ILO: FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA-44

[darnott@xxxxxxxxxxx]

[ILO COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA, SLICE
44]

198
 
Ethnicity:          Mon
Age/sex:            18, female
Family situation:   Three (her, husband, one child aged 14
                    months); she had four siblings
                    Division (village had 40 households)

The witness arrived in the Mon refugee camp in January 1998.
She married three years ago. Her parents came to the refugee
camp before her. She did forced labour on railway
construction, on the Natkyizin section of the Ye-Dawei (Tavoy)
railway. She started to do that work again about seven months
before arriving in the camp (this was during the rainy
season), after a break to have her baby. She had to do work on
the railway until she was 5 months pregnant, then she rested
until the baby was five months old. During the period while
she was resting, she had to pay a substitute to go in her
place on three occasions (each time she had to pay the
substitute 1,000 kyat and food for 15 days). The orders for
work on the railway were given by the army to the village
head, who then instructed the villagers; the soldiers also
demanded porters in the same way, as well as food and alcohol
on a regular basis. The village was divided into two sections
for the purpose of arranging the work. One person from each
house would have to go from each section in turn for a period
of two weeks, by rotation (i.e. 20 people at a time). The
villagers had to walk for over one hour to reach the work
site. They had to take their own rice, salt and fish paste,
as well as money to buy vegetables at the work site. There
were some small shops at the work site which were set up by
soldiers' wives (with prices slightly higher than normal). Her
household had to do seven such rotations of forced labour. Of
these, she went four times (3 times before and during her
pregnancy, once after having her child), and her husband three
times. She had to go more often, because her husband was often
away portering when it was their household's turn to do forced
labour. There was a labour camp at the work site, and the
villagers had to stay there during their two-week work period.
The work they had to do was collecting rocks and breaking them
into chippings using a small hammer. This was very hard work. 
They had to work from 6 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with a break from
11 a.m. to 1 p.m. They had to work in the rainy season as
well. The soldiers stood on the embankment and supervised and
guarded the labourers. They beat and shouted at people who
were working slowly. She often saw people beaten and kicked by
the soldiers (at least three times in a two week period). When
she went back to work after having her baby, she had to bring
the baby to the work site. While she was working during the
day, she had to leave the baby unattended at the camp. She was
able to arrange with the other villagers that she worked at a
place which was close to the camp, so that she could keep an
eye out for her baby while she was working. She fed the baby
before starting work in the morning, then had to ask
permission from the soldiers to feed it during the morning.
She was only allowed one break in the morning to feed the
baby, and one break in the afternoon. There were other women
from her village with babies at the work site, but their
babies were older so they had less of a problem, since they
could put their babies beside them while they worked. About
seven or eight of the people from her village were women, most
of whom had to bring children with them to the work site.
There were four or five children under five from her village
at the work site. People from other villages were also working
on the railway, but each village had to work on a different
point on the railway. The camp where she worked had only
people from her village, but there was another camp nearby
with about 100 villagers from another village. The youngest
person she saw working was about 14, and the oldest over 50.
If workers became sick they received no medicine (if they had
