Land confiscation for military, commercial and other purposes

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Websites/Multiple Documents

Source/publisher: Various sources via BurmaNet News
Date of entry/update: 2017-11-10
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: More than 1000 results
Source/publisher: Google
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-10
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: About 300 results (July 2015)
Source/publisher: Google, Burmanet
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-10
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Land confiscation is narrowly defined by KHRG as incidents in which villagers? access to or use of land is forcibly supplanted by another actor without their consent. Land confiscation often occurs at proposed development, natural resource extraction, or private business sites, including hydro-electric dams, mining and logging projects, and plantation agriculture. Increased militarisation at these sites perpetuates a cycle of land confiscation in areas adjacent to the sites for the development of military camps, roads, or other infrastructure to support the project. This occurs in addition to the large-scale loss of cultivable land, forest, waterways and natural resources due to environmental degradation as a result of development or extractive industrial projects ?without compensation for the loss or destruction of land..." There are about 100 reports on the KHRG site (July 2015) with references to land confiscation, though this may not be the main theme of all reports. Users could also enter "land confiscation" in the Search box on the home page.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-10
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Articles on this category from BurmaNet News (2004-2016)
Source/publisher: BurmaNet News
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-01
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: About 142,000 results (September 2016)
Source/publisher: Google
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Source/publisher: Youtube
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: "MYLAFF - a forum for sharing information about land, rural livelihoods, forests, fisheries, agribusiness investment and natural resource management in Myanmar... The main URL given here is the public entry to MYLAFF. For access to more documents, users have to sign up to MYLAFF... *Members of the forum include government officials, staff of donor agencies and NGOs, project experts, academics and business people... *We aim to support rural development in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar through providing stakeholders and decision-makers with a space for communication and better access to information and analysis... *Our online document repository is at www.mylaff.org, where you can find a wide variety of documents in both English and Myanmar language, alongside others...Under Farming Systems, MYLAFF has a section on shifting cultivation... *More information is available in the FAQ, which is available here: http://www.mylaff.org/static/MyLAFF_FAQ.pdf..."
Source/publisher: MYLAFF
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: More than 70 articles, back to 2007, on landgrabbing in Burma/Myanmar,
Source/publisher: Landgrab.org
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Francais
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Individual Documents

Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် အနာဂတ်ဖက်ဒရယ်တပ်မတော်အတွက် မဖြစ်မနေ လိုအပ်သော မြေမှအပ၊ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ၄င်းတို့၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားအလို့ငှာ သိမ်းယူထားသော တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပဋိညာဉ် အစိတ်အပိုင်း(၂)၊ အခန်း(၄)၊ ကြားကာလ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ လုပ်ငန်းတာဝန်များ အပိုဒ် (၂၅)၊ အပိုဒ်ခွဲ (က) အရ ပြည်သူလူထု အကျိုးစီးပွားအတွက် ထိရောက်စွာစီမံခန့်ခွဲ နိုင်ရန်နှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီ နည်းကျ ထိန်းချုပ်မှုရှိစေရန် အောက်ပါအခြေခံမူများကို ချမှတ်သည်။ အဓိပ္ပာယ်ဖွင့်ဆိုချက်နှင့် ရည်ရွယ်ချက် ၁။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေဆိုသည်မှာ ကြည်း၊ ရေ၊ လေ တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များ နေထိုင်ခြင်း၊ လေ့ကျင့်ခြင်း၊ တပ်နေရာချထား ခြင်း၊ လက်နက်ခဲယမ်းများ သိုလှောင်ခြင်း၊ ထုတ်လုပ်ခြင်း စသည်တို့ ပြုလုပ်သည့် နေရာများအပါအဝင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်အကြီးအကဲများနှင့် ထိပ်တန်းအရာရှိများ၏ ကိုယ်ကျိုးစီးပွားအတွက် တနည်းနည်းဖြင့် ရယူ ထားသည့် နေရာများကို ဆိုလိုသည်။ ထိုအချက်တွင် ပြည်ထဲရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန လက်အောက်ခံ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ ပိုင်ဆိုင်သော မြေများလည်း အကျူံးဝင်သည်။ ၂။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများ ထားရှိရခြင်း၏ အဓိကရည်ရွယ်ချက်မှာ စစ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေး ရည်မှန်းချက်များကို ဖော်ဆောင်နိုင်ရေးအတွက်သာ ဖြစ်စေရမည်။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား စိစစ်ခြင်း ၃။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် တပ်ပိုင်မြေများ၏ စစ်ရေးလိုအပ်ချက်နှင့် ရည်မှန်းချက်များဆိုင်ရာ ကိုက်ညီမှု၊ အများပြည်သူလူထု၏ ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ကင်းရှင်းမှုနှင့် လုံခြုံမှု၊ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားအလို့ငှာ သုံးစွဲခြင်းမှ အကာအကွယ်ပေးနိုင်မှု စသည့်အချက်များ အပေါ်မူတည်၍ စိစစ်ရမည်။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက ပြန်လည်သိမ်းယူခြင်း ၄။ စစ်ရေးနှင့်လုံခြုံရေး ရည်မှန်းချက်များနှင့် ကိုက်ညီခြင်းမရှိဘဲ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွား အလို့ငှာအသုံးပြုခြင်း၊ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်အကြီးအကဲများနှင့် ထိပ်တန်းအရာရှိများ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွား ဖော်ဆောင် ရေး အရင်းအမြစ်များအဖြစ် အသုံးပြုခြင်းများအား စိစစ်တွေ့ရှိရပါက အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား ပြန်လည်သိမ်းယူခြင်း ပြုလုပ်ရမည်။ ပြန်လည်သိမ်းယူထားသော တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား အသုံးပြုခြင်း ၅။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့ အစည်းအဝေး၏ အတည်ပြုချက်ဖြင့် စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် သိမ်းယူထားသော တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား လေလံတင်ရောင်းချခြင်း၊ အများပြည်သူ အကျိုးစီးပွားအလို့ငှာ Infrastructure Development စီမံကိန်းများ အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ခြင်းတို့ကို ပြုလုပ်ရမည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2022-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 353.06 KB
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Description: "Overview: The poor, ethnic minorities and women in particular suffer marginalisation that is exacerbated by circumscribed access to land and insecurity of tenure. Ethnic minority land use practices, notably shifting cultivation, are criminalised, while citizenship issues and outright discrimination and ethnic chauvinism have excluded or displaced minorities from access to resources as majority farmers have increasingly availed themselves of land and other resources since upland margins have become more accessible. In some cases, security-oriented programs have distanced ethnic minority communities from land and other resources that are the basis of their livelihoods. Women have seen customary rights in land weakened by formalisation that privileges officially designated heads of households, who are usually male. Decisions and meetings often mainly involve men, and land use planning can neglect land-based resources that are primarily in women's work domains.....Key trends and dynamics: The concept of marginalisation brings together other key themes to specify the negative impacts of land relations on certain groups of people around the Mekong region. The term ‘marginalised’ can be defined as representing the treatment of a person or a group as insignificant or peripheral. There are three important relations to highlight here. Firstly, marginalisation is a process rather than an antecedent condition. Secondly, one becomes marginalised from something, and in this case marginalisation primarily involves access to, control of, or use of land. Thirdly, the marginalised are placed in relation to others who do not suffer the same tribulations. For this latter point, it is possible to apply multiple scales, such as highlighting individuals within a household or a community, or a significant social sub-group or ethnic minority within a particular nation-state. It could be argued that the Mekong region itself is marginalised within global trade and power relations, caught up in power struggles between large capitalist forces such as the USA and China. However, the larger the scale of reference, the greater the risk that inequalities within go unqualified. Although processes of marginalisation take place in specific localised ways, it is important to reflect on the bigger picture of economic transformation in the Mekong region. At one level, it is important to take a historical perspective in order to view the marginalising effect of land policies over the long term. This includes colonial-era law drafted in support of plantation economies, certain aspects of which are retained in present-day statutory law. Moving towards recent economic policy, when considering access to and control of land for smallholders and the rural poor, the marketisation of agriculture, with the introduction of ‘boom crops’ has a strong impact when unaccompanied by propoor policies (Lamb et al. 2015). Neoliberalism encourages well-connected national elites to take control of markets and resources that bolsters their land-based wealth at the expense of the poor (Springer 2011). This is clearly seen in the advent of crony capitalism in Myanmar (Global Witness 2015; Woods 2011). A point of focus for research on marginalising practices highlights large-scale land investments that are discriminatory to local land users, particularly those who make a living outside of statesupported market arenas that have become the priority of developmentalist regimes. In Cambodia, Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) have led to the clearing of farmland and forest under use by indigenous peoples, undermining community resource management practices (Bues 2011). They have also affected the ability of indigenous groups to register themselves under collective land titling, while most concession labour is given to in-migrants (Prachvuthy 2011). Similarly, concessions in Lao PDR have enclosed space, shutting it off to communities who were previously reliant on variety of resources in the designated zone (Baird 2011). In Myanmar, Gittleman and Brown (2014) assert that nearly 1,000 families will be displaced to make way for Thilawa Special Economic