Wa relocations creating Shan dislocations

Wa relocations creating Shan dislocations?

Reporter Maihoong

Shan visitors who were at the 3-days a week market at the border told S.H.A.N. on Wednesday many villagers had become homeless and landless by Wa resettlement program that has been taking the border township of Mongton, opposite Chiangmai, by storm.

"The Wa", one said, "began coming in trickles since the beginning of last month. By mid December they became a flow. But since 1 January, trucks have been going unceasingly back and forth along the road, carrying their people from Panghsang (Wa capital near Chinese border). It has become a deluge."

Most of them are being unloaded at Hwe Aw (about 20 miles from the border), where the Wa appear to be setting up their advance headquarters, and later located at Takwang, Hwe Aw Tract and Poon-an, Poongpakhem (about 12 miles from the border) Tract, they said.

Since then, houses and fields, whose owners were absent were taken forcefully and given to the resettlers, they said. "Some had only gone from their homes or gardens to attend to some business and when they got back, these homes and gardens were no longer theirs", said one marketeer. "Apart from that they take everything they want, pigs, chickens, ducks, and so on, saying, 'Gen. Khin Nyunt has given us this country. If you want it back, go and ask him'".

One truck driver said he saw 2 persons die through suffocation on Tuesday (2 January) at Maekaen, one, over 60 years old, male, and the other, over 50 years old, female.

He also heard that last year only 2,000 families were relocated in the township, that this year it would be 5,000. "One officer told me they were being authorized to resettle as far as the boundary between Loilem District and Monghsat District.

The Wa expeditionary force is positioned as far as Maekun, the border between Loilem and Monghsat.

According to S.H.A.N. reports late in 1999, altogether 50,000 families (about 250,000 people) were being planned to be relocated in Mongton and Monghsat townships. Estimates of arrival last year range between 50,000 - 120,000 people.

On 13 October, James Callahan, Bureau of International Narcotics Law Enforcement (Asia), disclosed that he urged Wa leaders not to proceed with relocations during unprecedented talks with them a week earlier.