money, they could buy some medicines at the small shops). When
her baby was sick, she could get no medicine. Her husband had
to go for portering ever since they were married three years
ago. This was the same time that she and her husband first had
to do forced labour. The soldiers usually asked for ten
porters from her village at a time, but sometimes as many as
15. The soldiers asked for porters about three times a month,
and usually took porters for a period of about seven days.
Because her husband was often doing portering and she was
doing forced labour, she hardly ever saw him. Three days after
they got married, her husband had to go and do forced labour
on the railway. Her husband had no regular income. He worked
on his father's farm, for which his father fed their family.
Because she had to do hard physical work while nursing, she
did not have enough milk. As a result the baby became
malnourished, and also developed epilepsy, she said it was
because of the shock of having to stay in very bad conditions
without care at the work site. Since arriving at the Mon
refugee camp she had been able to send the baby to hospital
and take a rest herself, so it was better. Her husband did not
leave the village with her, and she still did not know where
he was. She last saw him five days before she left her
village. He was taken for portering by LIB 409, together with
five other villagers. They were told they were going to Mae
Than Taung village near Kanbauk, so he did not take much food.
After three days, however, none of the villagers had returned,
and she heard that her husband had been sent to Kanbauk by the
military. She decided to leave, because in the absence of her
husband, it would be impossible for her and her child to
survive; all the forced labour would fall on her. She still
had no news from him, and did not know if he was still alive.
It was difficult to leave her village, because the troops had
given an order preventing people from travelling, because they
were worried people would try to flee forced labour. She
managed to go to Yah Pu village, however, and there she met
someone from the Mon camp buying vegetables, and went to the
camp with him. Her parents had already been at the camp for
two years. She had also experienced forced relocation. In
February 1997 her village, along with two others, was forced
to relocate on three days' notice by LIB 409. The villagers
were told that anyone who did not relocate would be shot. No
specific relocation site was provided, and the villagers moved
to nearby villages such as Kywe Thone Nyi Ma and Kyauktaya
(the nearest being two hours' walk away). About three months
later, in June when the rains started, the villagers tried to
move back to their area because they had farms there. They
were allowed to return to their village, but under strict
curfew. If they wanted to go outside the village to tend their
farms, they had to pay 20 kyat, and had to return by evening.
If a person was found outside the village without permission,
they would be fined 1,000 kyat and beaten with a rattan cane.
This happened to people who came to the village from other
villages, and who therefore were not aware of the curfew
rules. The soldiers were always in the village, and stayed in
houses in the village when they were there. There was a
military camp at Chaungphya, about a one hour walk away. This
camp had been built by the villagers about four months ago,
who also had to provide the wood and bamboo for the
construction. Each woman had to cut 50 bamboo poles, and 100
saplings to make the fence, and each man had to cut 100 bamboo
poles and 200 saplings. This would take three to four days for
a person to cut. During the actual construction of the camp,
workers had their hat, knife and food taken from them during
rest times, so that they could not run away. Also, at least
two villagers had to be permanently outside the village as
sentries. Sometimes the soldiers came to check, and if the
sentries were asleep the soldiers would fine them 1 viss (1.6
kg) of chicken. 
                     ________________________

