Narinjara news
MILITARY CONFISCATION OF LAND LEAVES
VILLAGERS IN A PITIABLE STATE IN WESTERN MYANMAR
Sittwe, 15th December 01: The residents of two villages
under Kyauktaw township in Rakhine
State of Myanmar whose landed property were confiscated by the Myanmar army
last year have not yet been given any compensation, according to our
correspondent from Sittwe, capital of the western
state.
The Light Battalion 539, established at Tharak-ouk
village under Kyauktaw township
in 1995, was relocated to a new site 20 miles south-west of Kyauktaw,
at Pain-fe-chhaung village in 2000. During the
relocation process, the military fenced with barbed-wire all the landed
property owned by the residents of the two villages of Kan-jauk
and Pain-fe-chhaung, for
establishing a new battalion headquarters there. More than twenty
fruit orchards of the villagers were also confiscated in the process besides
more than two hundred acres of rice paddy where the villagers also used to grow
various vegetables and pulses during the dry season. Besides this the
military confiscated more than fifty acres of fallow land used as pasture for
the cattle in the village.
During the monsoons this year, the battalion forces compelled the
villagers to plough the confiscated lands with the help of the cattle owned by
the villagers, grow rice and do agriculture by forced labour, the harvest of
which was reserved for the use by the family members of the battalion
soldiers. At present the SPDC forces are engaging the villagers to
harvest the paddy in those confiscated lands.
The villagers whose landed property was confiscated were left with not a single
acre of paddy field where to grow rice for themselves. Since the owners
of the confiscated fruit orchards were not used to growing paddies, they were
rendered penniless and helpless as a result of the wholesale confiscation of
property. The cattle, too have now to be herded
to distant places for pasture.
Our correspondent added that, there are fifty-four battalions of