Guest Column
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The Lambi marine park project was started in May 1997 when the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc) troops began a heavy offensive in the Karen National Union’s Brigade 4 area. The Slorc wanted to take Myint Molatkhat hill for use as a nature reserve. During this offensive, about twenty thousand Karen and Tavoy villagers fled to the Thai border as refugees near where a power station is located for the Yadana gas pipeline project.
According to Terror in the South, a special report published in November 1997 by the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), Slorc began a clean-up operation along the coastal region in October 1996 for Lambi and other islands targeted for eco-tourism ventures. During this operation, Slorc killed about 40 people in Lambi, about 80 in Kaw Ye, and about 100 on Zadatgyi Island. 3,000 Salon (sea gypsies) were relocated from Lambi, and another 80 villages were moved from the coast by Brig. Gen. Sit Maung, commander of the newly-established Coastal Region Military Command, using 8 army battalions, navy and aircraft.
A villager who spent a week as a forced laborer on the island in mid-1997 says that 150 villagers are required to work there for a week at a time, without food or pay. Depending on their size, some 17 villages near Lambi, including East Aungbar, Kyargyi Aw, Mathein, Kantaw, Salon Aw and others are required to supply between 5 and 14 people to the army for “development work.” Those who do not want to be recruited as forced laborers are required to pay fines of up to 20,000 kyat for a week’s work.
Before the 1988 uprising, there were 5 battalions in Tenasserim Division. Ten years later, there are 40 battalions for the security of the most important joint venture projects, including the Yadana gas pipeline (with Total of France), the Yetagun gas project (with Premier Oil of the United Kingdom), the Tavoy deep sea port and land bridge from Kanchanaburi (with Thai companies), the Lambi eco-tourism venture and many other tourist projects. The SPDC has also forced villagers to work on army barracks and compounds.
“They had already built a mini-airport, 5 heli-pads, a big zoo, a wharf and military bases. Now they are building a luxury resort. They want to finish before the rainy season, so they are pushing the laborers to work very hard, about 12 hours every day,” reported one villager.
An officer of the ABSDF’s southern region who has been monitoring this project stated that “last year, there were about 400 people working as forced laborers on Lambi Island, and this year there are nearly 700 workers. About 300 workers were villagers from Bokpyine, another 300 were porters from Kawthong who were arrested on the border when they came back from Thailand as illegal workers, and the last 100 were prison laborers.”
A fisherman from Aung Yadana boat in Ranong, forced to work in Lambi marine national park, recalled, “I was arrested on Snake Island, between Ranong and Kawthong, as an illegal worker in January 1998, when I was sent back from Thailand to Burma....I stayed three days in Kawthong police compound and then they sent me to Lambi Island with about 300 others in fishing boats.”
Once arriving in Lambi, these laborers had to stay in temporary barracks, waking each morning at 5 a.m. to a cup of rice soup for breakfast. By 6 a.m. they were off to work in construction teams, sometimes involved in heavy work, such as cutting and digging out big trees. At noon they had lunch, but it was never enough. While they were hungry enough to eat three plates each, they were only allowed to eat one.
“The soldiers ordered us to work very hard. They wanted to finish the project before the rainy season. Some people were injured, some got malaria, and others died, so I was very afraid.
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