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IV. THE BURMA ARMY
The Tatmadaw, or armed forces, of Burma were formally created just after the country gained independence from Britain in January 1948, and were immediately engaged in battle with the communist insurgency that threatened to topple the new government. Within a year several ethnic resistance groups had also begun to take up arms, and Burma's civil war had begun in earnest. Since then the country has never seen peace and the Tatmadaw has been constantly in combat with as many as twenty armed resistance groups at a time. Since overthrowing the civilian government in 1962 the Tatmadaw has also governed the country, first as General Ne Win's Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) regime from 1962 to 1988, then as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), a military junta which renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997 and continues to rule. At present the leaders of the Burma army are also the leaders of the SPDC. SPDC Chairman Senior General Than Shwe is also commander in chief of the defense services; Vice Chairman General Maung Aye is also deputy commander-in-chief of defense services and commander-in-chief of the army; Secretary-1 of the SPDC Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt is also head of the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence. Similar dual roles exist for most of the nineteen members of the central Council, including the twelve military region commanders who all have seats.
The Tatmadaw has developed into a force structured to control the civilian population and combat internal guerrilla forces, rather than a defensive force against external threats. While the Tatmadaw is made up of the Tatmadaw Kyi (Army), Tatmadaw Lay (Air Force), Tatmadaw Ye (Navy), and some other components, political and military power lies overwhelmingly with the army.
Modern weaponry has been difficult to obtain because of the destruction of the economy by the BSPP regime's xenophobic policies and more recently by international arms sanctions imposed by many countries against the present regime, so the Tatmadaw largely relies on manpower to achieve its ends. By 1988 the armed forces as a whole were estimated at 170,000 to 180,000 officers and men, with almost all of these in the army. After the SLORC was created in 1988, an ambitious campaign was launched with the stated aim of expanding the armed forces to a total of 500,000 people. By 1989 the armed forces were estimated at 200,000 men, and in mid-1995 the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated that the army alone had 265,000 officers and men, while others estimated that the Air Force numbered 9,000 and the Navy 15,000.10 In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the SPDC stated that as of May 2002 "[t]he current size of the Myanmar armed forces is 350,000."11 Most Burma analysts and opposition representatives interviewed by Human Rights Watch placed the present figure higher, estimating that the armed forces as a whole number 400,000-450,000, with the army making up at least 350,000 or 400,000 of those numbers.12
The army divides the country geographically into twelve regional commands, each headed by a regional commander who sits on the central Council of the SPDC. Each regional command controls its territory through several strategic operations commands, which in turn have three or four battalions assigned to them. There are also ten light infantry divisions, each comprised of ten battalions, which are under the direct control of army headquarters in Rangoon and are assigned to wherever they are most needed. Thirteen military operations commands have also been created with ten battalions each. While the regional commands are fixed geographic areas, the battalions under the light infantry divisions and military operations commands are moved around to wherever in the country they are most needed.
At ground level the main operational unit of the army is the battalion. There are some artillery, armored, and engineering battalions, but the vast majority of the army is made up of infantry and light infantry battalions estimated to number 450 to 500, but with more being created.13 These are deployed throughout the country, in both conflict and non-conflict areas. Some function primarily as garrison battalions, while others (particularly the light infantry battalions) are used for offensive purposes. Each battalion has four to five companies. Some battalion staff are permanently based at the battalion's headquarters camp, but most of the soldiers are sent out in platoon- or company-sized groups to man battalion outposts or to patrol remote areas for a few months at a time.
In conflict areas the soldiers at these camps seek out and fight the enemy, though their main tactic is to undermine enemy forces by destroying the civilian villages and crops in areas where opposition forces are active. In the past five years this tactic has resulted in the destruction of well over a thousand villages and the displacement of several hundred thousand people in Shan, Kayah, and Karen States, and Tenasserim division. Villages are attacked in retaliation for any fighting that occurs nearby, and villagers are routinely detained and interrogated, sometimes tortured or killed. The army also makes demands on the local population for forced labor, building materials, logs and other saleable items, food, and money. Much of this is for the profit of the camp officers; uncooperative village leaders are arrested and punished. In non-conflict areas the officers devote most of their time to making money, so even more demands are placed on local civilians, and the soldiers also supervise forced labor on major governmental infrastructure projects such as roads, dams, and railways.14
The Conscription Act of 1959 states that conscription to the Burma army for a period of six months to two years is allowable for men aged eighteen to thirty-five and women aged eighteen to twenty-seven.15 In practice, neither women nor girls are recruited into the armed forces. The SPDC maintains that "[t]he Myanmar Tatmadaw (armed forces) is an all volunteer army," and that "the minimum age for recruitment into the armed forces is 18 years."16 Former soldiers and opposition officers generally believe that prior to 1988 most recruits to the Burma army were volunteers, and most of them were at least eighteen years old. After the army's violent crushing of the 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations, the number of volunteers dropped dramatically, while at the same time the army commanders were ordered to rapidly expand their forces in order to consolidate the government's control over the country. The response was a rapid increase in forced conscription. To get around the restrictions in the Conscription Act and to maintain the appearance of a volunteer army, recruiters began using intimidation, coercion, and physical violence to force people to "volunteer." The easiest targets are children, whose ages are then recorded as eighteen to keep the paperwork in order. One boy who was forcibly recruited at age fourteen in 1997 told Human Rights Watch, "Their policy is that you must be eighteen to join, and you can leave after three years. I read that policy in a book. But now they are acting very differently from their policy. I think it is because they don't have enough soldiers and most young Burmese men don't want to join, so they are forcing children. I think this is increasing."17
The drive to expand the army appears to have accelerated in the past five years, during which approximately 200 new battalions have been created. A full-strength battalion is supposed to have over 700 men, though in practice most Burmese battalions operate with 400 to 500 men. Since 1998, however, more and more reports from former Burmese soldiers and officers in resistance armies indicate that many of the newer battalions are now operating with only 200 or 300 men, while some have even fewer than 200.18 Andrew Selth writes that
[w]hile the number of combat units has increased significantly, the actual fighting strength of the armed forces is not as great as appearances first suggest. For example, few army battalions are up to full strength. Many seem to operate with two-thirds or even half of their formal establishment and in some units, such as those performing garrison duties, troop numbers could be even lower. . . . Recruiting officers have inflated their figures to meet specific targets and there have been reports that in many units payrolls have been padded with non-existent personnel. Poor record-keeping and endemic corruption (up to and including senior officers) have helped disguise these manpower shortfalls. 19
New battalions are being created so quickly that they are not being fully manned, while existing battalions are not being sent enough recruits to replace those lost through desertion and attrition. According to a brigade commander with the Shan State Army, "Since 1988 desertion has increased, but they've increased the army with new units. We've found that they've used any means they can to conscript, that's my experience. Each Burmese army battalion can only send about one hundred men to the front line and keep a certain number as camp guards. In total, only about 200. Even in front line companies they don't operate at full strength anymore. Some units exist in name only."20
To feed this ever-growing need for new recruits, payments and other incentives are now being given to soldiers and commercial recruiting agents to bring in as many recruits as they can. Of twenty former Burma army soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, only two had volunteered; the others had been stopped on the streets by soldiers, threatened with long terms of imprisonment if they refused to join the army, and taken to army recruit holding camps. Some of those who still refused to join were beaten until they agreed to join, or were simply sent on to military training without their agreement. The easiest targets for this forced recruitment are adolescent boys, and as is shown in the section entitled The Scope of Child Recruitment in the Burma Army later in this report, 35 to 45 percent of the army's recruits may be children.
Conditions Leading to Recruitment
I left KGA [kindergarten] when I was six because of the problem with our family's livelihood. We were farmers. My parents couldn't pay for me to go to school. It cost 1,000 or 2,000 per year just for school fees. I left school and sold ice cream in the town, at the railway station and bus stops and places like that. [I did that] for about three years. Then I worked at a restaurant. At first I was a waiter, then I was a knife holder [cutting up the vegetables]. That was for two years. After I left the restaurant I worked as a construction worker for about three years. Then I worked as a trishaw driver for about eight months. My family had money problems so I had to sell my trishaw. Then I went to Rangoon to get a better job, but I didn't get one. I was taken by the army. I was going around looking for a job, and it happened when I was waiting for a train at the railway station in Rangoon. I was sixteen.
Burma was once known as "the ricebowl of Asia." It is blessed with fertile land, a stable climate, extensive resources including timber, gems, natural gas, and oil, and a much lower population density than many of its neighbors. Despite these advantages, in 1987 it was accorded least developed country status by the United Nations and is ranked one of the ten poorest countries in the world. Most analysts attribute this to mismanagement and corruption under decades of xenophobic military rule, combined with the civil war which has ravaged the country since independence. Since 1988 conditions have only grown worse, and at present the economy is in shambles, with rapid inflation, erratic currency fluctuations, and primitive infrastructure. The SPDC is regularly criticized internationally for spending as much as half of the national budget on the military, while next to nothing is spent on education and health services. Most of the rural population lives in poverty, while the urban population struggles to find as many small jobs as they can simply to feed their families.
