Use of
porters by Burmese Army amid Ethnic rebels’ ceasefire
Independent Mon News Agency
Seven people returned home
yesterday after six days of serving as porters for Burmese Army’s troops in
their military operations in the area along Three-Pagoda-Pass – Thanbyuzayat motor road, where most ethnic rebel cease
fighting against the regime.
“Infantry Battalion No.289
used nine porters from our village to carry their military supply from Chaung-zon to Yetagon village for
6 days,” said
“This battalion officer told
the porter they will paid 130 Baht per day to each of
them. But, they did not pay. They ordered to our
According to these porters,
as told to their neighbors, they have to carry military food supplies, military
commander’s belongings on their backs and walked on foot more than three days.
These nine porters carried
for trip of 35 miles long along the motor road where the area is currently in temporarty ceasefire after Karen National Union (KNU) and
its army Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) is talking for ceasefire while
other ethnic rebel groups already agreed for ceasefire including the New Mon
State Party.
The village, Chaung-zon has about 100 households and the headmen
provided porters to IB No. 289, and were ordered by the battalion commander to
pay for porter fee to those porters.
In the previous years, the
Burmese Army’s various quarterly exchanged battalions always forced the headmen
in porter recruitment in
The Burmese Army also used
the civilian porters as human sheilds or
mine-sweepers accordingly to many escapees in the previous years.
Just recent ILO’s conference, it reported that the Burmese Army is
still use the civilians in rural areas as porters during military operation and
condemned for the continuous requistion of forced labour in
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