Tea farmers are in crisis because of the SPDC’s problematic handling of tea problem

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Press Release on

Tea farmers are in crisis because of the SPDC’s problematic handling of tea problem;

“Tea Crisis” Report

On March 12, 2009, the SPDC's health ministry announced the banning of tea products which contain Auramine 'O' stating that it can harm public health. Even though the regime claimed it was doing this to protect the public health, the consequences of the authorities' mismanagement and corruption caused over five hundred thousand tea farmers to find themselves deep in economic crisis. The result is that the people now believe that they do not have safe food.

The Food and Drug Administration of the SPDC admitted that they have found the yellow dye Auramine 'O' in tea products as many as two years ago; however, they have only just now banned and destroyed the tea products in question. As a result of the SPDC’s destruction of tea products, tea farmers and traders have lost over hundreds of millions of Kyat and now face difficulty in the continuation of tea production.

The SPDC military troops, police, USDA, women’s affairs, militia and local authorities simply confiscated and destroyed tea products without checking whether or not these products contained Auramine 'O' or not. However, the SPDC’s groups display bias in their implementation of the destruction of tea products as evidenced by their decision to not destroy the products of some traders who are either related to or enjoy good relations with the military authority.

"We are not the only ones using Auramine 'O'. Most tea production used Auramine 'O' because we did not know that it was harmful to public health. The SPCD banned and destroyed our products; however, they gave impunity to some tea producers, e.g. 'Yuzana' tea brand and others. If they do check, they will find that those brands were using color also", one of the banned tea traders expressed.

At least three hundred thousand tea farmers who rely mainly on tea production now cannot afford to buy basic food such as rice, oil, et cetera. As a result, there were thousands of tea farmers who fled to other places as migrant workers and some families who could not provide for their children’s educations.

The General Secretary of Palaung State Liberation Front, PSLF, Mai Aik Phone said, "The SPDC is ruling Burma under military command. With those bad impacts of the SPDC's tackling of the tea problem in mind, it is being shown that the military regime cannot take responsibility for their actions and that they do not care about the public health, development, or human security."

Therefore, we, the Palaung working group, earnestly urge our local tea community, tea traders, Palaung political groups and local community leaders to solve this tea crisis as comprehensively as possible.

Moreover, we would like to recommend that the international community, in particular the World Food Program and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, provide assistance for tea farmers who now cannot provide for their livelihood solely through tea cultivation.

In conclusion, we call on the SPDC to educate people to not use chemical dye in foods through collaboration with local community, to find a good solution by appropriate reparation to tea traders whose products they have destroyed, and to immediately take action with respect to food products they find which are using chemical dyes in food before widespread human consumption can harm the public health.

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Date: 23 July, 2009

Taang (Palaung) Working Group;

1) Ta'ang Student and Youth Organization – TSYO

2) Palaung Women's Organization - PWO

3) Palaung State Liberation Front - PSLF

Contact- (66) 080 118 4479

(66) 084 817 3936

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