His father had died and he was not getting on with his mother so he ran away from her. It was while waiting at the bus stop, that he was forced into a situation that changed his life forever.

Over the next few years he would come face to face with death, rape and the destruction of people who were defenseless against The State Peace and Development Council, (SPDC) soldiers from the Burma’s brutal military government, who now stood before him.

They asked him for his ID card and when he told them he didn’t have one they gave him a choice — “Join the army or go to jail”.

This huge decision to be made by one so young left him wishing that he was back home with his mother. Instead, Aung Tin was forced to sign a piece of paper that stated that he had now voluntarily joined the army.

For the next five years he became another child soldier, conscripted into an army that rules Burma with an iron fist.

An overwhelming number of children are “recruited” by SPDC soldiers at bus stops, railway stations, marketplaces, festivals and on the streets of Burma’s cities, towns and villages. Today, there are 300.000 child soldiers in the world, Burma is the biggest user with 70.000 of them serving in its army ranks.1

Burma’s Army forms part of one of the largest armies in Southeast Asia ruled by the generals of the SPDC. Children are also present in the opposition groups who have fought against this regime for 54 years.

This is Aung Tin’s story as told to Aung Kaw and Ler Wah who are documenting the abuse of Burma’s oppressed people. At the meeting held on November 6, 2003 he spoke openly about how he finally escaped from the death and the destruction that had destroyed his youth.

He was sent to Mingaladon, a main military base, half-hour drive from Rangoon to undergo training. As a child amongst men he endured four and a half months of extreme physical suffering, often with very little food in his stomach.

After training he was posted to a battalion in Thaton, 145 miles east of Rangoon. For three months he was treated violently by his commanding officers and older soldiers.

The gun he carried was as tall as he was and he wore the smallest uniform the soldiers could find for him.
“As a new soldier, I had to do everything. When the platoon commander got drunk he would make me do things for him. If I told him I did not have the time to help him he would beat me up or put me in the camp jail.”

“The sergeants always forced the new soldiers to work for them and they told us they would give us coffee or tea but we never got it. They fed us good rice, but never curries. We had to work everyday. If we were not patrolling we had to grow vegetables for the battalions.”

After completing his three months at Thaton, he was sent into battle in the jungle to fight against the Karen resistance stronghold in Mae Tha Waw, in eastern Burma bordering Thailand.

One of the many ethnic opposition groups, the Karen National Union (KNU) have been fighting Burma’s military regime since 1949.

They want their own homeland and equal rights in their country that has been ravaged by the longest civil war in the history of the world since World War II.

“We had no permanent base. We just roamed around the jungle passing through many villages, sometimes, patrolling, looking for Karen rebels. One day our column came under attack from the rebels. Bullets were flying in all directions.”

“ I was very afraid and did not know how to fight. We did not know who was shooting whom. After the clash, four soldiers were dead. When the battle ended my commander beat me up until I bled because I had fought so badly.”

This was not to be his last fight with the rebels and often when the soldiers could not find their enemy they went from village to village murdering the people who they accused of being the spies for Karen soldiers.

“We patrolled in this area for two months. One day our platoon ran out of food. The commander ordered me to go to a village headman to get rice and chicken. The headman came with food but only enough for the higher-ranked soldiers so we had to steal from the villagers to feed ourselves.”

Soon the starving Aung Tin, with other young soldiers learnt the taste of power through their guns and preyed on the defenseless communities taking food whenever.

“When the villagers refused to give us food, we beat them up. One time a villager was killed when we met him on a path in the jungle while we were on patrol. Some of us did not want to kill him. But others said that he might inform the Karen soldiers where we were and that we would get into trouble from our commander so it was better to kill him.” Later the headman told Aung Tin that the dead man had no connection to the KNU soldiers.

As weeks went by he witnessed many deeds of torture and rape of the local people.
One day at a village his battalion arrested a boy, accusing him of being a spy for the KNU. They tied him up. His mother begged for his life. The boy’s sister came and pleaded to the commanders for her brother. After he raped the girl, he gave her to his soldiers. They raped her and then the boy was released after he was savagely tortured, Aung Tin said.

After that he was sent to Mae Tha Lit, opposite the Than Song Yang a small border town in Thailand, where they had to patrol around another KNU military base. This part of the jungle was heavily mined. He saw seven men killed and 11 injured after they stepped on landmines.

He carried the images of the inhuman treatment he had witnessed like a dark shadow on his mind. The weight and pain his battalion had inflicted on the local people felt even heavier than the supplies villagers had to haul along with the troops. Not fed enough they were often killed, beaten or left behind exhausted in the jungle.

“A man who no longer could carry his load asked the soldiers if he could go home. They shouted at him to keep moving. After climbing another mountain he became even more exhausted. In desperation he tried to run away but they just shot him dead.”

Another porter confronted the soldiers and asked; “We are one, we come from the same country, is it fair to treat us like this?” Within seconds he too was shot dead by a lance corporal.

The battalion he was with then moved to the infamous Kawmoora – a KNU stronghold that the SPDC have been unable to destroy for 11 years. Many thousands of men from both the government’s military and the KNU have lost their lives during numerous attacks on this base. Allegations that the SPDC have used a barrage of weapons containing chemicals, phosphorus and conventional munitions have surfaced over the years. It was here that the young boy came face to face with the reality of war that still rages between the KNU and the military Junta in Burma. “Everyday we had to dig bunkers as shells rained on us. Two or three of SPDC soldiers were killed daily. For three months we fought like this then eventually I was injured. I was sent back to the base for treatment.”

Once his wounds had healed he was sent back to the frontline to face the bloodshed and torture once again.

Finally the day came – five years after he had been arrested at the bus stop – he could return to his village.

“I visited my family. My mother urged me to leave the army because my father, when he was alive, hated it. “
Once again he did not listen to his mother and the child soldier returned to the SPDC military base.

“I went back to my battalion where I had a fight with my Commander’s nephew and he put me into a cell for three months. But I was released after one and half months.”

“Then I started to think about what my mother had said. I knew that I now had to listen to her and somehow get home.”

In 1996 he deserted the military base and went to his mother. For six years he has lived in constant fear of being arrested and thrown into jail.

***Many names and places have been left out to protect the lives of the people involved.***
Endtnote:
1 “My gun was as tall as me”, Human Rights Watch, October 2002.