A Yinye villager who wanted to remain anonymous said: “Because the village track administrator told us that the forest is reopening this morning, locals have begun going to their orchards and rubber plantations. It was very crowded.Previously it was closed for more than ten days.”

Infantry Battalion (IB) 31, which is based near Kawsar Town, gave an order to locals in Kawsar Sub-township on18 May that no one was allowed to set foot in the forest. As a result, the locals struggled as they could not work in their orchards and crop fields.
A Tho-thet Ywa Htit villager said: “The durian price is good this year. And, it is at this time of year that we can pick the durians. However, because we were not allowed to go to our orchards for ten days, many are now rotten.”

The reasons why IB 31 banned people from entering the forest was because the Nai Pin and Mon Chan armed groups were attempting to extort locals [the owners of orchards and plantations] in Kawsar Sub-township.

Although the armed groups of Ah-Lwin, Ah-Saung, and Mon Chan are active in southern Ye Township and often blackmail locals, so far there have been no clashes between either of the two groups and the Burma Army.

The IB 31 security group seized 40 Lakh (4,000,000) Kyats and 160 extortion letters from the wife of the joint-warrant officer of Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 299, based in the Ko-Mine area. On 19 May the case was transferred to the police station in Ye Town and the accused was charged with threatening behaviour and extortion under article 386.

According to reports from local monks, seven cases of commandeering and looting took place in late 2014 and till May of 2015. In almost all the cases the robberies were carried out by by the  Nai Pin and Mon Chan groups.

In early May, nineteen monks from Kawsar Sub-township sent a letter to South East [Regional] Command requesting help with security in order to keep the peace in the area.