Around 250 farmers from the Arakan State town of Kyaukphyu rallied against Daewoo International on 3 June to express their anger at the corporation for destroying their farmland to build a gas processing plant.
Residents from Malakyun and Gonchein villages are demanding compensation for the farmland destroyed by the company’s operations.
The protesters said the company had previously paid them compensation for loss of annual crop yields from 2001 to 2014, but that this was inadequate as the land has now become unusable.
[related]
“The company provided us with 380,000 kyat (US$380) for each acre’s worth of crops lost between 2001 and 2014, but that was not enough. The land is now prone to a build-up of silt deposits from the [gas processing] project,” said Wai Khin, a protest leader.
“This year, we are already late for cultivation and won’t be able to grow anything,” he said, adding that around 60 acres of farmland in the two villages have been destroyed.
The protest, staged with official permission from local police, was approved for 150 participants but the organisers said around 250 joined.
Protestors marched about one-and-a-half kilometres from the village of Malakyun to the nearby Gangawtaw Buddhist stupa holding placards reading ‘Daewoo get out!’, and chanting slogans.
