BANGKOK, 2 September, 2010 (IRIN) – Burmas military government, with soldiers scattered throughout the country, is arbitrarily levying fees from the rural poor, pushing some into hunger and debt, experts say.
“In Burma taxation has become associated with violence and human rights abuses,” said Alison Vicary, researcher for Burma Economic Watch at Macquarie University in Australia. She has just written a report on “taxation” for the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma).
The report, released on 1 September, says many people in rural areas are forced to relinquish property and assets at the will of soldiers who, as a matter of course, live off of locals.
Ten percent of the country is food insecure, with more than 90 percent persistently on the brink of hunger in some regions, according to the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“I grew up knowing that the army has the absolute right to demand anything they want, but we didn’t realize how systematic and widespread [arbitrary taxation] really is. This report makes it clear,” Cheery Zahau, an activist campaigning for the rights of the Chin ethnic minority and ND-Burma adviser, told IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=90370
