Soldiers from a Mon rebel group assaulted fifteen civilians in southern Ye Township, Mon State on November 25th. Three of the civilians are dead, with the remaining twelve hospitalized, say both local sources and the government controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
According to the New Light of Myanmar, rebels from a group lead by Nai Chan Dein attacked the civilians because they suspected them to be government informers. Last week, three rebels and a civilian porter were killed in an ambush after a local source informed Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No. 299 of the rebel’s whereabouts.
The conditions of the twelve hospitalized are unknown, but area residents said all the victims were attacked with knives or machetes. The victims were working as loggers near Man Aung village, less than two kilometers from Ko Mile village along the Kanbauk to Myaing-Kalay gas pipeline. All fifteen are ethnic Burmans from Kyiakto, in northern Mon State, say residents of Ko Mile village.
Troops from IB No. 299 and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which is loosely allied with Burma’s military government, have subsequently flooded the area. According to residents of Ko Mile village, residents are now prohibited from leaving their villages. Government soldiers will assume that anyone in the countryside right now is a rebel, say local sources, and be shot on sight.
“We cannot go outside the village so we cannot work on our plantations. This will cause problems for our income,” said a man from Ko Mile village. “There are about fifty DKBA soldiers in Ko Mile village. They are doing joint military operations with the Burmese military to try and find the Chan Dein group.”
Area residents now find themselves having to negotiate a precarious middle ground between the rebels and Burmese army. “Now the villagers are afraid of being accused by the military of joining with the Chan Dein group,” said a man from Ko Mile. “But they are also afraid of the being accused as informers by the Chan Dein rebels.”
The difficulties Ko Mile and Man Aung residents now face are typical of life in the area, says a report issued last week by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland. “Villagers often find themselves caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. They are pressured, even forced, to support insurgent groups and then harshly punished by SPDC battalions for doing so.”
Last week, the Chan Dein group also ransomed over one hundred residents from five villages just a few kilometers from Ko Mile and Man Aung. Immediately after, troops from LIB No. 31 detained and interrogated thirteen people. At least two were tortured.