In this environment education is seen as a privilege rather than a right. Families are forced to pay school fees of up to 15,000 or 20,000 kyat22 per year as well as all of the material costs of uniforms, books, and school supplies for their children, and in rural areas they are also forced to pay the costs of building the schools and salaries for the teachers. Many families pull their children out of primary school because they cannot afford the cost of the school fees and education materials, or because they need the child to work in the fields or to earn money. Although the SPDC claims that primary school enrollment is at 92.1 percent,23 the UNICEF Rangoon office informed Human Rights Watch that only 81 percent of children aged five through nine are enrolled in primary school,24 and only fifty-five percent complete kindergarten and the first four grades.25 UNICEF went on to state that
immediate causes of low educational attainment are lack of early childhood care and development, low enrollment in schools in some areas of the country, inefficiency in the system, and inadequacy of non-formal education. Financial and human resources are both severely constrained in the education sector. . . . Although government investments in primary education have increased in monetary terms since 1994, government expenditures on basic education have declined from 0.99 percent of GDP in 1994/95 to 0.3 percent in 1999/2001, compared to 3.3 percent for low-income countries. The share of the budget devoted to education has fallen steeply from 20 percent in 1991/92 to 11 percent in 1999/00. . . . There is an immediate lack of trained personnel at both the national and township level to manage the system, which results in sub-optimal use of the limited resources. There are a variety of reasons for why children either do not enroll or drop-out. In addition to those mentioned above, poor families in particular find it difficult to meet the private cost of schooling such as payment for textbooks, stationery and other accessories, in addition to transportation costs and the opportunity cost of having a child away from home during the day. . . . Over the last decade important numbers of children and young people have been marginally or not at all touched by the education system, thus bequeathing an entire generation of missed human resources, likely to threaten social cohesion and stability irrespective of any change in the political arena.26
Meanwhile, Burma's high schools and universities have been closed for much of the time since 1988 because they are seen as rallying points for opposition views, so adolescents frequently find their education suddenly suspended.
Many of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch had left school before they were recruited, including Aung Htun: "I studied until Third Standard. Then I left when I was twelve. I had to help my parents in the fields."27 Sein Kyi was forced out of school by the civil war in the Irrawaddy delta: "I'm the youngest of seven children. When I was seven years old my father was taken as a forced porter by the army and he was killed. We heard that he fell ill and died. After that we all worked the paddy fields, and sometimes I went with my aunt to buy goods in Bassein and we sold them in our village. Our school was closed most of the time because of the war between the Burmese army and the Karen. I only went to kindergarten."28
Many children are forced to take care of their families at a young age, as described by Khin Maung Than: "School fees were about 20,000 kyat for the whole year. That doesn't include the uniform but it includes books. Early in the morning and in the evening after school we had to work for money. I left school when I was about nine years old, after finishing Second Standard, because my mother wasn't healthy and my father was an alcoholic. I had to take care of mother because father was not home, he was always going with his friends to drink whisky. . . . I had to care for mother, her condition was very bad. I was away from school for one and a half months, so I couldn't go back."29 His situation was made worse by the rule in Burmese schools that a student who is away for more than a few days cannot return to continue their studies. At age eleven he was caught by soldiers and forced into the army.
Some families can only afford to send one or two children to school and must make a painful choice. Salaing Toe Aung was lucky enough to be chosen, only to be forced into the Army before he could finish high school. "I finished Ninth Standard when I was sixteen. Now only my younger brother is still in school. The others [he has four brothers and two sisters] didn't go because they were working. They wanted to go but we didn't have enough money. It costs 15,000 kyat per year just for the school fees for one person. I planned to finish [high school] and then I wanted to join medical training to be a doctor or nurse. But while I was studying in Tenth Standard I went to Arakan State to buy clothes and books and was arrested in July 2001. I was sixteen."30 He was "arrested" by recruiters and forced into the army.
Once they leave school many children take up jobs selling food or small goods in the streets, or they wander their home towns or find their way to larger cities in search of paying work. Some children run away from home because of family problems. All of these children are frequently alone and vulnerable, and they become easy targets for army recruiters. Nyunt Swe told Human Rights Watch that "the school fees were too much and I couldn't pay. . . . 15,000 a year. That included books. I was in Fourth Standard. . . . I quit school to work, and while I was working I was forced into the army."31
Recruitment
I didn't want to join. I wanted to go to school and study, and my parents didn't know where I was. If I joined the army life would change for me. When I was with my parents I never knew about smoking, drinking, gambling. . . . now I know all of these things. I told them I didn't want to join. They said, "You can't do anything about it, you're with us now." I told them I was twelve years old. They said, "Never mind your age, we can keep you in the camp until you're old enough." I told them I was a student.
Some children join the army because they are told of the salary they can earn as a soldier, and volunteer out of their desperation to earn money or because they do not want to be another mouth for their family to feed. Most of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch did not want to join, however, because they had already heard that life is bad as a soldier, but when recruiters deceived them with false threats of prison terms if they refused to enlist, many believed they had no choice. Those who could not be fooled or coerced were simply taken by force.
Of the twenty former Burma army soldiers whose testimony appears in this report, only two genuinely volunteered. Of these two, Zaw Moe was forced into the army in 1991 at age fourteen, deserted in 1998, then volunteered two years later only because he was afraid he would be caught in his village.33 The other, Thein Oo, could not explain why he volunteered at age fourteen in 1998 other than to say "because I was willing." His entire family advised him against it, but he ran away and enlisted. Just five days later he tried to escape from the recruit holding camp but was caught and brutally beaten, then jailed until it was time to begin military training.34
In reply to a query by Human Rights Watch, the Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations stated, "The Myanmar Tatmadaw (armed forces) is an all volunteer army. There are no conscripts and the recruitment into Myanmar armed forces is entirely voluntary."35 However, most of the former soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch believed that the majority of their fellow recruits were also forcibly recruited. When Aung Htun was forced to join in 1999, there were "maybe 300 or 400 of us. Some were fourteen, some were twelve. The youngest was about twelve, the oldest just over twenty. Some didn't want to go to school so they left home and then were arrested on the railway. Some were arrested when traveling, especially at night. None were volunteers, except maybe ten or fifteen of them."36 Similarly, Moe Shwe noted that "There were fourteen or fifteen new recruits. Two were twenty years old, the rest were about my age [thirteen]. I talked to them. The two twenty-year-olds had volunteered, but all the others had been arrested."37 Of the forty new recruits Sein Kyi was locked up with at a recruit holding camp, "very few had volunteered, I think only five or six."38 Than Aung spent a long time packed on an army truck with close to eighty new recruits on the way from Bassein to Rangoon, and noted that "[m]ost of those on the truck were like me, there weren't many volunteers. Even the `volunteers' weren't really volunteers, they were people who were joining for the second time-they had fled their battalions and been caught again."39
With such a shortage of people willing to volunteer, the army must send people out to find and "arrest" recruits. Myo Chit explained how this happens: "After I joined the army I learned about this. Many soldiers go outside the camp on special duty to gather young recruits. Not every soldier can go like this, it is special duty. Sometimes they use the older soldiers who have been wounded and handicapped and can't go to the front line anymore, and some are with intelligence. They give them special duty and say they'll pay them some pocket money."40 Sai Seng also learned how the system works once he was in the army: "In each battalion there are some people who are ordered specially to find recruits. Some are lance corporals and some are ordinary soldiers. If they can gather people, the battalion leaders pay money to them. When they send young people like us, sometimes they get 5,000 kyat and sometimes they get 10,000. That's why there is a lot of arresting going on. The recruit doesn't get the money, it is the one who finds him who gets the money."41 One former child soldier interviewed by Human Rights Watch was taken from a passenger car when he was eleven years old by police who then handed him over to the army, which suggests that not only soldiers can receive benefits for supplying recruits.42 A recent report by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland states that even civilians are sometimes appointed by army officers as "soldier brokers" ("sit tha pwe sar") and are paid 4,000 kyat and one sack of rice per recruit.43
Most soldiers believed that the money paid to those who bring in recruits usually comes from the battalion commander, possibly because he can gain promotion or favors by obtaining a lot of recruits. Though unaware of exactly how the system works, several of those interviewed told Human Rights Watch that they had heard the soldiers who recruited them talking about the money they would receive, or had seen money and rice change hands when recruits were handed over at the Su Saun Yay recruit holding camp. Some also testified that even at the end of a normal ten-year term of duty, soldiers can only be discharged if they bring in several new recruits. After seven years in the army, Moe Shwe had only seen three men in his unit discharged: "One was sixty, one was forty-five and one was fifty. They got out because they'd each recruited five new soldiers. Anyone can get out if they recruit five new soldiers, but you must have five years' experience first." When asked whether he ever did any recruiting himself, he replied, "No. They asked me to do it and gave me money to do it, but I just spent the money and didn't do it. I had a lot of trouble in the army, and I didn't want to make five more people suffer that."44
Lwin Oo testified that "I was forced. Sergeant Than Cho forced me to join. He told me that if five people join, he would get money and rice and then he would be able to leave the army. They took us and put us in jail for three days and asked us questions. They asked me, `Why don't you join?' I said I didn't want to join and they beat me. Six people were in jail with me. The others were thirteen, fifteen, twenty and twenty-five."45 Myo Aung was bundled into a car at age sixteen and driven to a recruit holding camp, and says that in the car "they were talking. They said if you can get one person you get 5,000 kyat and a sack of rice."46 Another who was taken at age thirteen testified that "I saw them getting paid. For one new recruit you can get 10,000 kyat and a sack of rice. One of the people in my village is a corporal there in that place [the army camp in Pyi], and he told us."47 Kyaw Nyunt was only ten years old when taken, and "at the detention place I saw one of the officers give them money. Later I saw them come sometimes with other people who were not as young as me."48 The payout appears to vary by battalion and region, but usually includes between 1,000 and 10,000 kyat49 in cash and fifteen to fifty kilograms of rice per recruit. After three military intelligence men grabbed twelve-year-old Myo Chit in a railway station, "[t]he three soldiers took us to IB [infantry battalion] 54. I don't know where they went back to, but when they left they each received 1,000 kyat and a sack of rice. This is normal." When queried on this issue, the SPDC informed Human Rights Watch that "No incentives whatsoever are provided to members of the army who identify new recruits."50
The recruiting teams generally consist of a few soldiers led by a corporal or sergeant, often in civilian clothing and carrying only concealed weapons. Their favorite stalking grounds are railway and bus stations, ferry and boat docks, festivals, markets, busy streets and sometimes streets near schools. They frequently approach boys under eighteen, probably because they are the most easily intimidated. As explained by Sai Seng, who was forcibly recruited in 2001 at age sixteen: "One system they use is to call people by lying to them, and then they sell them to each other. The other thing they look for is children who are eleven or twelve, who don't know anything and who aren't with their parents. Some of them are in the railway station, some of them are selling things in the market, some of them are carryboys-they capture these kinds of children. Sometimes they hit them and take them, sometimes they buy sweets for them and then take them. When they do that they don't wear their uniforms, they just wear ordinary clothes."51
A former Buddhist monk told Human Rights Watch that while he was based at a temple in Rangoon from 1995 to 1999, the temple boys (young boys sent by their families to help the monks in return for some religious education) kept disappearing, and on many occasions the monks found them at nearby military bases where they were about to be sent to recruit holding camps.52
The poverty and lack of educational opportunity in Burma have also led to growing numbers of street children, and Human Rights Watch has received reports that street children in major cities are regularly rounded up and sent directly to the army's Su Saun Yay recruit holding camps.
