SUMMARY
Despite their promise to the ILO to let up the use of forced labour, the Burmese military junta are still blatantly using unpaid civilian forced labour in virtually all their undertakings, including economic activities, military operations, building and maintaining infrastructures such as roads, bridges and military facilities, cultivating crops for the military, and, in many cases, even in their daily personal matters, in the whole Shan State.

Xo-carts, mini-tractors, trucks, cars and other vehicles of the people are frequently being forced to serve the military for nothing and without them taking any responsibility for any damage done to the vehicles.

Extrajudicial killing and rape of innocent villagers by members of the Burmese military, even outside of the so-called free-fire zones, are still frequent occurrences.

Frequent, often unbearable, extortion of money and things from the people, often in the form of unreasonable ‘taxes’ or ‘fines’, are making them poorer and poorer.

The confiscation of land, the destruction of rice and other crops that have been planted, the restrictions of movement that prevent the farmers from being able to grow crops and the killings of livestock are depriving the people of their food supply and are pushing them, especially the internally displaced, closer to starvation.

These factors are continuing to displace people and causing them to flee to other places in the country as well as to neighbouring countries.

KILLING OF INNOCENT VILLAGER IN A TEMPLE IN FRONT OF MONKS, IN MURNG-NAI
On 21.9.00, at around midday, an innocent man was killed by a patrol of SPDC troops from LIB418 in a Buddhist temple in front of the resident monks, and the monks were scolded and threatened for harbouring him, at Hai Kuay village in Murng-Nai township.

The victim, Zaai Yawn, aged 18, was a villager of Hai Kuay village. He was visiting and talking with some of the novice monks at the temple when a patrol of SPDC troops from LIB418 suddenly came into the temple and asked the abbot questions about the Shan soldiers.

Zaai Yawn, an ordinary villager who was at one time severely beaten and tortured by SPDC troops while he was being forced to serve as a porter, was so frightened at the sight of the soldiers that he quickly entered a monk room to hide there.

The troops saw him and ordered him to come out to the centre of the temple. Zaai Yawn was so afraid of the troops that his face clearly showed signs of extreme nervousness and the troops shot him dead in front of the monks, right at the centre of the temple.

The troops then threatened and warned the monks that if they harboured any rebel like this again, they would have to face severe punishment, and left.
The monks were shocked at the gruesome sight and were very sad, but all they could do was to call the villagers of Hai Kuay village to take care of the dead body of Zaai Yawn and conduct a Buddhist funeral for him.

KILLING OF INNOCENT LAHU VILLAGER IN MURNG-SART
On 16.7.2000, a Lahu villager was shot dead by SPDC troops from Murng-Sart-based LIB527 on the way between his farm and his village, Loi Khaw, in Loi Sawng tract, Murng-Sart township.

The victim, a Lahu man named Ja Yae, aged 36, was a villager of Loi Khaw village, Loi Sawng tract in Murng-Sart township. He had a farm some distance from his village, to which he went almost every day to work from morning to evening.

On the day of the incident, Ja Yae was returning home from his farm in the twilight of the evening, carrying a hoe on his shoulder with a banana bud dangling from it. A group of other Lahu villagers were also returning from their farms and were walking some distance behind him.

At one point, the villagers heard gun-fire ahead of them and out of fear they all jumped out and hid in the bushes on the sides of the road. A few moments later, they saw about 30-40 SPDC troops walking past, heading towards the opposite direction.

After the troops were out of sight, the villagers again walked on and found Ja Yae lying dead in a pool of blood with several bullet holes in his body. The villagers realized right away that he was shot by the passing SPDC troops who they had just seen from the roadside bushes. But no one could understand why he was shot because Ja Yae was an innocent and simpleminded man who simply lived off his farm.

The villagers reported the incident to the village leaders and they brought the body of Ja Yae back to the village and conducted an appropriate funeral for him in accordance with their village tradition.

A few days after the incident, when the same SPDC troops came to Loi Khaw village and asked for food, they told the villagers that when they came to the nearby village 3-4 days ago they shot dead a man who tried to run away from them and they did not know which village he belonged to.

As the village headman told the troops that it was his villager who had been shot dead and that his funeral had just been finished, the commander of the SPDC troops said, “If that is the case, tell all your villagers not to run away next time when they see us. If they do, they will surely be shot at like this one”.

RAPE IN MURNG-SART
On 17.9.2000, 2 women who were gathering firewood were raped by SPDC troops from LIB333 in the forest near their village, Pa Sak, in Mae Nim tract, Murng-Sart township.

