Some 2,000 ethnic Palaung villagers have been displaced from their homes in...Shan State..., according to...the Palaung Women’s Organization...The report...accuses the Burmese army of...forced portering, looting, torture, killing and sexual violence, as it launches offensives against local ethnic armies...to secure control of strategic trading and investment areas on the Chinese border, particularly the route of China’s trans-Burma oil and gas pipelines...[M]any of those who have become...[displaced] are women..[T]he Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization...released a report...which explained that...the construction of the...Shwe Gas pipeline...has brought increased military presence, resulting in forced labor and human rights abuses. The TSYO accuses the Burmese army of colluding with the pipeline investors to confiscate local residents’ land as they prepare a path for the oil and gas pipelines.