The Burmese Army is stepping up its militia strategy to replenish its forces by forcing local people into militia units (Pyi-Thu-Sit) to fight against the armed insurgent groups in southern Mon State and northern Tenasserim Division.

A local community source said, the Light Infantry Battalion No. 282 is pressurizing the village headmen to keep people under control and to ensure that they will not flee when fighting breaks out between the Burmese Army’s militia units and the Mon insurgent groups.

Yar Pu, Kyauk Kadin, Kywe Talin and Aleh Sakhan are key villages, situated along Ye Tavoy motor road near the Yadana gas pipeline, which have been ordered to form local militias with at least 20 people from each village.

Since October 2009, the Burmese Army has ordered the village headmen to form militias in their villages for the Ye Tavoy motor road.  The headmen are responsible for sending the villagers to the Burmese government's militia training division centres.

“This is how the Burmese Army fights against its enemies by forcing the local people to fight against each other.  The Burmese militia force is formed to root out the insurgents and weaken the morale of the ethnic armed groups,” said a retired Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA) Colonel Kao Rot, who lives in Thailand, adding that even in areas where no fighting occurs such as in the Kyaik-Maraw area, the Burmese Army is setting up their militia forces to “wipe out the NMSP if the ceasefire crumbles.”

According to a Mon political observer, “the Burmese Army is implementing the ‘four-cut strategy’ that cuts off food, funds, intelligence, and recruitments by insurgent groups in order to neutralize their movements in southern Ye and Yebyu area.

Following the ceasefire between the Burmese Army and the New Mon State Party in 1995, Mon soldiers who disagreed with it broke away and formed their own armed groups. These different groups have now joined forces and are active in the area.  The Mon National Defense Army (MNDA) is led by Major Jalon Taw, a 42 year-old self-educated NMSP member, who broke away from the party last year.  Taw is well-known for his strategic thinking and can speak three languages, not an unusual feat in which many Mon are trilingual or even quadrilingual in Mon, Thai, Burmese and English.

The NMSP and SPDC reached a ceasefire agreement in 1995, which allowed the NMSP a certain degree of autonomy, while the Burmese military was given some rights to occupy certain areas agreed to in the ceasefire. However, civilians in the remote areas risk death and have suffered from human rights’ violations especially extortion, extrajudicial killing, as well as being used for forced portering and as human shields.