199

Ethnicity:          Mon
Age/sex:            56, female
Family situation:   Six (husband, two sons, one                
                    daughter-in-law, one grandson)
                    township, Tanintharyi Division (previously 
                    lived in Kywe Thone Nyi Ma)

The witness arrived in the Mon refugee camp in January 1998.
She had to do forced labour collecting rocks for the Ye-Dawei
(Tavoy) railway construction. She first had to do this work
three years ago; she did it many times in this period, for
about two weeks each time. The village was divided into two or
three groups (depending on the number of workers required at
one time), with workers from each household going from each of
the groups in turn. Workers would get less than one month rest
between periods of forced labour. The village head had drawn
up a list of all able-bodied people in the village, and when
it was a household's turn to do forced labour, only one worker
could stay behind to work for the family. Thus, if there were
four workers in a house, three would have to go for forced
labour when it was the turn of that house. In her household,
the worker who stayed behind varied by rotation. The workers
in each household were given a number, and when that number
was called by the village head to go for forced labour, the
person had to go or send someone else in their place. In her
household, herself and her sons were on the list, but her
husband was lame because of polio, and so was not on the list.
Recently, the army deceived the villagers by telling them that
they would be paid for work on the railway, but when they had
finished the work they received no payment. When she first
started to do forced labour on the railway she lived in Kywe
Thone Nyi Ma. At that time the work was digging and carrying
mud to build the embankment. She continued to do this work
after she went to Sein Suay. There the villagers had to
collect and crush rocks. The work site was about one hour's
walk from the village, so she used to go back to the village
to sleep at night. She left the village at 5 a.m. to start
work at 6 a.m. They were allowed to rest from 11.30 to 12
noon, then they had to work again until 6 p.m., so she got
back to her village at about 7 p.m. According to arrangements
made by the village head, women had to work during the day
(from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.), and the men had to work from 6 p.m.
to midnight. This was done so that the men would have time
during the day to do their normal work. Also, the village was
afraid of abuse of the women by the military if they had to
work at night. Even so, there were problems with the
arrangement because when the men were away during the evening,
the soldiers would steal animals from the village. Some women
were also raped at this time, and some were then taken by
force to live with the soldiers. She knows of five women who
were raped in this way, two of whom were then taken by force
to live with the soldiers. This happened two or three months
ago. The two women never came back. The work was very tiring.
She had always had good health, but since last year she
suffered a chronic cough and had difficulty breathing. She
thought this was due to carrying heavy loads of stones on her
head for long periods without rest. During the work, men were
often beaten by the soldiers. Women were usually just sworn
at. On one occasion while her son was doing forced labour, he
was ordered to get alcohol for the soldiers. He arrived back
late from going to get the alcohol, and so was beaten. The
village head was ordered to fetch a stick, then her son was
beaten with it until it broke. He was badly injured, and had
to have medical treatment consisting of ten injections. He was
left with scars all over his body. She saw two other people
beaten during forced labour. The two were having an argument
among themselves, so the soldiers beat them with a stick, then
made them do ten "laps" of frog-jumps (with their hands behind
their heads), each "lap" about 20 metres. This was the
standard punishment for people who the soldiers thought were
not working properly. On one occasion she saw an elderly man
forced to do this punishment. The villagers also had to do
portering. At all times, two porters from the village were
required to do work at the army camp at Eindayaza. This had
been going on for one year. People went for a period of two
weeks, and were then replaced. Her son did this twice, for two
weeks each time. He was not beaten while doing this work. Last
year people were forced to build an army camp at Siu Ku
village near Kaleinaung. Fifteen people from each village in
the area were required to go, and each village was responsible
for constructing one building. The camp was two days' walk
from their village, and the villagers had to work for
seven-day periods. People from her family went three times
(her elder son went twice, her younger son went once). She
fled from Kywe Thone Nyi Ma because of too much forced labour.
The men worked as fishermen, but it was difficult for them to
earn a living because of the forced labour. She had to sell
her oxen, because they were often forced by the soldiers to be
used for transporting stones and earth etc., and became lame
from over-work. She had to leave her belongings behind. Many
other people also fled at this time. When they arrived at the
new village (Sein Suay), however, they found the situation was
no better. In the end, one month ago, they fled to the camp.
She came because her sons also left, and she was dependent on
them. Her sons fled because they did not have enough time to
work to support the family. She fled to the camp by pretending
to be a dried fish seller at army checkpoints. 
                    _________________________

200

Ethnicity:          Mon
Age/sex:            35, female
Family situation:   Seven (her, husband, five children)
Occupation:         Farmer (dry rice)
                    Division (village had 300 households)

