Regional commander orders locals to pay for nursery school building

_{By Hseng Khio Fah
12 March 2009}

On 3 March, Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyo, Commander of Kengtung based Triangle Region Command, ordered U Ye Lin Aung, Chairman of Mongyang Township Peace and Development Council and officials from the local Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA) to collect money and call for free labor support from the local people.

The USDA is a government-backed civilian organization founded with the support of Senior General Than Shwe in 1993.

Two days after, villagers were told to pay money by the end of March to buy construction materials. Villagers who own truck and car are told to buy cement for extra support depending on the type of the trucks and its models, said a local resident.

In addition, those who have pickup cars have to assist 10 bags of cement each and those with Chinese manufactured farm tractors (Tolaji) with 5 bags of cement each while other small trucks will be responsible for carrying stones, sand and wood. The price of cement is Yuan 35 (US$ 5.12) per bag. In Mongyang, there are 16 pickup cars and over 50 Tolaji trucks.

Afterwards, each household still need to pay additional Y 15 (US$ 2.19). There are over 670 households in Mongyang. The total would come to at least Y 10,000 (US$1463.12).

Local people complained that Junta leaders paid little on nothing to place their names on public record, but in fact only local people have to pay the most.

Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyo had reportedly donated about Kyat 1 million (US$1015.22) for the project.

The school will be built at Market quarter of the town.  But the authorities have yet to disclose when they will start the project. Building materials have already arrived.

Some say the project is scheduled to begin when Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyo is back from the meeting. Currently, Kyaw Phyo is attending the junta’s tri-annual meeting.