USDP Pledges 6B Kyats of Improvements in Arakan

Friday, 29 October 2010 20:06 Burma News International
Maungdaw, Arakan – A military official on Thursday pledged 6 billion kyats to build two girls’ high schools, a hospital and modernize 40 kilometers of road near the Bangladeshi borderin return for localsupport of the junta-backed USDP.

Former Brigadier-General USDP Pledges 6B Kyats of Improvements in Arakan

Phone Swe, ex-deputy minister of Home Affairs,made the promises in front of 300 residents including village and religious leaders, according to an election watchdog who attended the meeting.

Phone Swe said the government-funded improvements would be made within three years, but gave few additional details. He didn’t mention the promises he made during a trip to the area in late August. During the previous trip, he said the government would ensure more free movement of the Rohingya community in Arakan State, and would give local villagers permission to build and repair Islamic religious schools and mosques.

After the meeting Thursday, Major San Win Khine, commander of the Burma border security force in area number five, called the villagers leaders, religious leaders and elders into his office and ordered them to support the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party in the Nov. 7 election, said a village authority member.

High ranking officers of the junta are always promising facilities for the Arakanese Rohingya, a village elder said, but plans are never implemented by local authorities. “The officers do not give signed orders; they only give verbal ones which have no proof,” the elder said.

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