Zone, and that the process of this relocation fails to meet international guidelines. There are certain social sub-groups who can be highlighted as being on the receiving end of marginalising processes. However, it is important to clarify that each sub-group should not be assumed to carry a singular identity, and that disparity will be found within. Firstly, large-scale land development can marginalise smallholders who already may be poorly served by statutory law on tenure security. Drbohlav and Hejkrlik (2018) highlight a case from Cambodia where 1,400 fishing families were relocated to make way for a land concession in the Botum Sakor National Park. The study shows that the livelihoods of those relocated has worsened, with employment issues, poor infrastructure at the relocation site, and issues over access to health and education services. Nguyen, Westen and Zoomers (2014) show how the acquisition of land for infrastructure development in peri-urban areas of central Vietnam takes little account of the wishes of local farming households whose land is taken. Ethnic minorities frequently suffer from the exploitation of land for new investment ventures. For example, there is evidence of multiple land grabs from the Ta’ang minority in Shan State, Myanmar, in order to serve military needs such as housing, training, and income generation through hydropower, oil and gas pipelines (Ta’ang Student and Youth Organization 2011). There is much attention brought to the plight of indigenous communities in Ratanakiri, Cambodia, who have lost their land to rubber plantations operated by the Vietnamese company HAGL (Work 2016). In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, indigenous sea nomads in Southern Thailand have suffered from land dispossession to make way for tourism developments (Neef et al. 2018). However, as a counterpoint Mellac (2011) notes that customary practices for Tai-speaking groups in Northern Vietnam have endured during periods of collectivisation and then individualised marketdriven land use rights. In this way, ethnic groups do display the solidarity and power to ride out the potential negative impacts from outside pressures. Despite legal declarations of equality, patriarchal practices in Mekong countries favour men who monopolise control of land as heads of households (see also the ‘Gender and land’ key theme for further details). They frequently maintain control of land through titling programmes. In Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia, women and girls are becoming marginalised as a consequence of emerging capitalist relations, with reduced autonomy and agency including the recognition of their land rights (Mi Young Park and Maffii 2017). However, there are actions to let women’s voices be heard. In Myanmar, a coalition of over 100 organisations lobbied for the inclusion of women in discussions over National Land Use Policy (NLUP) and helped bring them to the table in the peace process (Faxon 2017; Faxon, Furlong, and Phyu 2015). The urban poor also suffer from insecure land tenure while residing in informal housing, leaving them open to the threat of forced eviction (Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee 2009; Chi Mgbako et al. 2010). Bugalski and Pred (2010) note how a land titling programme in Phnom Penh excluded certain informal communities, thereby exacerbating inequalities (see key theme on ‘Urban land governance’ for further information). There are various ways in which marginalisation is felt by affected communities. Most clearly in relation to land is dispossession (see key theme on ‘Land dispossession/land grabbing’). Engvall and Kokko (2007) make a statistical link between land tenure security and poverty in Cambodia, where a proposed land reform package could result in a 16% fall in poverty incidence for landowning rural households and a 30% fall for the landless. A report from Myanmar looks at rural debt, and how its emergence through entry into marketised agriculture can result in distress sales of land (Kloeppinger-todd and Sandar 2013). Marginalisation from access to land can also impact upon food security for smallholder farmers, where the emergence of cash cropping takes precedence over production for local consumption (Land Core Group 2010; Rammohan and Pritchard 2014). A further impact is cultural, particularly considering that the capitalisation of land frequently ignores other important meanings to its users. By isolating access, the very cultural identity of users can be threatened, where land operates as a key identifier..."
Source/publisher: Mekong Land Research Forum
2021-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 337.1 KB
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Sub-title: This Situation Update describes events that occurred in Win Yay, Kawkareik and Kyainseikgyi townships, Dooplaya District, between December 2018 and February 2019. These include human rights abuses such as school corporal punishment by a KECD teacher; thef
Description: "Access to the Karen Education and Culture Department’s (KECD)[3] education system has improved in Win Yay Township over the last few years, and most of the schools have started teaching Karen language already. However, some teachers don’t respect school hours or give heavy punishment to the students. In 2018, KECD primary school teacher Ma Tin Cho reportedly beat two students in H--- village, Kyainseikgyi Township, because they were not wearing Karen shirts. As a result, their parents stopped sending their children to this school, as one of them reported to KHRG: “Wewill send our children back toschool only when we can affordto buy them Karen shirts.” Therefore, they had to send their children to the closest Myanmar government school or to S--- village’s school, Chaung Hson village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township...On February 23rd and March 15th 2019, Tatmadaw soldiers came to the P--- resettlement site, Lay Wah Plo (Kyain Kyaung) village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township to check how many households and inhabitants there were in the village following the recent return of refugees from Thai camps. They also questioned locals about which organisations were operating there. That situation raised security concerns among returnees, as the Tatmadaw has a long history of perpetrating human rights violations against civilians in Southeast Myanmar.[5] The returnees also face livelihood difficulties. Since they were not given agricultural lands to work on, most are engaged in intermittent, casual work. They also do not feel safe because of there are have been some thefts in P---, and drug dealers also operate in the area..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 292.5 KB
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Topic: Arbitrary arrest and detention, Arbitrary taxation and demands, Food Security/Right to livelihood, Land Confiscation
Sub-title: In 2000, the Asia World Company [1] confiscated around 1,000 acres of local people's land in Ler Muh Lah Township, Mergui-Tavoy District, resulting in livelihood difficulties for local civilians. Some of the victims were also held captive and subjected to
Topic: Arbitrary arrest and detention, Arbitrary taxation and demands, Food Security/Right to livelihood, Land Confiscation
Description: "What have you experienced during these 60 years? Have you experienced any land problems, human rights violations, or other issues? We lived a normal life here in the village and the Tatmadaw [forced us] to relocate and live near the road in 1976 and 1977. It was not easy to secure our livelihood there. Therefore, we came back and lived together here in the village. Then we built houses and other buildings step by step to rebuild our village. In 1976 and 1977, we were blessed as no one was killed. Now, some of us are working on plantations and some are working on hill farms and plain farms. We heard that one company came into the village and confiscated the local people’s land. But we don’t know when it was. Do you know about that? Yes, it was the Asia World Company. They came in 2000 […] and planted palm oil trees in the local areas without telling us anything. We could not prioritise and concentrate on that issue because we had to work for our livelihood, and we didn’t know what to tell them or how to tell them. They planted in the whole area where our village lands were located. Sometimes, they even had arguments and problems with us. One year after they planted the [palm oil trees], their workers burned the lands and then attacked and threatened the local people and demanded money from them. I also experienced it myself. They said that I burned their plants and they arrested me and held me for over one week. They took me to their place and then asked me to give them between 30,000,000 kyats and 50,000,000 kyats (between USD [4] 19,852 and USD 33,086). I did not do anything wrong so I did not give them any money. Later on they released me and they also arrested my ten workers. It was really hard..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 416.52 KB
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Description: "Back in 1995, the population of Y--- village was forced to relocate to O--- village because of the conflict. That year, more than ten community members were killed while serving as forced porters for the Tatmadaw, prompting the locals to flee the village. They displaced again to H--- village from 1996 to 2001, before going back to Y--- village in 2002. In 2004, the Tanintharyi A Lin Yaung Company, a rubber company, confiscated all the customary lands in Y--- village to plant rubber trees. They confiscated over 450 acres, two-thirds of which was covered in cash or subsistence crops and trees, and expelled the returnees from the village. No compensation was provided to the victims, none of which had an official land title. The local population did not want to leave, but they had to after the company threatened to call upon the Tatmadaw to oust them. The Tanintharyi A Lin Yaung Company is owned by U Aung Lin. He is the husband of Daw Yee Yee Cho, who is currently serving as a member of the Tanintharyi Region Hluttaw (Parliament) for the National League for Democracy. Both of them live in Tavoy (Dawei). The local population had to stay in the nearby L--- village from 2004 to 2010. In 2010, they relocated to A--- village and stayed there until 2017. In A--- village, they received humanitarian assistance from the Karen National Union (KNU) in the form of rice, yellow beans, oil and small solar panels. However, it was not enough to cover their daily needs so some of them had to work as day labourers. In 2014, they reported their case to the Karen Affairs Minister of Tanintharyi Region. At the end of 2017, the local Myanmar authorities returned 150 acres of land to the local people community to live on, mostly land on which rubber trees had been planted before. As a result, in 2017 and 2018, some families were able to return to Y--- village, while others moved to other places. About 36 households are now living in Y--- village, 187 people in total. Each household was given two acres of lands. They had to cut down the rubber trees and clear the land to build their houses. However, returnees do not have enough land to farm on to secure their livelihoods. Most of them cut bamboos to make mats, which they sell in order to buy rice. Some are engaged in intermittent, informal work for up to MMK 5,000 (US $3.29) a day. Because of a lack of farmlands, the living conditions of the local population are very poor. People in Y--- village face food shortages and do not have safe shelters. They do not have access to proper toilets and cannot afford to buy mosquito nets to protect themselves from diseases such as dengue or malaria. In addition, they do not have access to healthcare services. Access to water is also a problem because of the lack of wells. Locals mostly get water from the river, but its salt levels are sometimes too high for domestic use. Because there is no school, children cannot access education in the village, and have to travel long distances to study in neighbouring villages..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-06-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 567.12 KB
