#Road #development #project in #Three #Pagoda #Pass (TPP) Town, on the #Thai- #Burma #border

5.11.2014 The Neighboring Countries Economic Development Cooperation Agency (NEDA) has offered to implement, facilitate, and finance the road development project in Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) Town, on the Thai-Burma border, according to NEDA Senior Vice-President Mr. Teerasak Monkolpod.
NEDA has offered to take responsibility for the road development project, providing 350 million baht for the construction of a 21.7 kilometer highway, as well as a bridge across the Maekasa River, near Chaungzone Village; the highway will begin at the Thai-Burma border checkpoint in Three Pagoda Pass Town.

“Right after [the] Burmese government grants permission, this project can be accomplished within one month,” Mr. Teerasak announced at a recent meeting with Burmese government representatives, held in Three Pagoda Pass Town.

The development project will include water channels, sidewalks, and electricity poles built and set up along the highway.

“To implement this road project, we will submit [for approval from] the Ministry of Construction. We have to wait for our [Burmese] government’s permission,” explained U Win Lwin, Vice-Chief Engineer of the Public Construction Project.

NEDA plans to construct the highway beginning from the checkpoint located at the Thai-Burma border, passing from Taw-na road to the Maekasa highway, through Thaung-wyne to Ywa-thit.

NEDA has also committed to providing 220 million baht for the construction of a motor-way entrance in Three Pagoda Pass.

“After this road project, the second project plan is to build a motor-way entrance near Taung-wyne, and they [NEDA] will also build a border checkpoint and office buildings,” said an official from Three Pagoda Pass, who asked to remain anonymous.

The meeting between NEDA and Burmese government representatives was held on November 1st, at Three Pagoda Pass Town’s General Administration Office Meeting Hall. Present at the meeting were NEDA representatives, led by Mr. Teerasak, and Burmese representatives, including Vice-Chief Engineer of the Public Construction Project U Win Lwin, Vice-Chief Engineer of the Road Special Group U San Lwin, Three Pagoda Pass’s administrator, New Mon State Party members, Karen National Union members, as well as local residents and Thai employers. CR. IMNA MON  NEWS

ဂိတ္ေၾကးကို သံုးပံုတပံု ေလ်ွာ့ခThree Pagoda pass

ကရင္ျပည္နယ္၊ ၾကာအင္း ဆိပ္ႀကီးၿမိဳ႔နယ္၊ ဘုရားသံုးဆူၿမိဳ႔ႏွင့္ ေခ်ာင္းဆံု ရြာၾကားရွိ ဂိတ္ေၾကး မ်ားကို သံုးပံုတပံု ေလွ်ာ့ခ် ခဲ့သည္ဟု ၿမိဳ႔ခံ စီးပြားေရး လုပ္ငန္းရွင္ တဦးက ေျပာပါသည္။ ထို႔ျပင္ အရွည္ (၉) မိုင္ ရွိသည့္ လမ္းတြင္ ဂိတ္ (၈) ေနရာ ထားရွိ ရာက အခု (၃) ေနရာသာ ထားရွိမည္ ျဖစ္သည္။

“ဂိတ္ေနရာကေတာ့ ေလွ်ာ့ေပမဲ့ ေကာက္တဲ့ အဖြဲ႔ကေတာ့ အဲဒီ (၈) ဖြဲ႔ အတိုင္းပါဘဲ ေနရာေတြကို စုလိုက္တာဘဲ ကြာပါတယ္။
ဒါေပမဲ့ ဂိတ္ေၾကး ကေတာ့ အရင္က ဆိုရင္ ဘုရားသံုးဆူနဲ႔ ေခ်ာင္းဆံုဟာ ကုန္တင္ကား တစီးကို က်ပ္(၂၅၀၀၀၀) က်ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ အခုေတာ့ (၁၅၀၀၀၀) ဘဲ ေပးရေတာ့တယ္“ဟု စီးပြားေရး သမားတဦးက ေျပာပါသည္။

