According to sources, Infantry Battalion (IB) no. 31 has been collecting funds from the residents of Kaw-Zar Sub-Township since November 11th of this year, in order to finance a newly-formed people’s militia group for the area.
Kaw-Zar residents informed IMNA that IB no. 31 ordered the recruitment of 30 individuals from the region in early November; enlistments were left in the charge of the sub-township chairman. The battalion returned on November 11th, when they held an open meeting for the township to announce that villagers not enlisted in the new peoples’ militia would be required to fund to the new force’s creation and upkeep.
“If we join the peoples’ militia, we don’t need to give the money, if we refused to join, we need to pay the money. They [the battalion] said the money they are collecting from the residents is for the 30 people who joined the people’s militia. We also need to buy the guns for them [the new militia], they said at the meeting,” said a Kaw-Zar resident who attended the November 11th meeting.
The battalion began taxing Kaw-Zar residents immediately after the meeting’s conclusion; the process is ongoing. According to the sub-township residents interviewed by IMNA, taxing was divided into brackets; each household was required to pay 20 thousand, 30 thousand, or 50 thousand kyat, depending on household income.
IMNA’s source at the sub-township’s November 11th meeting also claimed that militia recruitments are also occurring in smaller villages on Kaw-Zar’s outskirts.
“Not just from Kaw-Zar sub-township do [residents] have to do this, other villages also have to collect people for peoples’ militias, but we don’t know if the villagers have to pay money or not,” he said.
Kaw-Zar Sub-Township is made up of roughly 800 households, but residents informed IMNA that about 100 of these have connections to Burmese government authorities, contain individuals who are employed by the Burmese government at a local level, or have a household member enlisted in the newly-formed people’s militia; these households have been exempted from the militia taxes.
