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A Porter’s Tale

I was riding a friend’s bike on my way home
When a police officer arrested me
“This bike is stolen, so come with me”
At the station he demanded 10,000 kyat
But I had no money to pay him
So that was why I was sentenced
To three year’s imprisonment. (*)

Many prisoners died while I was there
Some through abuse and some from being sick
My friend had diarrhoea and was very ill
The doctor took one look at him and said
“If you want medication you’ll have to pay,
but if you can’t then there’s nothing we can do”
And because my friend had nobody to pay for him
He had to die in prison.

One morning we were all called out to the yard
The chief jailers said:
“Pay us 50,000 kyat if you do not wish to porter”(**)
And because we had no money to pay them
We had to follow the army troops
And carry loads as convict porters.

My legs were chained all the time.
After a journey of several days we arrived at the site
The next morning our chains were released.
When the army came to take us
They asked me my name, my father's name
And my prison serial number
Then they gave me a dark blue shirt and trousers,
A cap and a pair of sandals that were too small,
Then I knew that I must go to porter.

There were 100 convicts taken out at the same time
I asked the soldiers “How many porters are there?”
They told me that there were 500 convict porters.
I saw many trucks, maybe around 50
Which the army brought to collect the convict porters.
We rode in the morning and arrived
At the camp in the forest in the afternoon;
We then started carrying the loads.

I saw some convict porters who could not carry their loads
The soldiers beat and kicked them
Some porters fell down and could not stand up to walk
They were unconscious and lying down beside the road
I heard the last soldiers in the group make records
Such as the name of the convict, their prison serial number, which prison they came from
Then they shot them dead.

I have to go to the frontline with the soldiers
And carry half a sack of rice
With barely enough to eat and drink
Nor any time to rest
I walk both day and night.
The basket digs into my flesh
Where the straps rub against my back and shoulders,
Cutting through my skin.
My footwear is nothing more than rubber flip-flops
That left my feet wounded by bamboo and rocks on the path
Leaving me to continue walking barefoot.
We must keep pace with the soldiers who wear jungle boots,
We are not allowed to rest, drink or talk while marching
Many of us collapse through exhaustion and beatings
The soldiers torture us when we cannot walk and carry the load
We get wet from the rain and sleep at night with wet clothes
The SPDC soldiers order us to build huts and make fires
After we made them the soldiers cast us out
They warm themselves beside the fire and we porters have to stay in the rain.

The SPDC soldiers do not give us enough food
We cook in the evening, and they tell us we can only eat twice a day.
When the convict porters get sick
The soldiers do not give us medicine
They say they have no medicine for convict porters,
Only for soldiers and that we should die.

I saw two convict porters left along the way,
One had fallen beside the path and was cold and shivering
The other one, his leg was swollen and cannot walk and was sitting beside the path
I think that those two people were killed because they could not walk anywhere from there
The SPDC soldiers have no sympathetic hearts and they are cruel.

I saw a porter died beside the road near to the river
The SPDC soldiers did not allow us to look
And they told us it was not our job to look,
Our job was only to carry loads.

I climb a high mountain carrying 12 mortar shells
When I cannot carry the sacks of rice and other loads
The soldiers threaten to kill me the whole time
I am beaten and kicked by the soldiers many times
The soldiers say to me that Rakhines must die
And they threaten that they will kill me.

I cannot tolerate the heavy work they force in the army camp
The soldiers threaten us convict porters every day
They say that if we run away they will shoot us;
We convict porters are not important to the SPDC soldiers.

The SPDC soldiers beat and torture us porters when we cannot carry the loads that they give us to carry.
When the porters are unable to walk and apologise to the soldiers, they never care.

When we get thirsty and we ask for a drink,
They never let us have a drink, and they kick us with their boots
The SPDC soldiers are always hostile to us.
They punch me and bruise my eyes, making my face swell, my teeth hurts as well, and I cannot eat anything
And I am left in the sun all day without water.

