Plantation owners and workers extorted for as much as 20,000 MMK

October 24, 2024

HURFOM: Since October 5^th, 2024, plantation owners and workers from eight villages in Kan Bauk region, Yebyu Township, Tenasserim Division have been extorted for up to 20,000 MMK for a required recommendation letter issued from the Mawrawaddy Navy Command and from particular Administrators.

The junta is pressuring plantation owners and workers in Phaung Taw and Tell Chaung village tracts to apply for recommendation letters which includes names, ID numbers and pictures. The documents are ostensibly required for travel purposes. Junta-appointed Administrators have been extorting applicants for payments for these documents.

“We have to apply for a recommendation from the Administrator and another one from the Navy Command. We have to pay 20,000 MMK for both papers. We have to show the letter when passing through their gates,” said a local villager.

The New Mon State Party (AD – Anti Military Dictatorship) has banned villagers in Pauk Pin Kwin village from going outside on the Sabbath and the day before the Sabbath. This prohibition is creating problems for the rubber plantation workers.

“We aren’t allowed to go outside the village on the Sabbath and the day before the Sabbath. They threatened that if we do, we’ll be shot and killed. Now, it’s the time to do rubber tapping and harvest “Elephant Foot Yam”. If we have no guard in our plantation, we’ll lose everything to thefts,” said a Pauk Pin Kwin resident.

In addition, ever since February 1, 2021, the military junta banned local villagers in Kan Bauk region from riding motorbikes.

“We have a serious transportation problem in the harvest season,” said a rubber plantation worker.

Now that harvest season has come, it is the time to produce latex from rubber plantations but most rubber plantations in Mon, Karen and Tenasserim regions have had to stop their production due to safety and security concerns.

Written by Modinator · Filed Under News