The witness arrived in the Mon refugee camp at the end of 1997
(three months ago), from Paukpingwin, because they could not
tolerate the amount of forced labour. She did forced labour
collecting rocks for the Ye-Dawei (Tavoy) railway
construction. This work started two or three years ago; work
restarted in September or October 1997 near the end of the
rainy season. The orders to do this forced labour came from
the military to the village head, who then instructed the
villagers. One person per household had to go. She had to go
herself because her husband was often away portering, or had
to work in his fields (it was hard to make a living: last
year, they had to live on only rice soup for a period of two
months). She went a total of about 15 times, each time for a
period of a month; her husband did not work on the railway, he
only did portering and his own work. During the month at the
work site, the workers got one day off every ten days. The
work she had to do was breaking rocks with a hammer. When she
worked, she left her children in the village (the youngest was
two, the eldest ten). It was a two-hour walk from the village
to the work site (they returned to their village each night).
They had to leave their village at 6 a.m. and arrived back at
the village at 8 p.m. They only had a half-hour break from
work at noon. There was a total of about 300 villagers working
together at the work site at any one time. The treatment of
villagers at the work site was bad. She herself was kicked
three times in the back by a soldier while working, because
she was tired and could not work properly. She has seen other
people treated badly, usually kicked and sometimes beaten with
a rifle butt. Some people were badly injured in this way. Her
uncle was severely beaten to the head with a rifle butt, and
had to receive medical treatment for a month (no medical
treatment provided by the authorities). The village doctor
provided the services, and this was paid for by the village,
but he had to repay this money. During this month his son had
to go to work in his place, then after one month the uncle had
to work again. It took him two months to fully recover. It was
dangerous for the women when walking home at night, because of
sexual abuse by the soldiers. This happened to two or three
women from her village, including her sister, who was raped.
The village head complained to the military commander, who
encouraged the soldier to marry the girl, but the soldier
refused on the grounds that the woman was Mon, and he was
Burmese. The rape happened last September; her sister was 15.
Her husband first did portering about five years ago. He went
many times, usually about three times per year. The worst was
in 1997, when he did portering three times for three months
each time. In previous years he was usually away for about one
month at a time. Some people can afford to hire substitutes to
do portering for them, but her family could not. When her
husband did portering she did not know where he went, or how
long he would be away. Once he was beaten and came home with
injuries. Other porters died during portering. Usually, five
people were taken from the village as porters at one time.
Her husband said that during portering he had to carry 
ammunition. He always came home thin and weak, and he often
had injuries on his back and shoulders from carrying the
loads. Over the last few years, she knows of ten porters from
her village who died during portering. Five of these died in
1997. The villagers saw some of the dead bodies with wounds
from being beaten. About 6 months ago, two women were also
taken from her village as porters, and were raped and killed
while portering. They were both about 16 years old and
unmarried. It was difficult to survive if her husband was away
portering and she was doing forced labour at the same time. It
was particularly bad last year when her husband was away a
lot, but the railway forced labour was less severe at this
time because there were no soldiers guarding the workers. At
such times, she often had to collect jungle vegetables for
food, or borrow food from relatives. When her children were
sick, she had to borrow money to buy herbal medicines. In her
village, about 20-30 households were in a similar position to
hers, with the man often away portering, and the woman doing
forced labour. Some other households were able to hire
substitute workers. It cost 1,000 kyat to hire a replacement
porter, regardless of the length of time (this was because the
military did not inform porters in advance how many days they
would have to work). There was an army camp in her village
which was built by the villagers starting three years ago. She
herself had to do this work five times. She had to carry
bamboo to be used for the construction. It was a large camp
with a number of buildings, which was finished last rainy
season. Forty villagers at a time were involved in this work,
men and women. After the construction of the buildings, fences
and trenches the work did not stop, because there was almost
constant repair, renovation and extension. Five people per
night were also required to be sentries. When it was the
turn of her household to provide a sentry, her husband was
away and so she would have had to do it, except that her
cousin did it for her out of sympathy. The soldiers mistreated
the villagers often. The soldiers also stayed without
permission in villagers' houses at night, and they often
abused the women at this time, when the men were away. She
knows of ten such incidents since last rainy season. Usually
the soldiers were in groups of two. Last rainy season, the
area where she lived was flooded. At one point while she was
at the work site, she had to spend one day and one night up a
tree without food because of the floods. After a complaint
from the villagers, the soldiers eventually made a bamboo raft
and rescued her and some other villagers. One person had
drowned. The flood destroyed the work camp and the embankment
they had been building. Shortly before fleeing to the refugee
camp her family had to complete a quota of eight kyin (one
kyin = 100 cubic feet) of broken stones. Her husband was away
portering, and when in October 1997 she did not complete the
quota, the soldiers came and ripped down her house and took
away the wood. After that she went to stay with another family
in Aleh Sakhan village. There she was ordered to complete one
kyin of stones, and after completing this she fled with her
children to the refugee camp. It took her four days to walk to
the camp. Her husband had not returned from portering, but he
received the news and he also fled. Her husband arrived at the
refugee camp two months after she did (one month ago). She had
nine sisters. The five oldest, who had their own households,
also had to do railway forced labour. Only two of them had
husbands in the village. The husbands of the other three had
gone to work in Thailand and they had lost contact with them
for two years now. For these three life was very difficult.
One of them left for the refugee camp before she did. The
other four sisters had not yet married and live with her
parents. She came to the refugee camp along with her family
and four other families. She knew of 30 families who had left
the village recently to escape constant forced labour which
meant they did not have time to work for their own families.
                    _________________________


