Interview #3

Karen Villager
Ye Pyu Township, Tenasserim Division, Burma

There are 200 households in the village, and most of the villagers are farmers. The village has to work on the railway road from 1995 through 1999. Villagers have to work on the railway road by rotation during this period. Other work [includes] building the military camp, repairing the railway road after the rainy season, and following the military for portering when the military needs. When we had to build the railway road, we had to give 50 people to work, and we could rotate as four groups between the 200 households. . . . We didn't get paid for any of this. Compared with the time when we worked on the railway road, we now do not give labor very often. Now, they sometimes ask for people to be porters to travel with them, carrying their food and supplies for three days. [The interviewee was interviewed in March 2001.] There is no payment for being a porter for the soldiers.