The Burmese military junta is trying to seize a plot of land with a cemetery belonging to an ethnic Kachin Christian church in Myitkyina, capital of Burma's northern Kachin State, church sources said.
Attempts at confiscation of the 1.25 acre land with an old cemetery of the Tatkone (or Dapkawng) Kachin Baptist Church in estate No. 3 in Sanpya village in Tatkone quarter has been on by the junta's town Municipal Office since early September, said church authorities.
The cemetery is legally owned by the church and the data in the government land grant states, Field No. 14, Tatkone North Estate as the Field Name and Land Ownership No. 507, according to the church.
According to the church, the town Municipal Office has no legal reasons to seize the cemetery because it has the land grant, which is preserved by the church.
When the church realized that it would be unable to stop confiscation attempts by the Municipal Office, it handed over the old cemetery to the Myitkyina Christian Council (MCC), the largest Kachin church body in Myitkyina on September 22, according to the church's official statement on the handing over.
In much the same fashion, the Municipal Office confiscated the old cemetery (three acre land) of Du Kahtawng (or Du Mare) Kachin Baptist Church. It started to clean up the tombs in the cemetery in October, 2008, said church authorities.
Now government buildings for the Office of Social Security are being constructed in the confiscated cemetery, said locals.
Both the Tatkone and Du Kahtawng Kachin Baptist Churches are under the Myitkyina Zonal Kachin Baptist Church and the two churches are among the major churches in the town commanding a following of thousands.
The junta, however, has been into providing donation to all Kachin churches and church leaders with staple food, small cash donations, giving cement and zinc roofs for construction of church-related buildings and granting GSM phones and landline phones since late 2007.
Nevertheless, construction by the church in the compound of the Anglican Church in Tatkone quarter has been banned by the town Municipal Office since 2000.
Permission to construct the buildings was requested for again recently to junta's Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, Minister of Post, Communication and Telegraph and the Chief Kachin State's organizer by the church but it was refused by the minister.
