Zaw Win Htey, Chairman of the Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) of Falam Township in Chin state on January 5 issued an order confiscating over a thousand acres of farmland in Falam Township for tea plantation. No compensation has been paid.

The confiscated farmland located on the Hakha–Falam road was owned by locals in Taal village, 20 miles from Falam town.

After the local authorities seized the farmland the villagers became unemployed and have no more land to cultivate the main crops such as maize and beans. 

With no option left to eke out a livelihood the affected villagers are likely to move to neighbouring Mizoram state, northeast India in to search of means of survival, a villager said.  

"It is a ruthless tactic adopted by the regime to drive out Chin people from their homeland," a villager from Chin state alleged his voice laced with bitterness.

"The act of the regime shows that it does not care for the livelihood of the people in Chin state," another villager complained.

The military regime in Burma initiated tea plantation projects under the motto "Chin state must be a Tea State" in 2003.

Since then, the authorities had reportedly confiscated farmlands of locals in Chin state and forcibly engaged the locals to spend most of their working hours in tea plantations.

The authorities have planted 14188 acres of tea in Chin state. – Khonumthung.