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ILO: FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA-28



[ILO COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON FORCED LABOUR IN BURMA, SLICE
28]


11

Ethnicity:           Chin
Age/sex:             49, male
Family situation:    Married with seven children
Education:           Master's degree in physics
Occupation:          Teacher (of physics) when he was in       
                     Myanmar; participated in the opposition   
                     movement against the Government
                     before leaving Myanmar)


The witness was the ex-Chairman of the Delhi Burmese Christian
Fellowship, ex-Secretary General of the Chin National Council,
Secretary General of the Overseas Chin Theological 
Association. In 1969, when he was completing his second year
of university in Yangon, he took part in the student movement
against the military Government. Following his involvement, he
was expelled from the university for two years. He
subsequently returned to the university to complete his degree
(BSc) in 1972. He continued his studies to MSc level. In 1974,
he took part in the events related to U Thant's funeral. He
was arrested, held in custody and sentenced to seven years'
imprisonment. He was not allowed the counsel of his own
choosing and the judicial procedure was summary. Together with
a cell-mate, he set up a student organization to combat the
military junta, which had as its main platform the overthrow
of the junta. He was released on 20 July 1980 and returned to
Matupi. He taught there until 1985. He subsequently returned
to Yangon in 1985-86. He returned to Matupi in 1986 and was
transferred to the school at Sabaungte village. He was later
transferred to Matupi again in 1988. In March 1988, his former
cell-mate contacted him to tell him that the student movement
against the government had re-formed in Yangon. He then went
to Yangon. He was one of the leaders who organized the
movement for a national strike which was called on 8 August
1988. The situation then became very tense. The military were
convinced that the strike movement had been started by senior
students. They made death threats against them. At that point,
he organized the escape of these students to Thailand. He
personally left the country on 11 November 1988 with two other
people. One of these returned to Myanmar and was probably now
in prison; the other was in India. After leaving Myanmar, he
went to Mizoram to a refugee camp (no longer in existence) for
two months. On 2 February 1989, he arrived at Aizawl, the
capital of Mizoram. There he founded the Chin National Front
on 25 March 1989. Between March 1989 and 1992, he worked
underground in the jungle along the Bangladesh-India-Myanmar
border. Finally, he settled in Delhi in 1992 for health
reasons. With more specific regard to forced labour, he
personally performed forced labour in Matupi on several
occasions in 1982 and 1984 when he was a teacher. In 1982, the
inhabitants of the village were forced on several occasions
during the year to work on the building of a road between
Matupi and Paletwa. He personally had to pay 2,500 kyat to
employ the services of a substitute (on several occasions).
The Chief of the People's Council, U Thang Gwo, supervised the
work. In 1984 he worked on the building of a road to the
hydro-electric power-station two miles outside his village. He
also worked on two occasions between 1982 and 1985 on the
extension of the Matupi road. His sisters also worked on this.
When he was teaching at the Sabaungte school, he had to take
part in road-building for a week. He had to sleep in the
jungle. It was the township authorities which ordered the work
to be done. He could not refuse. All this time, he saw the
inhabitants of the villages where he was living being forced
to work for the military. He did not see any change after
1988 in the way the military resorted to civilian labour to
carry out different types of work.
                        _________________

12
 
Ethnicity:           Chin
Age/sex:             33 or 34, male 
Family situation:    Married
Education:           Economics
Occupation:          Student, Institute of Economic Sciences
                     (lived in Yangon before he left Myanmar   
                     on 10 October 1988)


(The witness had personal written notes.)