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Topic: Development project, Food Security/Right to livelihood, Indiscriminate firing of mortars / small arms, Injury, Internally Displaced Persons, Land Confiscation, Refugees, Right to education, Right to health
Topic: Development project, Food Security/Right to livelihood, Indiscriminate firing of mortars / small arms, Injury, Internally Displaced Persons, Land Confiscation, Refugees, Right to education, Right to health
Description: ""In the camp, food rations were reduced, and we no longer received bamboo or wood to fix our homes. We faced challenges for our family livelihoods and we had to sneak out of the camp to go collect wood and bamboo. This is why I decided to return to Myanmar.” Naw Y---, a recently repatriated refugee Between February 20th and 23rd 2019, more than 500 men, women and children from five refugee camps, including Karenni refugee camps, in Thailand, returned to Myanmar.[1] This third refugee repatriation process was facilitated by the Thai and Myanmar governments, the UNHCR, and other humanitarian aid organisations. To shed light on this process and understand how resettled refugees are adjusting to their new lives, KHRG conducted interviews with 13 repatriated refugees in Mae La Way Ler Moo (Mae La Hta)[2] and Lay Hpa Htaw[3] resettlement sites in March and April 2019. These refugees – six men and seven women – came from Nu Poe, Ban Don Yang (Thaw Pa) and Mae La (Beh Klaw) refugee camps. KHRG also interviewed three local leaders responsible for the resettlement sites from the Karen National Union (KNU) and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council (KNU/KNLA-PC). The testimonies of the recently repatriated refugees reveal a stark reality. The journey to their new homes was spent cramped in the back of dusty trucks, without enough food or water. A lack of basic social services, agricultural lands and income-generating opportunities awaited them on their arrival to resettlement sites. Resettled refugees are also concerned by the close proximity of Tatmadaw army camps to their new homes, and by the fact that the land surrounding resettlement sites is contaminated by unexploded ordnances (UXOs)..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-06-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 715.01 KB
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Description: "Myanmar should move quickly to settle decades-old claims by farmers forced from their land by the country’s military, a rights group said on Tuesday, adding that the country’s new civilian-led government has largely failed in its pledges to provide justice for those dispossessed. The government should also put new laws in place to protect farmers and other small landholders from further land grabs in the future, Human Rights Watch said in a report, “Nothing For Our Land: Impact of Land Confiscation on Farmers in Myanmar.” Those deprived of their land have been refused adequate compensation, cut off from the only work they know, and denied access to basic services such as health care, schooling, and education, HRW says in its 33-page report, prepared from interviews conducted with farmers, workers, and land-rights activists from October 2016 to March 2017. “Many farmers have [also] faced criminal prosecution for protesting the lack of redress and refusing to leave or cease work on the land that was taken from them,” HRW said in its report, which described the “devastating effects” of confiscations in Myanmar’s southern Shan state and Ayeyarwady and Yangon regions. “Once deprived of the ability to cultivate land and to sell crops, people are commonly forced into manual labor jobs that pay far less and ultimately diminish access to sources of food,” HRW said. “Widespread land confiscations across Myanmar have harmed rural communities in profound ways for decades,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch in a statement tied to the release of the report. “Aung San Suu Kyi’s government should promptly address illegal land confiscations, compensate aggrieved parties, and reform laws to protect people against future abuses,” Robertson said. 'They just took it' Government figures confirm that hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been taken over the last 30 years, though activists believe the true number of acres seized may be in the millions, HRW said in its report, adding that “confiscations often occurred with little or no compensation,” creating a “profoundly harmful” impact on those forced from their land. Confiscations often occurred with little or no warning given, HRW said. “I didn’t know, they just took it,” said one 61-year-old farmer in Ayeyarwady named Thein Win, who was forced to dig fish ponds on the land that was seized and was threatened with jail for complaining, according to the report. “We got nothing. We literally got nothing for our land,” Thein Win said. Meanwhile, in Shan state, Myanmar’s military seized thousands of acres in one village to create plots for military veterans to farm, forcing one family that remained to pay rent for five years on the land they had just lost. “When the land was taken from them, there was no offer to compensate and no other land was given to them,” HRW said. “After years of filing complaints to all levels of the government, they still have received nothing, and the military claims the right to retain ownership of the land..."
Creator/author: Richard Finney
Source/publisher: Radio Free Asia (RFA)
2018-07-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Today, residents of Mong Nim and Mong Gao tracts of Ke See township are sending letters to township and state authorities opposing the transfer of 5,459 acres of land to the No. 2 Pang Pak (Pinpet) iron mine and steel factory in Ho Pong, southern Shan State, for coal excavation under the Ministry of Industry. On October 11, 2018, Mong Nim and Mong Gao villagers received a notification letter from the General Administration Department of Ke See township about the transfer of land, and that any objections should be sent within fifteen days..."
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation
2018-10-22
Date of entry/update: 2018-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "While Burma?s ethnic states are blessed with a wealth of natural resources and biodiversity, they have been cursed by the unsustainable extraction and sale of those resources, which has fuelled armed conflict. Instituting a system of devolved federal management of natural resources can play a key role in resolving conflict and building a lasting peace in Burma. Despite some ceasefires on paper, Burma remains in a state of conflict. Ongoing offensives in Kachin and Shan states alone have left hundreds of thousands homeless. Fundamental calls for self-determination have gone unheeded in a lack of political dialogue to end decades of fighting. Military offensives into resource-rich ethnic areas have expanded Burma Army presence in plac - es previously controlled by de-facto ethnic governments. This has facilitated the rapid increase in the extraction and sale of natural resources in recent years. Resource projects have collected huge revenues for the army and the central government, but have not benefited local populations. Constitutional powers place natural resource ownership, control, and management fully in the hands of the central government. This report analyzes six key natural resources: forests, land, water, minerals, gems, and oil and gas. In each sector, a series of laws and practices prevent affected peoples from having a say in their own development: they cannot assess, provide input into, or censure the management of their natural resources. Ethnic women, particularly in rural areas, are doubly marginalized from natural resource governance. Centralised resource control is fanning the flames of discontent and anger . Resource projects are causing environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and loss of livelihoods, with unique impacts on women. Extracting and exporting raw, often non-renewable, resources is further inflicting an incalculable liability on future generations. Resources used to produce ener gy are consistently prioritised for export, contributing to the development of neighboring countries while resource-rich areas remain in the dark. People from across the country have staged protests and demonstrations, calling for an end to destructive resource exploitation and for constitutional rights to own, control, and manage their own resources. Ethnic political parties and armed groups are standing with the people in these demands. Devolved decision-making offers stronger accountability and representation at all levels of government, an opportunity for local input and control, benefits to local populations, and environmental sustainability. Burma does not need to start from zero in developing devolved governance structures. Local communities have managed lands, water, and forests with sustainable customary practices for generations, and de-facto governments have supported such practices with formal structures and laws..."