When some porters try to escape they tie them up to each other and beat them brutally
When the NCO gets drunk he tells the convict porters to beat them and order other convict porters who had not run away to beat them as well.
If they do not beat them heavily, the soldiers will beat them again.
One convict porter's eardrums are fragile and blood comes out from his ears, and he cannot hear anymore.

I do not have enough food, not enough time to sleep, and no strength to carry the loads.
They order me to carry heavy loads, but when I have no strength the soldiers kick me, and reprimand me.

Where I come from I have never seen such high mountains like there are here
I am unable to climb such mountains, so they kick and scold me many times.
We walk through the river and our legs are injured by rocks
In one place we cannot walk in the river and so we have to climb a cliff beside the river
The soldiers torture the porters who cannot climb the cliff with their loads.

A person I knew from Mandalay prison named
Lwan Maung falls down on the ground
The soldiers beat him
He cannot stand up again
He tries to roll away into a gorge
But then the SPDC captain shoots him in the head
With his pistol and kills him there.
That captain is very cruel
He beats and punches porters who cannot walk
He threatens to shoot us like the other one he had shot
I heard that three porters died along the way
I see a convict porter died in Mu Theh camp
And the SPDC soldiers left him there beside a river
They fear that if they leave the porters alive
Their enemies would find those porters
And those porters would give information to their enemies
So they shot those porters dead.
When we slept at Pu Teh a convict died there
I saw that the porter's face and chest were swollen
Because he had been tortured by the soldiers.
I hear other convict porters say that
The SPDC soldiers shot and killed one of the porters
When he could not carry his load
The soldiers threw him into a valley.

We are told that we will likewise be killed
Should we attempt to flee
The soldiers left a trail of dead bodies
Everywhere they have been; all of them convict porters.

I see the SPDC soldiers torture convict porters along the way
Soldiers tie us with ropes and drag us along when we cannot walk
They kick us when we fall down on the ground.

The soldiers order us to sweep their sleeping places for landmines along the way
A convict porter whose name is Ba Aye stepped on a landmine;
And one of his legs was blown away, and he died.

I cannot tolerate the heavy work they forced in the army camp
The soldiers threaten us convict porters every day.
They say that if we run away they will shoot us
They say if they shoot and killed a convict porter it will cost them only 7,000 kyat
We convict porters are not important to the SPDC soldiers.

This is what the convict porters have to endure every night and every day -
We are just ordinary civilians who surely do not deserve to be treated this way.

--------------OOOOOOOOOO---------------

Excerpts from the KHRG report KHRG0603: ( http://www.khrg.org )

(*)A common charge in Burma when more plausible crimes are untenable is something which translates as 'hiding in the dark'. Under this law, the police can arrest and detain anyone who happens to be out late at night, or simply loitering during broad daylight. As would be expected, this offence provides an easy means of extorting funds or rounding up potential porters. In the case below, the individual was taken by the police while walking alone at night and immediately sent to porter with the military. "The SPDC soldiers arrested me on June 3rd 2006. I had gone to watch a football match and had come back late around half-past eleven or midnight. The SPDC soldiers arrested me on my way home."

(**)Those interviewed by KHRG remained between six months and six and a half years in prison prior to being taken out to Karen State in convoys for forced labour as military porters. At no time prior to being removed were convicts told that portering for the military was a part of their sentence. The practice of recruiting convicts to serve as porters begins with prison officials informing convicts that large groups will be taken for this work, but also offering them yet another opportunity to bribe their way out. Porters described being taken out of prisons to be transferred to military operations in groups of between 40 and 160 prisoners at a time. However, this number is in some cases only two thirds of the total number initially called out, the rest having paid the requisite bribe to escape service as porters. It is probable that prison officials factor this into their calculations; for example, choosing 200 prisoners when the Army has demanded 150, and deliberately including at least 50 convicts who they know are likely to be able to pay.

Links

ILO http://www.ilo.org/
iAbolish http://www.iabolish.com/
Anti Slavery http://www.antislavery.org/

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