Farmers from Nwalapoe, near Loikaw, the Karenni state capital, are angry that the Burma Army is demanding they pay 2000 kyat for a registration card that allows them travel to their work.

The farmers work in pea fields and sesame fields around Nwalapoe and have to cross the eastern Pon River. Farmers say the extortion started on 24 August when Infantry Battalion (IB) 72 ordered them to pay a 2,000 kyat for each person going to work.

“Each of us has to pay fee for a travelling card so we can to go on to the fields and do our work. The army was unclear and said it could about the registration fees and said it might last a week or month,” a farmer said.

A local resident had more information and said.The registration card is to keep an eye on the villagers’ movement and to pressure the villagers to spy on that Karenni Army movements in the region.”

Local sources in other townships said other Burma Army units were also extorting fees from villagers. They said the Infantry Battalion 12 previously camped in Shandaw Township had also demand 500 kyat a person traveling fees from farmers and currently LIB 517 demanded rice from 12 villages in the Dawtanaw and Dawmule area. Villagers had to arrange for five sacks of rice each for the soldiers in Shandaw Township.