Relocated people return home to build fortifications

Relocated people return home to build fortifications

Since early March, villagers in southern Shan State who were forcibly relocated in 1996-97 had been permitted to go back to their home villages only to find themselves subjected to endless forced labor, reported sources who recently arrived at the Thai border. 

Kengtawng, north of Mongnai, 92 miles southeast of Taunggyi, where a hundred villages, comprising 4,000 households, were uprooted by Rangoon forces 5 years ago, has become a military settlement where local people are busy engaging in the construction of military installations and working in the fields confiscated from them, they said. 

"Apart from felling trees and processing them, we had to transport them in our own bullock carts to each designated military post," said one. "Those who don't own bullock carts have to hire them, which costs K. 1,000 - 1,200 per trip. And each household is required to 'volunteer' 5-6 trips each month." 

Each post, after completion, has 25 buildings, 4-6 sentry boxes, and a fence with a 2-3 cubit deep ditch around it. "We even have to make Khwark (pointed bamboo set in a place to trap approaching hostiles) for them." 

Altogether there were 6-battalion posts to be built with 75 saws that were made available to the villagers, in Pangkhaw (Tonhoong Tract), Wanterm (Kunmong Tract), Wiangkao (Nawnghee Tract), Nawnghpa (Nawnghee Tract), Pahsa (Nawnghee Tract) and Mwedaw Hpaklit (Kunlong Tract). 

"There was no end in sight," said Sangwi, 30, who is among 200-villagers that have arrived at the border between Shan State's Mongton and Thailand's Chiangmai, "so we decided to leave." 

Apart from that, villagers also had to till the 650 acres of land that was seized from them and also transplant the rice seedlings. "We worked for them 10-days so we could work on our own fields 5-days," said one who said he would like to go back. 

Kengtawng is known for its Zong-arng waterfalls, the biggest in Shan State and also for its classic romance, "Khun Sarmlaw and Nang Oo-piam."