Naang Taeng Nae, aged 19 and Naang La Khin, aged 21, were from Pa Sak village and were gathering firewood in the forest about 1-1/2 miles from the village when they were raped by 3 SPDC soldiers who threatened to shoot them if they did not comply.

The 3 soldiers, Tin Aye, Mya Maung and Htun Hpe, were from Company No.3 of LIB333 and were most likely looking for vegetables and chickens to steal, as they had often been doing, when they saw the 2 women alone in the forest beyond hearing distance from the village. After they had all raped the women, the soldiers warned them not to tell any one, including their families, otherwise they would come and kill them and burn their houses.

The women knew these soldiers and even knew their names. When they got home they secretly told their parents and they together went to consult with the village headman. The headman then explained that there was no way the military commander would be fair to them. Most likely, the victims would be told to point out the perpetrators in a line of soldiers where they were not included, and when they were not able to pick out the culprits, they would be scolded, accused of dishonouring the military and fined and/or punished.

The headman said that this had often been the case with rape cases committed by SPDC soldiers. In Murng-Sart township alone, there had already been 20-30 rape cases by SPDC troops that were being left un-tackled and in most cases the victims were fined or/and punished.

GENERAL SITUATION OF FORCED LABOUR AND EXTORTION IN MURNG-TON
The civilian population in Murng-Ton township are being forced to work without pay for the SPDC troops regularly for at least 15 days per month.
For each month, every household has to provide workers to work for the military in the following categories of work. Working in rotation, each household has to give up their time for the military generally as shown below:

Each civilian truck or car in the township has to wait at the military camps on stand-by for 7 days per month to do various kinds of transportation. Any truck or car, even though its turn for serving the military is not yet due, is subjected to conscription at any time in an emergency. The owners have to provide their own fuel for their vehicles.

Mini-tractors are often forced to work or borrowed ‘for free’ by the military for several days at a time and the soldiers take no responsibility for any damage done to the tractors. Video tape recorders are also very often borrowed by the soldiers, either to entertain their families or for their own enjoyment, sometimes for several weeks and are returned usually only after they have broken down, and the owners have to pay for the repair.

Small shops selling a small amount of consumer goods are taxed 1,500 Kyat per month by the military authorities and bigger shops selling clothes and other goods are taxed 3,000 Kyat and upwards.
Whenever there are occasions during which there are visiting senior military authorities, or transferring of troops or military units, the soldiers often take many things from the shops without paying the costs.

Apart from the regular provision of many kinds of forced labour, there is often random conscription of labourers, especially porters, whenever the so-called emergency cases arise.

FORCED LABOUR AND BEATING IN MURNG-NAI AND KUN-HING
Since early this year, SPDC troops of Kun-Hing-based LIB524 have been conscripting ox-carts of the civilian populations in Kaeng Tawng area of Murng-Nai township to transport teak lumber from Kaeng Tawng to Kun-Hing town in Kun-Hing township. About 30 ox-carts from Kaeng Tawng are being used at a time and at least 2 times per month.

The owners and the drivers of the ox-carts get nothing for their service but are scolded, fined and even punished if they fail to fulfill their forced labour obligations. Those who could not work fast enough to meet the demand of the troops because of some defects are often scolded and beaten; sometimes even the oxen are beaten to death. One such event took place on 22.9.00.

On that day, Zaai Nya-Na, a villager from Nam Kawk village in Kun Mong tract, Murng-Nai township, was transporting teak lumber for the SPDC troops. The load of teak lumber he was forced to transport was so heavy that his 2 draught-oxen could not go as fast as they were expected by the troops, and often had to stop to rest.

One of the troops overseeing the transportation became angry and shouted at Zaai Nya-Na to beat his oxen to make them go faster. When Zaai Nya-Na refused to beat the oxen saying that it would not do any good but would only exacerbate their condition, the soldier jumped onto the cart, snatched the stick from Zaai Nya-Na and kicked him down to the ground, causing him to break one of his arms from the fall.

The SPDC soldier beat the oxen as hard as he could, causing them to run as fast as they could. But they could only manage to get about 100 yards before they collapsed and were not able to stand up again. The soldier, with the help of some other soldiers, then continued to beat the oxen until they died, cut them up and took their meat.

The ox-cart owner, Zaai Nya-Na, not only received nothing for his service for the military, but lost 2 draught-oxen, which were probably all he had, and suffered from a broken arm which has not yet been fully cured at the time of this report.

