Strange are the ways of the Burmese military junta. At a time when farmers should be growing paddy, the regime is using civilians as forced labourers in the state-run Physic Nut also called Jatropha Curcas plantations for future bio diesel production in Kachin state, northern Burma, local sources said.
Between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. local time today, over 100 civilians in N'Jang Dung village, three miles north of Kachin capital Myitkyina Township were forced to work at a Physic nut tree plantation near the village, a resident told KNG.
“The junta-appointed village's administrators entered each house and warned residents that every family who is absent in the Physic nut plantations will be punished,” a villager said.
According to villagers of N'Jang Dung, they have been threatened with punitive actions like imprisonment by village administrators if they oppose or criticize over the Physic nut tree plantations either by word or action.
N'Jang Dung is in Tatkone Quarter and the local people have been forced to work at local plantations four times --- once in the end of May, twice in June and today following the junta's constitutional referendum, locals added.
Yesterday, over 100 civilians in the ethnic Kachin Christian dominated Dukahtawng (Du Mare) Quarter were also forced to work at the Physic nut tree plantation near the quarter, a resident said.
In Myitkyina, every quarter and village has to work in these plantations without wages on days fixed by the administrators of quarters and villages. Farmers lose precious time for paddy cultivation with the season having started in May.
The junta's Myitkyina Township Peace and Development Council (Ma-Ya-Ka) has ordered that the Physic nut tree plantations are mandatory in each quarter and village. However, the programme must be directly implemented by self methods, locals said.
The junta plans to grow eight million acres of Physic nut trees for bio diesel production throughout the country. Kachin state has been ordered to grow 500,000 acres of such trees, according to the May 1 report of the Thailand-based Ethnic Community Development Forum (ECDF).
