Farmers in northern Shan State against for granting permission of using their land for Chinese oil and gas Company, due to the company did not pay full compensation, according to the source coming from Sino-Burma border.
Chinese oil and gas Company have applied a permission of the right to use land for oil and gas pipeline project construction in Namkham and Muse areas. A grant application has been submitted to Burma’s Land Statistics Department in December last year.
“Since we are aware that there is a right for us to protest the company, we gathered more than 70 formers and sent a letter to the Department of Land Statistics but we have not received any responses from the department. They didn’t respond because the head of department is away,” a farmer from Namkham told SHAN.
Campaign against for permission of using land came after the authorities said that farmers could send complaint letter to the Department until 15 January. Therefore, farmers sent their letter to U Soe Min Tun, the chief officer of Land Statistics Department in Namkham on 5 January.
Company paid only half of the compensation to the land loss owners that they have occupied land for pipeline construction and the company also refused to sign an agreement of compensation, said the complaint letter.
According to a farmer who requested to remain unnamed, those farmers who have sent a complaint letter to the government’s Land Statistics Department are more concerned on not getting their full compensation. If the company pays full compensation they would not worry about their land loss. They said the company should not submit an application until they solve the problem with the farmers.
The compensation that the oil and gas Company has paid to the farmers is just 50 per cent of 5 years crops income. It is unclear whether the company will pay another 50 per cent worth compensations for their land loss.
Farmers are planning to take further actions if the company refuses to pay them the rest. They will send a complaint letter to the Chinese government and will continue to campaign against the construction of pipeline project, the farmers said.
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