Tractor-trailer owners forced to “donate” sand to a government golf course

February 20, 2008

IMNA,

Every tractor-trailer owner in Thanphyuzayart township, Mon state, is being forced to “donate” a tractor load of sand to the Shwe Phyu Tatana golf course, report locals.

The Thanphyuzayart Township Peace and Development Council notified tractor-trailer owners by letter in the first week of January 2008.

Each load costs 4,000 Kyat, which tractor-trailer owners must pay at their own expense, and villagers have no choice but to obey the order, said a resident tractor-trailer owner.

After the junta signed an agreement with the International Labor Organization in 1999 it began using the rhetoric of “donations” and “self-help policies” to mask the fact that contributions to the regime’s projects are made only by people under duress. The idea that villagers would donate sand to the golf-course is especially ludicrous given that only high-level junta officals are allowed to play on it.

Tractor-trailers are a common form of transportation in Mon State, and the machines are used to carry harvests and domestic goods. Calculating how many tractor-trailer owners were affected by the order is difficult, but Thanphyuzayart township is home to forty-three villages, each with between two and twenty of the machines.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News