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KHRG #98-08 Part 3 of 6: Pa'an dist



Subject: KHRG #98-08 Part 3 of 6: Pa'an district

                    UNCERTAINTY, FEAR AND FLIGHT

    The Current Human Rights Situation in Eastern Pa'an District

       An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
               November 18, 1998     /     KHRG #98-08

*** PART 3 OF 6 - SEE OTHER POSTINGS FOR OTHER PARTS OF THIS REPORT ***

[Some details omitted or replaced by 'xxxx' for Internet distribution.]

__________________________________________________________________________


                    Detention and Torture

"When the Burmese soldiers came to the village they ate our animals 
and forced us to pay their taxes.  If we didn't give it to them, they came 
to beat us and torture us.  When they came the first time, they beat a 
man in the village, tied his hands and his neck and cut his ears off.  His 
name was Kyaw Bu.  They beat and tortured him together with Pa Par 
Hlaing.  Kyaw Bu is about 35 years old, and Pa Par Hlaing is about 30.  
The Burmese came with a young boy who had joined them, and he said 
that these two were Karen soldiers, but they weren't.  They are Taw Oak 
villagers.  But they beat them, cut their ears off and tortured them in 
many ways.  They beat them with the wooden pins we use to harness the 
bullocks to the yoke.  They beat them in Taw Oak, then they took them 
to Ker Ghaw and the village headman went to vouch for them and 
secure their release.  He had to give a guarantee for them and they also 
had to pay 5,000 Kyats for each of them."  - "Naw Sghee" (F, 25), Taw 
Oak village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #16, 8/98)


Village elders are constantly faced with demands to provide porters, other 
forced labourers, money, food and materials, and are supposed to regularly 
report on KNLA movements in their area.  Whenever an elder fails to 
satisfy the SPDC in any of these roles he is usually beaten up or arrested,

detained and tortured, sometimes to death.  In some parts of Pa'an district

the DKBA does the same to village elders who cannot meet their random 
demands for money, food and materials.  

Usually when beaten or arrested the troops accuse him of being in contact 
with the KNLA, but the real reason is generally just a failure to comply 
with their demands.  However, in many cases there is no way the elder 
could possibly meet their demands; many villages simply no longer have 
the money or food to continue supplying the SPDC, DKBA and KNLA all 
at once.  Many SPDC units receive few or no rations anymore, and have 
been ordered to take their food from the villagers; the DKBA long ago lost 
the cash salaries they received from SLORC, and many of their units no 
longer receive food either, while some of their officers only joined so
that 
they could demand things from the villagers; and most KNLA units have 
lost their supply lines and demand all their food from villagers.  All of
this 
is happening at a time when the lack of rains has caused a dismal rice crop

throughout the district.  The inability to meet demands, particularly those

of the SPDC and DKBA, is now causing many village elders to flee their 
villages in fear of arrest and ordinary villagers to flee in fear that
their 
entire village will be punished.


"The Burmese stayed close to the village, and if the headman didn't go 
to report the Burmese would arrest him and put him in prison.  The 
Burmese didn't really have a prison, it was a cell where they kept the 
headman in stocks.  One time the headman had to stay in that cell for 6 
months."  - "Pa Ler Wah" (M, 30), Kaw B'Naw village, Pa'an district 
(Interview #33, 8/98)

"The Burmese tortured the village headman from Klay Po Kloh village, 
his name is Po Ghay Wah.  They put him in handcuffs and beat him, 
and they interrogated him at the same time.  They tortured him very 
badly because they said that he was in contact with the KNLA soldiers. 
? The Burmese beat him very badly.  They held him captive for 10 days.  
They covered his face and tied his hands behind his back and made him 
follow them.  He was bound during the nights as well.  They didn't give 
him enough rice.  They gave him food only once a day."  - "Saw Ghay 
Htoo" (M), Wah Mi Klah village, northern Pa'an district (Interview #4, 
9/98)


Many ordinary villagers are also arrested, detained and tortured on 
suspicion of being in contact with the KNLA or related to KNLA or KNU 
members.  These suspicions are often unfounded and based on any random 
accusation by another villager or by a DKBA or SPDC soldier who is 
eager to impress his officer.  Villagers arrested in this way can face 
summary execution, indefinite periods of detention without formal charge 
at army camps with forced labour and torture, or indefinite forced labour 
as a frontline porter.  Even after the troops realise that the villager or
elder 
is innocent, they will generally not release them until a village headman
or 
Buddhist monk 'vouches' for them, meaning he guarantees the prisoner's 
innocence with his life, and an expensive bribe is paid.  The families of 
detained villagers usually have to borrow up to 20,000 or 30,000 Kyats 
from relatives and other villagers to pay for the person's freedom, and
then 
face years of debt trying to pay the money back.


