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Print:The following incident report was written by a community member who has been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights abuses. It describes an incident of violent abuse in M--- village, Bu Tho Township, Papun District on November 2nd 2012, when Saw Maw Nee Say, a corporal of the Border Guard Battalion (BGF) #1014, violently abused a 45-year-old villager called T--- by repeatedly punching him and then confiscating 300,000 kyat (US $318.13) from him. T--- is a black market trader in Y--- village.
Incident report | Bu Tho Township, Papun District (November 2012)
The following incident report is presented below translated exactly as originally written, save for minor edits for clarity and security.[1] This report was received along with other information from Papun District, including two other incident reports, three interviews, one situation update and 50 photographs. [2]
Part 1 – Incident(s) detail
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Type of Incident
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Torture [3]
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Date of Incident(s)
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November 2nd 2012
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Incident Location (Village, Township and District)
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M---, Meh P'Ree village tract, Bu Tho Township, Papun District
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Victim Information [4]
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Name
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Age
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Sex
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Ethnicity
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Religion
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Family
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Occupation
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Village
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T---
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45
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Male
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Muslim
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Islam
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Yes
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Trading cows/buffalo
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Y--- village
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Perpetrator information
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Name
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Rank
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Unit
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Base
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Commander
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Saw Maw Nee Say
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Corporal
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Border Guard #1014, M--- village
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Border Guard #1014, M--- village army camp
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Battalion commander Saw Maung Chit, Border Guard #1014
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Part 2 - Information Quality
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1. Explain the specific manner in which you collected this information.
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On December 3rd 2012, I went into Pah Loh Hpoh village which is located close to Y--- village. That is how we came know about the problem regarding Maw Nee Say torturing T---. [When we visited Y--- village] T--- wasn't at home but the witnesses stay in P--- village, so we went to P--- village.
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2. Explain how the source verified information accuracy.
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The people who provided the information for us are S--- village head, Saw Hs---, and P--- village head, Saw G---. Everyone knows that there are more details from Saw G--- and Saw Hs--- because they always travel with Saw Maw Nee Say [the perpetrator of the abuse]. |
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PART 3 – Incident Details
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Describe the Incident(s) in complete detail. For each incident, be sure to include 1) when the incident happened, 2) where it happened, 3) what happened, 4) how it happened, 5) who was involved, and 6) why it happened. Also describe any villager response(s) to the incident, the aftermath and the current living situation of the victims. Please use the space prepared below and create an attachment if needed.
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The problem is that the BGF [Border Guard Force] #1014 Corporal, Saw Maw Nee Say, tortured T--- and confiscated 300,000 kyat (US $303.64)[5]. We heard about it when we arrived to Hpah Loh Hpoh village. Therefore, we went to where T---lives, which is in Y--- village, however, T--- was not at his home so we could not meet with him.
But later, we found out that the witnesses were staying at S--- and P--- villages, so we went to those villages. We tried to follow up about the incident and later we found out that the incident happened on November 2nd 2012. The incident happened in M--- village, Meh P'Ree village tract, Bu Tho Township, Papun District. A corporal from the BGF #1014 tortured T--- and confiscated 300,000 kyat from him. There are no clear rules among the BGF regarding abuse and they also do not obey the rules. Therefore, the BGF soldiers abuse the villagers' rights and do whatever they want. In detail, black market trader, T--- who lives in Y--- village already paid the cow and buffalo taxes to commander Nyunt Thein in order to be able to travel freely. But we are not sure whether Saw Maw Nee Say knew about it or if he did not get a share of the taxes [before], and was now trying to get [his own part] of the taxes. When Saw Maw Nee Say met T--- in front of Saw Nyunt Thein's house in M--- village, before he [T---] said anything, he punched T--- and we could not even count how many times he was punched. Therefore, black market trader, T---, not only had to suffer the punches from Saw Maw Nee Say, but also had to pay him 300,000 kyat according to the villagers who witnessed the incident. |
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Part 4 - Permission for Using the Details
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Did the victim(s) provide permission to use this information? Explain how that permission was provided.
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The information can be used as needed.
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This photo was taken on December 12th 2012 in P--- village, Meh P’Ree village tract, Bu Tho Township, Papun Township. It is the photo of P--- village head Saw G--- who described the abuse of the BGF Battalion #1013 Corporal Saw Maw Nee Hsee who tortured Saw T--- and confiscated 300,000 kyat from him. [Photo: KHRG]
Footnotes:
[1] KHRG incident reports are written or gathered by community members in Papun District who have been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. KHRG trains community member in eastern Burma to document individual incidents of abuse using a standardised reporting format; conduct interviews with other villagers; and write general updates on the situation in areas with which they are familiar. When writing incident reports, community members are encouraged to document incidents of abuse that they consider to be important, by verifying information from multiple sources, assessing for potential biases and comparing to local trends.
[2] In order to increase the transparency of KHRG methodology and more directly communicate the experiences and perspectives of villagers in eastern Burma, KHRG aims to make all field information received available on the KHRG website once it has been processed and translated, subject only to security considerations. As companion to this, a redesigned website will be released in 2013. In the meantime, KHRG's most recently-published field information from Papun District can be found in the report, "Papun Situation Update: Dwe Lo Township, March 2012 to March 2013," KHRG, July 2013.
[3] While the community member calls this situation a case of torture, it does not meet the international definition as set forth by the Convention Against Torture. Following KHRG's mission, all translations are published exactly as originally submitted save for minor edits for clarity and security. It should be noted that the KHRG community member who wrote this incident report chose to use the Karen phrase, 'ma shah ma p'yweh,' meaning torture, as opposed to ma p'yweh, meaning 'abuse,' or ma na ma hphaw, meaning 'torment' to describe the event, suggesting that the severity of the incident justifies this classification.
[4] As the KHRG community member was not able to speak with aggrieved villager T--- directly, the 'victim information' table was written by the community member based on interviews with villagers who witnessed the abuse. Therefore, it does not necessarily indicate the way the villager would identify himself in terms of religion or ethnicity.
[5] As of July 22nd 2013, all conversion estimates for the Kyat in this report are based on the official market rate of 988 Kyat to the US $1.