ဘုရားသုံးဆူၿမိဳ႕နယ္တြင္း႐ွိ ဂိတ္မ်ား ေလၽွာ့ခ်ေရး ညိွႏွိဳင္း အစည္းအေဝးကို ေမလ (၂၃) ရက္ေန႕ နံနက္ (၉) နာရီ အခ်ိန္ တြင္ ကရင္ျပည္နယ္၊ ၾကာအင္းဆိပ္ႀကီးၿမိဳ႕နယ္၊ ဘုရားသုံးဆူးၿမိဳ႕႐ိွ အေထြေထြ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး ဦးစီးဌာန႐ံုး၌ ျပဳလုပ္သြား ပါ သည္။ အဆိုပါ ညိွႏိွဳင္း အစည္းအေဝးသို႔ ဘုရားသုံးဆူ ၿမိဳ႕တြင္း႐ိွ အာဏာပိုင္ အဖြဲ႕ေပါင္းစုံ၊ စီးပြားေရး သမားမ်ား၊ လိုင္ကား သမားမ်ား၊ ကရင္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး အဖြဲ႔ ေပါင္းစုံႏွင့္ မြန္ျပည္သစ္ ပါတီမွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား တက္ေရာက္ခဲ႕သည္ဟု အစည္း အေဝး တက္ေရာက္သူက ဆိုပါသည္။

စီးပြါးေရး သမား ကုန္သည္မ်ားက ဤကဲ့သို႔ ဂိတ္ေၾကးမ်ား လြန္းသည့္အတြက္ စီးပြားေရး တြက္ေခ် မကိုက္လာရာကေန ဘုရားသံုးဆူ ဌာနဆိုင္ရာသို႕ တင္ျပ လာေသာေၾကာင့္ ယခုကဲ့သို႔ ညိွႏွိဳင္း အစည္းအေဝး ျပဳလုပ္ေပးရသည္ဟုလဲ ဆိုပါသည္။

ထိုဂိတ္မ်ားသည္ အေ႐ွ႕ေတာင္တိုင္း တိုင္းမႈး၏ ညႊန္ၾကားခ်က္အရ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းရျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ဤကဲ့သို႔ မေလ်ွာ့ခ်ပါက စီးပြားေရးအရ ထိခိုက္ေနရၿပီး ကုန္သြယ္မွဳပါ နစ္နာခဲ့ရပါသည္။ ဘုရားသံုးဆူ နယ္စပ္သည္၊  ထိုင္းျမန္မာ ႏွစ္ႏိုင္ငံ တရား၀င္ ကုန္သြယ္ေရး လမ္းေၾကာင္း မဟုတ္ေသာ္လည္း နားလည္မွဳျဖင့္ ကုန္ သြယ္ေနၾကၿပီး  ျပည္ပ ပို႔ကုန္ထက္ ျပည္တြင္း သြင္းကုန္က ပိုမ်ားပါသည္။

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KNU to open third ceasefire liaison office in Dooplaya District

The Karen National Union is to open a new liaison branch office at Three Pagoda Pass in Dooplaya district of Karen State on May 15, according to a local officer from the KNU.

A Karen National Liberation Army officer said the liaison office, in Three Pagoda Pass, Dooplaya District, will make working with the Burma Army to put the ceasefire arrangements in place a lot easier and more practical. The KNLA officer said by opening the liaison office it would help further cooperation between the KNU and Burma government.

Speaking to Karen News, Captain Ba Thein, office manager of KNLA 6th Brigade said.

“The liaison office in Three Pagoda Pass will be the branch office for Dooplaya District. We are now preparing the necessary equipment to get it ready for the opening ceremony.”

Captain Ba Thein said that local KNU officials have invited villagers from as many as 30 villages in Three Pagoda Pass sub-township to attend the liaison office opening ceremony.

Fire broke out at Winka village southeast of Three Pagoda Pass -mov

(Mizzima) – Fire broke out at Winka village southeast of Three Pagoda Pass on the Thai-Burmese border on Tuesday. Damage was estimated at US$ 2 million.

The fire broke out during the Winka village pagoda festival, and the area was crowded with visitors. Witnesses said shop owners did not have time to carry goods from their stores.

The fired destroyed a large number of homes and shops that cater to tourists and foreign visitors. The fire is believed to have started in an electrical short circuit.

Fire engines from Sangklaburi, about two kilometres from Winka village, responded. It took about four hours to extinguish the blaze.

During Winka village’s annual pagoda festival there are boxing matches, Mon and Burmese traditional dance shows, performing arts and Thai music shows. The village specializes in tourist and ethnic items.

The village has about 1,500 houses. The area is well known for Thailand’s longest wooden bridge, and a replica of India’s Bodh Gaya temple.

