Unspeakable extortion and harassment by village administrator and armies in Buthidaung Township

Source Burmatimes,  November 30, 2013

Burma Times – A religious teacher from Kin Daung Village said on the condition of anonymity that the military personalsfrom battalion 551 under the Dabru Chaung brigade, village administrator and their abettors are extorting, threatening and harassing to the villagers in different area inside and out side the kin Daung village tract under Buthidaung Township. The administrator of kin Daung village who lives in Dum Pine Buddhist village is collecting money 2000 or 3000 or 5000kyats from the villagers according to their status today on 30 NOV 2013. In this case his some puppets are helping to him in collecting the cash.

Cunningly The administrator shows different reasons to the villagers when collecting cash from them such as district peace & development council (Ka Ya Ka ) and City peace and development council ( Ma Ya Ka) ordered to him to provide some cash or something etc. in deed they are selling the higher authorities name to for the extortion. If anybody try to refuse to pay the amount as they are very impoverished the administrator threaten of mentioning about torturing of the authority. So the villagers feel fear as soon as they heard the two names and they cannot go to Ka Ya Ka or Ma Ya Ka to know about the truth as they are Rohingya Muslim and illiterate. Through this way the administrator and his main abettor Saddek son of Kamal aged 45years from lay Mryo village under Kin Daung village tract are taking advantages of villagers being illiterate and Rohingya and looting hundred thousands of kin Daung villagers' money.

The teacher also said, they administrator and his main abettor are taking big amount like minimum 20,000kyats to 60,0000kyats from the villagers for their new born baby 

registration

 process which Na Sa Ka taught them before. If the villagers are unable to provide the amount as they are very poor ,at that time the stooges of administrator and military personals pay them some money on interests which they later take back from the villagers through harassment and torturing . In fact the village administrator and military personal are using Rohingya to make their earning sources. Besides they are also taking extortion from those daily workers who used to go to Bangladesh for earning.

Head strongly, the administrator set some stooges of him in the said village to get the regular information of some villagers and some other labors of the village arrival from Bangladesh so that he could threaten to them and extort cash. In addition the armies who are on duty at Saing Daung water fall are also extorting 20,000kyats per thousandbamboo poles. The stooges of the authority also showing their help of drama to the poor villagers,i.e they are helping to the villagers by provide the cash of interest promptly when the villagers couldn't see anything to get back their bamboos from the armies. But the poor villagers couldn't understand what may happen with them later due to taking the interest money. if any villagers failed to pay up the amount including interests in due time which they borrowed from the stooges then the stooges started harassing to the villagers such as beating, forcefully taking money from them by the help of the authority and call them to the battalion to torture .

And they forced the villagers to sell out their houses to pay up the amount. But still they cannot pay up full amount as the amount increased with interest. Ultimately  they become bankrupt that obliged them to leave the country empty handed . There are hundreds of different villagers who had to leave the country for being insolvent. Here I am mentioning some poor villagers' name who had left the country within present and last year. They are

1.       Sayed Kasim       son of   Hadura                south of kin daung village

2.       Samiullah             son of   Adumunaf           so as above

3.       Ahmedullah        son of  Shobbir                  so as above

4.       Md Hossain        son of Shunameah            so as above

5.       Zayed Hossain   son of Adunabi                   so as above

6.       Kala meah           son of Bodiya                    mid block of kin daung village

7.       Adurahman        son of MD Hossain             so as above

8.       Md hossain         son of Alizuhar                   south of kn daung village, etc

The teacher also sadly said that the government authorities are surprising decreasing the Rohingya population from Aarkan state (now Rakhine state) by using systematic and unnoticeable way.

MAUNG HLA MYINT is a special reporter for Burma Times from Maung Daw