FORCED LABOUR IN KAENG-TUNG
On 25.8.00, SPDC troops of IB226 issued an order forcing the villagers of Wan Hud village in Murng Laab tract, Kaeng-Tung township, to provide bamboo pieces for the military base to make fences around it.

On that day, at about 09:00 hrs, 5 SPDC troops from IB226, based at Loi Muay in Kaeng-Tung township, came to Wan Hud village and told the headman, Lung Sai, to go and see their commander at the base immediately.

In order to get to the military base as soon as possible, the headman and 2-3 villagers hired a car and set off right away. When they got to the base, the commander rapped out an order to the headman to tell his villagers to bring 60 bunches of bamboo pieces for making fences by 30.8.00, no matter how they got them, and dismissed them immediately without letting them utter a word. Each bunch of bamboo contained 100 pieces of 2-inches-thick and 6-feet-long bamboo sticks.

The village headman had no choice but to call a village meeting and allotted the duties among his villagers. Since there was no wild bamboo that could be cut for free in the area, the villagers had to buy from other villages, some as far as 20 miles from their village.

The villagers managed to meet the deadline set by the commander of IB226 by working very hard and squeezing out 300 Kyat from each family’s meagre income to pay for the bamboo and the car rent. In addition to their free labour, the villagers also had to provide over 8,000 Kyat of money to fulfill the demand of the military.

According to the local people, every village in the area often has to do one kind of forced labour or another all year round, and no village or family is spared.

FORCED LABOUR IN MURNG-YARNG
On 17.8.00, SPDC troops of Murng-Yarng-based IB279 forced the villagers of Wan Yaao, Wan Pung and Wan Pa Hai villages in Murng Luay tract, Murng-Yarng township, to do sanitary work in the military base all day long without pay, and the villagers had to provide their own food and tools.

On 16.8.00, the headmen of the said 3 villages were summoned to the military base of IB279 and were told by the commander to contribute labour, one person from each house in their villages, to do sanitary work in the base on the next day, and added that this was ‘because the soldiers and their families were too busy to do it themselves’. The villagers were dismissed immediately without being given a chance to say anything.

Each person from the 17 houses of Wan Yaao village, 9 houses of Wan Pung village and 14 houses of Wan Pa Hai village had take their food and tools and go to work at the military base from 08:00 hrs to 17:00 hrs, stopping only for a short while around midday to eat their meal.

The villagers saw many soldiers and their families in the base who were doing nothing most of the time, and some of them even came every now and then to stand and watch them work with folded arms, but no one seemed to care even to provide the villagers with drinking water.

FORCED LABOUR IN TA-KHI-LAEK (TACHILEK)
Since 19.9.00, SPDC troops of Tachilek-based LIB526 have been forcing the villagers of Wan Saa Laa and Wan Noi villages in Fang Min tract, Ta-Khi-Laek township, to grow several kinds of crops for them at the farms near the 2 villages which have been confiscated from the villagers since 1998.

The troops provided the seeds and the villagers have to do all the rest, from clearing, tilling, sowing, weeding, up to the harvesting and transporting the produced crops to the military base. The villagers would also be held responsible for any loss and failure.

The crops the villagers have been forced to grow include potato, peanut, sesame, pea and different kinds of bean. Since there are only about 20-30 houses in each of the 2 villages, the villagers have to work in frequent rotation, and have very little time to work for themselves.

FARMERS FORCED TO GROW RICE FOR THE MILITARY IN MURNG-TON
On 1.10.00, SPDC troops of Murng-Ton-based IB65 issued a written order to all the village tract headmen in Murng-Ton and Murng-Sart township forcing the farmers in the areas to grow rice and other crops for the military.

The order required the farmers to buy rice seeds, which had been brought up from the lowland in southern Burma by the military, and grow them for the military as the second harvest in the villagers’ rice fields after the harvest of the rainy season crops.

Soya bean seeds and another kind of bean seeds were also required to be bought by the farmers.

The farmers would be held accountable for any loss and failure. The paddy seeds were to be bought immediately and kept by the farmers, and were to be cultivated as soon as the current rice crop had been harvested, said the order.

The paddy seeds would be sold at the rate of 3,500 Kyat per basket, and both kinds of bean at the rate of 10,000 Kyat per basket. The following rates of production were expected:

If these requirements were not met, the farmers were responsible to fill up the quotas.

The 8 village tracts in Murng-Ton township were required to buy from 1 to 3 baskets of each kind of the seeds in proportion with the sizes of their cultivating land areas.

