Photo # : Deserter from the SPDC Army Ko H—, 23, gives testimony of his experience after reaching a refugee camp in Thailand in May 2001. Ko H— says he was at a teashop in Rangoon with friends at 9 p.m. one evening in May 2000 when suddenly the lights were doused, an Army truck pulled up and all the men and boys were forced onto the truck. Later all those over 30 were released, but all those aged 14 to 30 were told that “If you do not become a soldier we will accuse you under any political article and put you in prison”. Afraid of imprisonment, he and the others joined. After training he was assigned to #xx Infantry Battalion and sent to xxxx District. “When I arrived at the #xx IB camp they ordered us, ‘If you see any men along the path shoot and kill them all.’ They said all the people in the jungle are rebels and that we must kill them, shoot and kill them all with our guns. ‘There are no friends - only our Army troops are your friend, all the rest are rebels’.” He says his fellow soldiers ranged in age from 13 to 26, and that the four or five 13-year-olds in his platoon were constantly used for forced labour by the officers because they couldn’t do proper soldiering, that they cried often and wanted to go home. Ko H— fell sick in February 2001, so he fell and spilled some of a sack of rice he was carrying with the Column, causing the NCOs to punch, kick, and beat him with bamboo sticks all over the body and face until his mouth was bleeding. After this he fled at the first opportunity. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

Photo # : Saw M—, age 19, a Pwo Karen who was a soldier in SPDC LIB #xxx in Papun District until he fled in December 2000. Originally from M— area in central Burma, at age 18 he was staying with relatives in Rangoon when a group of soldiers stopped him in the street and told him he could either join the Army or they’d send him to prison for life. He chose the Army and was immediately put on a train to Thaton for training. Afterwards he was sent to the frontline with LIB xxx but couldn’t take the hard hikes over the hills so he was always sick and tired, and he was punished for this by being forced to carry water to the mountaintop camp, bake charcoal and dig trenches nonstop. Whenever he couldn’t do it anymore he was punched and beaten, until he fled his unit at night on December 2nd 2000. He now says he doesn’t dare return to his village for fear that the SPDC will kill him, and he just wants to go on living wherever he can. The SPDC is now getting many of its recruits by randomly stopping young men and threatening them with prison, and the desertion rate in the Army has been soaring in the past 2 to 3 years because of brutality like that suffered by Saw M—. [Photo: KHRG researcher]

hoto # : Z— (left), age 17, and W— (right), age 19, two SPDC soldiers who fled Light Infantry Battalion #xxx in xxxx District in March 2001. When W— was a 14 year old schoolboy in August 1995, he went to visit his Aunt in Rangoon but was grabbed by soldiers and police the moment he stepped off the train in Rangoon station, and was told that if he didn’t join the Army they would send him to prison. He says he told them he was a student but they refused to listen, and he was forced into the Army where he remained for over 5 years. Z— was also 14 when he was forced into the Army in 1998; he was grabbed after his 3rd Standard (Grade 3) midterm exams when he was visiting his Aunt, and says he is sad that he never got to go back to school. Z— and W— say they fled the Army together because their commander stole most of their salaries and beat them and tortured them every time he got drunk, which was often. Photo #H5 shows Z— with his G3 assault rifle. [Photos: KHRG researcher]

Photo # : A KNLA patrol in Papun District, including two child soldiers (second and fourth from left). Though the KNLA has stopped actively recruiting or conscripting child soldiers, there are still quite a few in the ranks. [Photo: KHRG researcher]