Narinjara news
“Primary schools for
foreign tourists” at the expense of villagers
Sittwe, 8th October 02: In a
bid to spruce up the villages along the Sittwe
Rangoon motor road, in the western part of Burma, the Burmese junta SPDC have
forced the villagers along the road to collect at least 55% of the fund
required to construct hundreds of new primary schools, reports our
correspondent from Sittwe.
Western Commander Brigadier General Maung Oo on a visit to the villages in
The construction work, too, has been done by forced labour conscripted from
among the villagers, a school teacher in Sittwe
said. The construction of each of the school involves about two million
kyat in expenses, while the Burmese junta offer only nine hundred thousand kyat the remaining 1.1 million kyat is realized from the
villagers by force. In an average each of the village family is required
to pay a toll of five to ten thousand kyat, an amount quite high for the
jobless villagers.
Many villagers who were unable to pay the toll were arrested and detained by
the police. The situation has landed them into a dilemma of getting
detained and paying the bribe money required to either get released or to
continue the lawsuits, he said. While due to the recent price spiral the
price of rice, the staple food, has shot up, many villagers who are basically
dependent on agriculture are facing food shortage. Lack of work also has
forced many villagers to face the threat of constant starvation.
Paying toll to the Burmese junta’s school construction fund and bribing the
police for escaping legal actions due to no fault of their own have made the
villagers scapegoats of the whimsical lawless laws of the junta, according to
the schoolteacher.
Besides the money the villagers are forced to work in the construction sites of
the schools carry bricks, mortar, steel rods,
and wooden planks, dig trenches and do other manual works the whole day.
Villages where now the illegal toll collection and forced labour are
conscripted include Paung-dok, Pibaung-raung,
Laungret-taung-maw, Naingya,
Si-the-rwa, Shan-taung, Kung-baung in
The schoolteacher said that the beautification and ‘development drives’ is
being done to show to the future foreign tourists how the Burmese junta gives
importance to the development of education sector in the much neglected
minority state of Rakhine. #