Some sources report that villages in some areas are forced to provide recruits under a quota system. None of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch had been conscripted in this way, but a Commission of Inquiry of the International Labour Organization reported in 1998 that
[i]nformation provided to the Commission indicated that there was regular forced recruitment throughout Myanmar, including of minors, into the Tatmadaw and various militia groups. It appeared that this did not occur pursuant to any compulsory military service laws, but was essentially arbitrary. . . . In cases where a certain number of recruits was demanded, it was common for the village or ward authorities to hold a "lottery" to choose those who had to undertake military service. Those chosen were then forcibly conscripted and commonly included minors.53
In his analysis of the Burmese military, Andrew Selth states that when local authorities are given recruiting quotas, "If these authorities fail to achieve their quota, they can be fined. Conversely, rewards are granted for each recruit provided in excess of the quota. This procedure has resulted in many young men being forcibly recruited into the army, or fleeing to avoid conscription."54
When questioned by Human Rights Watch about the minimum age for recruits, the SPDC responded in writing that "the minimum age for recruitment into the armed forces is 18 years."55 The SPDC also informed Human Rights Watch that "[a]ny person who recruits children in contravention with the [Defense Services] Act is taken action under article 65 of the Act and is liable to suffer imprisonment, which may extend to 7 years."56 The SPDC did not include any data in its communication with Human Rights Watch regarding the number of soldiers and officers who have been convicted for recruiting children, nor is Human Rights Watch aware of any cases in which recruiters have been convicted for this crime.
The recruiting teams often use threats and intimidation to convince boys to "volunteer." The most common method is to ask to see the boys' identity cards. When they cannot produce one, they are threatened with a long jail term - or told that they can join the army instead. This method tends to single out children under eighteen for recruitment for two main reasons: firstly, because children are less likely to know that there is no law specifying a jail term for failure to produce an identity card; and secondly, because many children under eighteen have not yet obtained identity cards. According to the SPDC, "when the child reaches the age 10 years he or she is provided with a temporary identity card. Once the child attains the age of 18 years he or she then applies for a permanent identity card."57 However, neither the former soldiers nor anyone else interviewed by Human Rights Watch appeared to be aware of this policy. Most believed that the minimum age for obtaining a card is at least twelve or thirteen, while several former soldiers believed that cards cannot be obtained before age eighteen. The system has reportedly changed at least once in the past several years, and it appears that many people are unaware of the exact procedures. Most people in Burma are afraid to confront the authorities more than they must, so many families tend to delay obtaining identity cards for their children until they are fifteen or eighteen years old. In the meantime, their sons fall easy victim to the threats of the recruiting teams. The story of Sein Kyi, recruited in 1997 at age fourteen, is typical:
I went to visit downtown Rangoon and was arrested by some Burmese soldiers. I was crossing from Hlaing Tha Ya to Insein on the ferry. I was getting on the ferry. I saw two soldiers in uniform, but some others weren't in uniform. I think about six altogether. They asked, "Where are you going?" I said "I'm going to visit Rangoon." "Do you have ID?" "No, I don't have ID." I was still too young to get ID. You can get ID when you're eighteen. I told them that I was too young to have ID. They said, "If you have no ID then you have to join the army." I refused to join, and they said "Then you'll have to go to jail." So I said, "Okay then, I'll join the army."58
Hla Thein, recruited in 1996 at age fourteen:
I was at Bassein harbor with three friends. We had come to buy some goods and were going back to our village. We were stopped by three soldiers in uniform: a corporal, a lance corporal, and a private. They had two guns. They asked, "Do you have ID?" I said, "I have no ID because I'm still too young." I was fourteen. They searched all of our bags, and took all the things in our bags. Then they said, "Please follow us to the office." They took us to the recruiting office in Bassein, and when we arrived there we were put in the lockup.59
Throughout Burma the roads are dotted with army checkpoints where everyone must present their papers, and this is another common place to obtain recruits. Khin Maung Than was eleven when he went to visit relatives in Rangoon with his mother in 1999. His mother went home first, and five days later he tried to go home to Thaton township in Mon State on his own:
On the way there was a checkpoint. The police stopped the car and checked ID cards. I couldn't show one. I was too young to have an ID card. At that time you needed to be eighteen to get an ID card. Now they have changed the age to twelve. The police said, "You'll have to go to jail for six years for not having an ID card." Then they sent me to the police station and put me in the leg stocks. But I could pull my feet out because the holes in the stocks were too big for my feet, so two policemen guarded me. They kept saying, "You have to decide. You can join the army or go to jail." And then they gave me time to think. They could see I was only eleven, but if the police give a boy to the army they can get pocket money from the army, 3,000 kyat and two tins of rice, about thirty kilos of rice. They gave me from 8 a.m. until the afternoon to decide. I didn't want to go to jail for six years, so I agreed to join the army.60
While Khin Maung Than was sitting in the leg stocks trying to make his decision he saw two others, both aged about twenty, released after they each paid a bribe of 5,000 kyat. In Burma many problems can be avoided by paying bribes, but younger recruits seldom have the money to pay and their families cannot come to their aid because they have no idea where they are. Soe Naing had very little money on him when he took a passenger truck to Rangoon at age twelve to look for work, and the truck was stopped at an army checkpoint right in front of Mingaladon Su Saun Yay, the main recruit holding camp just outside Rangoon:
There were four or five women and only seven men and boys, and they took all the men and boys. I was twelve. My two friends were twenty-six and twenty-seven, and the other four were students a bit older than me-some were under fifteen and some over fifteen. The soldiers at the checkpoint didn't say anything. They kept the [book] bags of the four students. Then they just told us to go into the Su Saun Yay and put us in a big room, and they said, "You have to join the army." All of us told the soldiers we didn't want to join the army and some said they were students, and the soldiers punched us. They asked me, "Do you want to join the army?" I refused and they punched me. Then they asked again, "Do you want to join the army?" I refused again and they punched me again. They did this seven times and I still refused. They punched my face, my chest, my forehead, and they cut open my eyebrow and it bled. I was bleeding from the eyebrow and the mouth. I hadn't agreed, but then they sent me to the clinic. They had a woman nurse there who treated my wounds. Then the second boy was punched and kicked, and he was sent to the clinic too. Then they said to the other five, "You see your friends? You see my boot? Now would you like to join the army?" Then the others were afraid and agreed to join the army.61
Soe Naing was then held at the recruit holding camp for seven days, and as new boys continued to arrive daily he realized that "[e]very day they arrest fifteen or twenty at that checkpoint."
The pressure to enlist often becomes physical. Htun Htun was only thirteen when he and four friends were grabbed by soldiers at a pagoda festival, put on a truck and driven directly to a recruit holding camp at Mandalay: "Then some different soldiers said, `You have to become a soldier.' We said `We're students, we don't want to join.' Then they beat me with sticks and it was very painful, so we had to say we'd be soldiers."62 Zaw Moe had a similar experience when he was fifteen: "I was arrested in Pyinmana railway station, and we slept one night in Pyinmana. In the morning they gave us fried rice and asked again, `Will you join the army?' We said no again, and they said, `But I already gave you food and you ate it. You have to join.' They took us on the train and when we reached Tha Zi station I said I wouldn't join. Then all three of them punched me in the face for about ten minutes until I had to say I'd join the army."63 It took longer to convince seventeen-year-old Win Kyi from Sagaing; first he was coerced into an army camp, then "the officer in civilian clothes led us into a room and locked us in. In the room they asked us again and again to join, then they started hitting, beating and threatening us until we had to agree to join. There were three soldiers, all in uniform. They kept us there more than a week. They never let us out. They gave us food in the room. We were told to sign to become soldiers, then we were sent to Maymyo."64 During his week in the lockup with his four friends, none of them were allowed to contact their families.