Source/publisher: Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG)
2017-10-24
Date of entry/update: 2017-11-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.43 MB
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Description: "Myanmar may soon face a land conflict epidemic as a result of the growing influx of investments and the consequent demand for land, unless laws and policies that adequately address land rights issues are urgently adopted and implemented. The Myotha Industrial Park typifies Myanmar?s current economic development model, which seeks to incentivize investment in areas designated as ?least developed.” The Myotha Industrial Park, developed by the Burmese company Mandalay Myotha Industrial Development (MMID) in Ngazun Township, Mandalay Region, is a glaring example of how Myanmar?s rural communities suffer harmful consequences and receive little or no redress as a result of large-scale industrial projects. In the Myotha Industrial Park area, a combination of a flawed legal framework, unscrupulous authorities, and irresponsible investors produced a perfect storm in which more than 1,000 families from 14 villages lost their land ? their sole source of livelihood ? to make way for the project?s development..."
Source/publisher: FIDH - N° 702a
2017-09-27
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 1.38 MB
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Description: INTRODUCTION: "Over the years, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) has produced a number of accounts highlighting the hardship faced by Mon people who have become victims to land confiscation. In this report, HURFOM reports on the effects from the recent surge of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) coming into Burma. This FDI report aims to elaborate on the activities of and express solidarity with local people who are directly or indirectly being affected by FDI, especially linked to companies that will burn coal to fire their power plants. To exhibit current challenges and bring into focus some of the key obstacles and changes in the Mon context, this report uses case studies of appeals and direct interviews with people living in Mon State, who are also living in the vicinity of new investment projects. It will specifically look at different Townships in Mon State which have new or older investment projects. HURFOM recommends effective and immediate solutions to the problems that these foreign investors create, especially in relation to environmental destruction and displacement. This report will discuss the different and complex ways in which FDI influences and changes the lives of local people, not only changes in agriculture but also how they have to adjust their way of life. FDI cripples their livelihoods, physically and mentally, changing Burma?s minority ethnic communities. This report is considered essential for raising awareness and gaining a better understanding of good governance shortcomings in relation to violations by industries, especially concerning the protection of the livelihoods of local people. Furthermore, it may serve as an input for discussions and formulations of guidelines, rules and legal documents to protect local people against exploitation, land-grabbing, land confiscation and unfair compensation. Finally, it will support the country in tackling the present day and future challenges in order to create a prosperous future in equality, not only for a few, but for all people of Burma..."
Source/publisher: The Human Rights Foundation of Monland ? Burma [HURFOM]
2016-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-03-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 12.94 MB
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Description: INTRODUCTION: "Over the years, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) has produced a number of accounts highlighting the hardship faced by Mon people who have become victims to land confiscation. In this report, HURFOM reports on the effects from the recent surge of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) coming into Burma. This FDI report aims to elaborate on the activities of and express solidarity with local people who are directly or indirectly being affected by FDI, especially linked to companies that will burn coal to fire their power plants. To exhibit current challenges and bring into focus some of the key obstacles and changes in the Mon context, this report uses case studies of appeals and direct interviews with people living in Mon State, who are also living in the vicinity of new investment projects. It will specifically look at different Townships in Mon State which have new or older investment projects. HURFOM recommends effective and immediate solutions to the problems that these foreign investors create, especially in relation to environmental destruction and displacement. This report will discuss the different and complex ways in which FDI influences and changes the lives of local people, not only changes in agriculture but also how they have to adjust their way of life. FDI cripples their livelihoods, physically and mentally, changing Burma?s minority ethnic communities. This report is considered essential for raising awareness and gaining a better understanding of good governance shortcomings in relation to violations by industries, especially concerning the protection of the livelihoods of local people. Furthermore, it may serve as an input for discussions and formulations of guidelines, rules and legal documents to protect local people against exploitation, land-grabbing, land confiscation and unfair compensation. Finally, it will support the country in tackling the present day and future challenges in order to create a prosperous future in equality, not only for a few, but for all people of Burma..."
Source/publisher: The Human Rights Foundation of Monland ? Burma [HURFOM]
2016-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-03-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 5.93 MB
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Description: Conclusions: "Amnesty International?s latest research shows that hundreds of people close to the giant Letpadaung mine continue to face the risk of forced eviction from their farmland, and in the case of four villages, from their homes as well. In addition, thousands of people living in the area are at risk from Myanmar Wanbao?s inadequate management of environmental risk at the Letpadaung mine, which is situated in a flood and earthquake-prone area. The ESIA for the mine contains fundamental gaps and weaknesses, which Myanmar Wanbao has still not addressed. In 2015, Amnesty International concluded that the Myanmar government must halt the development of the Letpadaung mine until the human rights and environmental concerns were addressed. In May 2016 the mine began producing copper, but those human rights and environmental concerns have still not been addressed. Amnesty International is repeating its call therefore for the mine?s operations to be suspended, while these concerns are dealt with. Amnesty International is also repeating its call for the government of Myanmar to urgently act to prevent human rights abuses at the Letpadaung and S&K mines and provide effective remedy for the human rights abuses that people there have already suffered. The authorities must stop using draconian laws to charge and harass villagers participating in peaceful protests against the mine project. More broadly, the Myanmar government needs to strengthen the legal framework, to improve the regulation of large projects, such as mines, and put in place an adequate framework for land acquisition that is based on international standards on the right to adequate housing and the prohibition of forced evictions. Both the government of Myanmar and Myanmar Wanbao must also ensure an effective remedy for the human rights abuses that people there have already suffered. Foreign corporations doing business, or planning to do business, in Myanmar have a responsibility to ensure that their investments do not result in human rights abuses. All foreign corporations should conduct human rights due diligence on their planned business activities in Myanmar in line with international standards. The home state governments of companies investing in Myanmar, including China, which is the home state of Myanmar Wanbao, must ensure that their companies conduct human rights due diligence..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (ASA 16/5564/2017)
2017-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-02-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 3.62 MB 1.94 MB
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Description: "In Burma, where 70 percent of people earn a living through agriculture, securing land is often equivalent to securing a livelihood. But instead of creating conditions for sustainable development, recent Burmese governments have enacted abusive laws, enforced poorly conceived policies, and encouraged corrupt land administration officials that have promoted the displacement of small-scale farmers and rural villagers. Conflicts over land have come to the forefront of Burma?s national agenda in recent years. These tensions have intensified as the country has embarked on a process of democratic transition and reform, with greater openness in some areas, but continued military dominance in other sectors, particularly where the military controls key government ministries. Officials regularly charge villagers with criminal trespass if they refuse to leave land, and in one case, police torched a village. Militia commanders have also used threats, force, and arbitrary arrests to intimidate farmers and take land, particularly in areas still contested by ethnic Karen armed groups. Land disputes are a major national problem, with rising discontent over displacement for plantation agriculture, resource extraction, and infrastructure projects—often without adequate consultation, due process of law, or compensation for those displaced. In many parts of the country, those contesting land seizures have taken to the streets in frequent demonstrations but have faced retaliation in the courts. The dual problems of land confiscation and reprisals against protesters is particularly acute in Karen State. Located along the border with much more prosperous Thailand, Karen State is viewed by many as a desirable site for investment in the tourism, extractive, and agriculture industries. The economic opening of the country to investors has made land more valuable, while the peace process in Karen State and other ethnic areas has given access to areas previously beyond the reach of the Burmese armed forces and military-linked businessmen. The result is that powerful interests are gaining land through questionable means while farmers are losing it, often without adequate compensation. A man walks through a polluted river that flows through a village overshadowed by a cement factory owned by the Burmese military-controlled Myanmar Economic Corporation in the Hpa-an region of Karen State. Launch Gallery As peace negotiations continue and the return of refugees from Thailand gains credence, land tenure issues will likely intensify, particularly as those who return find that land they previously farmed has now been occupied by government or business interests.[1] This report focuses on government abuses related to land confiscation in areas near Hpa-an, the capital of Karen State. The villages in this area are under the effective control of the Burmese military, called the Tatmadaw, and military-controlled militias called Border Guard Forces (BGFs), or are located in areas of mixed governance by the ethnic armed group Karen National Union (KNU) or other militias and the government. The report illustrates the dynamics of land confiscation in Karen State—a longstanding problem previously documented by Human Rights Watch and local organizations such as the Karen Human Rights Group.[2] It details cases in which government officials, military personnel and agents on behalf of the army, local militia members, and businessmen have used intimidation and coercion to seize land and displace local people. It also documents the impact of land loss on local villagers, some of whom have farmed land for generations but lack legal documentation to prove it..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2016-11-03