He was the former vice-president of the Chin Student Union.
Member of the Chin Human Rights Committee of the Chin National
Council. Editor of the Phuntungtu newspaper. He was involved
in the student movement from his first year at university in
1984-85. He took part in the student demonstration of 6
September 1987, following the cancellation by the authorities
in May of that year of certain bank notes (25 and 75 kyat).
The universities remained closed until 26 October 1987. He
also took part in the demonstration in March 1988. The 
universities were closed once again. At that point, he
returned to Haka. In June 1988, the universities were
reopened. He took part in the student demonstrations. He
returned to Haka where he founded the Haka Student Union. He
was involved as an organizer in the demonstrations which took
place in Haka and Yangon. On 25 October 1988, the Chin Student
Movement was created at Falam. He was then at Haka. He went to
Falam a little later. He went there once again at the time
when the military authorities were demanding that the
sign-board of the union be taken down. After meeting with a
refusal to do so, the authorities took it down themselves
early the next morning. After this, he had to go into hiding.
He left the country in his last university year. He feared
arrest after five of his friends were arrested at Haka on 5
October 1988. He left Myanmar and went to India on 10 October
1989 to the Champhai refugee camp. He subsequently returned to
Myanmar, to the region near the Thai border. On his experience
of forced labour. Work for the military had to be performed in
all parts of Chin State, but the Haka-Thantlang region was
particularly affected because of the student festival to be
held there. There was a military camp in his village. Since
childhood he has therefore seen people being forced to work
for the military, performing various types of work at the
camp. He also saw portering. In his village, work for the
military was mainly carried out between 1988 and 1995. The
150 families in his village each had to provide one person to
perform this work. Road building. (1)  Between Haka and
Thantlang, the work spread over two weeks. (2) Between Haka
and Gangaw, the work began in 1986. He provided photos, taken
in 1997, which showed the conditions under which the work on
this road is carried out (document M10). He said they were
sent to him by a college teacher. The notes beside the photos
were written by him, following indications provided by the
teacher who took them. He did not personally carry out work
for the military because he was not in his village. University
students were not generally requisitioned for this kind of
work. However, college students and public officials could be.
He said his cousin performed work for the military. This
relative also left Myanmar for Mizoram in order to escape
forced labour. Women must also perform work for the military.
The work was not paid. He submitted various documents
(documents M10 to M18). Several of these related to Mizoram.
                        _________________

13
 
Age/sex:             63, male
Family situation:    Married for 26 years with seven children
Occupation:          Minister of Social Welfare, National      
                     Coalition Government of the Union of      
                     Burma (in exile). (Elected MP in 1990,    
                     former Minister of Labour of NCGUB.)


In 1993-94, in preparation for the Students' Sport Festival in
Sittway (Akyab), a lot of forced labour was imposed on the
general population. For building a playing field, the 31 wards
in Sittway township and 26 other townships had to take turns
over six months for one day per week from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.,
bringing their own food. The order had been given by the
regional military commander in writing to the Township LORC
and passed down to the Ward LORC chairman. No one was paid.
Those who did not want to work had to pay 150 kyats to the
LORC chairman, even if they were sick. A large signboard had
been put up at every intersection stating that those who
evaded the work would be arrested. Witness's own 15 year old
son, the only child not attending school and free to do the
forced labour, was hit with a plastic pipe when he returned
late for his work shift from a lunch-time swim. A lot of
forced labour was going on building and widening roads.
Witness personally saw in Sittway (in December 1993) every day
3,000 to 4,000 people who worked on the road for six to seven
months before the Student Sports Festival. His family
constantly paid the Ward LORC to hire others to work in their
place. Even old women and young girls were beaten if they did
not work properly. When sick, they had to bring their own
medicine. Large trees by the side of all the roads in the
township were felled by prisoners and cut up, and the wood had
to be put on trucks to be used as firewood by the army. Each
tree had to be carried by four men, women carried only stones.
People who did not show up for work were deprived of their
identity cards and ration cards. For the Student Sport
Festival also, apart from building roads and bridges, all the
small huts alongside the road to the festival had to be
destroyed, and the big houses renovated with tin roofs and
repainted. The owners had to repair the pavement themselves,
build a ditch alongside the road (or pay the municipal council
to do it) and pay for the brick lining. Boat owners had to
transport stones and wood for building a three-mile long road
bridge, over 180 miles away, from Kyaukphyu to Sittway. Also, 
each township had to supply each day for about one-and-a-half
months 1,000 eggs, 100 chickens, goats and pigs to a
Government storehouse, purportedly for the Student Sport
Festival, but the army took half. In Sittway (Akyab) they
built simultaneously a Buddha museum and an archeological
museum in 1993/94, and in the municipal area everybody had to
bring stones, etc. Every Saturday, for either building, 500
people had to carry bricks, stones, concrete and sand. They
were unpaid and brought their own food. For the whole of the
Rakhine State, roads and bridges were built with forced
labour, witness saw this himself in Kyaukphyu, Rathedaung and
other places. In Rathedaung township in 1993 - 1994 all people
had to build army barracks for 13 to 14 months. Every day 300
to 500 people. The order had been given from the military
commander to the Township LORC, to the Ward LORC. Trees had
to be cut down from a hilltop and the ground levelled. Then
each family had to give 100 bamboo poles, each house five
wooden posts and 100 nipa palm thatch sheets. They had to
build the fence, dig toilets for the camp. For the soldiers'
families to get food, the village people had to plant a
vegetable garden and build a fence around it. Farmers had to
prepare a rice field, plant the paddy, harvest, winnow, and
bring the rice to a warehouse they even had to build
themselves for the army. Men and women of all ages had to
work. When a bit slow, the soldiers would beat them. He
witnessed it. In the rice fields, women planted the rice, men
ploughed. Young women also had to carry water uphill to the
commander's house and wash his clothes.

