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Burma Army setting the pace for more exiles
Burma Army setting the pace for more exiles
Human Rights
Bangkok's efforts to send back illegal migrants from Burma notwithstanding, it should be ready to receive fresh influx, as the Burma Army in Shan State appears to be set on making too much of the life of the people under their rule, according to a social worker in Chiangmai.
"In January alone, more than a thousand people had arrived in Fang," said the 50-year old Shan, who wished his identity be kept private.
He gave several reasons:
| One, |
recent directive that no one is allowed to purchase paddy at more than 500 kyat per basket (40.91 liters), even though the market price at this time during the previous years was between 1,500 - 1,625 kyat ($ 1.5 - 1.625). "One villager at Hpwe Hai village of Laikha township (79 miles northeast of Taunggyi) had gone to jail after he had sold to his friend 8 baskets of paddy at the price of K. 7,000, as agreed before the directive was issued," he related. "He was later fined 60,000 kyat for noncompliance and another 12,000 kyat for his accommodations during his 3-day detention." |
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"If we didn't sell, we needed money to buy necessities," the worker quoted one refugee as saying. "But if we sold, just like I did, we would have nothing left to make an adequate living anymore. So all of us decided to leave." |
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| Two, |
apart from forcing the market price down, the Army had also been demanding free monthly distribution of rice in most townships in southern Shan State: 1 bucket (20 liters) from the poor, 2 from those who are able to keep some poultry, 3 from those who have cattle and 4 who are well-to-do. |
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| Three, |
the Army is launching an operation against the Shan State Army in several townships, especially Mongnai, Kunhing, Laikha and Mongpan and as a result, people have been warned off from visiting their dry season crop fields. "Anyone found in the off-limit areas would be shot on sight, they told us," said a refugee from Kengtawng sub-township of Mongnai. "They also said we would be allowed to go back to our fields again only when the monsoons come." |
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| Four, |
although farmers who have their poppy fields on higher grounds are doing fine this season, the crops in lower elevations are yielding far less than anticipated. "We needed to sell to the ethnic Chinese bosses designated by the Army at least 3 viss (1 viss=1.6 kg) per acre," a refugee from Kunhing told him. "But most of us barely managed 1 viss per acre. And because the order was that we had to make do for the shortfall, we were left with no choice but to leave." |
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| "Five, |
added with the daily abuses of the Army that is steadily expanding, people thought that whatever the difficulties they might face in Thailand, they couldn't be worse than living under the Burmese Army," the social worker concluded. |
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According to a report by the Shan Human Rights Foundation in April 2003, a total of 230,000 Shan refugees have arrived in Thailand since April 1996, at the beginning of the massive forced relocation campaign launched by the Burma Army.
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