Myanmar. Farmers in Myanmar Call for Justice
Myanmar. Farmers in Myanmar Call for Justice
At the start of each planting season, U Min (not his real name) tills the soil to prepare for his new crop of opium poppy. With each strike of his hoe, he thinks about the people he must pay a “tax” to before he can take any profit for his family.
“The first strike is for the regional police commander, the second for the ethnic armed militia patrol,” he says, “the third is for the Myanmar military, the fourth for the village administrator; the fifth is for the drug trafficking organization who issued me seed on credit; and, finally, the sixth is for me and my family.”
This is the complex plight of opium farmers in the remote and mountainous part of the country. (OSF – Open Socety Foundations, USA, 28.09.2020)
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/farmers-in-myanmar-call-for-justice