For the last several months, I've been editing stories via email every day for Narinjara News, covering Arakan State. The stories are brief, and come plainly stating news that should all rights be shocking. It's been through bits and peices in these articles that I've learned about this place and the people there. It's only been with today's article on the Shwe Gas project, and my subsequent decision to finally google something, that the sequence of news events as they've been coming to me have seemed to coalesced into a disturbing pattern.
Daewoo stands to earn an annual profit of $100 million from the project. Here's what the people of Arakan state have gotten lately:
The government has ordered all government ministries and army bases to remove their sattelite receivers. No more international news in Buthidaung Township. Incidentally, (well, not really) since 2004 Buthidaung has had the dubious honor of having more military battalions than anywhere else in the country.
An increasing use of forced labor on highway projects. Forced Labor on Rangoon-Ann Highway. Forced labor in southern Chin state (which is also within the gas/oil development area.) The regional battalion commanders will also be holding a high level meeting in Ann over the next few days.
Famine. The Junta has been orchestrating a massive famine in Arakan state. Hillside cultivation is banned in the border area. The trading of rice between towns is severly limited, and transporting rice to the border townships is prohibited. Trade with Bangladesh has also been carefully controlled. Government rations of fertilizer are a useless mix of dirt and straw. Land has been confiscated for military plantations. Village stores of rice are seized under false pretenses, and the border security force, Nasaka, has stepped up its operations to stop smuggling of rice and fertilizer from Bangladesh . (Nasaka forces were only recently reinstated after being disbanded with the purge of General Khin Nyunt.) The World Food Program has only been able to deliver a fraction of its rice earmarked for the area.
Whether or not this in particular is directly related to development in the area, and not just the Junta's usual pastime of oppression is probably debatable. But the presence of so many military battalions in an area that is a trade gateway to Bangladesh and India is certianly not a coincidence. The junta has issued a directive to the Army to earn its own money. It does this not only by collecting fines and fees, but also by confiscating land and industry such as rice paddy and brick making, then forcing villagers to work for a pittance - if not for free. Two new military outposts were recently built on islands just off the coast of Arakan state. Recently, a commander at one of these new naval bases
The junta deliberately fuels tension between the Muslim and Hindu communities.
Akyab, the capital of Arakan State, only receives a few hours of electricity a day. After it goes out at 10 pm, a curfew is imposed, and anyone breaking it is subject to arrest.
The SPDC seizes locally owned village land and houses to be used in the development of 'Modern Villages', which are settled with poor ethnic Burmans from the cities.
Now, local fisherfolk have had their boats, and fuel, appropriated for the transfer of soldiers to the Shwe Gas exploration area for security. They are banned from fishing in certain areas, and are forced to provide rations and supplies for the soldiers. If they fail to comply, their fishing licenses are revoked.
Activists around the world will be staging protests against Daewoo and the Shwe gas project on October 14.