BURMESE SLAVES FREED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

BURMESE SLAVES FREED

WORK OF AN EXPEDITION, WO»D COTOBMZ mWJffiSEO. OFFICIALS INCUR RISKS. 'Wt ONE KILLED IN AMBUSH." > ' ' nn. The final stages of the work of removing the reproach of slavery under the British flag in the unadministered Kachin country are being undertaken. The operalions conducted by the military police in the last cold weather under Mr. J. T. Barnard, Deputy Commissioner, Burma Frontier Service, were in the Triangle, lying between the main branches of the Irrawaddy River, the Mali River on the west, and the N'Mai River on the east. The Triangle has an area of 3800 square - 5 miles of forest-clad hilly country, with an estimated population of 40,000, some 3300 of them slave-born. The purpose of the expedition was to free slaves on a scale of compensation similar to that followed in the previous year in the Hukawng Valley. The expedition was preceded by Sir Harcourt Butler's durbar at Myitkyina in January, 1927, when he granted interviews to 120 Chinghpaw chiefs and made it clear to them that slavery must be abolished.

The expedition had many difficulties to face, tha Triangle having a bad name for the trucnlence of the people, their resentment of interference, and their hostility to outsiders. The work of release would have been completed last winter but for the Lahpai treachery, whereby on March 26 a party under Captain E. M. West, 1.A., was ambushed and he was killed. The party also lost two native ranks killed and three wounded. The punitive operations undertaken against the hostile villages delayed operations, and the work has to be completed t&is cold weather. Freedom Hot Desired. Altogether some 4000 Elaves were released, and nearly 2| .lakhs of rupees (£20,625) was distributed in compensation. It is noteworthy that the slaves did not show the same eagerness to be released as those of the Hukawng Valley. This was due to greater ignorance of outside conditions and to the lies which tbe slaveowners told their serfs as to the object of the British Raj in giving the slaves their release for nothing. However, there were instances and evidencetthatt t in spite of all they had been told, the slaves were pleased to get the paper which made them free persons, , Some illustrations of sad cases are given in the report. A mother was seized and sold to another owner simply because she had thrown a weapon at and wounded a buffalo trespassing in a paddy field. She was separated from her young child, ind great, was tha joy of mother and child when they were reunited. In another case a house had been raided and all the inmates sold on the invitation of the owner, who owed a marriage dowry and -could not pay up, so he invited his father-in-law to seize this slave family of his and do what he liked with its members. It took the assistant' political officer a month to trace and recover the children and return them to their father. More Yet To Do.

Most of the slaves found were Cliinghpaws, but there were a few Shans, threo Chinese, a Tibetan, and an Indian. The average compensation paid the owners, was 68 rupees (£5 2s) a slave. About 54 per cent, of the freed people were women, and the largest number were those between 21 and 45. Most of the slaves elected to remain, in their villages, living for tho present in their owners' hcuzas or building houses for themselves. Others, once they were freed, wont in search of relatives. Some slaves showed reluctance in Becking release for fear'of tvhat-mifiht happen to them after the expedition returned. ■ Sir Harcourt Butler accepted proposals of Mr. Barnard for tho impending expedition to complete the work of emancipation and to settle the released people by putting them in the way of earning - their own living. The opportunity is to oe taken to complete the survey begun last cold weather, air. Barnard is again the leader of the expedition, and thereafter is to send up proposals for a loose form of political control. Compensation is be paid to the owners of the remaining 600 slaves, except to those of the Lahpai tribe, who were implicated in the murder of Captain West. _ The expedition is to be equipped with wireless. Tools will bo supplied to the people to make roads. It is also arranged that, if conditions becojfia bad, owing to a plague of rats, work will be arranged for needy members of the tribes. In the words of the Government resolution, "A great evil has been removed at comparatively snail cost. It would not have been believed three yaars ago that the Triangle could be combed out by a small force of military police."