"The name of the [DKBA] soldier who captured me was Neh Pa Htaw 
from Battalion 999.  He came with 20 other soldiers and they tied me up 
with handcuffs and ropes.  They tied me around the neck, feet and waist.  
I was tied all over my body.  They thought I was a member of the KNU.  
I was the only one they captured, and they took me to Kway Sha.  At 
Kway Sha I was kept in a cattle pen with a thatch roof.  I had to stay 
there on top of the cattle dung. ? I had to stay in the lockup there and I 
had to cut and remove stumps during the day, every day.  At night time I 
had to go back in my cell.  They guarded me and forced me to work very 
hard.  Of course, there were some SPDC people among those who forced 
me to work.  I was forced to carry ammunition as a porter, and it 
weighed more than 2 mer [32 kg / 69 pounds]. ? They didn't give me 
enough rice to eat.  They gave me food twice a day but the rice was not 
good, it was old and had been eaten by insects."  - "Saw Tee Kaw" (M), 
Pah Klu village, southern Pa'an district, who was held prisoner for 3 
months by DKBA and SPDC, though he is only a villager (Interview #17, 
9/98)

"It wasn't long ago, no more than a month ago. ? They [SPDC troops] 
beat me and Hsah Ku together.  They hit me until my nose and ears 
were bleeding.  I couldn't hear for a long time.  They beat me with 
bamboo as big as this, until the bamboo broke.  They also beat Hsah Ku 
in the back one or two times.  Then one of them called me to go out into 
the forest so they could shoot me dead.  They ordered a man to shoot me 
dead, and he tied me up tightly and then made me sit on a paddy dyke.  
The Burmese beat me a few times and kicked me off the paddy dyke - it 
was very high, as high as your waist, and I fell and hurt my head on the 
ground.  Then they picked me up and slammed my head against the 
ground again. ? Then they found 3 guns, and after they found them 
they tied me up to a betelnut tree and beat me.  They hit my head against 
the tree until my head was bleeding, and then they set me free."  - "Saw 
Kaw Doh" (M, 19), villager from just outside Myaing Gyi Ngu describing 
how SPDC troops tortured him while trying to find hidden KNLA guns; 
this incident caused him to flee and join KNLA (Interview #31, 4/98)

"They made a pregnant woman from Po Ti Pwa village follow them.  
She also carried her daughter on her back.  They took her to Maw Po 
Kay.  They held her there for 17 or 18 days but they have released her 
already.  The Burmese saw her making alcohol and they took her to 
follow them.  I don't know what they did with her and I didn't ask her 
about what they had done.  We have to be afraid of them."  - "Naw Paw 
Htoo" (F, 45), Wah Mi Klah village, northern Pa'an district (Interview #4, 
9/98)

"Then they told me, 'Mother, if you say to us that she is the wife of a 
KNU, we will tie her up and force her to look for her husband.'  I 
whispered in my heart, 'Oh my God!'"  - "Pi Hser Mo" (F, 50+), Pah Klu 
village, southern Pa'an district, describing her interrogation by SPDC 
troops about a friend of hers (Interview #19, 9/98)
__________________________________________________________________________


                       Looting and Extortion

"If we stay there we have no money to buy food.  We had to find one 
Kyat or two Kyats, then use it to buy food, but whenever they asked for 
money we had to give it to them.  The Burmese demanded money as 
taxes.  We'd earn money for food but then we couldn't buy any because 
we had to give it all to them, 2,000 Kyat, 3,000 Kyat, sometimes 4,000 or 
5,000 Kyat every month.  If we couldn't pay them they threatened that 
they would come to burn our houses, drive us out of the village or do 
many other bad things."  - "Naw Lah Say" (F, 25), Taw Oak village, 
southern Pa'an district (Interview #12, 8/98)


In some areas, extortion of money, food and materials, particularly by 
SPDC and DKBA troops, has become so intensive that it is causing people 
to flee their villages.  This is especially prevalent in southeastern Pa'an

district, in the area of Pah Klu.  For some time now DKBA troops have 
lost their material support from the SPDC and have been forced to live off 
the villagers, and now SPDC troops throughout Burma are receiving 
rations only sporadically, in some areas not at all.  KNLA troops are also 
living off the villagers at present.  This has led to a general increase in
the 
looting of villagers' rice, livestock and belongings, demands for money, 
and forced labour on projects to grow food and make money for SPDC 
Army units.  


