Village
headmen call for ILO to have more access in rural areas
Independent Mon News Agency
International Labor
Organization (ILO) should try to have more access to rural area in southern Mon
state,
“Even ILO monitoring the
situation of force labor in Burma and the government issued Order 1/99, the use
forced labor by the Burmese government is not really stopping in our area,” a
village headman from a village near Khaw-za village, who was in anonymity
situation told IMNA.
“There are a lot of Order
1/99 paper sheets put on the wall in the Village Peace and Development Council
(VPDC) office in the villages in both Burmese and English. Although currently
the Burmese Army under the command of Military Operation Management Command
(MOMC) No.19 have forced villagers all the time to work in the road
construction, pieces of works in army camp and as porters, the villagers never
received any payment,” he added.
“Even Burmese Army is
forcing the villages to contribute unpaid labor in the road construction
accompanied with torture, but we, the headmen from every village, have to
report to Ye township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) every month that
there are no forced labor,” according to another village headmen.
“How does ILO know that here is a lot of forced labor, because of it bases in
the capital city and it is hard to monitor the real situation in the rural
area? On the other hand, we are forced
to report that there is no forced labor,”
In southern Ye Township, the
villagers are forced to build about 30 miles long road from Ye to Magyi village
that passes via Khawza village since the beginning 2004. The villagers in the area have been
constantly suffered from the conscription of forced labour and about 10-20
villagers from each village in the area have to work in the road construction.
“Because of long-time used
force labor, we complained to the commanders of Burmese Army many times. But the commanders always said that was not
a use of forced labor, and it is a development project for the people in the
area, people must take responsibility.”
Accordingly to witnesses
from Khawza village, many villagers were beaten at work. Some villagers are
regularly forced to work in the army base for the construction or repairs of
the barracks and other daily works.
Villagers from Kyone-kanya
and Magyi also told IMNA that there have been several times of arrest of
porters happened in the villages and some of them were tortured seriously
during the porter service.
Under the command of MOMC
No. 19 (that is a command under South-East Command) No. 3 Tactical Command,
Col. Nyi Nyi and No. 2 Tactical Command led by Col. Than Toe Aung have involved
using forced labor and arrest of civilian porters. When the Tactical Commander,
Col. Myoe Win took responsibility in the military operation there are seriously
used forced labor at the started of this year.
Under these Tactical
Commands, about 10 military battalions of Burmese Army have launched offensives
against a Mon splinter group and they have committed various human rights
violations: killing, rape, torture and collecting unofficial tax against the
villagers.
Forced labour related to the
road construction has continuously taken place in the area. The Burmese Army also used hundreds of
thousands of civilians from Ye Township,
The use of forced labor was
also well known to the world and it forced thousands of civilians to leave from
their homes. ILO also started inquired
about the practices of use of forced labour in
For further information, please contact to Independent Mon News Agency
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