Maungdaw, Arakan State: About 1,000 acres of land have been confiscated in Maungdaw Township for Natala (model) villagers after the Western Command Commander Brig General Thaung Aye visited the northern Arakan on May 4, said a businessman from locality on condition of anonymity.
The District Peace and Development Council (DPDC) Chairman, Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) Chairman accompanied by some of the land survey committee members went to the villages of Myoma Kya Nyin Tan (Sikdar Para), Pandaw Pyin (Nal Bonia Para), Yaung Chaung (Kadir Bill), Dong Khali (Pa-Yaung Bin Gyi.) Du-Yaung Bin Gyi (Shaira Para), Du Chay Radan (Kilai Daung), Godusara, and Baggona on May 6, and confiscated about 1,000 acres for Natala villagers, the businessman added.
The land survey committee members measured the lands and erected posts with red flags and marked the boundary of the seized area. They asked Rohingya villagers not to do anything with the lands which were earmarked by the authority. These lands are for Natala villagers who were brought earlier and are yet to be brought to northern Arakan.
After arriving in Northern Arakan, the Western Command Commander held a meeting in Maungdaw town inviting six Rohingya leaders and another six leaders from the Rakhine community from Maungdaw Township. At the meeting, the commander said that the Rohingya has to do many things to develop the community to keep up with the Rakhine community; otherwise, the Rakhine will influence the Rohingya. But, one day later, the authorities began seizing the arable lands from the Rohingya farmers, said a Rohingya from Maungdaw requesting not to be named.
The junta authorities have plans on how they want to annihilate the Rohingya community from Arakan State by setting up Natala villagers in northern Arakan and increasing human rights violations against the Rohingya community by arbitrary arrests and torture, extortion on false and fabricated cases, restriction of movement, restriction in marriage and insulting women folk, said a schoolteacher.
Most of the villagers are farmers, and the government has not provided any job to the Rohingya community for the last 25 years. After seizing of their lands, the Rohingya become landless and jobless. Arakan will become a place where the Rohingya community will starve, because without land, the Rohingya farmers will be compelled to cross the Burma-Bangladesh border. It is a very dangerous policy by the junta authorities to finish the Rohingy community from Arakan soil, according to a politician from Arakan.
Burma has been increasingly setting up Natala villagers in northern Arakan since 1992. Over 100 Natala villagers have been established in northern Arakan, so far and the regime will continue setting up Natala villages until the domination of Buddhist community in northern Arakan is complete, the politician added.