Date of entry/update: 2016-11-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Synopsis of the Paper: "It is most fundamental to be able to hear voices of farmers as they are in resolving farm land problems which pose the greatest challenge to Myanmar. Therefore, it is expected that the "Voice From The Farm" paper will be supportive to a certain extent. This paper was compiled based on cases that reached the office of 88 Generation Peace and Open Society from respective region and reinforced with discussions resulting from the VOICE OF FARMERprogramme which collects and organizes farmers? voices as well as with observations during field trips to rural areas. Out of those which reached the office, 800 were selected and reviewed. The review of the cases was made after dividing them into six categories, namely, 1) problems concerned with the government, 2) problems concerned with the army, 3) problems concerned with companies, 4) problems concerned with organizations, 5) other problems and 6) farm land crimes. Upon reviewing, the problems concerned with the government counts 394 (49%) and stand as the greatest number. Problems concerned with the government involve ministries, administration departments, corporations, respective levels of local administrative bodies and individuals from them. Upon categorizing the cases based on their type, the cases about land seizures count 606 (76%) and end up being highest. Out of these land seizures, the army?s seizures count 99 (16%) and stand as the second highest. (This numbers are based on the count of the cases not on the total number of acres.). Out of cases from respective states and regions, 232 cases are from Ayeyarwaddy Region, 149 from Yangon Region, 88 from Mandalay Region and they stand at the top among Regions. Out of the states, Shan State has 33 cases and is at the top among States. It is found that most of the cases involve township and village authorities and individuals from Land Record Department. Besides, local military units, police forces and the wealthy are also found involved in the cases. Names of top-ranking government members, parliamentarians and military officials are also found among those who carried out seizures. Land problems arise because of projects and town area and military area expansions. Seizures greater than necessary are found in many. It is also found that seized landhas been left vacant without any businesses operations on them, leased back to former owners or others on a rental basis, made over into plots and sold out and shared for self interests. Farm land pieces with legal deeds and grant certificatesare also found to have been seized. Besides, it is found that authorities and the wealthy connived at seizing public religious land pieces, cemetery land pieces and pasture land pieces. It is also observed that people with low basic education and little knowledge were tricked by various means including undue pressure and threats into signing their consents. That power was abused against the law is obviouslyfound in incidents whereland pieces were seized and returned by verbal orders and promises were not delivered. Worst, there are cases where land pieces were seized in a style of robberies with such bullying acts as show of guns or gun fires into the air. Farmers are being bullied to the point that not only their land pieces were seized, but also they were framed up with charges and sent to jail. It is also found that farmers came to face difficulties because land pieces given as replacements for seized ones are not cultivable, raw andsituated on sides of ravines. Such injustice is also found as compensations were not obtained in full amount, promises were not delivered and only 20 feet x 60 feet plots were given despite 40 feet x 60 feet ones were promised. There are incidents where companies and the army turned their land tenants against former land owner farmers. It is viewed that most of above-mentioned land problems have arisen because of power abuses, corruptions and poor administration and management.Therefore, in resolving land problems, rule of law is crucial. Power abuse and bribery needs to be effectively combated. Legislation and statements by the Union Government and the Parliament alone will not be able to resolve the problems; accountability at various regional levels is needed. Responsibilities that must be urgently undertaken are drawing and amending laws, bye laws and land policies which can guarantee the interests of vast majority of national rural populace. Most of land problems are found to have arisen due to weaknesses of Land Record Department. Reforming Land Record Department in line with the current era, taking of a land census and readjusting maps with ground situations need to be undertaken without delay. Moreover, since promotion of role of farmers? unions can directly secure public participation, it can be largely supportive to resolving land problems. In a nut shell, the extent to which land problems can be resolved greatly hinges on how willing the government in power is to serve the interests of farmers."
Source/publisher: 88 Generation Peace and Open Society (Agri-business and Farmer Affairs Department)
2014-12-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.13 MB 4.24 MB
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Description: "Land tenure rights and food security for all farmers in Burma has been described by Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Tun Win as one of the top priorities of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government. ?Our government wishes to give back land to the rightful owners,” said Tun Win, referring to the smallholder farmers who still make up the bulk of Burma?s population. He was speaking to reporters from his office on Tuesday. A legacy of land seizures by the former military government, in collaboration with crony companies, has in recent years been compounded by large-scale investments from neighboring countries, notably in extractive industries and energy production. Some of the more high-profile examples, such as the vast Letpadaung copper mine in Sagaing Division, operated jointly by Chinese company Wanbao and a Burmese military conglomerate, have been met by the sustained mobilization of dispossessed farmers claiming higher compensation or the return of their land. This has led, at times, to violent confrontations with the police..."
Creator/author: Htet Naiing Zaw
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2016-05-12
Date of entry/update: 2016-05-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "... Large-scale agricultural investments ? in plantations, processing plants or contract farming schemes, for example ? have increased in recent years, particularly in developing countries. Investment in the agriculture sector can bring much needed support for rural development, but communities have also witnessed significant negative impacts. Some of the most serious involve local landholders being displaced from their lands and losing access to natural resources critical for their livelihoods and wellbeing. Instead of contributing to rural development, ill-conceived investments can undermine people?s rights to food, to water or to decent work. Improving accountability is essential in ensuring that investment processes respond to local needs and aspirations and respect human rights. Yet many deals struck between companies and governments to establish agricultural ventures are not fully transparent, making it difficult for the public and local communities to scrutinise projects before they materialise on the ground. Despite international human rights law and best practice requiring full transparency, public participation, and free prior and informed consent of local communities, civil society participation is often missing and once negative impacts have occurred citizens may struggle to have their voices heard or hold the company or the government to account. Weak governance is often accompanied by limited accountability to citizens. Yet, despite these challenges, many citizens have been able to hold companies and governments to account. For this to happen, local communities and the organisations that support them have to get organised, get informed and be strategic. Supporting affected communities to get organised so that they can collectively challenge or influence the project is essential to any successful advocacy. Success can take a long time ? sometimes involving years of struggle ? so ensuring strong community solidarity is key. Communities should be aware of their rights and what laws, regulations and policies are in place to protect them. An organised and informed community can then begin to devise a sophisticated advocacy strategy to achieve their goals. Usually the first step is to take complaints directly to local authorities, national authorities or the business operating on the ground. But when these approaches have limited success, communities and their supporters should not give up. There are other strategies that can be tried which reach beyond the borders of the project and the country where it is located. Behind most large-scale agricultural projects is a web of global actors that make the project possible. These actors include banks and companies that are funding the project and the companies that are buying the produce being grown or processed by it. All of these actors are necessary to the project?s success, and all are aiming to earn a profit from it in one way or another. They all have a relationship with the business operating on the ground and have the ability to influence it. All of these actors have some responsibility to ensure that the project does not harm communities. Knowing who is financing the project, who is buying the produce and who else is making the project possible and profitable ? in other words, ?following the money? ? opens up a range of opportunities for improved accountability. We call the web of actors involved in a project an ?investment chain?. Within this chain there are ?pressure points?. If affected communities can identify the strongest pressure points and take actions directed at effectively influencing key actors in the investment chain, they are more likely to achieve their goals. Understanding investment chains and pressure points, and effectively making use of them, can prove difficult. This Guide provides information, practical tips and exercises on how to map an investment chain behind a project, identify the strongest pressure points along the chain and then devise effective advocacy strategies that leverage those points. It explains what you need to know, the challenges you may face and the strengths and weaknesses of a range of advocacy options. Examples are provided from cases around the world where communities have tried to ?follow the money? and have used a number of strategies to hold investors and governments to account..."
