Human Rights in Rural Burma

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Human Rights in Rural Burma

Karen Human Rights Group
April 30, 1998

[These briefing notes were presented at the Burma conference and related
meetings in Canada in late April and early May
1998.]

In November 1997 the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC)
military junta ruling Burma changed its name to the
State Peace & Development Council (SPDC). However, there was no change
in the four key leaders of the junta, and
judging by the testimonies of villagers throughout Burma and the
continuation of all of the regime?s military operations, there
has been no change in policy; in fact, the forced relocations and
related abuses occurring in many rural parts of the country
have only intensified, making it appear that the SPDC regime is even
more ruthless and repressive than the SLORC ever
was. Like many dictatorships, the SLORC/SPDC is an extremely paranoid
regime, believing that it must control every inch of
territory and the daily lives of every citizen of Burma; that if it
relaxes its repression for one moment, the people will rise and
destroy it. This mentality explains the junta?s refusal to negotiate or
compromise with its opponents, even in situations where
there would be nothing to lose by doing so. SPDC leaders regularly state
that "only the Army can hold the country together",
and they feel that to do this the Army must control absolutely
everything which happens in the country.

In order to gain this control, the military continues to expand at a
rate far beyond the means of the junta or the country. In
many regions, particularly the central and urban areas, the military has
already established near-complete control, but in
remoter areas, such as the non-Burman ethnic areas towards all the
borders, it has only partial or no control, and in some of
these regions there is still armed resistance. The policy of the SPDC,
and before it the SLORC, in the case of any form of
armed resistance is to "drain the ocean so the fish cannot swim"; in
other words, undermine the opposition by attacking the
civilian population until they can no longer support any opposition.
This is the fundamental idea of the Four Cuts policy
(cutting supplies of food, funds, recruits and intelligence to the
resistance) which General Ne Win initiated in the 1970?s.

The current SPDC plan for consolidating control over areas where there
is resistance appears to consist of the following
steps: 1) mount a military offensive against the area; 2) forcibly
relocate all villages to sites under direct Army control and
destroy those villages; 3) use the relocated villagers and others as
forced labour, portering and building military access
roads into their home areas; 4) move more Army units in and use the
villagers as forced labour to build bases along the
access roads; 5) allow the villagers back to their villages, where they
are now under complete military control and can be
used as a rotating source of extortion money and forced labour, further
consolidating control through "development"
projects, forced labour farming for the Army, etc. If resistance attacks
still persist at this last stage, retaliation is carried out
against villages by executing village elders, burning houses and other
means. 

Throughout Burma we can see examples where this process is at various
stages; in eastern Tenasserim Division the SPDC
is still on a military offensive, while in parts of Chin State they are
conducting initial forced relocations, and in central Shan
State they are combining the two. In parts of central Karen State which
they have now occupied for 1-3 years, they are
constructing access roads and new Army bases with forced labour. In
areas which the junta has controlled for longer
periods and those where there has never been active resistance, the
process is well into its last stage of systematic forced
labour and economic exploitation of the local population.

Many villages now being burned by SPDC troops were first burned in 1975
when the Four Cuts were first implemented, and
some villagers speak of having been on the run from Burmese troops since
1975; but even these villagers say that in the
past 2 to 3 years things have grown much worse. The direct attacks on
the civilian population, characterised by mass forced
relocations, destruction of villages and the village economy, and
completely unsustainable levels of forced labour, have now
become the central pillar of SPDC policy in non-Burman rural areas of
Burma. In the past, the regime would strategically
destroy 2 or 3 villages at a time when there was resistance. Now when
they perceive a possibility of armed resistance, they
delineate the entire geographic region and forcibly relocate and destroy
every village there is, as many as hundreds of
villages at a time. In many cases, these villages have had little or no
contact with resistance forces and do not even
understand why they are being targetted.

