not). When the witness
went back to his village in January, he saw that between
Tichara and Tiwablaw, and between Meh Pleh and Kyokyo the
SLORC/SPDC soldiers burnt down hundreds of farm houses and the
rice straw in the fields. The cattle had no fodder to eat and
also perished from landmines planted everywhere. One had to
hire people now to show the way through the mines. 
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[END OF SLICE 39]