"The villagers who had to pay the taxes told me they had to give 400 
Kyats to the KNU, 12,000 Kyats to the DKBA and 12,000 Kyats to the 
Burmese."  - "Pi Hser Mo" (F, 50+), Pah Klu village, southern Pa'an 
district (Interview #19, 9/98)

"They asked me for money but I had no money because I was just a 
farmer.  I only had money sometimes when I hired myself out to work.  
If I couldn't give them money they said they'd hit me and kill me.  So I 
had to borrow some money from another villager.  If I couldn't find the 
money, I had to go as a porter for them."  - "Saw Tee Kaw" (M), Pah Klu 
village, southern Pa'an district, describing extortion by SPDC troops 
(Interview #17, 9/98)


In southeastern Pa'an district villagers are facing increasingly frequent 
demands for porters, and must pay several thousand Kyats each time they 
want to avoid going; they are so afraid of being used as human mine 
detonators that they pay whenever they can.  Now the SPDC in Pah Klu 
area have told villagers in Taw Oak that each family will have to pay them 
700 Kyats per month in extortion money, over and above fees to avoid 
forced labour.  Villagers in the area are also forced to provide bullock
carts 
and teams for the SPDC troops, boats on occasion, rice and other food, 
and SPDC patrols regularly take or kill their livestock at will with no 
compensation.  Whenever troops take or kill a valuable animal like a pig, 
after they leave the villagers must gather money together to compensate 
the animal's owner, and some cannot even afford to keep contributing to 
this so they have had to flee their villages.  


"The villagers have to suffer because there is nowhere they can go that's 
safe.  They have to give money anytime the village headman collects 
money.  Sometimes the DKBA or the Burmese come and eat the 
villagers' pigs, and then the villagers must gather money to reimburse 
the owners of the animals after the Burmese or DKBA leave the village.  
The villagers must pay for anything that is eaten, but they cannot afford 
to."  - "Pi Wah K'Paw" (F, 60), Htee Wah Blaw village, southern Pa'an 
district (Interview #20, 9/98)

"We couldn't stay in our village because of the Burmese and the Ko Per 
Baw.  Whenever they came to our village they forced us to go with them, 
and if we didn't dare to go we had to give them money.  If we didn't have 
any money to give, we had to go.  They asked for porter fees of 5,000 
Kyats for one trip [to avoid going as a porter] and one trip is for 5 days.
 
Now they've started forcing us to pay 700 Kyats [per family] every 
month.  Our family can't pay that much every month, so we had to come 
here."  - "Naw Kler" (F, 21), Taw Oak village, southern Pa'an district 
(Interview #10, 8/98)

"They ate the animals of the villagers and they drank when they were in 
the villages.  They often threatened the villagers with their guns.  They 
aimed their guns at the villagers and said, 'If you won't give me what I 
am asking for, I will kill you.'  I was carrying their bags at that time." 
- 
"Saw Tee Kaw" (M), Pah Klu village, southern Pa'an district, describing 
what he saw SPDC troops doing while he was a porter (Interview #17, 
9/98)


Earlier this year, the DKBA held a meeting in the area and stated that they

will build a new office in Myawaddy town, then ordered all villagers to cut

logs and do forced labour building the office or pay 3,000 Kyat per family.
 
All of these demands come at a time when villagers have already sold all 
their belongings to pay previous demands and are suffering a bad year for 
their rice crop because of the lack of rain early in the growing season. 
At 
the same time, they also continue to have to hand over rice to KNLA units 
in the area.  They are just not capable of supplying all sides at once.  In
the 
Pah Klu area, the last straw for many villagers has come in the last few 
months.  The KNLA hijacked a group of boats moving SPDC rations 
upriver for the SPDC camp at Pah Klu.  In retaliation, the SPDC unit 
forced the villagers in the area to hand over what they said was the cash 
equivalent for the full value of the rations.  When a second shipment came,

the SPDC forced the villagers to carry the rations from the boats overland 
to the Army camp without military escort, so the rations were hijacked by 
the KNLA again.  The SPDC has now demanded the full price of their 
rations yet again, and the villagers simply cannot pay so many have fled. 


