Army starts taking areca nut tax from villagers
Independent Mon News Agency
For the first time a Burmese military battalion based
in
the people, 1,000 areca nuts from
each areca palm
plantation owner. "The
military Infantry battalion
No.282 ordered the village headmen in
by letter to collect the tax,"
a village headman said.
"I took to the village headman's home 2,000 areca nuts
by myself with my motorbike for the
tax. My village
headman took from our family 2,000
because we have
6,000 areca palms in our plantation," Myit Htwe
explained.
Village headmen have to manage, more or less, which
areca palms owner they have to
collect for the tax.
"In the order, they collect the areca for planting,
but I do not believe it. I think
they collect it for
their funds because the areca nut
has a good price,"
the village headman added.
In that area, areca nut is the job most people rely on
for survival, 7 Kyat an areca nut.
An owner of 1,000
areca palms has an income of more
than one million
Kyat for a year.
"That's why the military authorities collected the
areca nut from each village. They
got more than 50
thousand areca nuts per village and
they will get
about 100 million Kyats in the
whole township," the
village headman explained how the
army got the money.
In some areas, the Burmese soldiers stole villagers'
areca nuts drying at their village
homes and resold
them for their income.
"Sometimes, they took them in front of us. But they do
not ask us. We are also afraid to
make a complaint to
the higher ranking officer because
at the moment the
military has launched a military
operation against the
Mon splinter groups in our area and the military is
very cruel to people," said Mi
Kon Chan, a women from
southern Ye township who reached
the camp the day
before yesterday (Dec. 25).
"They also killed some people, beating villagers for
stealing who tried to go to the
areca palm plantation
to pick arecas," she claimed.
In southern
launching military operations
against the
Houngsarwatoi Restoration Party(HRP), a Mon splinter
group, and some villages were
banned from going to the
orchard plantation.
For further information, please contact to Independent
Mon News Agency
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