Resettlers get a new township

Resettlers get a new township

Thousands of newcomers coming from the Wa region near the Chinese border this season are being relocated in a new township, reported two independent sources yesterday (14 December). 

"We saw several trucks unloading the new settlers alongside the road from Mongpiang to Monghsat," said one. "Some were getting off at Nawngyon (Mongpiang township), where the Wa's Hongpang Company has recently won a contract to extract gold from the area." 

Mongpiang is 96 miles north of Monghsat, where according to a Lahu correspondent, more than 15,000 households have arrived during the past two years. Two other townships where more than 7,000 Wa families have been resettled are Mongton and Tachilek. 

Three of the townships: Mongton, Monghsat and Tachilek are located opposite Thailand's three northern provinces: Maehongson, Chiangmai and Chiangrai. 

One Lahu source claimed roughly 80 ten-wheeled trucks were from Thailand, although no number plates were seen. He also came across some Chinese-made dongfeng six-wheelers. 

Sources maintained that the season's new arrivals were from Wanlin and Kunma in Pangwai township. "About ten to twenty-thousand households are being expected to arrive before the monsoons," said the Lahu source whose home is in Monghsat. 

The relocations were part of the United Nations Drug Control Program's plan to reduce the supply of opium from the Wa region in the north, reported Bangkok Post earlier. The UNDCP, however, has neither confirmed nor refuted the report. According to Myanmar Times, 19-25 November issue, the Program's representative in Rangoon, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the Wa leadership did not understand "the importance of providing donors with evidence that the program was making progress ... without concrete data and statistics, it would be difficult to convince donor countries to continue their contributions," a situation resulting in a shortage of funds that forced the Program to reduce the number of staff by two-thirds as well as a lot of ambitious goals and activities.