As regards discrimination against families of politicians,
when seven members of parliament in exile (including witness
himself) signed a petition for the release of Aung San Suu
Kyi, his eldest daughter and her husband lost their jobs as
2nd in charge and Township Manager of Government Fisheries,
and his son's licence for running a ferry, for which he had
paid 720,000 kyat (per year) was cancelled, the money gone.
His wife and son were arrested for a few days, and his family
was now under house arrest: his wife and son had to report
twice daily to the police and report all their movements with
reason, date and duration to the Township LORC.
                        _________________

14 

Ethnicity:           Rakhine
Age/sex:             24, male
Family situation:    Single
Occupation:          TV electrician

The witness left Myanmar in 1993. He had not personally
performed work for the military. He was a student. He had,
however, witnessed several incidents. Road building. He saw
villagers working on the roads when he was going to the market
at Kyauktaw. The work consisted of digging out embankments for
the road. The ditch dug had sloping sides, so that the width
of the ditch was around four feet at the bottom and around
eight feet at road level. It was around four-and-a-half feet
deep. One person from each group of ten houses had to work on
this road. Each village taking part in the construction had
around 200 to 300 houses. Each house had to provide one
person. No member of his close family had worked on this road,
but more distant relatives had, however, been called up for
work. Men, women and children were called on to work. If the
man was absent for whatever reason, he had to be replaced so
that the one-person-per-house rule was kept to. For some
villages, the work was carried out nearby, but for others it
could be a day's walk away. In the case of the former, workers
could go home; in the latter, they had to build shelters to
sleep in. The workers had to bring their own food.
Road-building work was done in the cold season, which was also
the period of the rice harvest. It was impossible to refuse
(for fear of reprisals by the armed soldiers). It was
nevertheless possible for those with money  to bribe the
soldiers or pay a substitute. But even if the army was given
money, there was no guarantee that those who paid would never
be requisitioned since the money was generally kept by the
soldier to whom it was given. The military were everywhere.
The work was ordered by the regional command for the Rakhine
State. The order was transmitted to the central command of the
township. The village heads were then contacted to organize
the work. The army supervised and ensured discipline. The
soldiers checked everyone. In addition to the building work
which they had to perform, they had also to meet all the needs
of the military: food, water, etc. He did not witness any
violent treatment, however, the soldiers used abusive language
when they addressed the workers. The roads were poorly built.
They were often built on rice-paddies and cattle tracks. They
were therefore always in a damaged state. To his knowledge, it
had never been possible to use them. Military camp work. The
military camp of Taung Taung U was near Kyauktaw. The work was
carried out in 1992/93. He was told that the persons working
on the roads also had to go to the camp to carry out various
types of work. Generally, the villagers had to keep animals
for the use of the army, which appropriated them when patrols
were made. The older men had to cut bamboo stems to make ropes
from them for army use. The older women had to go and fetch
water for the camp, which was located on a mountain top and
had no water supply. Canal work. The canal was between the
rivers Tu Myauk (a tributary of Kaladan river) and Yo Shaung.
The work was carried out in 1992/93. The Yo Shaung had to be
widened. The canal was 15 feet deep and 40 feet wide. Each
village had a portion to dig. The work was done in ten days.
It was possible to do it quickly because of the large number
of villages which took part. He remembered the names of 17
villages which had been called upon: Bo Me Yo, Barawa Yo, Kwa
Sone, Palaung Shaung, Aung Zaya, Bone Za, Kin Swin Shaung,
Kauk Kyaik, Pale Shaung, Ouk Ta Bra, Na Prauk Se, Ohn Pati,
Tin Braun, Wa Tawn, Kan Sauk, Ma Rwet Taung, Tu Myauk. There
were others. The first village had around 300 families. 
                       ____________________


