Narinjara news
BURMESE JUNTA EXTORT
TOLLS FOR CELEBRATING THE NEW YEAR
Sittwe, 11 April 02: With the traditional
Arakanese New Year’s Eve knocking at the door, the SPDC military regime have
started collecting illegal tolls from all the business farms in Arakan (Rakhine) State in the western part of Burma, according to
our correspondent.
The traditional Rakhine New Year festivities will
start from April 13 as usual. Last year because of the Buddhist Muslim race
riots there were no Thaung-gran or New Year’s
festivities in Sittwe, the capital of the state. This
year the junta have ordered eighteen townships,
including Paletwa township of western
The Sittwe Township Peace and Development Council has
already issued orders to each of the owners of saw mills in the township to
give five hundred cubic feet of sawn timber for erecting stages in the town for
celebrating the Thaung-gran, popularly known as Water
Festival. The poor owners of saw mills who cannot pay the illegal tolls are now
facing closure of their saw mills and legal actions for no fault of their own
if they cannot give the said timber as demanded by the Burmese junta.
All the government employees and traders have been ordered to pay illegal tolls
for collecting the money needed to celebrate the festival. The government
departments in the township have been issued orders for compulsory
participation in the grand festivities at their own cost.
This year the junta have directed all of their
administrative councils to hold the Rakhine Maha Thaungran, even in the
hard-to-reach inaccessible areas across the state. According to a higher
government official, this year the measure to hold the festivities in a grand
gala ceremony has been taken to divert people’s attention from the suspicious
activities going on in Rangoon between the junta and their old man, Ne Win and
his cohorts. The general populace in
The Rakhine Thaung-gran is
an annual affair with much festivities and traditional ceremonies unlike those
in Burma Proper or even