There are cases in which recruiters dispense with the pretext of demanding an identity card. Moe Shwe, who was recruited in 1995, told Human Rights Watch:
When I was just over thirteen, there was a festival in Prome town and we went there. I was taken and asked to join the army. Corporal Tin Nyaing and two other soldiers asked us, "Do you want to join the army? If you don't join the army I'll arrest you." We said "We don't want to join." There were six of us, all friends. We were all from the same school and about the same age. We were all students so we showed our student cards, but they tore them up. Then he threatened us and showed us his gun. Only the corporal had a gun, a pistol. We were afraid so we agreed. We didn't dare try to run away.65
Tin Maung, who was recruited in August 2001 at age sixteen or seventeen (he is unsure of his age):
I was arrested at about 7 p.m. when I was going home from my [barber] shop, by two soldiers in civilian clothes. They took me to their battalion camp. When we arrived there, they said they were arresting me to be a porter. "In four or five days we'll release you, so you must sign these papers." They were printed papers with stamps, and I had to sign two or three of them. I don't know what they said. I didn't say anything because I was afraid.66
Than Aung, recruited at age fourteen in 1997, was threatened by his recruiters with a more serious charge, and forced into the army even though he had not given way to coercion:
When I was studying Fourth Standard I had some tuition after school. On my way home from the tuition I was arrested by soldiers on the street. I was with three friends. The youngest was eleven, one was twelve and the other was thirteen. The power was out and it was very dark. Two soldiers took our bags and books and threw them away, and said "You're maun yay ko [hiding in the dark, a form of conspiracy charge]." They took us somewhere. We didn't know where it was until morning, and then we saw that it was a military compound. It was near Myaungmya. We saw two or three others there who were older than us, I think they were fifteen or sixteen. We still didn't think we'd be forced to join the army, because we were students. The next day they said to us, "You were hiding in the dark so you must join the army." We said, "We weren't, we're just students." He said, "We don't care, we have to send you to the Su Saun Yay." That evening the seven of us were sent to an army camp at Bassein. I saw many others there, about eighty, a whole T11 truckload. We spent one night at Bassein and the next morning they put us all on a T11 army truck and sent us to Mingaladon.67
Similarly Myo Aung, recruited at sixteen in 1998, found that refusal to give even his coerced agreement did not prevent him being simply abducted into the army:
I was going around looking for a job, and it happened when I was waiting for a train at the railway station in Rangoon. One was tall and thin, over thirty, without a uniform. The other was about thirty, a short man also without a uniform. The third was a fat man wearing a uniform. An army uniform with two chevrons [corporal]. I think the other two were also soldiers. They asked, "Have you been a soldier?" "No." "Do you want to join now?" "No, I don't." Then they said nothing, but they took me to their camp. They grabbed us by both arms, took us to a car and put us in. It was a sedan car. They took us to their camp, somewhere near Insein. It was a big camp, an army camp. . . . We were tied together with a rope. We were kept tied up for two days, so that we couldn't run away. In the camp they had a little building in front of a pagoda. People use it to rest. We were kept tied up there. No one talked to us, just a few words when they brought us food. After two days at that camp they sent us to the new recruits' place not very far away.68
Some children and adults are initially taken by the army for forced labor, then essentially sold into military service by the soldiers or officers. Salaing Toe Aung was a sixteen-year-old Tenth Standard high school student when he traveled from Chin State to Rakhine State in August 2001 to buy some clothing and books. When he got off the boat in Kyaukto town he and two others were stopped by soldiers, "[t]hree or four of them, all wearing uniforms. Two privates and one corporal. They said `Come with us.' I told them, `I'm a student. I came here to buy schoolbooks.' They said, `It doesn't matter if you're a student or not.' They didn't say why, they just took us to carry loads from the port. I don't know what was in them, they were covered with rice sacks. I also saw some older men carrying. I started carrying at 10 a.m. and we arrived at two or three in the afternoon. We took the loads to a temporary army camp along the road. When we arrived there, a sergeant said `I will take you to the Su Saun Yay.' Then he took us from the camp to the Su Saun Yay in Sittwe."69
Sai Seng was also sixteen in 2001 when he was taken from his fields in the hills of Shan State:
In June 2001 I went to clear my hill field. I was cutting bamboo. Four SPDC soldiers heard me cutting bamboo and came up to me, touched me with a gun and ordered me to go back down with them. When we reached the bottom of the field I saw a lot of soldiers, and fifteen or twenty porters. Along the way after that they captured everyone they saw, until there were thirty porters. We had to carry rice and weapons for over one week. After two weeks we arrived at their camp. At that time I was sixteen, and among the thirty porters there were five young people like me-the other four were younger than me. The others who were older were released before we reached their camp. They only kept the five of us. Their camp is outside Laikha town, it is LIB [light infantry battalion] 525. They kept us there for two days. I asked their permission to go home, but they wouldn't allow me. When I first arrived there a sergeant told me, "Younger brother, just stay here for one day. If you don't want to join the army I'll send you home tomorrow." After that they called me to the office and Captain Htun Htun70 told me, "It's good to join the army. You will be very joyful if you join the army. You will get a salary." Then I told him that I didn't want to join the army, and that I already have a job. Then he slapped my face and told me, "Don't say anything anymore about not wanting to join the army. If you say that again we'll hurt you again." Then they sent the five of us directly to Taunggyi Su Saun Yay. We had to stay there for over one week. We couldn't go outside the Su Saun Yay fence. There were nineteen of us. Some were younger than me and some were older, but only one or two years older. Then all nineteen of us were sent to Mandalay Su Saun Yay.71
As a Shan living near an area of armed conflict in southern Shan State, Sai Seng was an unlikely recruit. In areas where it is fighting ethnicity-based resistance groups such as the Shan State Army, Karenni Army and Karen National Liberation Army, the Burma army rarely recruits people of that ethnicity. In urban and rural areas away from any armed conflict, however, the army generally takes whomever it can get. Most of the recruits are Burman Buddhists, but even the small number of Tatmadaw soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch included a Karen, a Shan, a Chin, a Rakhine, and a Burmese Muslim.
Of all those interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Kyaw Nyunt's "recruitment" period-from arrest until entering the army-was the longest, lasting nearly three years:
I was arrested when I was ten years old. In my village on my way to school, three people arrested me. They looked like villagers. They had no uniforms. They were thirty or forty. They asked, "Do you want to join the army?" "I'm too young." "You must join." Then they hit me and took me to a detention place. They came there every day or two and told me to join the army, and if I refused they hit me. The detention place was a room with other people, and bars. The other two or three in the room were about eighteen, but there were other rooms with about one hundred people, five or six in each room. There were many rooms. When I left the place I could see. The rooms had bars.
The cells were located inside an army camp at Bassein town, ninety minutes' trip from his village. Kyaw Nyunt was kept in this place "about three years, but sometimes I had to go and work as a servant in the officers' houses. But I spent one or two years in the room with the bars. I went back and forth between detention and the work in the officers' houses. There were many officers, not just one. RSI [radio signals intelligence], CQ [chief quartermaster], some are sergeants and warrant officers." Each shift of work at an officer's house lasted ten to fifteen days, "carrying water, cutting firewood, clearing grass and scrub." He received no money, but some of the officers' families were kinder than others and gave him fifty or sixty kyat72 for pocket money. He didn't try to run away because "it's like an army camp, and the houses were inside the camp. There were many soldiers around. Some others who tried to run were caught and arrested. Then they were beaten, and never allowed out of the detention place after that. . . . When I first arrived they asked me about two times each day if I'd join the army, and after that about twice a month. Every time I said no, but they hit me many many times until finally I said yes. They were in army uniforms, NCOs. I had many bruises all over my body, so finally I said yes. When I was nearly fourteen I was taken by a captain to a training place."73
Ye Nyunt: The "Brave Sprouts"
They sent me to a special place in their army camp called Ye Nyunt. At the IB 54 camp there are a hundred Ye Nyunt boys, aged from four up to sixteen. They gather boys who are orphans and care for them in the camp. They sent some to the school they have there.
Another source of recruits to the army is the Ye Nyunt system, which directly translates as "Brave Sprouts." Often referred to as a youth organization, in reality Ye Nyunt is a network of camps for orphans and other boys run by the army. Details on the origins and structure of Ye Nyunt are difficult to obtain, but it appears to have existed for at least twenty years. It began at least in part because there were no adequate government facilities to care for children orphaned or separated from their families by poverty or the civil war. According to a Burmese human rights educator who grew up in a Burma army camp because his father was a soldier, "Any battalion commander could set up a Ye Nyunt in his camp. Before 1988 many battalions had them. The troops in the front line often brought back poor or orphaned children and they could study there, then afterwards they could become a teacher or a nurse. In Mingaladon township of Rangoon they had a big school called `Ye Nyunt High School.' Those who passed there could go to the Defense Services Academy [for officer training]."75 Most battalions have a battalion school at their headquarters which is run by the Ministry of Education for the soldiers' families, but the Ye Nyunt camps are run directly by the battalion.
After 1988 things changed, and the Ye Nyunt camps gradually assumed a role as preliminary training camps for future soldiers. In 1993 families in Chin State reportedly began complaining that the SLORC authorities were encouraging them to enroll their sons in Ye Nyunt for higher education, only to later find out that the boys had been forced into the army.76 It appears that now street children and other boys who are rounded up for recruitment but are too small to be soldiers are sometimes sent to a Ye Nyunt camp to be held and trained until they are large enough to be enlisted in the army. According to Myo Chit, who spent three months as a Ye Nyunt boy in 1998, "About seventy had been forced in, and about thirty were there of their own will. Of those thirty, some wanted to be Ye Nyunt and some wanted to join the army but were too young, so they were kept with the Ye Nyunt. They'd had many family problems, so they approached some soldiers and were sent there. . . . The youngest was four years old, his name was Ah Ka Bo. He was Karen. He was there because both of his parents were dead. About 80 or 90 percent were orphans, but most of them had only lost one parent."77 Myo Chit himself was not an orphan nor was he willing to join the Ye Nyunt. In 1998, when he was twelve years old,
I was trying to go and visit my brother in Tha Zi. I was with my aunt and my cousin, and when the train stopped and we got off I got lost in the crowd and couldn't find them. I was looking for my aunt, and three soldiers without uniforms asked me, "Where are you from? Where are you going?" I told them, and said I was looking for my aunt. "Where's your ID card?" I told them I didn't have it. Then they said they're with intelligence and I must go with them. They had a paper that lets them go to any battalion, so that night they took me to the camp of Battalion #235 in Tha Zi. I had to stay with them, and early the next morning at about four o'clock they took me by train to Loikaw. On the train they said "You must join the army. You are lost, so you must follow us and join the army. You have no ID card and no papers, so the only way is to join the army. If you try to escape or refuse to join we'll use these." And they showed me some handcuffs. There were only the three soldiers and me, but along the way at Panglong station they got two more recruits who were about fourteen and sixteen. Some other intelligence men were waiting there on the station platform and they handed those two boys over to the three soldiers I was with.78
The intelligence men then took the three boys to Loikaw in Kayah State, where they handed them over to Infantry Battalion 54. Enclosed within the battalion camp was a Ye Nyunt camp. "The [Ye Nyunt] compound was about three acres. Only on Saturdays and Sundays could we go outside the Ye Nyunt compound into the IB 54 camp, but we had no permission to leave the battalion camp."79 Myo Chit was immediately given a uniform "like a Burmese soldier's uniform but with a different badge. Green shirt, green trousers, and Chinese canvas boots. The badge was yellow with no picture, just writing: `Ye Nyunt #1.' All wore uniforms, they had uniforms in all sizes." He fell in with the routine of the camp:
We had to wake up early at 5 a.m. and make our beds. At six we had food, rice porridge. At seven we shared duties: some had to clean the compound, some had to plant trees or water the plants for an hour. Then we took a bath, changed clothes and went to school. Some didn't have to go to school because they were late for the start of the school year. I didn't go to the school there because I was late. About seventy went to school, the others tended pigs, cattle etc. I was in that camp for three months. For one and a half months I tended livestock, and I worked as a cook for the Ye Nyunt. I worked for eight hours. There were many jobs and loh ah pay [forced labor], like clearing scrub, fencing, planting and watering.