15

Ethnicity:           Rakhine
Age/sex:             34, male
Family situation:    Single
Occupation:          Representative of the committee of the
                     Mizoram refugee camp


The witness recounted two recent events related to portering
which had occurred in the Rakhine State. (1) On 16 November
1996, Shwe Thin, commander of Battalion No. 376, went to Kyak
Ku Zu, Kyauktaw township with two other soldiers. It was
around 4 p.m. He wanted to recruit porters. The village has
150 houses and each had to provide one porter. Shwe Thin
organized a meeting to this end and set a time by which the
necessary porters were to be recruited, threatening to
exterminate the village's inhabitants if the order was not
carried out in the time laid down. He came back an hour later
and began shooting. Five persons were killed immediately. U
Sein Hla Maung, village head, aged 45; U Tha Sin, group
leader, aged 38; U Sein Thwin Aung, group leader, aged 42; U
Twee Sein Aung, group leader, aged 50; Maung Nge, son of U
Sein Hla Maung, aged seven. Ten other people were injured.
Shwe Thin continued, entered a residence and killed its rich
owner and those present: U Way Phu Aung, a rich man, aged 60;
Daw Sein Ma She, his wife, aged 58; Ko Thein Twin Aung, their
son-in-law, aged 37; Maung Than Htay, son of U Way Phu Aung,
aged ten; U Thein Twin, aged 38; Maung Lay Win, a tradesman,
aged 38; and U Tha Htway Phyu, a visitor from another village,
aged 45. The daughter of U Way Phu Aung was injured, together
with her two-year-old son and ten other persons. Some have
died since. In the end, no porters were recruited. He knew the
person who told him this story well. (2) In the second week of
December 1996 around 8.30 p.m. at Sittway (Akyab), a
high-ranking military man ordered a bicycle-rickshaw driver to
take him to a distant place (seven miles away). The driver
refused and was killed there and then. His wife was pregnant.
He knew the person well who told him this story.
                       ____________________

16

Ethnicity/religion:  Rakhine, Buddhist
Age/sex:             32, male
Occupation:          Buddhist monk