The worst example of this is central Shan State, where SLORC and SPDC
have destroyed over 1,400 villages since 1996,
making over 300,000 people homeless. The campaign began by relocating
and destroying about 400 villages in an attempt
to undermine the Shan United Revolutionary Army (SURA). Villagers were
given 3 to 7 days to move to Army-controlled
sites, after which many of their homes were burned and anyone seen in
their villages was shot on sight. When this
operation failed to have any effect on the SURA, SLORC/SPDC expanded the

relocation area and also forced many of
those already relocated to move again, to even more crowded and tightly
controlled sites. By early 1998 this forced
relocation campaign had expanded to cover all the villages in an area of
7,000 square miles, totalling over 1,400 villages,
and the area is still being expanded despite the fact that many of these
villages have never had any contact whatsoever
with Shan opposition groups. The SURA has now joined with other groups
to form the Shan State Army (SSA) and is
seeking negotiations with the SPDC, but the junta has refused
negotiations and vows to crush them. The villagers are
starving in the relocation sites, where the SPDC gives them nothing and
uses them as forced labour building Army camps
and an air base and maintaining and guarding roads into the area. Many
villagers can be seen begging for food along these
roads, while many others have been shot on sight or massacred by
SLORC/SPDC troops because they try to return to their
villages to find food. An estimated 80,000-100,000 refugees from the
region have already fled to Thailand and more
continue to do so, but there are no Shan refugee camps in Thailand so
they have no option but to enter the illegal
workforce, ending up as cheap labour on plantations, construction sites,
in sweatshops and as bonded labour in Thai
brothels. The SPDC freely allows the ethnic Shans to flee into Thailand,
and has now begun a practice of stripping them of
their Burmese identity papers as they leave, probably in order to ensure
that they can never return.

In Karenni (Kayah State), over 200 villages have been forcibly relocated
and destroyed since 1996, after the SLORC broke
a ceasefire agreement to attack the Karenni National Progressive Party
(KNPP). Almost every hill village in the entire state
has been destroyed. First the Army issued orders that all villagers move
to military-controlled camps within 7 days or be
"considered as enemy". Patrols then went from village to village,
burning and destroying everything and capturing or killing
any villagers found. Some villagers are still struggling to survive in
hiding in the forests, but most have fled to the towns or
gone to the relocation sites, where they live in starvation conditions
and are used by SPDC troops as forced labour
maintaining Army camps and as servants for soldiers. Since the beginning
of 1998, SPDC troops have swept and destroyed
villages in the south of the State where the relocation orders had not
previously been strongly enforced, and have now
begun expanding the relocations to include villages in northern Karenni
along the Shan border, which had previously not
been relocated because they are in an area partly controlled by the
Karenni Nationalities People?s Liberation Front
(KNPLF), a group which has a ceasefire deal with the SPDC.

In northern Karen State, SLORC and SPDC have destroyed at least 200
Karen villages since March 1997 as part of their
campaign to consolidate control over this rugged region adjacent to the
Thai border. Villages close to Army garrisons in
Papun, Nyaunglebin and Toungoo districts were ordered to move to Army
sites by mid-1997, and some were used to build

military access roads while others were taken as porters by troops
setting out to destroy all villages in the region. However,
most of the villages are small and remote in the forested hills and
troops can never catch villagers there, so Army columns
have never even given them relocation orders; the columns simply
approach each village, shell it with mortars, then enter
and burn down every house. As stated in a typed and signed SLORC order
issued to 64 villages in 1997, "The
abovementioned villages must move and consolidate. ? Small villages,
even those not included in the above list, must
move and consolidate to nearby consolidation villages before May 6th.
Villages which fail to move will be destroyed."
Food supplies are systematically hunted out and burned and villagers are
shot on sight. Most villagers have fled into the
forest where they hide in groups of 2 or 3 families, trying to stay near
their ancestral fields so they can grow some food.
However, SPDC patrols sweep the area at least once a month to hunt out
and destroy their shelters, destroy any crops or
food supplies, and shoot villagers and livestock on sight. An estimated
30,000 villagers are still living in hiding in the forest,
and the area of village destruction continues to expand. About 2,000
people have escaped to refugee camps in Thailand,
but this is difficult and dangerous because of landmines and SPDC
patrols. In March, Thai authorities moved these refugee
camps further south and barred non-governmental organisations from this
part of the border, so it is likely that any new
arrivals will be forced back across the border at gunpoint by Thai
troops.

