Narinjara news

Daily necessities from Burma: not for Rakhine State

Sittwe, 21^st December 02: The Burmese SPDC junta’s ban on transportation of goods to Rakhine State since September 25^th in the western part of Burma has caused skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, reports our correspondent.

The ban on the transportation of such everyday commodities including onions, pulses, cooking oil, rice and red chillies, has caused severe shortage of edibles in the western state bordering with Bangladesh. The price of a viss (1.6 kg) of onion was kyat eighty before the ban while it is now selling at kyat five hundred. The price of cooking oil is at least kyat two thousand. The price of rice though it is harvest season in Rakhine state has not gone down as usual in the previous years. For a meal now one needs to spend at least five hundred kyat in the restaurants which is more than ten times than in previous occasions.

On a radio interview with the Democratic Voice of Burma in the morning broadcast on 19 December, U Aye Tha Aung, secretary of the Arakan League for Democracy, appealed to the ruling Burmese junta led by general Than Shwe to allow free passage of the daily necessities to bring down the artificial price hike.

Though the fish and all agricultural produce from Rakhine State are allowed free passage to Burma proper, the daily necessities of Burma proper cannot be brought to Rakhine State. “This is nothing but conducting of a systematic campaign of starvation against a whole people”, our correspondent said quoting a retired civil serviceman, “we have been treated as enemy to the jingoist Burmese SPDC junta generals. It is plain racism at its worst. Is Rakhine StateThe situation has aggravated because of the stationing of over sixty battalion of armed forced in the state, which has never seen a serious conflict or guerrilla activities during the last fifty years, our correspondent concluded. #