Forced portering rumors spread fear and stymie economies in southern Mon State

May 18, 2010

HURFOM,Southern Mon State: Young men between the ages of 18 and 40 from southern Mon state have informed HURFOM’s field reporters that they have significantly curtailed their movements within the area, in response to rumors that young men from the region are being arrested and forced into portering services by locally-based military battalions. Supposedly, porters are being arrested as part of a new Burmese government-spearheaded launch of military offensive against ethnic ceasefire groups.

Reportedly, the widely-circulating rumors stem from an incident which occurred in the first days of May 2010, when Yebyu Township-based Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) Nos. 282 and 273 each demanded 15 porters from a group of 6 villages in the township, including Yapu village, Kyauk-kadin village, and Alaesakhan village; Local sources confirmed the incident for HURFOM’s field reporter, claiming that the porters were intended to aid in tracking and then launching an offensive against the the Mon rebel armed group, Mon National Defense Army, in the area. These local witnesses also informed HURFOM that when the village headmen from the communities in question were unable to provide the required amount of porters, the commander of LIB No. 282 and his troops came and arrested roughly 40 individuals porters from these 6 villages. The arrested individuals have not been heard from for 2 weeks.

As rumors of other arrests and incidents of forced portering spread through Ye and Yebyu Townships during the first two weeks of May, HURFOM’s field reporters noted that many individuals exhibited extreme reactions to the rumors due to past personal experiences of forced portering abuse, or encounters with similar forms of human rights violations at the hands of Burmese battalions.

Mehm Min Lwin, 24, a post graduated student from the Pha-Ought Government Technology Institute in Moulmein, claimed that his residents from his village, located between Lamine sub-Township and Mawkanin village, received news about Burmese battalions arresting young people, like himself, and using them in upcoming clashes with ceasefire armed ground, such as New Mon State Party (NMSP) and is armed wing, the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA).

“I head this rumor about [battalions] arresting people, to recruit for the front-line porter services, from my mom who made a trip to Ye Township last week. My mom said she heard about 50 young men, living along the Ye to Thanbyuzayat motor-road, that a battalion arrested to use as porters. They [the battalion] sent them straight to the south [of Ye] to use in new offensives against the NMSP and MNLA troops. As the tension between the NMSP and the Mon State authorities [Southeast Command] has been growing day by day, this news may be true. As for me, I am really scared of porter services. My uncle, who forced to serve as porter in a front line, by IB No. 61, passed away at the age of 31. He was a victim of a landmine while on [porter] duty in eastern Burma on 24 years ago. So, I am really scared of Burmese army battalion arresting [people] for their porter services.”

Mi Maw Htwe, aged 23, a street snack seller also from the area between Lamine sub-Township and Mawkanin, confirmed to HURFOM that she had also received the information about local military battalions arresting men from the area to use as porters. “I heard this news a week ago, that approximately 45 men living in the villages between Mawkanin and Lamine sub-township were arrested and send to the southern [part] of Ye township, where the LIB No. 106 are going to launch a military offensive against rebel forces.”

As the rumor of possible arrests spread through southern Mon State, field reporters noted that many Ye Township residents are increasingly concerned about the dangers of leaving their villages. “In the past, 20 year ago, the government’s troops arrested people at the railway stations, bus stations and on the motor-ways by stopping the trucks. Nowadays, as we are still ruled by a brutal government, anywhere and anytime we might be arrested. So, the more we travel, the greater chance we have of being arrested,” Nai Moe, 35, a local machinist from Mawkanin village in northern Ye Township explained.

Residents from Ayu-Thaung, an ethnic Mon village roughly 9 miles away from Ye town, claimed that the recent rumors of porter arrests by the Burmese army are dramatically affecting their incomes. A field reporter learned that most households in the village depend on incomes made from selling sheets of rubber, which they process from daily collections of rubber sap. Villagers claim that they are currently too afraid of being arrested by the local battalion based in the village, LIB No. 343.

Nai Moe Shwe from Ayu-Thaung, aged 48, a father of four children and married to Mi Ngwe Yi, was forced to serve as a porter for Ye-Township based IB No. 61 20 year ago. He told a field reported,“I and my wife have stopped collecting rubber, since the time [two weeks ago] when we heard the news of the Burmese soldiers arrests of porters in the southern Ye. Most villagers also scared by this news. We don’t want to be slaves of war again. We just want peace, regular jobs and reliable incomes to feed our sons and daughters.”

He further explained that his family and most of his neighbors have been been to frighted of potential arrest to collect rubber sap for the last two weeks. “Not all villagers, I mean that some people who are in very poor [financial] condition go and collect sap to survive.”

Sources reported to HURFOM’s field reporters that painful memories of past abuse have led many communities in the region to overreact to perceived threats from battalions. On May 12^th of this year, a Buddhist monk from Kawdut village, which neighbors Lamine sub-township, told a field reporter that his fellow villagers had become extremely panicked the night before, when a group of from LIB No.106 when entered Kawdut; Many, most especially young men, attempted to hide or flee the village to avoid the threat of being arrested and used as porters by the battalion.

He explained to HURFOM, “In reality, the Burmese [battalion] came to the village to follow [look for] their soldiers who ran [deserters] from the battalion on the night May of 11^th. However, people believed that the troops had come to arrest them for the porter services. This [situation] is not good. My village has been freed from those kinds of terrible things [portering] for 20 years already. It is [the rumors] really affecting their [the villagers’] economic activities, because they do not dare to travel as they did before.”

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News