Security tightens after Thanphyuzayart blast
Sat 28 Nov 2009, INMA, Rai Maraoh
Security has tightened around the site of a November 15th explosion in the Kanbuak to Miang-Kalay gas pipeline, near a rural settlement between the villages of That Kaw and Wei Win Kara in Thanphyuzayart Township.
Artillery Regiment (AR) 318, the battalion that that has thus far led the security measures enacted at the site, has unofficially blamed the explosion on Mon splinter group activity in the area, and a new security checkpoint has been created on the central highway running through the region. IMNA’s field reporter also learned that as of this week, the Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) in Thanphyuzayart Township has ordered all villages in the Township to take responsibility for reburying exposed sections of the pipeline, as a precaution against rebel activity.
“Yesterday, the soldiers checked the people who passed through on the Thanphyuzayart to Kyaikkhami main road. The checkpoint is at the rain road pass” said a source who passed through the check point.
Locals report that the explosion resulted in an 18- inch horizontal crack in the pipeline itself and a 3-foot-deep crater at the site of the blast.
IMNA reported on the pipeline explosion on November 18th; at the time, the cause of the explosion was still up for debate. However, the recently tightened security in the area indicates that the Burmese Army has attributed the blast to a rebel group-laid bomb, rather than to a structural problem in the pipeline.
“The gas explosion was not normal, the explosion was like a bomb exploding, not through gas or a fire accident. One possible [explanation] is, maybe they [Burmese soldiers] caused the explosion, so that after it happened they could accuse Mon splinter groups [of setting a bomb on the pipeline],” a New Mon State Party (NMSP) member living in the area told IMNA. Villagers informed IMNA that after the explosion, the Burmese soldiers and policemen who arrived at the scene reportedly told the villagers that “Mon people” (meaning Mon splinter groups) had cause the incident. The Burmese army’s knee-jerk accusations against Mon groups has many residents in the area worried that the battalion will eventually use the incident as an excuse to move against the NMSP itself.
“We know they want to accuse the NMSP, but the NMSP never did this [caused the explosion] like they are thinking,” the local NMSP member informed IMNA.
According to IMNA’s field reporter, villagers in the area have been paying pipeline security fees since 2006, after a pipeline explosion between Kwan-hlar village and Young Doung village in Mudon Township. The blast resulted in Burmese authorities imposing a 3000 kyat per-household monthly security tax on all villagers in both Mudon and Thanphyuzayart Township.