Creator/author: Emma Blackmore, Natalie Bugalski, David Pred
Source/publisher: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Inclusive Development International (IDI)
2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 7 MB
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Description: "... Since ceasefire agreements were signed between the Burmese military government and ethnic political groups in the Burma?China borderlands in the early 1990s, violent waves of counterinsurgency development have replaced warfare to target politically-suspect, resource-rich, ethnic populated borderlands. The Burmese regime allocates land concessions in ceasefire zones as an explicit postwar military strategy to govern land and populations to produce regulated, legible, militarized territory. Tracing the relationship of military?state formation, land control and securitization, and primitive accumulation in the Burma?China borderlands uncovers the forces of what I am calling ?ceasefire capitalism?. This study examines these processes of Burmese military?state building over the past decade in resource-rich ethnic ceasefire zones along the Yunnan, China border. I will illustrate this contemporary and violent military?state formation process with two case studies focusing on northern Burma: logging and redirected timber trade flows, and Chinese rubber plantations as part of China?s opium substitution program..."
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies
2011-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 202.05 KB
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Description: Hpapun (Mutraw) District "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Dwe Lo Township, Hpapun District between August and October 2015, including forced labour, land confiscation, and livelihood issues. - Soldiers from Tatmadaw Infantry Battalion (IB) #96 in Dwe Lo Township, forced villagers in A--- valley to transport their supplies and the only compensation the villagers were given was petrol. - The Karen National Union (KNU) organised for land confiscation victims in Meh Thoo and Meh Way village tracts to receive two million kyat (US $1,547.80) per acre as compensation. - Since the signing of the 2012 preliminary ceasefire agreement, displaced persons in Dwe Lo Township have been able to return to their old villages...."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2016-03-09
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 458.57 KB
Local URL:
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Description: "?We have to work with the voice of the people,” Nai Aue Mon tells me in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand, as we discuss the recent rise of land confiscation and land disputes in the Mon State. Aue Mon has been with the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) since 1999, when he started witnessing the abuse and violations of the rights of civilians in the Mon State. He first began working as a journalist for the Mon publication Guiding Star, before beginning his work as documenting and defending human rights. In this in-depth interview, Nai Aue Mon explains about the historical and current human rights situation in the Mon areas, as well as the ongoing and emerging struggles and challenges faced by the tens of thousands of IDPs (internally displaced persons) in his native Mon State. Nai Aue Mon has great hopes for the future of the country, particularly in the context of the new NLD government taking office. But amidst these hopes, however, on the ground situation indicates a turn from physical violations to increasing land conflicts driven ?under the name of development.” Nai Aue Mon is now the Program Director of HURFOM, and hopes to realise their long term goal of bringing transitional justice and memorialization activities to the victims of this decades-long abuse."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
2016-02-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This Field Report describes events occurring in Toungoo District between December 2013 and December 2014. During this period, KHRG mainly received reports from Thandaunggyi Township and surrounding areas. The report includes information submitted by KHRG community members on a range of human rights abuses and issues of importance to local communities including land confiscation, militarisation, fighting between armed groups, commercial activity carried out by military actors, violent abuse, access to education, access to healthcare, and development projects. • There have been ongoing cases of land confiscation at the hands of the Tatmadaw, for the purpose of building Burma/Myanmar government offices, establishing military target practice areas and increasingly, for plantations, commercial projects, and sale to private companies. • Militarisation in Toungoo District has continued, despite the 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Burma/Myanmar government, with the Tatmadaw rotating troops and replenishing their rations and ammunitions at camps in remote areas. • A local militia, the Thandaung Special Region Peace Group, have been engaged in several commercial activities, including running gambling areas, logging, and stone mining, in order to raise funds to support their operations. All of these activities have had a disruptive effect on villagers, in particular the school students. • The Burma/Myanmar government has invested in providing financial support for school students in standards one to four in Toungoo District, however this has not always been effective as in some cases the money does not reach the students. • There continues to be a lack of access to adequate healthcare in Toungoo District; the Burma/Myanmar government has only built clinics in the village tracts close to main roads, there is a shortage of properly trained healthcare workers and in the case of villagers with lower incomes, treatment is often too expensive. • Between April and June 2014 there was a meeting that was headed by the Mya Sein Yaung company, with representatives from ten villages, on the subject of the company?s Reducing Poverty project being implemented in Thandaunggyi Township."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2016-02-25
Date of entry/update: 2016-02-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 381.98 KB
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Description: Forestry Water Management, Landscape Approach and Land Management in Kachin State, northern Myanmar.
Source/publisher: CGIAR
2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-02-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : mp3
Size: 13.62 MB
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Description: "The Complaint Letter below was written by the Shwegyin Karen Baptist Association, a missionary association from Kyaukkyi Town, Kyaukkyi Township, Nyaunglebin District, and sent to the chairman of the Burma/Myanmar government Kyaukkyi Township Land Management Committee, on November 5th 2015. The letter concerns the Burma/Myanmar government?s construction of buildings on a Christian church compound. According to the letter, the compound has belonged to the church for 55 years. The Burma/Myanmar government has begun construction of a Cooperative Department building and plans to construct a Department of Rural Development building and commission offices within the church compound. This has been done without prior consultation with the Shwegyin Karen Baptist Association. The Shwegyin Karen Baptist Association reported to KHRG that they submitted the complaint letter to Burma/Myanmar government officials, members of the KNU, and other political parties, but they have not seen any action taken in response; instead the construction has continued. This report also includes details of earlier letters sent to authorities by the Shwegyin Karen Baptist Association in an attempt to have the church compound officially measured and recorded, to prevent the land from being confiscated..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-12-08
Date of entry/update: 2015-12-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Abstract: "In 2012, the Government of Myanmar (GoM) passed the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow, Virgin (VFV) Land Law—creating a formalized land market. In essence, this created a formalized land market. Land titling is often considered ?the natural end point of land rights formalization” (Hall et al. 2010: 35). This thinking has become dominant among most governments and development agencies ever since De Soto (2000) popularized it in The Mystery of Capital , in which he argued that the developmental successes of the West has relied on a strong legally-enforceable institution of property rights, without which assets, particularly land, would become ?dead capital.” In reality, there are at least two major obstacles in achieving this in Myanmar. The first is around the legacy of multiple regimes in creating ?stacked laws” (Roquas 2002). This term refers to a situation in which a country has multiple layers of laws that exist simultaneously, creating conflicts and contradictions in the legal system, as well as challenges to creating a well-regulated land market envisioned by the Myanmar state with the passage of the two land laws. The second obstacle has to do with the fact that like many countries in the world, access to legal justice in Myanmar is dependent on one?s access to different material, social and political resources—directly to a history of patron-clientelism. Through a number of select case studies, this paper seeks to provide preliminary reflections on the following question: In Myanmar, a country with a porous legal framework, how do smallholder farmers engage with the law, and where relevant, informal norms to strengthen legitimacy of their claims to land against confiscations? This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on agrarian rural movements by focusing specifically on the way farming communities in Myanmar engage with the law, while paying attention to the complications they face when they engage with legal institutions that are porous and ?stacked?—a phenomena that is common to many countries in the early phases of rural democratization...... Keywords: stacked laws, patron-client relationships, legal justice, legal engagement"
Creator/author: SiuSue Mark
Source/publisher: BRICS Initiatives for Critical Agrarian Studies (BICAS)
2015-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-12-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 358 KB
Local URL:
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Description: Commentary: Confiscation and Extortion... Situation of land confiscation... Confiscation of cultivated land for state infrastructure in Murng-Nai and Kaeng- Tung... Land confiscated for reselling in Murng-Pan... Rice fields confiscated and cultivated by military using forced labour, in Murng - Pan... Situation of abuses related to civilian vehicles... Confiscation of civilian vehicles in Nam-Zarng,Ta-Khi-Laek and Kaeng-Tung... Confiscation of civilian motorcycles in Loi-Lem... Extortion of money from civilian vehicles at checkpoints in Southern and Eastern Shan State... Villagers? pigs extorted, chickens stolen, in Kae-See... Situation of extortion and stealing of villagers livestock... Extortion of chickens, forced labour, in Kun-Hing... Situation of other types of extortion... Extortion in Kaeng-Tung.
