Troops make money at people's expense

IMNA  November 17, 2005

In what can be termed as plain stealing, Ye Township, soldiers from the local Burmese military base have started to fell trees from plantations belonging to
villagers to make charcoal and sell it, claimed local people.

Light Infantry Battalion LIB No.299 soldiers travel by car to villager's plantations near their base and cut any tree they want.  They take the timber to their base to make charcoal.


They then transfer the charcoal into bags in order to sell it outside the battalion base on the main road from Ye to Tavoy. The largest bag of charcoal is priced at 750 Kyat and a small one is for 500 Kyat. Besides bags of charcoal, the army also sells wood. They also transport the charcoal and wood to Ye to get a better price, according to a sergeant in the battalion.

”We suffer from a shortage of wood due to wanton felling of trees by soldiers,” said Saw-ka-paw.

According to villagers, they do not dare complain when they see soldiers cutting their trees.

Usually about 10 soldiers in a car go to plantations nearby to cut trees. Some of their families do the same thing. Fruits grown in the plantations are also taken away, claimed local people.

Fruits such as areca nut, lemon, and coconut were taken from the villager's plantations and sent to Ye town, Nai Tin Myo a villager from from Ko-mile said.

With soldiers stealing fruits and other farm produce local people have to pay extra attention to save their crop.