Religious officials say they plan to press charges against Zaykabar Company, which sent uniformed men to destroy a religious building and insulted monks during the Thingyan holiday on a long-disputed plot of land in Yangon’s Mingalardon township.
The company has admitted destroying part of the monastery, saying it had been built without permission on company-owned land, and said it had raised the issue of “illegal monasteries” with the minister for religious affairs.
The dispute dates back to early 2010, when Zaykabar allegedly tricked farmers in Shwe Nan Thar village into giving up tenure rights to around 800 acres, which the company planned to use to build an industrial zone.
A local abbot, U Ni Thar Ka Ya, told The Myanmar Times on April 22 that he would seek prosecution for the destruction, which took place in the township’s south Paung Ku Nyana quarter on April 13, the first day of Thingyan.
“About 20 people in Zaykabar security guard uniforms turned up in the morning, led by Ko Myo Khaing, who works for the company,” said U Ni Thar Ka Ya.
“They used rude words and excessively obscene language to the monks. Later that evening at around 9pm, 30 of them came and destroyed a shrine under construction as the monks watched by torchlight.”
A monastery staff member, U Chit Oo Maung, was hit in the eye by a slingshot, he said. “We have reported this to the police and will prosecute Zaykabar.”
The monastery is located on Shwe Nan Thar field, which covers more than 1200 acres between Shwe Nan Thar Sanpya village and Paung Ku Nya Na village.
Zaykabar bought 815 acres of the field for K300,000 per acre in 2010, and designated it Mingalardon Industrial Zone 4.
In 2012, disputes with farmers came to a head when the company started bulldozing farmland and employed security guards to keep farmers off the land.
The entire industrial zone covers around 3000 acres.
The exact site of the monastery is to the south of Paung Ku Nya Na village, on land that local resident U Aung Ngwe says he owns, because he refused compensation from Zaykabar. He said he had donated about 100 square feet to the former sayadaw U Kall Wi Da to build the shrine.
Land prices in the industrial zone have rocketed to K300 million an acre, even though Zaykabar has not developed the site as intended. Speculators have bought the land, rather than investors, and the area has been plagued with land ownership disputes with local farmers and informal residents.
Zaykabar chair U Khin Shwe told The Myanmar Times on April 22 that the Ministry of Construction had issued his company a permit to develop the land in 2010, but said the position of the regional government had never been clear.
“We believe it is an industrial zone, but we have had problems with trespassers, farmers’ rights groups and monks. They built about 30 monasteries in the zone,” he said, adding that he had ordered the monastery destroyed because the local authorities had failed to take any action.
“Speculators pretended they owned the land and built huts to sell on to others,” he said. “We sent our company security guards to destroy the huts and the monasteries.”
U Khin Shwe accused local religious authorities of granting permission to build monasteries in exchange for payment.
“The township Sanga Mahar Nayaka would sign whatever was put in front of them if you offered money. But to build a monastery, you need permission from three ministers – home affairs, religious affairs and construction,” he said.
“You can’t just buy land from a farmer and build a monastery there. Monks are taking land and selling it to others, in my industrial zone. The police under the former government ignored this. There was no rule of law – I raised these issues in parliament,” he said, adding that his company had met with Religious Affairs Minister Thura U Aung Ko to discuss the removal of illegal monasteries and the possibility of rebuilding them elsewhere.
Thura U Aung Ko has agreed to discuss the issue with the national Thanga Mahar Nayaka, he said.
Translation by San Lay
Quoted from mmtimes.
