• Home
• about
• Activities
• Contact
• Programs
• Manual

• Analysis
• Commentary
• Feature
• General Election
• Monthly Report
• News
• PDF Format
• Special Report
• Video Clips

DKBA extortion plagues Kawkareik Township in 2010

Kawkareik: HURFOM learned on February 7th of this year that Brigade No. 999 of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), based in Karen State’s Kawkareik Township, has been collecting portering fees from 6 villages in southern Kawkareik Township since the beginning of 2010.

Villagers informed HURFOM that starting at the beginning of the year, Captain Saw Akyi, leader of the brigade’s Battalion No. 3, sent letters to the headmen of Aung Pha Kyi village, Naung Nine village, Nang Shew Mon village, Aung Hpa Lay village, Ywa Tan Shey village, and Thayet Than village; the letters reportedly informed that unless the villages from each settlement compiled a sum of 150,000 kyat per village to be picked up by the brigade captain, villagers would be pressed into portering service for brigade’s Battalion No. 3.

According to HURFOM’s field reporter, the villagers were ordered to have the portering fees collected and prepared for Captain Saw Akyi’s pick up, on February 10th. Funds were collected from each household; the amount of taxes collected from each residence depended on income. Household with lower living standards were required to contribute 2,000 kyat, while households that garnered greater incomes were required to contribute 5,000 kyat each to the communal pool.

HURFOM’s field reporter learned that when Captain Saw Akyi collected funds from each of the 6 villages on February 10th, he informed the villagers that all funds would be sent to Brigade No. 999’s commander, Major Mya Khine, at the brigade’s base near Pa-an Town. The funds’ eventual destination was never confirmed, but the villagers interviewed by HURFOM’s reporter claimed that they were too afraid of portering service to question Captain Saw Akyi’s motives or his honesty regarding the money he had collected.

A villager explained to HURFOM’s field reporter that he felt his fellow villagers were being forced to essentially buy their lives from the DKBA battalions; for this villager, escaping the dangers associated with portering was worth the funds demanded by Captain Saw Akyi.

Kawkareik residents told HURFOM’s field reporter that since the DKBA’s acceptance of the Burmese government’s Border Guard Force (BGF) agreement, the DKBA has dramatically increased the number of DKBA-run checkpoints in the rural areas of Kawkareik Township. According to the Kawkareik Township’s villagers interviewed by HURFOM, rates of cash, rice, trade goods, and raw materials demanded at each checkpoint have become so steep that man area residents, especially traders and truck drivers, have been forced to change employment merely to avoid the financial drain of DKBA checkpoint taxes.

“After the DKBA set up new check points, they collected many kinds of taxes from both truck owners and traders. I had to stop being a truck driver, and I sold off my truck and found other work, because it was too expensive. Many of my friends also had to stop being truck drivers,” a 40 year-old area resident named Ko Soe* told HURFOM.

* All names have been changed.

Comments