Similar forced relocations and village destruction campaigns have been
occurring in other parts of the country as well, such
as southern Tenasserim Division, where at least 100 villages have been
relocated and destroyed and are now being used
as forced labour building a road network and Army camps throughout their
home area, and Chin State, where some
strategic forced relocations are now occurring. In Pa?an and Dooplaya
districts of central Karen State, the SPDC is in the
next stage of consolidating its control and is currently using villagers
as forced labour building road networks and new Army
camps, while continuing to conduct localised forced relocation and
destruction of villages wherever villagers are to be more
tightly controlled or punished for opposition activity in their area. 

Another tool now being used by the SPDC to consolidate its control over
ethnic rural populations is the creation and support
of "proxy armies" in order to divide the ethnic-based resistance. In
Karenni State, the Karenni National Democratic Army was
created in 1996 at the instigation of SLORC and used to attack Karenni
refugee camps in Thailand. In 1994 the Democratic
Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) formed of its own in Karen State but was
promptly made dependent on SLORC for material
support, and since that time it has primarily been used as a form of
SLORC/SPDC militia and to attack Karen refugee camps
in Thailand. The most recent such attacks occurred in March 1998, when
Huay Kaloke (Wan Kha) refugee camp was

burned, leaving four refugees dead and 9,000 homeless, and Maw Ker and
Beh Klaw (Mae La) camps were also attacked.
In late 1997 in central Karen State, the SLORC helped to form the Karen
Peace Army (KPA) under the command of a Karen
Army officer who was known for corruption. The SPDC has now given this
new proxy army control over a large territory in
central Karen State, ejecting the DKBA from the area in the process. The
KPA still has only 200 or 300 soldiers, but they
are actively recruiting by promising that the families of all recruits
will be exempt from forced labour for the SPDC. It appears
likely that the SPDC may pit the KPA against the DKBA in the future, and
if the KNU (Karen National Union) continues to
fight both groups, then the SPDC will likely take a step back, simply
supplying and encouraging the war in Karen State until
all of the resistance movements are so weak that they can be crushed and
controlled one by one.

In areas where there is full SPDC control and no resistance, the
villagers become completely at the disposal of the Army.
They must continually do rotating shifts of forced labour as servants at
each of the Army camps near their village, and new
Army camps are always being established. They must also go for up to two
weeks per month of forced labour on
infrastructure projects, such as roads, railways and hydro dams, which
the Army implements to consolidate control and
attract foreign investment. Villagers must also pay the cost of these
projects; the SPDC-controlled media often describes
"self-reliance basis" projects, meaning those which are constructed
entirely with the forced labour and money of villagers;
the money forced out of villagers for these infrastructure projects is
listed as "people?s contributions" and usually amounts to
one-third to half of the total budget. However, in reality any money
provided by Rangoon is simply pocketed by local and
higher-level authorities, while villagers are forced to pay anywhere
from 100% to 300% of the actual cost of the project to
these same authorities. In addition, many Army camps confiscate their
farmland without compensation and then force them
to do labour growing rations and cash crops for the Army or for export.
They must also do forced labour gathering building
materials for Army camps and participating in moneymaking activities for
the local Army officers, such as logging and
brickbaking. An average family must send one person for each of 3 or 4
types of forced labour every month; women must
often do this labour because men are more likely to be beaten by
soldiers at the worksite, and children must often go
because their parents need to work the fields for the survival of the
family. If the village fails to comply with requests for
forced labourers, materials or money, the village elders are arrested
and often tortured, houses are burned down, or the
Army simply storms the village and takes two or three times as many
people for labour as were originally requested.