FORCED LABOUR AND LAND CONFISCATION IN KAENG-TUNG
Since June 2000, SPDC township level authorities in Kaeng-Tung township together with the authorities in the Golden Triangle Special Regional Command have been confiscating land, on both sides of the Kaeng-Tung - Murng-Khark main road, that have long been cultivated by the local people in several village tracts, such as Wan Mao, Yaang Long, Yaang Hok, Kaad Tao and Wan Kaang La Murng.

Over 800 acres of land have already been confiscated and distributed among the SPDC government departments, each getting about 30, 40 or even 60 to 100 acres. The Forestry Department, located in Kaad Tao village tract, got about 40-50 acres.

Long stretches of land on both sides of the main road, from Nam Khern bridge up to Wan Kaang La Murng village, that had been cultivated by the local people for generations, have now been confiscated and the villagers in the area are being forced to grow crops for the military on the land that had been taken from them.

People in Kaad Tao village tract are being forced to grow crops for the Forestry Department on the 40-50 acres of confiscated land designated for it.
Crops currently forced to be grown are mainly potato, soya bean and a few other kinds of bean. For the cultivation of any crop, the villagers have to take responsibility from the beginning to the end, from clearing the land up to the transporting of the produce to the Department.

The SPDC troops and the Department’s workers do little more than make sure that the villagers do their assigned job properly.

CONFISCATION OF LAND AND DESTRUCTION OF RICE CROPS IN MURNG-PAN
On 14.9.00, SPDC troops of LIB520 confiscated 10 acres of rice fields and destroyed the rice crops cultivated by a villager in Murng-Pan township.
About 27 SPDC troops from LIB520 led by Capt. Than Oo conscripted 3 mini-tractors from the people in the area and ordered them to bulldoze all the rice plants in some 10 acres of the rice fields near their military base, declaring that they had confiscated the land to make a place for building an office for the Peasant Association of the township.

The land was owned and cultivated by Lung Wa Ling, a Shan farmer of Ho Phaai Long village who had lived there for generations and cultivated a rice field near Murng-Pan town long before there was any military camp in the area.

As soon as he heard the news, Lung Wa Ling went to consult the village and tract headmen who then tried to plead with the SPDC troops not to confiscate the field, at least until after the current rice crop had been harvested, which was the only means of subsistence for Lung Wa Ling and his family that would last them until the next year’s harvest.

The troops, however, refused to listen to the pleas of the villagers and carried on with their task at hand, destroying the rice plants that were already bending with rich ears of rice grain that would be ready for harvesting in a few weeks time.

Exasperated, Lung Wa Ling and his family wept for their loss.

PEDDLERS ROBBED BY POLICE IN MURNG-YAWNG
On 23.8.00, 3 villagers from Wan Kawng village in Pa Hok tract, Murng-Yawng township, were robbed of all their money by a group of SPDC police.
That day was a market day at Nam Paan village in Nam Phyak tract, which was in the area of Murng Luay Noi in the Special Region 4, a cease-fire zone under the control of a cease-fire group led by Sai Leun.

Nam Paan village market takes place every 10 days and is always crowded with people of Murng-Yawng, from the areas both under the control of Sai Leun’s group and under the control of SPDC troops, who usually come to peddle their things and buy other necessities.

On the day of the incident, Pa Kham Long (f), aged 51, Pa La Keo (f), aged 47 and Lung Un Long (m), aged 60 were among the villagers from the areas under SPDC troops’ control who went to the market.

The 3 villagers were returning home on foot after peddling their merchandise, which were chiefly small consumer things such as seasoning powder, cookies and candies imported from Thailand, when they were stopped by a group of SPDC police.

The police forcibly searched all their things as well as their bodies, and took away all the money they found.

Each of the villagers lost several thousands Kyat of their hard-earned money and did not know what to do or dare to complain about it.

EXTORTION AND LIVESTOCK KILLING IN TA-KHI-LAEK
On 20.8.00, SPDC troops from LIB359 shot a villager’s cow and forced the villagers to cook the meat for them.
A patrol of about 60 SPDC troops from Ta-Khi-Laek-based LIB359 came to Wan Noi village in Murng Hai tract, Ta-Khi-Laek township, and ordered the villagers to cook and provide a meal for them.

The village headman then told his villagers to individually cook rice and curry, using what they had at their houses, and bring them together to serve the SPDC soldiers.

When the food was served, the commander of the troops became very angry because the curries were mostly vegetables and shot at a cow that was standing nearby in the street of the village, and forced the villagers to cut it up and cook the meat for the soldiers.

The cow belonged to Zaai Sawn of Wan Noi village and was worth at least 20,000 Kyat.