"We can't dare stay in our village anymore.  We couldn't stay because of 
the taxes.  Sometimes 2,000 Kyats, sometimes 4,000 Kyats.  They kept 
telling us that the KNU had taken their rice so they forced the villagers 
to give money for their rice.  We didn't know anything about it, but we 
had to give this money whenever the village headman came to ask for 
taxes.  I couldn't pay anymore, so we couldn't dare to stay.  We couldn't 
plant our fields so we don't have any money."  - "Saw Kweh" (M, 31), 
Thay Maw Gu village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #9, 8/98)

"I do not know what to do now.  I am tired because the Burmese order 
me to go to them very often.  We villagers have to pay money again for 
the food that the KNLA soldiers have taken.  I do not know how we can 
do this." - letter from a village medic in southern Pa'an District who has
to 
act as a liaison with the SPDC Army because the village headman already 
fled and no one else will take the job


Further north in the Meh Lah Ah area of the Dawna Range where the 
SPDC is destroying villages, people are used to staying clear of SPDC 
troops, and the troops are more on the defensive militarily so they are not

as free to spend their time making extortion demands on the villages.  
However, now that they are clearing the villages and destroying some of 
them, they have looted everything they can find at once.  Villagers who 
have fled villages in this area say that the first act of the LID 44 troops
on 
entering their villages in September was to shoot livestock and loot 
everything they could find in the houses.  In some cases soldiers even
stole 
some of the roofing and the walls of people's houses to use at their camps,

then burned the remains of the houses.  Villagers in this area had little
to 
start with, and now they have nothing at all to go back to.


"When the Burmese came they ate our pigs and chickens.  When I 
complained they poked me with their gun and looked at me 
threateningly.  They shouted at me in Burmese.  They took everything, 
even the women's underwear.  They took everything from me, there was 
nothing left in my house.  They said they would take the wood off my 
house and build their camp on the hill."  - "Pa Li Kloh" (M, 21), Tee 
K'Haw village, northern Pa'an district (Interview #3, 9/98)


In the west of Pa'an district and in the north along the Salween River,
there 
is less KNLA activity so the villagers do not have to supply the KNLA, 
but they face more systematic looting and extortion by SPDC and DKBA 
troops similar to that which is going on in the southeast of the district. 
All 
roads throughout the district have regular SPDC and DKBA checkpoints, 
at which everyone passing has to pay.  Between Kawkareik and the border 
town of Myawaddy, the DKBA even runs its own passenger car service, 
and passengers who pay to ride on their cars have to pay less at the 
checkpoints.  In central Pa'an district, even as villagers were being
forced 
to work on the road network over the past 3 years they were also forced to 
pay "road building fees" which were supposedly toward the cost of 
building the roads.  On the Salween River, a major new bridge was just 
completed in early 1998 at Myaing Galay, just upriver from Pa'an.  Every 
family in all of Pa'an township had to pay "people's contribution" of 25 
Kyats toward this bridge, much of which was most likely just taken as 
profit by local authorities and military commanders.  Now the SPDC has 
started construction on a new bridge over the Gyaing River, and will likely

be demanding money from everyone in the region once again.


"My parents-in-law have a fish pond, and every time they catch their 
fish they have to give some to the Burmese.  The Burmese heard the 
sound of the pump whenever we drained the water from the pond, and 
then if we didn't send them some fish they started firing off their guns.  
When they asked for our fish we had to give them all the biggest ones."  
- "Naw Ghay Wah" (F, 31), Pay Yay village, western Pa'an district 
(Interview #34, 9/98)

"We had to give money for the Khoh Loh Kloh [Salween River] bridge 
at Myaing Galay [upriver from Pa'an] until it was finished last dry 
season, but we didn't have to go to build it.  I think they got a lot of 
money for that bridge, because many families in many villages had to 
pay for it.  Every family had to give 25 Kyats for it, in every village in 
Pa'an township."  - "Pa Ler Wah" (M, 30), Kaw B'Naw village, Pa'an 
district (Interview #33, 8/98)

"Division 22.  They had a camp at Shwe Pyi Daun, near Ain Du.  They 
said they came to defend the village, but they stole things in the village.
 