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Fire at Sangkhlaburi Bodh Gaya Temple causes about 70 million Baht in damages

IMNA – The row of shops of Bodh Gaya Temple in Wan-Ka Village, Sangkhlaburi Township, near Three Pagodas Pass at the Thai-Burma border caught on fire at about 8 pm Tuesday and all the shops turned into ash within half an hour.

Thirty-six shops were damaged and the damage was estimated at 70 millions Thai Baht by local authorities at the emergency meeting held in the Wi-wai-karama Monastery of Wan-Ka Village, after the fire was put out.

Fire at Sangkhalaburi

Valuable textiles or clothes, ethnic costumes, handicrafts, silver and bronze wares related to Buddha images, many kinds of musical instruments, art materials made of timber, ironwood and gum-kino and other small furniture made by artisans in Burma were lost.

KNU reopen key highway from to Thanphyuzayart

IMNA – The Karen National Union (KNU) has reopened the main highway from the Thai-Burma border township of Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) to Thanphyuzayart today, December 7th. The  highway leading from the township to Thanphyuzayart has been closed since the beginning of the rainy season. Each year the road becomes unusable as many sections are engulfed by floodwaters.

Of the three main routes that allow residents to travel from TPP to Thanphyuzayart, the direct highway is the safest and shortest route. The most commonly used alternate route, from TPP to Ye Township, is very hazardous and a lot of accidents occur along the windy and perilous road.

“(KNU) started to collect tax from car owners today, who will run the highway TPP to Thanphyuzayart” said one car driver hoping to depart from TPP.

The KNU have set the tax for 2012 to use the roadway at 11,300 baht per car for an annual pass. This has increased from the 10,300 baht price in 2010, which also required a parcel of rice.

“We have paid the tax today and we can travel tomorrow” said another driver waiting in TPP.

Along the highway to Thanphyuzayart, which comprises approximately 60 miles of the total 70-mile journey from TPP, there are a reported 33 checkpoints along the road. In addition to the initial taxes paid by residents in TPP, each checkpoint requires a payment of varying degrees. The checkpoints are controlled by the KNU, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), by Burmese government troops and by the New Mon State Party (NMSP).

On January the 28th this year, the KNLA demanded that TPP residents pay approximately 2.5 million baht collectively. This is again an increase from the 700,000 baht estimated to have been collected in 2010.

The TPP Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) have claimed that the KNLA threatened the TPDC with destruction in the local area if the taxes were not raised and handed over. The township has seen an increase in conflict since the KNLA moved into the area, and conflict has even occurred in the town centre, a new and disturbing phenomenon.

Last year the KNLA Brigade no. 6 blocked the highway so as to disrupt the movement of government troops and food supplies in the area. This year’s cool season is the first major opportunity for residents to utilize the road for trade since 2010, despite the trip being stalled continuously by checkpoints and taxes.

Mon Women Network (MWN) accepts the refugee women and children in Safe house Three Pagoda Pass sub-township

23.11.2011

“The Mon Women Network (MWN) made a decision in its meeting to help women and children, who arrived to Safe House which has been operating by WCRP. The safe house locates in Japan Yay-twin village in Three Pagoda Pass sub-township in Kyar Inn Seik Gyi township, Karen State. Those women and children are the victims of human rights abuses and civil wars”, Mi Thu Ta Zaw, one of the leaders in WCRP, said.

They will take care of those people, who arrived to Safe House, for a particular period. The WCRP will train them for promoting their knowledge and skills, according to Mi Thu Ta Zaw.

“Our safe house is going to help women and children until their lives are safe and secure. We will provide food and accommodation for them. We will accept the number of women from 5-10 and children from 10- 20 per month in our Safe House. We will permit them to stay at least 6 months in our safe house. During the time, we will give training for developing of their skills and knowledge,” Mi Aei Sone, the leader of MWN, said.

Burma’s ruling party want Karen recruits

The Union Solidarity and Development Party, Burma’s ruling party are on a recruitment drive to gain party members in Karen State, according to local residents.

Local USDP members in Three Pagoda Pass area of Kyain Seikgyi Township in Karen State are campaigning in villages around the region to get more Karen to join their party.

An eyewitness to the USDP recruitment drive in Chaung Sone village, said the campaign team was led by USDP organizer, U Than Win, from the Three Pagoda Pass area.

“Their chief organizer, U Than Win, led the campaign. They [USDP] campaigned by promising that if people joined their party, they will be given business opportunities. They also said that they intend to form worker associations in Chaung Sone village. However, their campaign was not very successful as Chaung Sone villagers didn’t like it.”