The Ye Nyunt boys went to school out in the battalion camp together with the children of the battalion soldiers and officers, "but the Ye Nyunt boys were treated differently. The Ye Nyunt boys could only go during school hours, but the other children could get teaching overtime. Some of the teachers were living on the base, and some came from town." Though only some of the boys could go to school, no one was exempt from military training: "On Saturdays and Sundays we got military training, all the Ye Nyunt boys. Marching, following orders, and stripping, cleaning and maintaining weapons -G2, G3, G4, and Chinese 52 [assault rifles and machine guns], but without bullets." As for the youngest, a four-year-old boy, "he didn't have to join the training, but he had to sit and watch. There were four who had to sit and watch: the youngest was four, one was between four and five, one was five, and the other was about six. The youngest who participated was about seven. He trained without a gun but he had to do the marching and drills. Once someone is nine they can carry the G2 [assault rifle], because it's a bit shorter. I had a G3. It was heavy." He says they had to march with their guns on their shoulders, and if they got too tired to carry it they were punished: "Diving to the ground, jumping like a frog. I had to do that three or four times. Every day one or two were beaten." Military training was not the only time the boys were beaten. "Two or three times a day boys were beaten for other reasons. I was beaten many times. Sometimes they used a stick but usually they punched us. The soldier would hit us once, but more than once if he was angry."
His Ye Nyunt unit had about one hundred boys aged four to sixteen, supervised by two Burma army sergeants and a warrant officer and "formed like a military company with a company commander and lieutenants, etc., who were Ye Nyunt boys. They were boys who had been there longer. . . . One boy had been there for ten years, because his brain was damaged [mentally handicapped]. He was about twenty-five years old. His name is Maung Lone. Apart from him, most join at about thirteen or fourteen, go to school and then have to join the army when they reach eighteen. . . . They have no choice but to go into the army."
Neither the mentally handicapped man nor the youngest boys were given any special treatment or contact with civilian society. Even for the four-year-old Ah Ka Bo, "it was just the Ye Nyunt section leaders who took care of him. We slept in a long barracks with just a bed and blanket, no mosquito net. He just had a bed like the rest of us." They ate rice with servings of fish or meat weighed out on a scale, and often went to bed hungry. "I often missed home and I cried often. So did the other boys. Among ourselves we comforted each other, but if the older soldiers saw this they sometimes beat us. I was beaten for crying two times myself. I saw boys beaten for crying about once a week. The youngest boy I saw beaten for crying was eight years old." Myo Chit had no contact with his family "because they didn't allow it. I was worried, so I asked permission to contact them and they said, `If you contact your parents you'll leave the army or run away.'" Living in a fenced camp within an army base, running away must have appeared impossible, but some tried when they were taken outside the gates to do forced labor for the battalion:
We wanted to run away but it wasn't easy. We talked about it three or four times. Three ran away, but one was caught. He had to dive face down on the ground, then every Ye Nyunt boy had to beat him one time. Some had pity on him and didn't hit him very hard, so the supervisor said "I'll show you how" and hit him once, and then said, "Go and hit him once like that." Most of the hits were on his legs, with a bamboo about this big [two inches in diameter]. The boy was about sixteen. After the beating he was in bad shape, he was crying and couldn't stand up. He wasn't bleeding, but he was swollen and his skin was bruised gray and brown. He was sent to the clinic for three or four days before coming back. After the clinic he still had bruises on his legs.
Boys in the Ye Nyunt system are given no choice but to enlist in the army, and are generally forced to do so as soon as they are physically strong enough for the duties of a soldier. Though Myo Chit says that "if you're a good student you're allowed to go to school until you're eighteen," his story implies that most boys are forced into the army earlier than that and this is supported by his statement that none of the one hundred boys in his Ye Nyunt unit were older than sixteen. He says that after he had been in the Ye Nyunt camp for about two months the sergeant spoke to the boys one by one and filled out forms with their personal details. When he gave his date of birth,
They wrote the correct day and month but changed the year. I was born in `88, but he wrote `84. I saw it exactly. Sgt. Aung Kyaw Zaw asked my age. I said twelve. He said, "If you want to go to school you can. If you want to join the army you can join, your body is big enough." I said I wouldn't go to school, I'd join the army. It was because I wasn't happy in Ye Nyunt, the food was bad and sometimes I was beaten, so I thought life might be better in the army. About two weeks after he filled out the forms, twelve of us from the Ye Nyunt were sent for training. Once I was in the army training I realized I'd made a mistake and should have chosen school.
Even though he had chosen the army, "[n]one of us really knew they were sending us to training, I just thought so because they'd shaved the hair off of all of us before we left. The sergeant gathered the twelve of us and said `Go with this truck.' We thought it was pa take [forced labor] for the battalion, but suddenly we were in another military compound, then we were sent to Loikaw station and from there to Mandalay #2 Su Saun Yay [recruit holding camp]." Of the group of twelve, he says that three were sixteen years old, five or six were fifteen, two or three were fourteen, and he was the youngest at twelve.
When he later arrived at military training, Myo Chit began meeting other Ye Nyunt boys. Of the 250 recruits in his training company, "[t]wenty-nine of the trainees were from Ye Nyunt. I asked them and many said they'd been in Ye Nyunt for many years before coming. Those from Ye Nyunt always had to go ahead of the others to demonstrate things." The army trainers looked on the Ye Nyunt boys as model recruits, trained to be soldiers from early childhood.
The boys in Myo Chit's training company came from Ye Nyunt camps at Infantry Battalion #54 in Loikaw, Infantry Battalion #64 based at Land Chan in Shan State, and Infantry Battalion #84 based at Hswar in Chin State. Others interviewed by Human Rights Watch spoke of Ye Nyunt units at Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #314 in Kengtung, Shan State, with over 200 boys; LIB #316 at Tar Lay, near Tachilek in southeastern Shan State, with about eighty boys; Infantry Battalion (IB) #43 at Murng Paeng in Shan State, with about 200 boys; IB #49 at Murng Hsat in Shan State, also with about 200 boys; and at an unnamed battalion near Taunggyi.80 According to a representative of a local relief and human rights organization who works with displaced populations in southern Shan State,
The Burmese army has a unit in Kengtung, Battalion 314, and they take children in that area. First they looked for orphans, but then they also took boys who have parents. They said they'd teach them but they put them in Ye Nyunt, and once they're about twelve they put them in the army. They keep them in their camp. They have Lahu, Akha, Shan and Palaung boys, more than 200 altogether. . . . About thirty new boys are taken into each Ye Nyunt each year. They take ages four and up. No girls are taken. The camps are closed and they can't go out except with the group. Then they cannot leave, they must join the army. Their parents don't know they'll end up in the army, but if the parents try to go and see their sons the army moves them to another camp. . . . Last year there was an order to the five districts in Kengtung area that they need 5,000 new recruits so they must get ten people from each village tract. . . . [army officers] go to the parents of poor families and say, "We'll send your sons to a good school." Then they go to the village tract head and say they need ten boys, and if he doesn't give them they'll take serious action. . . . Some boys have been in the Ye Nyunt camps for over ten years. They began the program at least ten or twenty years ago but not as heavily as now, now it is much worse than before.81
Most of the Ye Nyunt camps mentioned above are in southern Shan State, but the limited evidence available implies that there are similar camps at many army bases nationwide. When Myo Chit went from his Ye Nyunt camp in Loikaw to military training, he says he began meeting boys from Ye Nyunt camps in other states. He also told Human Rights Watch that since his desertion he has met other Ye Nyunt boys who also deserted, some of whom are now with the All-Burma Students' Democratic Front, an armed opposition group.82 His account and those of others interviewed by Human Rights Watch83 referred to Ye Nyunt camps in Shan, Kayah, and Chin states, and Rangoon and Tenasserim divisions. Though many people say they have heard of Ye Nyunt, very few know the details; like many things in Burma, the entire program is shrouded in army secrecy. As one former soldier remarked, "They're all over the place in Burma, but I've never been to one. There's one at Taunggyi."84 After Myo Chit finished his military training, all twelve boys from his Ye Nyunt camp were posted back to Infantry Battalion #54 in Loikaw as soldiers, indicating that each battalion essentially "owns" its Ye Nyunt boys-which provides a direct incentive for battalions to catch as many boys as they can.
The SPDC responded to a query by Human Rights Watch by stating that the Ye Nyunt "was an educational training program carried out in some military bases. It is definitely not a military training program for training child soldiers. This educational training program is a program for children who are poor and are without one or both parents. It is important to note that this educational training program has been discontinued since the year 2000. Children under this program were transferred to Nationalities Youth Development Training School (NYDTS) under the Ministry of Progress of Border Areas and National Races and Development Affairs."85 Neither Myo Chit, who is still in contact with some other former Ye Nyunt boys, nor any other interviewee who knew of the Ye Nyunt system, gave any indication that the program is now supposed to have ended, and Human Rights Watch has had no opportunity to confirm this claim by the SPDC.
