Over 100 villagers fled during the DKBA battalion’s recruitment

May 28, 2009

HURFOM: Starting the second week of May, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) battalion No.999 has begun recruiting villagers to enter into the military service. If the villagers choose not to join, the DKBA extorts huge amounts of money from them. In total, HURFOM has confirmed over 100 villagers who have fled from their villages.

“DKBA No. 999 General Chit Thu commanded that at least 30 villagers have to enlist in the military service. The new soldiers must be single and between 18 to 30 years old. We have to pay 25,000 baht if we refuse to join the service; in contrast, they will pay us 25,000 kyat per month if we join,” said a 27 year-old Karen villager from Htee Leh village, Pai Kyone Township.

The Mon State Peace and Development Council (PDC) Chairman General That Naing Win met with DKBA and Karen Peace Force (KPF) leadership separately at the end of April. “After the DKBA leader met with the General That Naing Win, they started to recruit and collect the new soldiers for their battalions,” said the Karen Nation Union (KNU) District-level Chairman from Pa-an District. He added:

DKBA and KPF leaders met with the General That Naing Win on the 29th of April to discuss changing the Border Guard Force [BGF]. That Naing Win announced that 326 privates must join the battalion. If they don’t have that amount [of troops available], they have to combine two battalions to achieve the numbers that they considered necessary. For the DKBA, they don’t want to destroy the old battalion and don’t want to combine with KPF and for the two battalion to become one; therefore, they forced the villagers to join the military service to achieve the necessary number.

A HURFOM reporter documented that over 100 people fled from the Thi Sa Ma, Taung Soon and Naung Bo villages, Pai Kyone Township. According to a member of the KNU Township-level Administration of Bridge Number 7, “On May 20th, the villagers started arriving in Lae-Paw-Hae refugee camp. Now there are over 100 people in the camp. Most of them are around middle age and from Pai Kyone Township, Pa-an District. Since General Chit Thu began forcibly collecting manpower in the area, the villagers have fled their homes to find a new shelter.”

Said Kaloh Say, 28, a Taung Soon villager,
“I accepted the idea that Karen people can determine their fate by themselves; therefore, the DKBA emerged the last couple of a years. Believing the Burmese Junta’s ideology and killing each other are unacceptable for all of the Karen people. It’s the reason why I don’t want to participate with them [the SPDC]. I don’t have 25,000 baht to pay them, so my friends and I decided to go to the Lae-Paw-Hae refugee camp.”

An SPDC policy updated in May states that ceasefire groups must become BGF battalions, each made up of 18 high-level officers and 308 total soldiers and that this must be respected and followed unequivocally.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News