More villagers flee to refugee camp to escape oppression
Dec 19, 2009 - A number of people from villages located in Pasaung Township have recently fled to refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border to escape oppression in their home villages. According to an inside source the recent arrivals were escaping from forced labour, harassment by Burmese troops from LIB no. 55 and forced conscription by the cease-fire armed groups known as Kyehphyu and Kyehni, commanded by Tae Neh and Aye Maung.
A local confirmed that neither age nor gender is a bar to conscription by the cease-fire groups and the penalty for refusing to join up as soldiers are fines, arrests and imprisonments.
These abuses were stepped up in June 2009 and after months of persecution families ran away and made their way to the camps, arriving in early December.
Among the new arrivals, a family from Theepho arrived in Karenni refugee camp #1 on December 2, 2009. Saw Eh N'chae, the head of the family, complained that people from his village are being forced by Burmese troops to serve as military porters and guides and they are also forced to work for the Burmese troops from time to time. "When they came to our village, they killed domestic animals for their military rations and even my blind, 66-year old father wasn't spared. They forced him to carry munitions and rations for the Burma army" Saw Eh N'chae said.
Saw Eh N'chae went on to explain that if a gunfight took place near or in a village, Burmese troops would came into the village and destroy all the properties, physically torture people and lay landmines on paths used by villagers who tried to leave the village. He explained that villagers from Theepho, Katokee, Muklah and Bwelaykho in Pasayng Townshipare, were hiding in the jungle most of their time in fear of such treatment by Burmese troops.
Villagers are forced to go and work on a road construction site once a week which entailed walking for 2 hours from the LIB no. 50 army camp. "The Burmese commander said ‘you live in our country so you have to do any work we ask you to do. If you don't work then you are not needed in our country, leave for another country," Saw Eh N'chae added.
Similarly, some villagers from Klahleh, Shadaw Township, made it to a refugee camp in November this year. They too were persuaded to leave to escape the same forced labor and ill-treatment by the Burmese troops.
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