Villagers forced to attend military training - Hundred thousand Kyat fine for absence

Mi Mrae Moo Chai

Independent Mon News Agency

June 7, 2005

Military in a township of Tenasserim Division ordered villagers to attend basic military training. The villagers had to pay one hundred thousand Kyats each to army if they could not join the training, according to villagers.

After the bomb explosions in Rangoon, Burmese government put tight security along the routes entering Rangoon. They also rearmed retired military members in Mon state and drilled with some military training, where they believed the suspects would flee after the explosion. In Tenassrim, the military government ordered villagers to attend the training.

The army based in Tenasserim ordered villagers in Yebyu Township to attend short term, 14 days long, basic military training last month.

"We were ordered to attend one person per household. Army does not care it is youth or elder person or woman. They take everyone. If we could not join, we have to pay 100,000 Kyats," a former village headman from the area said.

"If we are late in informing whether our family's member could join the training or not, we were fined by the army," he added.

Burmese military got around 8 million Kyats on fining villagers who were absent and informing late for the training, according to the headmen.

The villagers who don't want to join the training nor want to avoid paying the fine, fled from their villages.

One fifty villagers from Alae-sakharn village moved away from their village, according to the village headman.

"We heard people from this area fled to Tavoy and Myeik districts," said a Mon Relief and Development field worker who recently reached the border.

According to villagers from Ya Pu village, the Burmese army had started the training and the villagers have to join it in their village tract.

Infantry Battalion No.282 of the Burmese army conduct the training at Alae-sakharn village.

The villagers were ordered to attend the training are from: Ma-yan, Mile-chort-zae (60 miles), Ya-pu, Kwe-tha-lin, Lort Thaing, Kwe-ka-din and Alae-sakharn, said a villager from Alae-sakhan.

In 2002, military government had also forced villagers including some school children from this area and Tavoy township area to join the military training, claiming to defend the country from foreign invasion.

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