Narinjara news
Military
Checkpoints in
Sittwe, 25 Jun. 02: Two
military checkpoints in Southern Arakan State have been added to already
existing hundreds across the state that are engaged in collecting illegal toll,
according to traders available at Thandwe town and Sittwe the capital.
A trader who was bringing shrimps, fish and crabs for transporting to Rangoon
from Gwa via Thandwe on
June 11th had to pay kyat 12,568 for 730 viss (1 viss=1.7 kg) of shrimp, kyat 1,100 for 220 viss of fish, and kyat 15,555 for 311 viss
of dried fish at the Thandwe military gate.
The tolls so collected are neither customs nor excise duties for the government
treasury but funds for the military and have to be paid compulsorily through
written receipts to the guards at the military checkpoints.
As the economy of Arakan is based on agriculture and sea resources, the rampant
toll collection prevalent across the state has put the life of the farmers and
fishermen into jeopardy because of all the restrictions and illegal tolls they
have to pay to various law enforcing agencies including the Burmese Military
all along the roads and waterways.
“The ruling State Peace and Development Council junta have engaged all the
members of the law enforcing agencies to raise funds for their own use. As a
result the various law-enforcing agencies have been with impunity carrying out
fund raising drives throughout the state in a competitive way,” said a
prominent lawyer of Sittwe who had recently travelled by road to
In another incident, a vegetable vendor from Kyauktaw
told our correspondent that, along the main river of the state, Kaladan, there are more than two-dozen military checkpoints
between Kyauktaw and Sittwe,
the state capital, where illegal toll is regularly collected in the name of
fund raising for the military.
“The exorbitant collection of toll has rendered transportation and sale of
agricultural produce or fish most unprofitable and time-consuming so that the
growers in the state are deprived of the right price,” many of the transport
owners in the Sittwe Kyauktaw
road also complained.
“It is not unusual to find the Burmese Military personnel demanding share of
the goods carried for their own consumption at the military checkpoints”, yet
another businessman from Sittwe assured. He added
that the number of harassment for the payment of illegal toll
at these checkpoints are also so widespread that people usually pay the
illegal tolls to avoid facing any of the bitter confrontations.
“In a state a little over fifteen-thousand square miles in size the deployment
of about sixty battalion Burmese military and the collection of illegal tolls
from its over four million Arakanese have left the economy of the state in
shambles. Though Arakan has so far boasted of being a rice-producing region of