A Three Pagoda Pass town businessman said that the USDP put on a show at developing in his area of the town.

“I saw people wearing USDP shirt repairing the road in our section. This road has been under repair for a long time and it has never ever been finished. We are only spectators in the game.”

Three Pagoda Pass township is a sub-township of Kyain Seikgyi where three candidates from three parties – U Saw Htunt Khaung Lwin from USDP, U Saw Kyi Aye from National Unity Party and Saw Terry from Plao-Swaw Democratic Party – competed for representation in the National and People Parliaments. In spite of the election commission declaration that the eventual winner was the USDP’s U Saw Htunt Khaung Lwin, rumours about advance voting and votes buying clouded his election result.

It was reported in August this year that an USDP official told Kawkareik Town residents that they will be giving out loans. A resident told Karen News that there may be loans but the will not be for ordinary or families in need.

“I was told the USDP will give s so I went to them and asked. They said to me that they will only give loans to people with concrete houses.”

Villagers say that although the election is over, a new government has emerged and the parliament is convening for the second time, the USDP are out campaigning to make sure they increase the membership of their party. kic news

Army increase security around Three Pagoda Pass

Following a spate of attacks by unknown gunmen and bombers against a businessman with links to the Burma army and other military target in and around Three Pagoda Pass Town, authorities have increased security and the number of checkpoints in the area.

Residents say checkpoints are manned 24 hours and army presence in the town is now highly visible.

A resident who asked not to be named in media reports spoke to Karen News.’

“Since the attacks, there has been far more checking and more checkpoints. Burma army soldiers are on every street corner. All motorbikes and cars are checked. They have been arresting and interrogating people they suspect and some have been temporary detained.”

The residents said that the security checks are strict and are carried out morning to night.

“They check every detail. They are searching for explosives and weapons. Soldiers have checkpoints even on the small side roads. Soldiers wearing uniforms are also stopping people on street corners.”

Some women were put in front of the government troops in order to avoid attack by the KNU

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – One day after two people were killed by masked gunmen in Three Pagoda Pass in Mon State on the Thai-Burmese border, Burmese government troops have reportedly forced villagers to serve as human shields and porters, according to local residents.

KNU soldiers assemble for inspection in this file photo. Photo: Mizzima

On June 6, government troops of Infantry Unit No. 373 arrested 10 villagers from Myaingtharyar village located 16 miles (25.75 km) northwest of Three Pagoda Pass, and 24 villagers from Apalone village, forcing some villagers including women to serve as human shields and others to work as porters, according to villagers.

‘Some women were put in front of the government troops in order to avoid attack by the KNU (Karen National Union). They used women as human shields’, said a member of the Apalone village administrative committee.

An officer in the New Mon State Party who is based in the area said that he had heard reports that some villagers were arrested to serve as porters, but he could not confirm the reports. Mizzima contacted the relevant authorities in the area, but they declined to comment.

According to an unconfirmed source close to the KNU, its troops carried out an ambush on a column of government troops, killing an army captain and six soldiers. The source said a female villager, Naw Moe Moe Aye, 32, was forced to  serve as a porter, and she sustained an injury to her left arm.

On June 5, an attack by masked gunmen on two separate locations in Three Pagoda Pass killed one Burmese soldier and a 13-year-old girl, and injured three people.

Truck owners taxed after administrator borrows significant sums_ Three Pagoda Pass

January 15, 2010
HURFOM, TPP: The chairman of the Land Transportation Association (LTA) in Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) town in Three Pagoda Pass township, has collected an additional tax from all vehicle owners to pay to the Karen National Union (KNU) checkpoint in Three Pagoda areas.
The LTA is a civilian organization that organizes and facilitates the transport of good through local truck owners. All owners of trucks who transport goods are required to join the LTA. The LTA operates under the permission of the Burmese military government State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
On multiple occasions the SPDC has used the LTA to transport the military food supplies in Three Pagoda town. After a series of confiscations of SPDC supplies from LTA transportation, the LTA’s chairman was informed by the military that he must negotiate with, and agree to pay a price to, the KNU for transporting supplies through territory held by their forces.
One resident with a little political influence in TPP who knew about the case described, “The military does not use their own vehicles to carry their food supplies. They force civilian trucks to carry their food supplies while transporting passengers to Three Pagoda town. Every pick up truck has to carry 5 packages of rice during their trip between Anankwin Tactical Command No. 3 and Three Pagoda town.”