201

Ethnicity:          Mon
Age/sex:            48, male
Family situation:   Married with six children
Occupation:         Slash-and-burn farmer
                    Yebyu township, Tanintharyi Division       
                    (village had 40 households)

The witness came to the Mon refugee camp at the end of 1997
(three months ago) to escape portering and forced labour which
left him with no time to earn a living. Twenty people were
taken from his village for 15 days at a time to do forced
labour on construction of the Ye-Dawei (Tavoy) railway. The
work site was far from the village, so the villagers had to
stay there for the work period. They had to arrange their own
transport and food (they could not carry all necessary food 
with them and so had to take about 2,500 kyat to buy food at
the work site). The work site was near Kaleinaung, and it took
them more than one day to get there (with an overnight stop at
Kanbauk). The work started three or four years ago, he thought
it was 1993. His village was divided into two groups for the
purpose of organising the forced labour. Villagers from each
group had to go in rotation, so each group would work for 15
days, then have 15 days off, then work again for 15 days. The
military chose a "group leader" from among the workers from a
village, and he would be punished by being severely beaten if
any of the labourers ran away. For this reason people did not
want to be group leader and the group leaders often ran away,
so the group leader changed often. He saw such punishments of
group leaders many times. A group leader from his village was
severely punched and kicked when some labourers ran away. The 
man had to provide replacement workers, and soon after this
ran away himself. The work they had to do was digging mud to
level the ground. The work site was a one hour walk from the
camp where they stayed. The workers had to draw lots to decide
which person did which section. They had to work from 6 a.m.
to 5.30 p.m., with a break of 90 minutes in the middle of the
day. If they finished their day's assignment before 5.30, they
would be given other work to do, so they made their given
assignments last the whole day. The hardest work was building
the embankment and collecting rocks. Men and women (even
pregnant women in other groups, though not in his group) did
this work. The oldest workers were about 60, and the youngest
15 or 16. Some women brought their children with them to the
work sites. Some workers secretly took a rest during work. If
the soldiers found where they were hiding, they would beat
them. He was the only person from his family who went, because
the only child who was old enough to go was a daughter, and he
did not want her to go. His wife had to look after the
children. Sometimes they had to sell property or borrow money
to make ends meet until the rice harvest. There was an army
camp at his village, which had been constructed with forced
labour from the villagers. The camp was built around the same
time that the railway forced labour started. His village had
to build the camp using materials provided by a number of
villages in the area. Once the camp was built, there had to be
four villagers permanently there to do forced labour. It was
the responsibility of the village to rotate these people.
However, these four workers were treated very badly by the
soldiers. The villagers were beaten and kicked by the soldiers
for fun. They were given no rest. Many of the villagers could
not speak Burmese fluently, so when they were given orders by
the soldiers, sometimes they did not understand. When there
was no work to do, the soldiers did not let them rest, but
made work for them, such as picking up leaves. Some women were
abused by the soldiers at gunpoint. Because of this bad
treatment, in the end none of the villagers wanted to do this
work. The village instead paid 26,000 kyat per month to hire
four people to do this work. The military also often came to
the village to take porters (three to six at a time). People
usually had to do portering for five or six days at a time.
The soldiers took porters in this way three or four times a
month. He himself did portering twice (two years ago). The