The Su Saun Yay Recruit Holding Camps
All seven of us were sent to a room, and there were about seventy boys there. It was like a barracks, like a lockup. There was a guard outside. The next day we went to work making bricks. Each day they sent three people to work there, and I had to go. The others went to work elsewhere. I heard from someone "we have to wait until there are 240 people here [in their barracks]." I think there are four or five barracks like that. Every day there were fifteen or twenty more people in my barracks. It was a long barracks with a cement walkway down the middle and wooden sleeping platforms along both sides. We slept on the wooden floor along the sides. It could fit 240, but it was crowded. There was just one clay pot for our toilet, and in the morning we had to empty it. We had no mosquito nets, so we got bitten by mosquitoes and some got sick and died. Two died, I think it was malaria. Their names were Aung Htun Lay and Zaw Htun. Zaw Htun was eleven, and I think Aung Htun Lay was nine. He was very young, he only came up to my chest. They were sent to the clinic for treatment but they died there.
"Su Saun Yay" literally means a gathering or collecting place. This is where the army holds new recruits and assembles them into groups to be sent on to the military training schools. There are two types of recruit holding camps. Firstly, there are two central Su Saun Yay camps at Mingaladon (just outside Rangoon) and at Nan Dway in Mandalay, which nearly every new recruit in Burma is channeled through on his way to military training; and secondly, there are small Su Saun Yay enclosures at many army bases throughout Burma which act as "feeders" to the two main Su Saun Yay camps. When a new recruit is captured at a checkpoint or on the street, he is usually taken and detained at the local army post, police station or recruiting office where his recruiters are based. From here he is quickly sent on, either to the nearest Su Saun Yay, usually at a local army base, or to one of the two central Su Saun Yay.
Two of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were captured in Kyaukto town of Rakhine State in August 2001 and sent to a Su Saun Yay inside an army base at Sittwe, the state capital. They described it as a group of small concrete houses inside the army camp compound, where they were held under guard together with over twenty other recruits. Each day they were forced to work cutting grass and chopping firewood. After about two weeks, all of the new recruits were taken on a passenger boat under guard and sent to the central Su Saun Yay at Mingaladon.87
Moe Shwe was captured at a festival in Pyi town when he was thirteen and sent directly to a Su Saun Yay inside the local base of Light Infantry Division #66. "They sent us to the #66 [LID] Su Saun Yay in Prome [Pyi]. When we arrived they filled out forms and we signed them. They asked my age. I said `I'm thirteen,' but they said `You must say eighteen.' They threatened us that if we didn't we'd be beaten or shot. If you're not eighteen you can't be a soldier, so we had to write eighteen. Even the high ranking officers know we're not eighteen, but they accept us anyway. I saw eighteen written on my form."88 He and fourteen or fifteen other recruits were held there for fourteen days, ten of which were spent doing forced labor cleaning out the army base sewage drains, a task he described as "terrible." After that was done, all of the recruits were sent on to Mingaladon Su Saun Yay.
Every recruit has his registration papers filled out for him at some point in the recruitment process, and most of them have experiences similar to that related above by Moe Shwe. Most of the interviewees say that their forms were filled out at Mingaladon or Mandalay Su Saun Yay, but some were registered at local feeder Su Saun Yay camps, the army outpost where they were first caught, or not until they were sent to military training. Regardless of where the forms are filled in, the officers and NCOs usually insist on recording the age of child recruits as eighteen. When Aung Htun first arrived at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay in 1999, "[t]he sergeant filled out the form and then we had to sign it. He said, `If you're under sixteen you can't join the army, so you must say you're twenty.' I said `I'm sixteen' and I said I wanted to put my real age, but the sergeant said, `You can't.' I said, `Then maybe I won't join the army,' but he said, `You have no choice. You promised to join the army so you must join.' Then he made me sign. He'd written twenty as my age on the form."89 Zaw Moe also gave his real age, which was fifteen, "but they wrote down eighteen. I saw it, and the officer said to me, `Your age is eighteen.'" He says he did not protest because "[i]t's very hard to say anything to an officer."90 When sixteen-year-old Myo Aung stated his real age at the army camp where he was first detained, "[t]hey said, `No, you must say eighteen.' I didn't agree, but they wrote it down themselves and made me sign it. The corporal told me it was because if our age is under eighteen they wouldn't be able to send us to the new recruits' place."91 A few hours after arriving at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay, the NCOs registered Khin Maung Than: "They asked my age. I said I was eleven, and they said, `Don't say eleven. If anyone asks you must say eighteen.' Then I had to put my thumbprint on a form. They'd used a typewriter. It said Name, Date of Birth, Date of Joining Army. They typed it using English numerals and I can't read well, so I couldn't read it."92
Some of the interviewees were threatened on their way to the Su Saun Yay that they must state their age as eighteen or they would be beaten, and were frightened enough that they did as they were told. When Than Aung was registered at an army camp in Bassein, "They asked my parents' names, my name, address, and if I wanted to join the army. I said `I don't want to join.' I don't know who was standing behind me, but suddenly he hit me. They didn't ask again. When he asked my age I said fourteen, but he wrote down sixteen. . . . They changed my age from fourteen to sixteen and then put me with the others."93 Boys who are registered at local army camps or later at military training sometimes see their true ages written down, or have their ages adjusted upward to sixteen or seventeen rather than eighteen. These forms may be altered later in the recruitment files, because it appears to be the recruiting officers at the Su Saun Yay camps who most consistently register the age of every recruit as eighteen or above. In bureaucratic fashion, these officers are probably just protecting themselves and trying to keep the records clean, because they know that the official rules state that recruits must be at least eighteen years old. The accounts given by those interviewed, however, show that the officers and NCOs are fully cognizant that they are enlisting children. When Htun Htun lined up to be registered at Mandalay Su Saun Yay,
They asked my parents' names. I told them I was thirteen. Then he said, "Do you agree, do you really want to join?" I said, "I don't want to join, but I have to join." He asked if I'd ever been to school. I said, "Yes, I've been to school." Then he asked, "Who brought you here?" I said, "The soldiers arrested me." Then the one asking the questions said "I'm sorry, I cannot help you because there are others above me." He wrote my age as eighteen. When I looked at the paper he'd changed my age to eighteen.94
Volunteers, recruits captured by the police, boys from the Ye Nyunt camps, recaptured deserters, recruits from the "feeder" Su Saun Yay camps-the interviews and evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch indicates that nearly all of them eventually pass through the central Su Saun Yay camps at Mingaladon or Mandalay. These are large camps inside even larger army bases. Khin Maung Than described Mingaladon as follows: "The Su Saun Yay is a military compound with six barracks, each very big and long. There are about 200 boys in each. It's inside an army camp."95 Another boy who had been there said he saw nine large barracks, though most placed the number at six. A third boy described "two big buildings. In each building there are four big rooms, two downstairs and two upstairs, with about 200 in each room. At night it was under guard, about thirty guards. We weren't soldiers yet, so the older soldiers guarded us. There were about 300 or 400 in our building, maybe 800 altogether in the camp."96 Recruits are largely confined to their part of the camp so their descriptions vary, and the barracks may have undergone renovations over the years. The barracks are arranged around a central space, where there is a detention block for punishing troublesome recruits and those who try to escape. The Su Saun Yay at Mandalay is laid out similarly, with four long barracks each capable of holding at least 200 recruits. Most former soldiers say that they spent five to ten days at Mingaladon or seven to fourteen days at Mandalay Su Saun Yay before being shipped out for training. The number of boys and men at the Su Saun Yay varies widely as new recruits arrive and others are shipped out, but most estimated that there are usually 500 to 1,000 new recruits at Mingaladon and 300 to 500 at Mandalay. Myo Aung spent ten days at Mingaladon in 1998 and says, "I saw other recruits arrive almost every day. About 5,000 arrived while I was there. All the recruits from all the states and divisions are sent to Mingaladon. Every day people left for the training schools. Some stay a month, some just a few days."97
Some arrive at the Su Saun Yay not even knowing yet that they are being recruited to the army. Fourteen-year-old Hla Thein got a rude awakening: "We didn't know yet that we would be soldiers. At about 9 a.m. we arrived at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay. When we arrived there we passed through many military checkpoints to get in, and then I saw many other recruits. I asked permission to smoke, and a soldier kicked me. One of our group from Bassein who was about twenty told us, `Hey, you're going to be soldiers.' He had been a soldier and had been there before." Fresh off the truck after being jammed together with almost eighty others on the long journey from Bassein, they were promptly introduced to army discipline:
When we arrived they cut our hair first. Then the soldier who had brought us wrote our names and gave them to someone, and then they made us sit in rows on the floor: one row for Bassein, one row for Mandalay, one row for Rangoon, like that. From 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. we had to sit crosslegged, our hands on our knees, eyes straight forward. Over 200 of us. At noon we got up and got a plate, some rice and curry, and then had to sit again. The commanders gave some orders in the front, they sang some military songs and we had to repeat them. At about 6 p.m. we were allowed to go to the toilet, but we had to go naked. Then we went to sleep in the barracks.98
Forcing boys to strip naked before they can go to the latrine is a common practice at Su Saun Yay camps and training centers, presumably to prevent them from attempting to escape.