In urban areas the SPDC has decreased its demands for forced labour,
because it fears the possibility of uprisings in the
cities and because forced labour in the cities is more visible to

foreign visitors. Instead the regime uses convicts for forced
labour in the cities or brings in villagers in from rural areas, while
those who live in the cities simply pay cash in lieu of doing
forced labour. In some forced labour projects on tourist routes the SPDC
has even taken to paying forced labourers, though
the amount paid is usually 20 or 40 Kyats per day, which is no more than
25% of the money needed for daily food. This
allows them to show foreigners that forced labourers are "paid", even
though in the rest of the country forced labourers are
never paid.

In some rural areas thousands of acres are confiscated and the villagers
must do forced labour establishing fishpond
projects and rubber plantations. These projects are often promoted in
the media as "local income generation", but all
proceeds go to the Army. Officers also steal the wages and rations of
rank-and-file soldiers and then order their soldiers to
survive by looting the villages. All farmers who still have land must
hand over 25-50% of their crops as a quota to the Army
and are paid only 10-20% of market price. The quotas increase every
year, even when there are bad crops and natural
disasters, and farmers often have to sell their belongings to buy rice
at market price just so they will have enough to pay the
quota and avoid arrest. Many of the crops grown by forced labour and
those handed over as quota are used to support the
Army, but local officers take and sell a great deal of it, and it is
likely that much of it is also sold to foreign companies for
"countertrade" export; "countertrade" is a practice whereby foreign
companies convert profits earned in Kyat, the local
currency which cannot be exported, into exportable goods by buying
agricultural products from SPDC agencies. Cash crops
and rubber are often used for this.

Every Army camp demands money from every village in its area, and
usually this is calculated to amount to all the money a
village can raise each month. With the arrival of new Army camps, the
amount increases proportionately. In 1995 the Karen
Human Rights Group studied a group of 28 villages averaging 50 families
in size and found that each village was paying an
average of approximately 100,000 Kyat per month to local Army battalions
just in established cash fees, not including extra
fees to avoid forced labour, ad hoc extortion demands or forced
contribution of food and other material goods. 100,000 Kyat
is US$15,000 at official exchange rate or US$350 at market rate, but for
a subsistence farming village it is a very large
amount of money. This amount continues to increase because of the
constant expansion of the number of Army camps near
every village. Just looking at this amount and considering the number of
villages in Burma, it appears that at least one to
two billion Kyat per month is being robbed from rural villagers by SPDC
field military officers, and this does not even include
other money which these officers make by selling rations and village
goods, or by stealing the wages of their soldiers.
These officers have no expenses while in the field. They remit a portion
of their profits to higher-level officers and send the

remainder to their families, most of whom live in Rangoon, Mandalay or
other large towns. Their families can then use these
billions of Kyat flowing into the towns as seed money to start
businesses, and it is these businesses which lead to the false
impression of "economic growth" in the cities. In fact, all of the
"growth" in the cities is financed by this steady flow of money
and goods robbed from rural villagers, combined with the laundered
profits of the narcotics trade.

The SPDC is systematically stripping rural Burma of all it can produce
in order to finance a façade of economic improvement
in the cities, while at the same time destroying the food production
capabilities of most non-Burman ethnic areas. Even rural
villages which have never been burned or forcibly relocated cannot
sustain this system. Having to do so much forced labour
that they no longer have enough time to farm, to hand over crop quotas
which are often more than they can grow and cash
which is more than they could ever obtain, and always facing the
additional looting by SPDC soldiers, many villagers can
only survive by selling off their livestock and valuables. When those
are gone or when another Army camp comes to their
area, they have no choice but to flee or face arrest. Many end up as
beggars in the towns, internally displaced people in the
forests, or "economic migrants" and refugees in neighbouring countries.
Over 80% of Burma?s population live in rural
villages, but the SPDC is looting the countryside until the village is
no longer viable as a social unit. This is the key factor
causing Burma?s current economic crisis. The SPDC apparently hopes to
keep operating this unsustainable system,
propping it up with money from foreign investment and aid. This explains
their current attempts to attract investment and aid
money. However, without political or policy changes, any outside support
will only prop up an unsustainable system and
ensure a greater disaster in the future.