first time was for four days, the second time was for three
days. He had to carry food supplies, 12 pyi of rice weighing
about 22 kg. They would sometimes be given no rest if the
soldiers had to cover a large distance in a day. There were
two kinds of porters: those arranged by the soldiers through
the village head, and those rounded up directly by the
soldiers. Those arranged through the village head could not
run away, but those who were rounded up directly had the
chance to escape. Some people were beaten during portering. He
himself was beaten during his first portering trip. At that
time he was a guide for the soldiers, and they beat him when
they were not satisfied with the path he showed them. He was
hit in the face with a rifle butt, and his face was badly
swollen for a few days. There was no lasting damage. The
present situation with portering was less severe than before
the Mon cease-fire. In his village there were both Mon and
Tavoyan people. The military tended to favour the Tavoyans
(they gave them better food and less severe work). The
military was also involved in extortion. The military sent
orders to village heads for the village to provide (for
example) five viss of dried prawns, or chickens or other
food. If the village did not have the particular food
requested, they would have to buy it. Sometimes a group of
seven or eight soldiers would come to the village, and they
would just take a pig or whatever they wanted. They sometimes
just threw stones at chickens for fun, but no one could say
anything. The soldiers also raped girls in his village. A Mon
girl was raped by some soldiers when her husband was doing
forced labour. The soldiers had come to the village and
demanded a pig. The village said they could not spare one, so
the soldiers demanded half a pig, then got drunk in the
village and walked around, and saw the girl. They tried to
talk to her, but she did not speak Burmese very well, and they
then raped her. Another woman was grabbed by one of the
soldiers and he put her on his shoulders and another soldier
lifted up her longyi (sarong). She cried out, and other
villagers came, so nothing else happened. This happened last
year. He thought that five or six women in his village were
raped since the cease-fire in 1995, but the women did not want
to talk about it. It usually happened when their husbands were
away doing forced labour or portering. In another case, a man
in Natkyizin village had a beautiful daughter, and one of the
soldiers wanted to marry her. The father of the girl did not
agree and complained to the soldier's commander, who punished
the soldier. As revenge, the soldier took the father as a
porter, and cut his throat while he was portering. Poor
families could not afford to pay extortion money to the
soldiers, so the soldiers would come and beat them and tell 
them to do what the other villagers did. He was in this
situation, so in the end he fled secretly with his family. He
had to come secretly because the soldiers stopped people they
thought were trying to flee. It took him one month to reach
the camp from his village. His village used to have 70-80
households. When he left there were only about 40 left, and
now there were even fewer. Some of the villagers fled to other
villages, others came to the refugee camp. Before the
cease-fire few people fled. The portering was more severe at
that time, but it was not the whole village which was
affected. People were taken randomly for portering, and
some were even killed for having suspected contact with the
rebels. After the cease-fire, however, extortion and forced
labour increased, and affected the whole village, so more
people fled. Also, because the local military battalions were
always changing, it meant that there was constant forced
labour and extortion, because one battalion would not care
what labour or extortion the village had had to give to the
previous battalion. 
                    _________________________


202

Ethnicity:          Tavoyan
Age/sex:            38, male
Family situation:   Married with six children
Occupation:         Fisherman
                    Division (village had 70 households)