When thirteen-year-old Htun Htun arrived at Mandalay Su Saun Yay he found many new recruits still being convinced to enlist:
I was there for fifteen days. They were asking children [to join the army] and beating them, they asked them one by one and then beat them with teak wood on the hips. That first day I saw 250 taken to be asked. We could see it. When they saw the others being beaten, some of the children got so afraid they panicked, they started crying and crying and calling for their parents. Myself, I was afraid and just wished I could be with my parents. The first day I was beaten seven times, and thirty times in my whole time there. Then I agreed to join, and they stopped beating me.99
When sixteen-year-old Myo Aung arrived at Mingaladon, "they took us for a blood test by pricking my finger. There was also a medical checkup, when they tested our lungs and things like that. Then we were sent to join the group of new recruits who had arrived before us. More than 1,000 of them. They said they'd been arrested in the town, in the railway and bus stations, especially at night."100 While some recruits say they were given medical checks, it seems to be entirely skipped for others. It is possible that to expedite processing the large numbers of recruits, the medical papers are sometimes filled out without the medical checks being done. None of those interviewed had heard of anyone being rejected for medical reasons. One interviewee reported that at least one of the recruits in the detention block with him was epileptic, and that the guards knew about it but that he was not released. He went on to say that there are many epileptics in the Burma army, and they are only discharged if their seizures are particularly frequent or serious.
The barracks consist of long rooms, with a cement walkway down the middle and slightly raised wooden platforms along both sides. The recruits sleep side by side on the wooden floor, with no mosquito nets. When Salaing Toe Aung was at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay in 2001, "We slept in a barracks. There were about 200 or 300 in mine. We were under guard. The guard rotated, two soldiers at a time. There were two doors."101 Though boys can go to the latrines during the day, if they need to use a toilet at night there is only one clay pot at the end of the barrack room for all of them, which they must empty every morning. Meals generally consist of poor quality rice with a watery yellow bean curry or vegetables, served in strictly limited quantities. Sein Kyi's complaint is typical: "The food was terrible. We had mostly fried watergreens. We got meat once a week, but just a very small piece."102
During their time at the Su Saun Yay the recruits are not given military training nor are they paid, but they are forced to work. Many are forced to clean and maintain the camp, while others are forced to work on money-making ventures for the officers such as brick baking and fish farming. Myo Aung explained, "We had to carry bricks. Some worked in the fields or constructed buildings. We were divided into many groups to do different jobs. Some had been there for one or two months."103 Salaing Toe Aung was put to work as soon as he arrived at Mingaladon: "We were weeding grass from under the flowers and trees. It was hard work because we had to pull up the grass and weeds by hand. I was beaten twice because I wasn't doing the job well enough. The NCOs beat me. They hit me four or five times with a cane stick."104 Another sixteen-year-old recruit said that from the first day he arrived in 1999, "we had to make bricks. For more than one week. The officers sold them to companies. We got no money from that. We started working at about 5:30 a.m., stopped for lunch at twelve, then worked from one to five in the afternoon. If you refused you could be beaten or sent to jail. Some were beaten, maybe twenty or thirty boys altogether. Two or three were beaten each day. We were beaten with sticks. The sergeants ordered it, and the corporals or lance corporals did the beating. There were twenty of them. We were beaten on the hips and the back, usually five times. If they were angry they beat you on the head."105 Moe Shwe was only thirteen years old and says he was working in a crew with other boys aged twelve and thirteen: "They made us dig, cut the grass around some houses, grow vegetables and work at the rations storehouse. There were many kinds of work. We didn't have time to rest. If there was any pay for that, it was kept by the senior officers."106 Already forced to clear the sewage drains at the #66 Infantry Division Su Saun Yay in Pyi, he was now forced to do it again in Mingaladon. Htun Htun recounted that at Mandalay Su Saun Yay: "[t]hey had a plantation there and I had to work digging holes. They forced the children there to work digging holes, and then just gave us rice with uncooked fishpaste. We were also raising fish, digging fishponds, and feeding the fish."107
Officers at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay also make money by hiring out the new recruits to local businesses, according to Hla Thein: "They divided us up. Some had to clean the compound, some had to work on the businesses the officers were running in the compound. Some businessmen call their day laborers from the Su Saun Yay, especially the biscuit factories. Some of my friends had to go and work there. I think they were fed there but they didn't get any money. Maybe the soldiers got the money."108
Parents are never notified that their sons have been taken to the Su Saun Yay, and the boys in the camp are not allowed to write letters or contact the outside world. Some parents, however, know enough about the army's recruitment practices to guess where their sons are and come looking for them. When Than Aung was in the Su Saun Yay, "I saw some parents arrive at Mingaladon and talk to the officers. They gave them some money and then took their son from the Su Saun Yay. I don't know how much it was, but I could see that it was a lot of money. My parents didn't know where I was. Once when I was out of the lockup [the detention block] in the Su Saun Yay I saw a newspaper. I think it was the Myanma Alin. In it I saw an ad that my parents had placed with my photo, saying that they had lost their son. But the next day the soldiers had taken away all the newspapers."109 At Mandalay Su Saun Yay, "The parents can get their child back if they pay money. It is 50,000 kyat. I saw it in Mandalay."110 This is not always allowed, though. After he ran away from home at age fourteen and enlisted, Thein Oo was at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay: "Two days after I arrived one of my brothers came. The soldiers came and told me, `Your brother has come to meet with you.' Then they closed the door and wouldn't give me a chance to meet him. I wanted to meet with him and said I wanted to see him, but the soldiers refused to let him see me. That made me feel sad. I think he would have paid money to take me back."111 He believes that his brother was not allowed to buy him back from the army because his papers had already been completed.
With their first taste of life in the Burma army many already decide to run away from the Su Saun Yay, but this is not easy. As one recruit noted, "We didn't have a chance to talk because they were afraid we'd talk about running away. We tried to talk but they were always watching, and if they saw people talking they beat them."112 Another agreed about the difficulty of escaping: "Three or four escaped when they were working at the factories, but none escaped from the Su Saun Yay compound. Those who were caught were beaten in the face by the soldiers and then beaten in the back with bamboo sticks in front of all the recruits. I saw them do that to two boys. They were beaten very badly, until they couldn't walk. Then they were sent to hospital."113 Another interviewee said that while he was at Mingaladon two or three recruits ran away each day, but two-thirds of them were caught and put in the detention block: "They beat them and put them in there. They can't go outside the fence. They can only go out to take a bath with a special guard. Even when they take a bath there are many guards there. The food is sent into them and the toilet is inside."114 Escape from Mandalay Su Saun Yay appears to have been slightly easier, so "a lot of boys ran away. When we wanted to go to the toilet they made us strip naked so we couldn't run, but some didn't care and ran naked anyway. Many boys escaped but ten were caught. Sergeant Tin Ma beat them and said `You have to join the army.'"115
Thein Oo was the only one of those interviewed who had himself actually attempted to escape the Su Saun Yay. At the time he was fourteen years old, and though he had run away from home in 1998 to enlist in the army, by the time he had been at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay for five days he had already changed his mind:
One day I had duty to feed the fish in a fishpond. I don't know whose fishpond it was. I suddenly felt homesick because I'd never been away so far or so long from my mother before, so I tried to run away. There were five of us working around the fishpond. I said to one of the youngest ones, "Let's run away." He said he couldn't run fast so I should run alone. I ran, but then ten soldiers ran after me. I tried to hide in some bushes but they found me, grabbed me by my shirt and beat me badly, until blood was coming from my nose. Then they tied black wire around my neck and pulled me back to the Su Saun Yay. They took me to the 2nd lieutenant. I was beaten five times with a bamboo, then they put me in an enclosure. There were ten of us in a space this wide and this long [1.5 meters by three meters]. We couldn't lay down. The walls were wooden planks with gaps between, like bars. There was barbed wire on top of the walls, and a roof.116
This building with the bars and the barbed wire is the Mingaladon Su Saun Yay detention block, which stands in the open space between the main barracks. He went on to describe his time there: "I was kept in there for eight days. Some of the others had tried to run, and some were caught planning to run or were caught talking and were suspected of wanting to run. They gave us food twice a day but it was very bad-sometimes we saw leeches in the vegetables. We could only go outside twice a day when they fed us, and that's the only time we could go to the toilet. At night they gave us a plastic bag. The floor was wood with many bugs, and we had to sleep on the floor with no blanket or mosquito net." Of the ten people sharing his detention cell, three were only fourteen years old.
