By LAWI WENG – Four villagers from Ton-Ka-Tar village, in Three Pagodas Pass (TPP) Township near the Thai-Burma border crossing, were forced to porter yesterday, bringing military equipment to Chaung Zone river.
Speaking to The Independent Mon News Agency, a female villager in Ton-Ka-Tar village said this morning, “They [junta troops] conscripted four people at 2 p.m. yesterday, and they still have not returned yet.”
Ton-Ka-Tar village is 9 miles from TPP. There are 800 villagers, with 150 families in the village according to a census taken by the Mon Relief and Devlelopment Committee.
Villages said that junta troops from Infantry Battalion (IB) No. 402 and 406, which is controlled by Military Operations Command (MOC) in Tavoy, Tenasserim Division, conscripted four villagers.
Junta troops entered the village yesterday at 2 p.m. with 200 troops and about 25 cars (mostly six wheelers) brought to transport military equipment and rice from Anan Kwin village to TPP.
Though the troops brought rice in their vehicles, they still demanded rice from the villagers, explained the female villager.
“We could see there were rice bags in their cars. But, they did not use that rice. They came to ask for rice from us,” she said.
“I only have 15 kilos of rice for my family, and I had to give them 2 kilos yesterday,” she added.
According to a source close to the New Mon State Party (NMSP), since the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) troops seized TPP on November 8th, junta troops have conscripted four to six villagers in Ton-Ka-Tar village while rying to quell the DKBA in the past three months. The junta troops have used the villagers to carry military equipment while the army travelled to areas where they planned to make a military offensive on the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) Brigade No. 6 as well.
The Burmese army uses a rotating system for villagers to serve as porters. When the Burmese army comes into a village to take porters they do not pay the villagers.
TPP resident, Thu Rain, explained that the villagers in Ton-Ka-Tar have not dared work while the fighting has taken place near the village. The MOC has even instated a curfew in the village in this last week.
Usually, Ton-Ka-Tar villagers earn 100 baht a day to cut down wild grass in rubber plantations, a seasonal job in the village. “We do not have work now because we cannot go out. We have been sharing the rice that we harvested in the recent months with each other,” explained the female villager.
Ton-Ka-Tar is under the control of the NMSP, where there is a military base, but the NMSP have not confronted the junta troops that have visited the village, explained Ton-Ka-Tar villagers.
A former NMSP medic in Ton-Ka-Tar village said that her father was conscripted by the Burmese army one time in December. She said, “When my farther was taken, I looked at the arms from the NMSP members, and I wanted to steal one to shoot the Burmese army.”
“They [NMSP troops] just stayed on their base and did not come out to talk to the Burmese army,” she said.
Though the Burmese army has agreed to the International Labor Organization’s project to eliminate forced labor in the country, junta troops have used civilians from ethnic areas to porter throughout areas that the army intends to traverse.
