Burma: Interview with a child soldier

NB: The above video is offered as illustration of similar stories. It does not relate to the interview by RFA’s Burmese service detailed below.

Tin Aung Khine (TAK): When 15-year-old Ko Kyaw Min Thu was forcibly recruited into the army as a child soldier, his parents wrote to the authorities. They wrote to the Ministry of Defense and the International Red Cross. Ko Kyaw Min Thu was discharged and returned to his South Dagon home on the evening of December 3 because of the assistance they received. We got a chance to interview him.

TAK: How old are you now?

Ko Kyaw Min Thu (KKMT): Fifteen.

TAK: Where were you discharged?

KKMT: No. 6 Training Battalion Shwemintin More…

TAK: From Bassein?

KKMT: Yes.

TAK: When your parents went to that battalion last November 10, tell us what the situation was then.

KKMT: They said they would put me in prison. They said I was 18, and they did not accept the documents my parents showed as evidence.

TAK Ko Kyaw Min Thu was arrested last August for loitering and was forcibly recruited into the army.

KKMT: I was on my way home from my uncle’s. My mother had told me to go ask for money to go to (inaudible). It was about 7:00 p.m when I left my uncle’s. As I didn’t want to go home yet, I walked around Insein Ywama. Three policemen and two soldiers arrested me around 9:30 p.m. for loitering.

TAK: Where were you arrested?

KKMT: Near the overpass. I was arrested and sent to Mingaladon 960 in the morning.

TAK: You didn’t have any papers on you, so what did they do when they wanted to recruit you?

KKMT: They made up papers on their own; 960 created them.

TAK: That was what Ko Kyaw Min Thu had to say. When his parents went round inquiring about his whereabouts, they learned that he had been sent from the Danyingon Recruiting Camp to the Bassein Shwemintin Number 6 Training Battalion. They went there with supporting documents last November 10. It was reported that officers from the unit said that these were not official documents. Ko Kyaw Min Thu’s mother, Daw Aye Naing said:

Daw Aye Naing: Captain (inaudible) said that my child was 18 and that he volunteered to join the army. We showed him the documents then – the census card and the household list. He said that these documents were completely irrelevant and that the child would be sentenced to five years imprisonment under Section 402 for lying. We were frightened then, and we told him that we would leave our son with the army, as we didn’t want him to be sent to prison. We then had to meet with another captain. We met with Captain Tun Tun Oo, who said the same thing. He asked us to sign a statement that we would leave our son with the army, and we were fingerprinted. As he threatened our son, we were frightened, and so we left him behind. He told us to meet with the lieutenant colonel.

TAK: Is the lieutenant colonel the battalion commander? We heard that you were videotaped when you met with the battalion commander. How did that happen?

Daw Aye Naing: We were told to make statements, saying that our son was 18 and that he had our permission. We had to repeat after the lieutenant colonel.

TAK: That was what Ko Kyaw Min Thu’s mother, Daw Aye Naing had to say. When Ko Kyaw Min Thu’s parents failed to bring him back and came back to Yangon, it was reported that they had assistance in writing a letter to the ILO, describing the details of the case. Last November 29, a letter came informing them that Ko Kyaw Min Thu would be permitted to resign from the army. That’s why Daw Aye Naing said that they could go and bring him back home.

Broadcast by RFA’s Burmese service on Dec. 3, 2007.

In interviews with RFA’s Burmese service in 2003, two deserters from Burma’s government army recounted how they were forced into military service as children, beaten, and prevented from contacting their parents.

Corporal Than Naing was a member of a Burmese military group that deserted in the Thai-Burma border region to the opposition Shan State Army (SSA). He said army personnel in his hometown lay in wait for young boys of 13 and 14 in teashops and forced them to join the army.

Children who didn’t have national registration cards on them would be beaten up under interrogation, before being sent away to the army and prevented from contacting their parents, Than Naing said. He added that he was conscripted in exactly that manner in Ma U Bin city for failing to carry identification, at the age of 16.

“They would interrogate the children: ‘Do you have your national registration card?’ If they didn’t have it, they would hit and beat them. Only after that did they send them away to the army,” Than Naing said.

Another deserter, Yan Paing Soe, said he was dragged away by soldiers in spite of having an identification card, and a reference letter on him-his captors tore up these documents and accused him of not having them.

Read the rest of this story.

Related links:

Dan Southerland on Cambodia’s child soldiers