Yephyu Township villagers flee from people’s militia plans

August 3rd, 2010

IMNA : About 100 villagers have fled from Puckpinkwin village in Kaleinaung Sub-Township, in Tenasserim Division’s Yephyu Township, after they were ordered by Burmese military battalions to form a new military-controlled people’s militia.

Villagers still remaining in Puckpinkwin informed IMNA that the refugees fled to both Ye Township and the Thailand-Burma border area after the battalions arrived in the village in mid July of this year.

According to a villager who recently arrived at the Thai-Burma border, Lieutenant-Colonel Zaw Lin and soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 282 and Infantry Battalion (IB) 273 arrived in Puckpinkwin village on July 14th ; both battalions are based in Kaleinaung Sub-Township. The battalions reportedly ordered that all male villagers between the ages of 18 and 50 years old gather in the center of the village; the order also included monks residing in the village. There, the male villagers were required to draw lots to see who among them would make up the 40 men required by the battalions to form the new people’s militia.

“The houses who have no boys, one girl [was sent] to draw lots, if the girl won [as spot in the people's militia], they [the soldiers] took a photo of the girl [as a threat]. If the girl’s husband was not at home [away for work], we needed to call them back home. As for the monks [who drew a spot in the militia], they need to change to be a person [revoke being a monk],” this refugee explained to IMNA.

A villager remaining in Puckpinkwin village, who asked that his age and identity be concealed, told IMNA that after the new militia members were selected, men and their families began to flee from the village, despite how they’d fared in the drawing.

“The villager who won in drawing lots and the villager who did not win, all of them left from the village, now [remaining] in the village are just the old men and girls,” he explained.

This villager told IMNA that the mass exodus of men and their families had caused LIB 282 and IB 273 to abandon their plans of forming a people’s militia. However, this villager claimed that before leaving PuckpinKwin, the battalions forced 10 households situated outside of the village to move into the central community, and gave orders that all individuals desiring to leave the village to work on plantations must for each trip ask permission from the village’s headman, and pay a fee of 200 kyat.

According to this individual, before the Burmese government and the New Mon State Party (NMSP) reached a cease-fire agreement in 1995, PuckpinKwin village contained 500 households. Reportedly, large amounts of NMSP activity in the area incited the Burmese army to torch the village and abuse the villagers in the time just before the cease-fire was established. Large amounts of villagers moved to safer locations, and currently. Puckpinkwin is only 300 households strong.