The witness was an official in the Indian section of the All
Burma Monks Union/Arakan, an organization founded in
Bangladesh in 1992, the Indian section of which was created in
Delhi in May 1995. He related some events, of which he had
personal knowledge, which related to forced labour. (1) In
October 1991, in the village of Ngaloun Kyone, in the south of
Kyaukphyu district, the inhabitants had to provide wood for
the military (Battalion 34). Each house had to provide 200
18-inch pieces of wood. He personally saw inhabitants cutting
the wood. They had to go into the forest. The work lasted a
month. The workers were not paid. It was always possible to
pay bribes (baskets of rice, tobacco, leaves, fermented fish
paste, dried chillies, fish). The wood was used for building
military huts near the border with Bangladesh. (2) In the
village of Ngaloun Su, a 43-year-old man was ill. He asked a
soldier if he could be exempted from the work (woodcutting).
The soldier refused and ordered him to perform the work. The
man refused and was beaten so badly by the soldier with a
metal stick that his hip was broken. His screams produced a
gathering of people. One person who said that the injured man
should be sent to hospital was also hit. In the end, a doctor
came and concluded that the man was in need of serious
treatment. The soldier told him to attend to him. (3) In the
village of Go Du, 1991, a soldier forced an old woman of 71 to
go and gather wood in the jungle. She told him she was too
old. The soldier insisted on having wood. The woman obeyed
the order and died carrying it out. (4) In the village of Wa
Bone Kyi, he twice saw villagers cutting wood for the purpose
of building military huts. The first time, the villagers each
had to provide 200 pieces of wood, while the second time the
quota set was 700. A villager had told him that the village
was unlucky because these inhabitants were always having to
work for the army. (5) At Sittway (Akyab), during the first
week of April a soldier was standing with a metal ring (four
inches in diameter) near a jetty in the middle of the town.
There were also pieces of wood of different sizes. Only the
pieces of wood which had precisely the dimensions of the ring
were kept. Those which were either too large or too small in
diameter were rejected. These were the pieces of wood obtained
from the forced labour mentioned above (see point 4). (6) In
1986, Kyaukphyu. Prison labour. Prisoners were in chains, as
the authorities feared they might escape. The witness regarded
this as cruel treatment even if it applied to prisoners. These
prisoners were assigned to cutting wood. (7) In Mandalay in
1988 a road was to be built. A line was marked out to indicate
the places through which the road should pass. All the house
fronts which encroached over the line had to be "cut back" by
the house owners without compensation. 
                       ____________________

17

Ethnicity:           Burman
Age/sex:             36, male
Family situation:    Married
Occupation:          President of the All Burma Student League


The witness was the president of the All Burma Student League.
He had held numerous interviews with the villagers of upper
Myanmar. He recounted three events connected with forced
labour. (1) The building of the Pakokku-Kalaymyo-Htoma road
in Magway and Sagaing Divisions. The work was unpaid. This was
the first case he dealt with last year. (2) In December 1997,
the construction using forced labour of a new airport in the
village (now a town) of Htoma, near Kalaymyo. (3)
Infrastructure that the authorities were building near to the
Indian border on the Myanmar side, in particular, a road
between Tamu and Kalaymyo. The workers were forced to work on
this. 
                       ____________________

18

Ethnicity:           Rohingya
Age/sex:             48, male
Family situation:    Married with six daughters and two sons
Occupation:          Farmer with 16 khani (6 acres) of land
                     Rakhine State(village had 25,000 to       
                     30,000 inhabitants, it was situated close 
                     to a NaSaKa camp; population mainly       
                     Rohingyas)

The witness left Myanmar because (1) the Government had seized
his land; and (2) he had been subjected to forced labour.
He left Myanmar in early January 1998. It had become
increasingly difficult for a Rohingya to travel freely in
Myanmar (he could not, for example, go to Yangon). So far as
the expropriation of his land was concerned, the NaSaKa seized
his land five years ago to distribute it to the other
inhabitants who were Rakhines. He said he received no
compensation. Having been deprived of his land, he was taken
on as a day labourer in the same village.