The witness came to the Mon refugee camp three years ago. He
had done forced labour on the Ye-Dawei (Tavoy) railway, near
Yah Pu. He first did this work one year before he fled to the
camp. He was ordered to do this work by the village head, who
was appointed by the villagers. Each household had to produce
80 kyin of rock chippings. No specific time period was given,
but it usually took about 15 days to produce this amount. The
work site was far from the village, and it took one day to
get there by car and boat. He did this work six or seven
times, and other members of his family also did it at the same
time, so his three youngest children had to be left in the
care of his mother. He, his wife and his three eldest children
(aged 21, 20 and 17) did the forced labour. There were no
soldiers at the work site. The oldest workers were about 60,
with some children aged only eight or nine also doing the
work. The workers had been told that they would be paid 300
kyat per kyin, but in fact they were never paid. He had to pay
money to his mother (100 kyat per day) for food for the three
children she looked after while he was away. He also had to
pay 300 kyat per day as a fee for the three children who did
not go, because the whole village had been ordered to go to
the work site. All this money was lost because they were never
paid anything for the work. He also had to do portering once
in 1994 but he paid 9,000 kyat to hire a substitute. Portering
usually lasted ten to 15 days at least. No one from his
village he knows of was seriously hurt while portering, but he
has seen porters being beaten by soldiers. There was an army
camp in his village. The whole village was forced to build the
camp about four years ago. He took part in that work. He had
to cut bamboo and make sharp spikes for the camp perimeter. He
had to do that work for about four periods of three days each.
The order to do this work came from the village head. There
were about 50 people doing the work at any one time, five or
six of whom were from his village. They had to do the whole
job of building the army camp from scratch, including
levelling the ground, and digging trenches and bunkers. The
village did not have to pay extortion money to the army. His
village was mostly Tavoyan, but in the whole village-tract the
Mon were in a majority. He did not think the situation was
much different for the Mon and Tavoyan people in the
village-tract. 
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203

Ethnicity:          Mon/Burmese
Age/sex:            68, male
Family situation:   Four (him, wife, two married daughters)
Occupation:         Farmer and agent for labourers

The witness organised a group of labourers to work on the
Ye-Dawei (Tavoy) railway construction in 1996. This was
arranged through the Ward LORC head. A payment of 1,200 kyat
per kyin of embankment or rock chippings completed was
arranged between him and the authorities (of which he would
take a percentage); it was not forced labour, as the workers
went to earn money. The embankment had to be completed to the
specifications they provided. In some places it was easy (for
example, it the ground was easy to dig, and the area was
flat), but in other places it was more difficult (for example,
when the railway had to be cut into the side of a hill). Also,
the workers were responsible for their own equipment, so they
often had to replace the cane baskets used to carry the mud.
It could sometimes take ten or even 15 days for a person to
complete ten kyin. One time he remembers people (officials)
coming to the work site to take photos. There were soldiers
supervising the workers. They did not hurt the workers, but
they did take food from the workers. As well as being the
agent for the workers, he also worked himself. He first did 10
kyin of mud embankment, which was very difficult as it was
working on the side of a mountain and involved carrying the
baskets of mud up ladders to build the embankment. This took
him 12 days. He then moved to another part of the construction
and did ten kyin of broken rocks. This took six days. He had
216 labourers working under him, but when the time came to be
paid, the military refused to pay him. The battalion in charge
of the work was IB 106. He tried to come to a deal with the
commander, so that the commander could keep 100 kyat per kyin,
he would keep 100 kyat per kyin, and 1,000 kyat would go to
the workers. The commander refused and finally paid 700 kyat
per kyin, saying this was an order and so it had to be
accepted. The commander kept the 500 kyat per kyin extra for
himself. The 216 workers had by this time completed 486 kyin.
After this no one wanted to do the work voluntarily any more,
so the soldiers had to go back to using forced labour, as they
had before. While he was working in the railway, he saw many
workers at the site. He thinks there were 6,000 or 7,000
people working on the whole stretch that he saw, including
women and children. Sometimes the soldiers supervising the
work would steal rock chippings from the villagers. They would
then sell these rock chippings to other villagers who wanted
to pay money to get out of their forced labour assignment. 
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[END OF SLICE 44]