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Military targets villagers over gas pipeline explosion
Fri 10 Mar 2006,
IMNA
The military government arrested three more villagers yesterday in Kwan-hlar village, Mudon Township in connexion with the gas pipeline explosion near their village on February.
The arrested are Nai Shwe, Nai Dort and Nai Win. Five people were arrested on March 5.
According to a Kwan-Hlar villager, Mi Pan, wife of Nai Kon Sike, the Village Peace and Development Council chairman and Mi Sajin wife of Nai Tala Aie were arrested by local troops based in Thanpyuzayart following the arrest of their husbands on March 5.
Given the massive arrests, villagers and Village Peace and Development Council members of Kwan-Hlar village have been silent.
“The villagers are frightened. Nobody dares to trade and travel like they used to. Everywhere there is silence,” a villager who reached the border said.
“The military has not been interrogating arrested villagers for information on who caused the explosion They are just interrogating persons linked to Nai Yekha,” said a source close to Nai Raejae who was detained in Moulmein a day after the explosion.
Nai Yekha was arrested along with seven people including the editor of the Eleven Newspaper on July 17, 2003 by the military regime on charges of trying to assassinate top military government leaders and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was a senior leader of the New Mon State Party.
“They do not ask questions about the explosion but just interrogate people in the village who knew Nai Yekha,” the source said.
As of now about 20 people have been detained by the troops. Some are detained in the Military Southeast Region Command and some in Infantry Battalion No.62 base, in Thanpyuzayart. They are village Peace and Development Council (VPDC) chairmen and village community leaders.
During the March 5 arrests, Nai Shwe Gone escaped while troops were trying to arrest him. The soldiers shot at him but he got away.
According to villagers, VPDC chairmen and village leaders were shouted at by local troops in front of the people when the gas pipeline leaked in mid 2005. Villagers had paid for the cost of repairing the pipeline. Villagers are now being forced to patrol the pipeline.
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