Biofuel plantations top food crops in Burma

Junta resumes plantations for biofuel post referendum

Written by KNG

Friday, 20 June 2008 18:52

Burma’s ruling military junta has resumed its state-project of growing castor oil trees (Jatropha curcas) for biofuel production by using local civilians without paying them wages in Northern Burma post the constitutional referendum in May, according to the locals. In this morning’s heavy monsoon downpour in Myitkyina Township the capital of Kachin State, hundreds of residents had to plant thousands of castor oil trees (Physic nut trees) also called Jet Suu in Burmese in the open space in their quarters, Myitkyina residents told KNG today. According to eyewitnesses, they saw over a hundred civilians with knives and mattocks in Du Mare (Du Kahtawng), Shatapru and Tatkone quarters planting Physic nut saplings in their quarters between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Burma Standard Time in heavy rain. A resident in Du Mare said, “This morning over a hundred residents from our quarters planted more than 4,000 Physic nut saplings in the free space between Du Mare and the other two quarters on the same side — Jan Mai Kawng and Edin quarters on the eas Jatropha plants are seen in front of Myitkyina Education College, Kachin State. tern side of the railway.” He added, Du Mare residents had also planted Physic nut saplings yesterday in the same areas and only 10 residents in each block in Du Mare were asked to plant saplings every time by the administrators of Quarter Peace and Development Council (QPDC). All villages and quarter administrators in the township have been warned by the Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) to avoid the Physic nut plantation activities with the masses, a source close to TPDC said. Local administrators of villages and quarters said, they had been ordered to apply less than 10 civilians in each plantation sector because the junta was worried about media attention if it used a mass of people rather than small numbers of people. Last year in Myitkyina, residents were called and paid wages for growing the Physic nut saplings by the authorities but this year they have not been paid— the residents have turned into forced labourers, a local in Myitkyina added. According to the report titled “Biofuel by Decree” released on May 1 by the Thailand-based Ethnic Community Development Forum (ECDF), Burma’s ruling junta has planned to grow eight million acres of Physic nut trees for biofuel production throughout the country. Under this project, Burma’s Supremo, Senior General Than Shwe has instructed that each state and division in the country must cultivate 500,000 acres within three years, the ECDF report said. Burma has seven states and seven divisions. The full report Biofuel by Decree: Unmasking Burma’s Bio-energy Fiasco by the Ethnic Community Development Forum can be viewed at: http://www.terraper.org/key_issues_view.php?id=17

 

Burmese farmers forced to switch from rice to castor oil plantation

Arakanese villagers forced to attend the Castor Oil Plantation Training

6/18/2006

Villagers in Kyauk Taw Township, northern Arakan State, were forced to attend the Castor Oil Plantation training by the military authority from June 9, 2006.The Burmese junta is setting up a project of mass plantation of castor oil plants in Arakan State, as part of this project, it is forcing the local people to plant castor oil trees says a villager.

As part of this castor oil project in Arakan State, trainings on how to plant castor oil trees have been given to the villagers by the local command areas of the military. At the Military Operation Management Command ( MOC), Sakhaka 9 in Daung Taung Roe, Kyauk Taw Township, five persons from surrounding villages have been ordered by the SakhaKa 9 authority to attend the plantation training with their own cost for 30 days.

The attending villagers have to pay 10,000 kyats each for the training and living costs. Many of the villagers engaged in the rice cultivation, but since the Arakan State authority wants to see plantation of castor oil plants, they are also being forced to attend the training neglecting their own livelihood of rice cultivation at the start of rainy season.

One of the farmers in the area comments that if they cannot cultivate their own livelihood, they are likely to face a hard time ahead, but the military authority does not seem to care much about their already difficult lives.

http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=717

 

Efficiency of free market capitalism cruel

Worshipping the god of capitalism has led to the worst banking disaster in the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.  The priests of the Holy Church of the Free Market have been tearing down government oversight of  the U.S. financial system since the Reagan Administration; this along with the unleashed greed that always seems to accompany Republican administrations, not to mention Republican control of Congress, has resulted in a credit crisis that is threatening the global economic system.  Who knows when the dominoes will stop falling, but it appears the already shrinking middle class will not escape the coming discomfort.

Colliding with and adding to the woes of the credit crunch for the U.S. and other advanced (capitalized) economies, the realities of peak oil are placing the  world’s poor at risk of starvation.  This is a direct result of free market capitalism.  The increasing demand for biofuel in wealthy nations has led to increasing amounts of agricultural land being devoted to biofuel crops all over the world.  The free play of the market means that the wealthy are able pay more for biofuel crops than the poor are able to pay for food crops.  The result has been a decrease in the supply of basic food crops worldwide.  This increases food prices globally.  The rich complain, but the poor simply cannot buy at these higher prices.

The diminishing supplies worldwide of transportation fuel, even with biofuel supplementation, along with increasing demand for same is adding to the heretofore hidden transportation costs of food commodities.

What this means is that the wealthy and middle class are taking food out of the mouths of hungry poor people everytime we buy gasoline for our automobiles.  This inherent cruelty of capitalism’s efficient engine of wealth creation is nothing new.  But in today’s wired world  it is simply more obvious.  So what are we going to do?  Are we going to keep buying those SUV’s.  Are we going to keep driving them to church?