Hundred of families forced
to carry brick for army
Nai Lawi, Independent Mon
News Agency
Hundred of families from
three villages in the north-western part of Ye township have been forced to
carry and locate army bricks for a week.
By the order of Light
Infantry Battalion No. 586, about 100 families from, Sein-kyi
village, about 200 families from Kyone-por village
and about 150 families from Thuu-myaung village have
been forced to carry bricks for a furlong from brick making mills to a place
where they gathered bricks for sale.
Cap. Than Htay
led in the conscription of labor from the villagers by ordering via village
headmen verbally and each family was instructed to have a piece of works to
carry 240 bricks. Villages Peace and Development
Council had managed villager laborers to carry, according to villagers who
suffer from this forced labor.
It made them so in difficult
situation to carry the bricks from the mills to the designated places as it is
in the rainy season and the roads are so slippery. Some villagers are carried
by boats along the river, according to U Ye Aung, who carried army bricks for
his family.
If a family was absent in the
labor contribution, that family will be punished accordingly to the order
according villagers. The battalion
commanders will inquire later which are absent for the labor contribution.
“That’s why almost the
villagers went and served for carrying of the bricks,” Mr. Nai Ye Aung
added. The villagers are also afraid of
unknown punishment by the army if they failed to perform duties.
There are about 400, 000
million bricks which is heavy about 1.5 kilogram in weight for each brick made
by drought earth, which the villagers are ordered to carry and the army is
selling these for their battalion’s income, with the price of 25 Kyat per
brick, according to the villagers.