With regard to forced labour, his village was close to a
NaSaKa camp. Orders to carry out work were given orally. They
came from members of the NaSaKa who transmitted them through
the village head. They informed the village head of their
needs and he had to assemble the necessary labour. All the
Rohingya men had to perform work for the NaSaKa. He did not
see Rakhines doing this type of work. Three years ago (when he
was 45), he had to (i) transport wood for construction; (ii)
help with agricultural work; and (iii) work as a porter.
Transporting wood. He had to do this more times than he could
count. It was difficult to say how many times: when members of
the NaSaKa needed him, they called for him. All men (women
were not requisitioned for forced labour) had to do this work.
Two men were required to transport wood. The total number of
workers depended on the needs of the NaSaKa, but could be as
many as 200. A whole day was needed for a single tree (it took
three hours to cut down a tree). The forest was quite a long
way from his village. It was always possible to give bribes to
be exempted. Agricultural work. He had to help more times than
he could count in growing rice on land held by Rakhines. This
work was required in the two annual growing seasons and had to
be performed three days a week during harvests, which lasted
for two months. He was not paid. He was not given food. He had
to bring his rice. The same persons were required to do this
work as for the transporting of wood. There were no children.
Portering. He had also worked as a porter for the NaSaKa and
had to take food from one place to another more times than he
could remember. He began at the age of 43 (five years ago) at
a distance of three to six kilometres from his home. The
assignments generally lasted a day. The same persons were
required to do this work as for transporting wood. Lastly, he
had to stand guard for the NaSaKa to intercept persons
coming from the sea. He had to do sentry duty 12 nights a
month. The same persons were required to do this work as for
transporting wood. Treatment. He was threatened badly by
members of the NaSaKa. He was beaten at least 25 times and
had his hair cut off for falling asleep on the job. Two people
were killed last year in his village by the NaSaKa. His view
was that the NaSaKa used people as if they were beasts of
burden. Taxes. The NaSaKa informed the village head of the
amount of taxes and he had to see to it they were collected.
People had ten days to pay. These were monthly taxes. The
amount had increased over the years and fluctuated
considerably depending on the building work undertaken by the
NaSaKa. He had to pay these taxes since childhood. Only the
Rohingyas had to pay these taxes. If people did not have
enough money, they had to sell their property to pay the
taxes.
                       ____________________

19
 
Ethnicity:           Rohingya
Age/sex:             28, male
Family situation:    Married with wife and two children;       
                     parents 
Occupation:          Farmer
                     Rakhine State (village had 25,000 to      
                     30,000 inhabitants)


The witness left Myanmar at the beginning of January 1998.
When he was requisitioned for work, the order came from the
NaSaKa who used the village head as an intermediary. The
village head sent a messenger to inform the persons selected
of the work they had to carry out. NaSaKa camp. He first had
to perform work for a NaSaKa camp at the age of 18. The work
involved cutting wood and building the camp. He had to perform
carpentry work. On each occasion, the assignment lasted
between ten and 15 days. He had been forced to carry out this
work every year since then, as the buildings had to be
renovated. He also had to repair the fences. He worked at the
camp for the last time one-and-a-half months before his
departure. Portering. He had to work as a porter from the age
of 12. Men and children were requisitioned for this work when
the NaSaKa had to transport materiels or munitions from one
camp to another. He estimated he worked as a porter on average
two or three times a month. Not all the portering work was for
the same camps. The duration of the assignment depended on the
length of the journey, but was generally for two days to cover
between 16 and 20 kilometres. He last did portering work
around 25 days ago. Shrimp farming. Since the age of 12, he
had to work on a shrimp-farming project belonging to the
NaSaKa. He had to work there twice a month each year during
the two growing seasons. He had to perform this work every
year. Since 1991, he has also had to help the Rakhines during
the two annual growing periods. Sentry duty. Lastly, he had to
stand guard from time to time. When this occurred, the work
lasted 24 hours, uninterrupted. Treatment. The workers were
beaten if they did not work according to orders received and
at a satisfactory pace. He was beaten five or six times
himself, the reason given in each case was for being slow.
Taxes. The amount of taxes varied considerably. When an
official of the NaSaKa visited the camp, the villagers had to
pay. The amount of taxes varied depending on the number of
visits.
                       ____________________

20

Ethnicity:           Rohingya
Age/sex:             45, female
Family situation:    Widowed with two sons (one of whom is
                     deceased), four grandchildren and one     
                     daughter-in-law
Occupation:          Farmer
                     (village had 1,300 families)


The witness left Myanmar at the end of December 1997. Her son
was first requisitioned for forced labour at the age of 12. He
had to perform forced labour until his death at the age of 30.
He had to clean camps, build houses, and transport wood and
sacks of rice. Her son had to work on average 14 days per
month (in rotation). The schedule was not fixed, however,
since the men were requisitioned as required by the NaSaKa. 
The other men in the village were subject to the same
treatment. Members of the NaSaKa personally threatened her
when she objected to them taking the fruit from a tree which
was on her land. She heard that members of the NaSaKa had
sexually assaulted women when the families objected to them
taking their possessions.
                       ____________________

[END OF SLICE 28]