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF)
2011-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Commentary: Confiscation and Extortion... Forcible rice procurement continues in Kaeng - Tung... Confiscation of rice fields in Kaeng-Tung... Farmland confiscated for building new military base in Kun-Hing... Confiscation of rice fields in Murng ? Nai... Leased rice field threatened to be forcibly taken, rent not paid in full, in Murng - Ton... Houses forcibly taken in Murng-Ton... Extortion of money from travelers worsens in Kun-Hing... People forced to pay for election expenses long after poll, in Kaeng-Tung... Extortion of money intensifies, becomes more frequent, for constructing military bases, in Kun-Hing... High interest charged on a loan without advance knowledge, in Kun-Hing.
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF)
2011-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Commentary: Land Confiscation; Situation of land confiscation in Nam-Zarng and Kun-Hing; Land confiscated, villagers house destroyed, in Nam-Zarng; Cultivated land confiscated in Nam-Zarng; Farmlands and cemetery ground confiscated in Nam-Zarng; Lands confiscated, forced labour used, to build new military bases and an airstrip, in Kun-Hing; Confiscation of land with regard to mining projects; Land Confiscation due to coal mining concession in Murng-Sart; Land grabbing by businessmen in cooperation with military authorities and their cronies Lands forcibly taken, village forced to move, in Kaeng-Tung; Lands forcibly taken and sold, in Kaeng-Tung; Land forcibly taken and sold in Murng-Ton; Designation of cultivated lands as military property and levy; Land designated miltary areas, taxes levied, in Kun-Hing
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation (March 2012)
2012-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Commentary: Land Confiscation... Situation of land confiscation in Nam-Zarng and Kun-Hing... Land confiscated, villagers house destroyed, in Nam-Zarng... Cultivated land confiscated in Nam-Zarng... Farmlands and cemetery ground confiscated in Nam-Zarng... Lands confiscated, forced labour used, to build new military bases and an airstrip, in Kun-Hing... Confiscation of land with regard to mining projects... Land Confiscation due to coal mining concession in Murng-Sart... Land grabbing by businessmen in cooperation with military authorities and their cronies... Lands forcibly taken, village forced to move, in Kaeng-Tung... Lands forcibly taken and sold, in Kaeng-Tung... Land forcibly taken and sold in Murng-Ton... Designation of cultivated lands as military property and levy... Land designated miltary areas, taxes levied, in Kun-Hing .
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF)
2012-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Commentary: Land Grabbing and Related Issues and Abuses Continue... Contents: Themes & Places of Violations reported in this issue... Acronyms: MAP... Land abandoned under force seized and original owners required to buy them back, in Lai-Kha... Burmese military let people?s militia groups grow crops on lands long cultivated by local people, in Nam-Zarng... Situation of land grabbing and related abuses in areas under the influence of a ceasefire group ?UWSA”, in Murng-Ton... Original local people forced to sell land, restricted from cultivating remorte farms, in Murng-Ton... Threats of land confiscation, arrest and restrictions, in Murng-Ton... Wresting of water from original local farmers, in Murng-Ton... Land grabbed and resold by businessman under ?UWSA” protection, in Murng-Ton.
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF)
2013-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Commentary: Why people still flee Shan State and seek refuge in other countries... Contents: Themes & Places of Violations reported in this issue... MAP... Situation of people fleeing their native places in Kae-See... Land confiscation and mining project causing people to flee, in Murng-Su... Military operation, forced labour and extortion, causing people to flee, in Murng-Kerng... Continuing forced labour, forced recuruitment and extortion causing people to flee, in Lai-Kha... Forced recruitment causing people to flee, in Kung-Hing Military and police persecution causing people to flee, in Nam-Zarng... Forced relocation and land confiscation causing people to flee, in Murng-Nai... Beating and intimidation causing people to flee, in Larng-Khur.
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF)
2012-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This Interview, with Naw A---, describes events and issues occurring in Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District, reported to KHRG in January 2015, including land confiscation, education, healthcare, and development projects... Villagers heard that a company is coming to the area to implement a development project for which they will confiscate land in B--- village, as well as in nearby villages. The villagers submitted a complaint letter to the township administrators stating their objection to the project, as they were afraid that their lands for which they do not have land grants will be confiscated... Students are receiving a poor education as school teachers are often absent, as they frequently leave the village to visit their homes, which can take up to two weeks per trip. Further to this, some of them have expressed that they do not want to teach at all... As there is no health clinic in B--- village, villagers must travel to Toungoo Town for medicine or treatment whenever they are sick."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-10-15
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 165.34 KB
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Description: "As Myanmar?s junta prepared to step down from government, the military set about seizing public assets and natural resources to ensure its economic control in a new era of democratic rule. Guns, Cronies and Crops details the collusion at the heart of operations carried out by Myanmar?s armed forces in northeastern Shan State. Large swathes of land were taken from farming communities in the mid-2000s and handed to companies and political associates to develop rubber plantations. Our investigation reveals those involved, including Myanmar?s current Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, U Myint Hlaing, the country?s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, and Sein Wut Hmon, a rubber company which collaborated with the former military junta to gain control of land. These revelations come as Myanmar?s government finalises the drafting of a national land policy, the country?s first. The report documents the toxic legacy of these land grabs on an already marginalised ethnic-minority population, for whom little has changed since the country?s much-lauded transition to civil democracy in 2011. Villagers told Global Witness that they had received no compensation and are struggling to earn a living and feed their families without land to grow food..."
Source/publisher: Global Witness
2015-03-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 817.7 KB 1.15 MB 49.85 KB
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Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: •This joint submission by the Coalition of Indigenous Peoples in Myanmar/Burma focuses on the collective rights of indigenous peoples, particularly the thematic areas of land, territories, and natural resources, development, and language and cultural rights, with militarization, self-determination, and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as cross-cutting issues. •Section A describes the context of indigenous peoples in Myanmar/Burma. It highlights the lack of understanding about the internationally-recognised concept of indigenous peoples, and lack of accurate information about the number of indigenous peoples in Myanmar/Burma. •Section B outlines the normative and institutional framework of the State under Review (SuR) as it pertains to indigenous peoples. It focuses on the policy and legislative framework relating to land use, national bodies with a mandate to address the key issue of land grabbing, and the current peace process in Myanmar/Burma. •Section C draws on human rights documentation collected by member organizations of this coalition, and highlights how control over land and natural resources for development projects in indigenous peoples? territories is driving violent conflict and related human rights violations. It addresses issues of widespread land confiscation, negative environmental, social, and health impacts, and threats to traditional and sustainable livelihoods from development projects. It also details how militarization, displacement, and oppression have violated language and cultural rights. •Section D puts forward recommendations to the government of Myanmar/Burma..."
