Villagers abducted

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33111, 29 December 1972, Page 9

Villagers abducted

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright) RANGOON, Dec. 28.

Government troops have launched a military operation to rescue more than 500 villagers abducted by Communist insurgents in Burma’s mountainous eastern frontiers with Thailand. Last month, the Communists detained more than 600 villagers to prevent them from reaching the lowlands of the Kyauktaga area, 100 miles north of Rangoon, where new villages have been established to resettle peasants since the Government began an irrigation project in the region. The project, a SNZI3Om dam with a reservoir to irrigate 450,000 acres of land, and also to prevent floods in lower plains, involved the resettlement of 14 villages.

The Communists threatened to kill all those planning to leave their villages but since last month, more than 2000 villagers have reached Government controlled areas.

Of 600 abducted by the Communists, 40 have escaped. One, Po Maung, aged 70, who escaped last Saturday, told reporters that the insurgents forced them to move deeper into the jungles to avoid contact with Government forces.

“We finally decided to build rafts to float downstream to escape,. because the Communists had begun to execute some villagers,” he said.