They gave guns to people who they trusted, people who were bold and 
dared to steal, then forced them to steal.  They found these people in 
other villages and then sent them to our village to steal.  They hired 
those people to steal for them.  I don't know how much they had to pay 
to hire a thief."  - "Naw Ghay Wah" (F, 31), Pay Yay village, western 
Pa'an district (Interview #34, 9/98)


Throughout Pa'an district, and particularly in the east, farmers are
already 
struggling to survive and many are having to flee because they find that 
they can no longer survive.  If the looting and extortion, particularly by
the 
SPDC and DKBA, continue at their current rate or increase, almost no one 
will be able to survive there anymore.
__________________________________________________________________________


                           Forced Labour

"They forced the villagers to work very hard.  They forced the old and 
the young, the big and the small villagers to work for them.  The 
villagers had to work in the rain, in the sun and at night.  If the DKBA 
came they had to work for them, and if the Burmese came they had to 
work for the Burmese. ? The villagers had to carry the rations and rice 
of the Burmese and the DKBA whenever their rations came.  The 
villagers had to go to Kway Sha and Meh Pleh to get their rations.  The 
soldiers had a boat but they didn't use it, they used the people to carry 
things instead. ? Similarly, they have a backhoe but they don't use it 
for road construction.  Instead they force the people to labour on the 
road construction.  So the villagers have to dig the mud with their bare 
hands to build the roads.  There were many women and children doing 
road work."  - "Saw Tee Kaw" (M), Pah Klu village, southern Pa'an 
district (Interview #17, 9/98)


The locations and types of all the forced labour which is ongoing in Pa'an 
district would be too numerous to mention here.  In 1995 and 1996, the 
most common forced labour in the region was road construction, building 
and upgrading a network of roads from Kawkareik and Kyone Doh to 
Nabu, Nabu to Bee T'Ka and Pain Kyone, Nabu to Pata, Nabu to Daw Lan 
and Kyaw Ywa, Pain Kyone to Pa'an, Shwegun to Myaing Gyi Ngu and 
others.  Now many of these roads have reached some level of completion, 
but they are only dirt and large parts of them are rebuilt by forced labour

each year after they are ruined by the rains.  Villagers also have to do 
forced labour clearing the scrub on the roadsides to minimise the chance 
that the KNLA can mine or ambush the road, and standing sentry on the 
roads by night.  This provides constant shifts of forced labour for
villagers 
throughout central Pa'an district, which they must do in addition to all
the 
other kinds of forced labour.


"I saw.  Many people were doing it.  There were children, men, women 
and old people.  They were all building the road.  They were clearing the 
road, also carrying rocks and placing them alongside the road.  They 
were forced labourers.  I saw it along the road from Pa'an to Myaing 
Gyi Ngu, and also along the road from Myawaddy to Pa'an.  Also in 
Kawkareik, right in the town."  - "Saw Ghay Htoo" (M, 20+), human 
rights monitor who visited Myaing Gyi Ngu (Interview #30, 4/98)

"?people have to cut bamboo for them and then they sell it.  They do 
that in Klaw K'Dee. They also force people to build fences for them.  
They force all the villagers who are near them to work for them.  The 
villagers have to do sentry duty along the road to protect the SPDC Army 
from KNLA landmines and to prevent the road from being destroyed by 
the KNLA.  They will kill the villagers or force them all to move to other 
places if any of their soldiers are hurt by landmines." - "Saw Po Htoo" 
(M, 23), KNLA soldier in Meh Th'Wah township (Interview #23, 4/98)


As well as the roads, there are major projects which villagers have had to 
do forced labour on, particularly the bridge across the Salween River at 
Myaing Galay, which was completed earlier this year, and the current 
bridge now being built across the Gyaing River.  There are also smaller 
scale projects on which the villagers are forced to work; for example, the 
DKBA recently announced that they will build a new office in the border 
town of Myawaddy, and that all villagers in the Pah Klu/Ker Ghaw area 
will have to do forced labour building the office and supplying all the 
building materials; any family that wants to be exempted must pay 3,000 
Kyats.  On all of these types of projects, as well as for military porters,
the 
villagers must not only do the labour but must also pay "fees" which are 
supposedly to cover material costs and hire labourers; however, the 
labourers are never paid and the materials are often demanded from the 
villagers, so the money is simply taken by the military and local 
authorities.  The villagers must also provide all their own food and tools.


