Forced Labour
SPDC & DKBA ORDERS TO VILLAGES: SET 2003-A Papun, Pa’an, Thaton, Nyaunglebin, Toungoo, & Dooplaya Districts An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group August 22, 2003 / KHRG #2003-01 This report presents the direct translations of 783 order documents and letters, selected from a total of 1,007 such documents. The orders dictate demands for forced labour, money, food and materials, place restrictions on movements and activities of villagers, and make threats to arrest village elders or destroy villages of those who fail to obey. Over 650 of those selected were sent by military units and local authorities of Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) junta to village elders in Toungoo, Papun, Nyaunglebin, Thaton, Pa’an and Dooplaya Districts, which together cover most of Karen State and part of eastern Pegu Division and Mon State (see maps on pages 10 and 11). The remainder were sent by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) or the Karen Peace Army (KPA), groups allied with the SPDC. All but a few of the orders were issued between January 2002 and February 2003. Villages in Karen areas receive a constant stream of order documents such as these almost every day, from all the SPDC Army camps near their village as well as from various levels of SPDC authorities, commanding them to provide people for forced labour, materials and supplies for the Army, extortion money, food, crop quotas, intelligence and other forms of support for the military. Many of the orders simply command village elders to immediately go to Army camps for ‘meetings’ at which Army officers dictate lists of demands and threaten them with punishment if there is any failure to comply.
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