Pensioners discriminated for being NLD members

DVB ( 22 December 2003 )

A retired civil servant at Taungdwingyi, Magwe Division in central Burma was deprived of his right to draw pension by the local authority because he became a member of the NLD (National League for Democracy) party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

U Pa Lay had served in the Forestry Department for nearly 20 years and he was forced to retire from his job in 1999 because of an accident in which he lost the sight of one of his eyes.

He was dismissed from his job and given a medical pension by the director of the department to treat his eye. But when he joined the NLD as a member after his dismissal in 2000, the pension office refused to pay his pension.

Both the Forestry Department and the authority have been refusing to grant him the pension for almost five years now. He reported his plight to the ILO office in Rangoon but he was told by a Burmese official there that the organisation only deals with matters concerning forced labour.

Similarly, a retired civil servant and the chairman of Chin State NLD, U Paliang Thang has been denied pension because of his NLD membership.