"When they built the Salween bridge [a large bridge over the Salween 
River at Myaing Galay, not far upriver from Pa'an], the villagers had to 
go to dig earth and put it on the road to raise the road to the level of
the 
bridge.  The villagers had to walk there.  Every house in the village had 
to send one person three times a month.  They went for two days at a 
time and had to take along their own rice and other food. ? Villagers 
who couldn't go had to hire someone to go for them for 1,500 Kyats.  
They have no choice, they must go.  Some villagers who only had small 
children [none old enough to go for forced labour] had to leave their 
farms and hire people to tend their farms for them so that they could go 
themselves to do forced labour.  It was cheaper to hire someone to tend 
their farm than to hire someone to do forced labour in their place." - 
"Naw Ghay Wah" (F, 31), Pay Yay vill., western Pa'an dist. (Interview 
#34, 9/98)

"Both DKBA and the Burmese held the meeting.  The DKBA said that 
the villagers must come back and join together to help the DKBA to 
build their office in Myawaddy.  To build the DKBA office the villagers 
must go to help them cut the logs and build the office, and anyone who 
cannot go to help must give money.  Nobody can get out of it.  The 
villagers who can't go must give 3,000 Kyats each.  If we can't give that 
money, the DKBA or the Burmese will come to capture us.  I don't have 
enough money to pay all these things, so I can't dare stay there. ? I 
came to stay here over 10 days ago."  - "Saw Kaw Ghay" (M, 31), villager 
from Myawaddy township now internally displaced (Interview #6, 8/98)


Villagers throughout the district, and particularly in its eastern regions
and 
the Dawna Range, must also do forced labour as servants for Army camps.  
They are ordered to provide building materials and go to the camps on 
rotating shifts to cut firewood, carry water, build barracks, bunkers,
fences 
and trenches and act as messengers and guides.  Usually the local Army 
officer orders the village elders to provide certain numbers of people on 
rotating shifts for this kind of labour, and the villagers must divide the 
work among themselves.  If they fail to comply, the village head is usually

detained and tortured, and their village may be labelled a 'KNU village' 
and be forced to relocate or destroyed.


"Mostly they arrested people as they were coming into Kawkareik.  They 
arrested visitors to the town [to be porters].  They also forced the 
villagers from Kawkareik to do forced labour for 7 days each month.  
They still force the villagers to carry rice and water to their camp.  They

force the villagers there to do all kinds of work, whatever they want them 
to do.  They have camps in Nabu, the Dawna [mountains], and many 
other places.  They force the villagers to do forced labour at their camps 
for 7 days at a time.  They force the villagers to go to the jungle for 7 
days before they can return."  - "Maung San Myint" (M, 45, Burman), 
Sittaun town, Mon State, describing his time as a trishaw driver in 
Kawkareik, Pa'an district (Interview #32, 8/98)

"They force them to work on a rubber plantation and to build fences.  
Some have to go to plant rubber, some have to clear the roads, and some 
have to go to help build houses for the wives and children of the 
Burmese soldiers.  The Burmese want to build houses for themselves, so 
they order the villagers to go and take them bamboo, wood and bamboo 
strips every day.  That is Battalion #24, they're building the houses in 
their Battalion camp at Do Yin Seik?"  - "Pa Ler Wah" (M, 30), Kaw 
B'Naw village, Pa'an district (Interview #33, 8/98)


In some areas, SPDC troops are now placing heavier demands for 
materials on villagers and also taking their land and forcing them to farm 
food for the Army, reportedly because their rations have been severely 
reduced or cut and they have been ordered to get their food from the 
villages.  Villagers throughout the district already face severe
difficulties 
feeding themselves due to all the demands placed on them and the bad 
crop this year, so it will be very difficult for them if they are also
expected 
to grow food for the Army.  Most villagers try to hire others to go in
their 
place for shifts of forced labour, but demands are so frequent that very
few 
people can afford to continue doing this for long, and most villagers in 
eastern Pa'an district have no money left whatsoever.


"One time I saw them order a village headman to give money for porter 
fees, but they didn't give that money to the porters, they used it to buy 
food for themselves instead.  There was another time I saw the Burmese 
at Sgaw Ko camp forcing the women and children from Kwih Lay and 
Sgaw Ko to fetch water for them every day in hot season.  The babies 
were crying in the village but their mothers had no chance to give them 
milk.  The ox-carts and the bullocks had no time to take a rest in the 
heat.  Now they are demanding boats for their use."  - "Saw Tee Kaw" 
(M), Pah Klu village, southern Pa'an district (Interview #17, 9/98)

"Now they are still forcing the villagers to work [since they came to the 
village 20 days ago].  The villagers have to work for 3 days each time.  
We dare not stay close to the Burmese. ? If I had been caught I would 
have had to be a porter."  - "Pa Li Kloh" (M, 21), Tee K'Haw village, 
northern Pa'an district (Interview #3, 9/98)
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- [END OF PART 3; SEE SUBSEQUENT POSTINGS FOR PARTS 4 THROUGH 6 OF THIS
REPORT] -