Independent Mon News Agency (IMNA)

May 28, 2003

Another land confiscation in Ye Township for artillery regiment

Burmese Army confiscated about 600 acres agriculture lands near a Mon village, Morkanin, northern part of Ye Township of Mon State, with a plan to construct a base for a new artillery regiment.

Burmese Amry plan to construct a base for Artillery Regiment No. 317 and confiscated lands of rubber and fruit gardens between two Mon villages, Morkanin and Htitkayin, which are belonged to the civilians.

“Like the previous confiscation, they (the army) did not pay compensation. Without informing, they just came and took the lands” said by local villagers.

The newly deployed AR No. 317 is under the command of Artillery Division No. 606. In this land confiscation, the regiment commanders took more lands than their requirment for a base.

Accordingly to a person who know the rules in the Burmese Army said, “normally, to deploy a battalion or regiment, it needs only 300 acres of land in maximum, they could not confiscate more than that”.

The SPDC regime has a plan to deploy about 10 artillery regiments in Mon State and currently they have deployed about 9 regiments already.

In the previous years, thousand acres of lands belonged to the local civilians were confiscated by SPDC and Burmese Army, in their deployments of both artillery regiments and infantry battalions.

No compensation has been paid in any compensation and that made civilians to be angered and disappointed. Land confiscation also creates negative impacts of unemployment.

Some families left to Thailand and other neighbouring countries to seek work for income, but many families remained in the villages without lands, works and employment.