The worst detention cells are reserved for those who try to run away, but some are sent directly to the detention block on their arrival at the Su Saun Yay, the only apparent reason being that they are not eager recruits. To discourage them from attempting to escape some are kept naked for their entire time in the detention block, while others are forced to strip naked whenever they leave the cell to eat, as well as to visit the latrine. Fourteen-year-old Than Aung arrived at Mingaladon on an army truck with close to eighty other recruits from Bassein, most of them captured boys: "When we arrived the soldiers asked us, `Would you like to join the army or would you like to go home?' Many of us said we'd like to go home. Then they took the thirty or forty of us who'd said that, stripped us naked, put us in the lockup and gave us just a tiny bit of rice. The others were sent to the barracks."117 Sein Kyi had a similar experience: "When we arrived at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay there was a sergeant named Kya La Wah ["Tiger Paw"]. He slapped me, then sent me to the lockup in the Su Saun Yay. When I asked to go to the toilet they stripped me naked and sent me to the toilet. When I went for a meal they stripped me naked and I went to eat. It was a very small room but there were about forty people in there, both adults and children. . . . About twelve or thirteen of us were under fifteen. . . . In the group of forty there was one leader, and sometimes he beat the new arrivals. He asked many questions and sometimes they couldn't answer so he beat them. He was also a recruit, not a soldier. He was the first who'd arrived there."118
Conditions in the detention block are deplorable. Than Aung remembers his time there in 1997 clearly: "In the room we were all naked. There were about sixty of us in a room the same size as this one [four to five metres square]. There were two rooms like ours. We couldn't sleep. There were also rats and ants in the room. The floor was wood. For a toilet they'd dug a hole in the ground and it had a wooden cover over it. The hole was about ten feet deep. There was a terrible smell. Some people smoked in the room, and if they were seen they were beaten. Also if people spoke too loudly, the guards came in and asked `Who was talking?' then beat them. The food was terrible, there was very little rice and yellow beans with stones, it was very hard to eat." Of the sixty people in his cell,
[h]alf were about my age [fourteen], the others were fifteen, sixteen and seventeen. I don't think any were over eighteen. There were ten children who were just thirteen years old. The youngest was my friend who was eleven. He often cried because he didn't get enough food, and then he was beaten by the guards. I also cried often because I didn't want to join the army. I was beaten twice a day for crying. Kya La Wah [Sergeant "Tiger Paw"] beat my face. Some boys lost their teeth when he hit them. . . . We didn't have enough food or sleep, no clothes, and there were mosquitos and ants. Two or three boys got sick and died. They were sent to hospital after they got sick in the room, and we heard later that they died there. They were thirteen, sixteen, and about eighteen. The youngest was Zaw Min Naing. I don't know where he was from, but I ate beside Zaw Min Naing once and asked his name.119
Once in the detention block a recruit is kept there until his number comes up to be sent to training, which usually takes five to ten days, though some who had been in the detention block said that they had met detainees who had been there as long as a full month (the latter may have been held back because they had committed a serious offence such as striking a guard). Suddenly they find themselves taken out of the detention block and put on trucks together with other recruits from the barracks, as described by Thein Oo: "After eight days an officer came and took me out of the jail. He gave me two dried fish and a packet of rice, and put me on one of the trucks with 119 others. We were sent to #4 Training Center in Panglong, in Shan State. We spent one night on the way."120
The recruits are sent from Mingaladon or Mandalay Su Saun Yay to training camps throughout Burma, usually in groups of approximately 250 (though the number is sometimes as low as 120 or as high as 300). When each new recruit arrives at the Su Saun Yay he is assigned a number, and when his group is full he goes with them, whether he is in the barracks or the detention block. When Soe Naing arrived at Mingaladon Su Saun Yay there were seventy others in his barracks; more arrived each day until "after I'd been there for seven days our room had about 240 people, so one soldier came in ringing a bell and a sergeant told us to gather our belongings. We took our belongings and had to sit crosslegged in groups of three. Then the sergeant told us to sign a paper. He didn't ask anything, just made us all write our names on a list and then he gave it to the soldier who was going to send us to the training. Then they told us to get on the truck."121 At Mandalay Su Saun Yay "[i]t happens weekly. Sometimes they send 200 people each week, sometimes they send 250 people in a week. I was in the Su Saun Yay for three or four days, then 200 of us were sent to Monywa district in Sagaing Division, to A'Ya Daw Training School."122 Another recruit who went through Mandalay Su Saun Yay said that some of the smallest boys there are held back for months before being sent to training, but this does not appear to be the case at Mingaladon.
Once recruits are shipped out from the central Su Saun Yay camps the trip to the training camp is usually by combination of army trucks and trains, and can take several days depending on the distance involved, stopping overnight at army bases along the way. Some former soldiers say that they were crowded into special train cars which were attached to the back of a regular passenger train, while one interviewee's group was actually put on a train among the passengers. Either way, there are many guards and escape is extremely difficult. On arrival at the training camp, the group remains together and forms one "training company."
Training
When we were attending the training there were some people who ran away. Why did they run away? Because they didn't want to be there from the beginning. The other reason is that we were very tired. Even when people were tired they beat them and forced them to work. . . . After a while the soldiers couldn't bear it anymore and they ran away. When people ran away, if they recaptured them we students had to beat them. There were 200 people in our group, and every one of us was ordered to hit him one time with a cane stick. If we said anything they hit us. The reason is for us to know that if we run away later we will get beaten like that too. After the beating, if he couldn't stand up anymore he was just left laying on the concrete like that. Sometimes they were unconscious. Then if they couldn't eat rice anymore, they were fed rice soup. They treated them with medicine, and then they cut [the cost of] that from all of our salaries. After all the cuts to our salaries we were left with only 600 or 700 kyat.
Information gathered by Human Rights Watch indicates that there are at least twenty-two basic military training camps in Burma, as well as two or more training camps for non-commissioned officers, three officer training schools, and several other specialized training schools.124 Many infantry and light infantry battalions also give refresher courses, landmine courses and other secondary training at their battalion headquarters to soldiers already belonging to the battalion. This report will only look at the basic military training camps, because this is where most child soldiers and other new recruits are trained. A list of twenty-two of these camps, which are scattered throughout most of Burma, can be seen in Appendix A Twelve of them are known as "divisional headquarters training camps" (DHTC) and an additional ten are "army training camps" (ATC), though the accounts of those trained there indicate that there is little or no difference between the two regarding the material taught or the treatment of trainees. Former soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch had been trained at army training camps #4 in Panglong, Shan State; #5 at Yay Ni, near Pyawbwe in Pegu Division; #7 at Taung Dwin Gyi, near Prome (Pyi) in Pegu Division; #9 at Thaton, Mon State; and #10 at Kalaymyo, Chin State; at divisional headquarters training camps #4 at Weh G'Li, Mon State, and #6 at Oke Twin, near Toungoo in Pegu Division; and training camps for which numbers were not available, including Taunggyi, Shan State; K'Tha Shwe Bo, Kachin State; A'Ya Daw, near Monywa in Sagaing Division; Mergui in Tenasserim Division; and Maymyo in Mandalay Division.
The duration of basic training is normally four and a half to five months. Some training camps only have one group in training at a time, while others can have as many as three or four going at once. The officers at the training camps teach some tactical theory but spend most of their time doing administrative work, while most of the training is supervised by NCOs. The recruits are kept in large barracks, and the training day usually starts at 6 a.m. with running and other physical training. Some interviewees say that they had to run with sandbags on their backs. After that the training day varies somewhat between camps, but the contents of the training are essentially the same. At most camps they practice marching in the morning, followed by theory and practical military tactics in the afternoon. As the training progresses, the use and maintenance of weapons occupies more of the training time. "In the morning they teach theoretical knowledge. In the afternoon we did practical training. They change it once a week. The first week they practice military parade. The second week they practice big and small weapons. Then the rest of the month they gather the subjects and teach them together. Military parade, small arms, large weapons, military tactics, deploying troops for battle. They only taught a little bit about things like deploying troops."125 At another training camp, "[f]or two weeks we learned only military orders like `forward,' `back,' and `eyes forward.' Then for two weeks we learned stripping and cleaning weapons. We spent a month learning to maintain the G3 [assault rifle]. After two months we went to the shooting range and learned how to shoot. The first time each soldier fired five rounds, and the second time we had to shoot twenty rounds. We trained for two weeks with the G3. Then we were trained to use the MA1, MA2, MA3 and MA4 [newer model assault rifles and machine guns]."126
The training does not include political indoctrination, though in the evenings "[a]fter dinner we stood at attention in the field while the officers told us the rules, like `You can't run away, if you run you'll be punished.' We had to sing many songs with words like `I won't run, I'll obey the rules, we suffer for Burma' and so on. We had to sing them until 9 o'clock."127 Another trainee remembered the speeches every evening by the NCOs who supervised the training: "Things like be good in training, don't run away, and if you want to run away then don't do it from here, do it later from your battalion."128 All of those interviewed said that there was no mention of human rights or the Geneva Conventions during the training, though some were taught the Kyin Wut Chao Seh, or "Sixty Rules of Conduct" of a soldier. This includes "how to talk, how to behave, not to be at odds with civilians, to treat them as brothers and sisters, etc.,"129 or as another recruit expressed it, to treat civilians "Like water, like the moon,"130 meaning to be cool and kindhearted. When asked whether they learned about human rights, most of the former soldiers, however, responded similarly to Sai Seng: "No, they didn't teach about that. They only taught military things. They didn't encourage us to think about politics, they just said we must fight our enemies who are against the country."131
At every training camp throughout Burma the trainees are treated brutally; even the slightest mistake may result in a beating. Aung Htun, who went through training when he was sixteen in 1999, recalls that "if we made a mistake or didn't obey we were beaten. People were beaten every day. I was beaten about twenty times. I was beaten when I couldn't follow the training instructions. I was beaten when I made mistakes in the gun training. If one member of a group made a mistake, the whole group could be beaten. I was beaten with two or three hits of a stick as thick as this table leg [one inch diameter] and this long [one armspan]. I didn't bleed but I was bruised, and the bruises lasted one or two weeks."132 Other punishments for slight infractions include being forced to repeatedly dive face-first onto the ground from a standing position, leaping around like a frog for extended periods of time, or running up and down the hillsides carrying loads of bricks. Nyunt Swe was fourteen when he was trained: "Sometimes they beat people, and sometimes they punished them with very hard work. I was beaten many times, about twenty times in five months of training. Because I didn't understand their instructions. Punch, kick, hit with sticks, they beat us in many ways."133 Kyaw Nyunt was only thirteen but he was also beaten: "If you made a mistake you could be beaten, whether young or old. I was beaten about twenty times. We were punched and beaten with sticks. They usually ask the trainee to choose the stick. If you choose a small one they beat you harder. When I first arrived I cried when I was beaten."134
Most of those interviewed said that the youngest boys in their training group were only eleven or twelve years old, but that they had to do most or all of the training exercises. When one of the training exercises was carrying a log weighing more than thirty kilograms (sixty-four pounds), Aung Htun watched some twelve-year-old trainees being beaten while they struggled under the load. He commented that "the younger boys had many problems so they were beaten more often."135 Training with weapons is also difficult for the smallest boys. The G3 assault rifle and the G4 machine gun have been standard issue in the Burma army for decades, and they are about four feet long and extremely heavy and awkward. Though they are now gradually being superseded by the smaller and lighter MA series, much of the training is still done with the G3 and G4. One interviewee remarked that the youngest trainees struggled because "the G3 was as tall as they were,"136 while another commented of the BA63 (another name for the Burmese-made G3), "I could carry it, but the length of the gun was as tall as me." |
