Villagers in Lamine Sub Township are forced to carry stones for construction project on a Burmese army battalion head quarters.
Last week villagers from Taung Bone village and Taung Pyin village, Lamine Sub Township, Ye Township, Mon State, have been ordered to load and carry stones to Burmese army Infantry Battalion IB No. 61 out of Ye town.
According to one villager from Taung Pyin who was forced to load small stones, Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No.587, ordered the two villages to collect small stones at a rope bridge, from a nearly dry riverbed 3 miles away at near Aru-Taung village.
Each village was forced to provide a truck to then carry the cargo from Aru-Taung, 12 miles to Ye town. According to villagers forced to work, they were not compensated for the time they spent loading stones.
According to the truck driver Taung Bone village, 1 truck was only be able to make 2 trips a day. The first day 2 trucks were available, so only one trip was made, but the next, only 1 could be loaded with stones, which required it to make 2 trips in 1 day.
“They said they want to repair their base,” a man who was forced to gather stones explained. “But they didn’t pay for the cost of car oil. We had to buy it ourselves. We don’t want to do this but we are because they have ordered [us to].”
“LIB No. 587 ordered the headman and villagers that this had to be done,” the owner of the Taung Bone truck explained. “We carried stones for 2 days. I don’t know who will carry for the next days. [We had to pay] all our costs.”
According to the coordinator from the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), LIB No. 587 has been forcing villagers to work as unpaid manual labor collecting stones and bringing them to IB No. 61, since summer season of 2006.
It is unclear to observers or villagers what exactly the base is constructing with all the stones.
This latest instance of forced labor in Taung Pyin and Taung Bone is part of a larger system of continued human rights violations. HURFOM’s coordinator explained, “This has already happened before. Not only that, between 2004 to 2007, LIB No. 587 confiscated 250 to 300 acers of rubber plantations villagers in Lamine Sub Township. The military then cut the old of rubber trees down to make firewood and forced [farmers] to grow them again.”