Source/publisher: Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN)
2015-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 168.31 KB
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Description: Table of Contents: Mangrove Deforestation, Shrimp Farming, and the Survival of the Coastal... Land Confiscation in Burma: Whose land is it?... Shwe Gas Pro ect and the Impact on Arakan State... A Brief History of Rice Agriculture and Chemical Fertilizer Use in Arakan State
Creator/author: Khaing Dhu Wan, Katie Ryder, Khaing Dhu Wan, David Le Blanc, Aung Marm Oo, Khaing Dhu Wan
Source/publisher: Network for Enriornment and Economic Development (NEED)
2007-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.38 MB
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Description: Table of Contents: Mangrove Deforestation, Shrimp Farming, and the Survival of the Coastal... Land Confiscation in Burma: Whose land is it?... Shwe Gas Pro ect and the Impact on Arakan State... A Brief History of Rice Agriculture and Chemical Fertilizer Use in Arakan State
Creator/author: Khaing Dhu Wan, Katie Ryder, Khaing Dhu Wan, David Le Blanc, Aung Marm Oo, Khaing Dhu Wan
Source/publisher: Network for Enriornment and Economic Development (NEED)
2007-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 637.83 KB
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Description: "This Incident Report describes the confiscation of villagers? land committed by Border Guard Force (BGF) Cantonment Area Commander Kya Aye, who oversees Battalion #1015 and Battalion #1016, and Cantonment Area Supervisor U Kyaw Hein on May 1st 2015. They then resold the land to the Steel Stone Group to be used for road construction and infrastructure development. The villagers reported the incident to the Karen National Union (KNU) requesting compensation for their land and calling for restrictions on the BGF commanders? power. KHRG also received a complaint letter submitted to the KNU Agriculture Department by a community representative of 14 villagers whose lands have been confiscated, including those listed in this incident report, requesting the KNU aid them in reclaiming their land: see, ?Complaint letter to KNU Agriculture Department in Paingkyon Township regarding land confiscation,” KHRG, July 2015..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-08-17
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Karen and Burmese
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 455.9 KB 285.31 KB 195.33 KB
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Description: This Interview with Ma A--- describes events occurring in B--- village, Hpa-an Township, Thaton District in June 2015, including land confiscation, forced relocation, attack on a village and villagers, threatening, looting, arbitrary detention and threats to children?s right to education. "The villagers who lived in B--- village, whose ancestors lived there, and who had obtained the land titles to that land from the Karen National Union (KNU), had their village burned and looted by Burma/Myanmar police and officials from the Burma/Myanmar Department of Forest Management between June 22nd and 25th 2015, under the claim that it had been designated a forest reserve... Prior to the raid, on February 1st 2015, U Zaw Min, the chief minister of Kayin State, forced 15 villagers from B--- village to sign a document in which they agreed to demolish their houses and move elsewhere within seven days. This deadline was later revised to June 21st 2015 when the police came to B--- village... Ma A--- reported that on June 2nd 2015, around 50 police officers came into B--- village and arrested 25 villagers, including the interviewee?s husband and father, in addition to her younger brother, who had already been in jail for two months at that point. None of these villagers have been released at the time of writing. Other villagers have fled to the forest, monastery or their relatives? houses to avoid being arrested... While the police were demolishing the villagers? houses, they also looted the village, taking villagers? valuables and the goods Ma A--- sold in her shop... Following the destruction of the village, approximately 100 villagers, including Ma A---, fled to Myawaddy with the help of Saw P---... There are six school-age children in the group that fled to Myawaddy. Their newly built school in B--- village was also destroyed..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-08-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format :
Size: 196 KB
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Description: "This Interview with Saw A--- describes events and issues occurring in Bu Tho Township, Hpapun District, during January 2015, including improvements in education, villager opinions about the ceasefire, and land confiscation.... The Karen Education Department (KED) said they will raise each teachers? salaries from 4,500 baht (US $133.48) to 7,500 baht (US $222.47) per year starting in 2014 in B--- village... Saw A--- expressed his opinion on the ceasefire agreement between the Burma/Myanmar government and the Karen National Union (KNU), saying that he does not have faith in the current ceasefire... Tatmadaw Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #340 confiscated villagers? land in Hpapun area and put up a sign declaring it to be the battalion?s land. The villagers remain the legal landlords but the LIB is exercising de-facto control. The interviewee?s brother had submitted a complaint about this to the KNU Land Department several times in 2014 and, although he was told the land will be returned, there has been no observed progress towards land reclamation or compensation..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-08-11
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 307.84 KB
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Description: "This Interview with Naw A--- describes events and issues occurring in Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District, during January 2015, including land confiscation, development projects, healthcare and education... Villagers are concerned about land confiscation for an industrial zone planned nearby Toungoo Town and have sent complaint letters to the Burma/Myanmar government requesting that they terminate the company?s development projects... Naw A--- mentioned that students have failed examinations due to old teachers being replaced with new, younger teachers. The children do not fully understand school lessons due to the low standard of teaching by the new teachers... Naw A--- stated that there is a group from a neighbouring village that provides medical care and medicines to the villagers..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-08-17
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 266.95 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events and issues occurring in Hlaingbwe Township, Hpa-an District during the period between April and May 2015, including a development project in which the Burma/Myanmar government built a new town on villagers? lands, as well as healthcare and education updates... Between 1981 and 1982, some of the A--- villagers fled to the refugee camps on the Thai-Burma/Myanmar border and left their lands behind. Between 2013 and 2015 the Burma/Myanmar government built a new town on these villagers? lands and called it A--- Town... The Burma/Myanmar government constructed buildings, a road, and army camps on the villager?s lands, limiting the amount of land villagers living there can use to earn a living. Futhermore, A--- village refugees will have no land to build their homes on if they return... Due to a lack of employment opportunities in Burma/Myanmar, many young people from Hlaingbwe Township migrate to Thailand in order to find work..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-07-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 188.98 KB
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Description: "The Foreign Correspondents? Club of Thailand, Bangkok - Three years after the 2012 preliminary ceasefire negotiations between the Myanmar government and the Karen National Union (KNU), reported instances of land confiscation continue to increase in southeast Myanmar. In its 2015 report, ?With only our voices, what can we do??, KHRG highlights four main land use types which lead to land confiscation: infrastructure projects, natural resource extraction, commercial agriculture projects, and military activities. Based on testimony from local villagers, the Myanmar government; domestic corporate actors; and Tatmadaw and Karen ethnic armed groups (EAGs) are all identified as being complicit in the confiscation of land from local communities in southeast Myanmar. Against this bleak background, local villagers report using a variety of strategies to prevent and mitigate the impacts of land confiscation, such as reaching out to civil society organisations (CSOs) and the media, negotiating with actors involved in projects, and lobbying both the Myanmar government and Karen EAGs."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-08-06
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 38.33 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events and issues occurring in Thandaunggyi and Htantabin townships, Toungoo District during the period from November 2014 to February 2015, including military activity, civilians? situation, healthcare, education, land confiscation and landmines... In Toungoo District, the Tatmadaw are as active as they were in the past. They send their rations to the camps once every three months. On February 12th 2015, Military Operations Command (MOC) #20 was replaced by MOC #5, bringing approximately 80 military transport vehicles with them... The villagers in Toungoo District usually treat their diseases and illnesses in Karen National Union (KNU) clinics when they are ill. Sometimes, it causes problems for the KNU clinic workers as they do not have enough medicine in their clinic. The villagers do not tend to go to the Burma/Myanmar government clinics as they are expensive... In A--- village, Seik Pu Taw village tract, Htantabin Township, Toungoo District, Kaung Myanmar Aung Group of Companies confiscated villagers? land to set up a teak plantation. A villager named Saw B---, whose land was included in the confiscation, went and complained to the company, after which the company sued him and six of his friends for Criminal Trespass under Article 447 of the Myanmar Penal Code."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 484.76 KB
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Description: "The Complaint Letter below was sent to Saw Naw Dee, head of the Agriculture and Land Directorate, from the Karen National Union (KNU) Agriculture Department, Paingkyon Township. It was written by U B--- who is the representative of the land owners whose lands have been confiscated. The villagers? uncultivated lands were confiscated by Cantonment Area Supervisor U Kyaw Hein from Border Guard Force (BGF) Battalion #1015 who then sold them. In the letter below, the villagers whose lands have been confiscated request that the KNU Agriculture Department in Paingkyon Township take action and help them reclaim ownership of their lands."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-07-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 139.67 KB
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Description: "This Photo Set shows development projects including road and bridge construction in Win Yay Township, Dooplaya District between December 2014 and January 2015. These development projects destroyed villagers? fruit and rubber plantations. Villagers report having not yet received any compensation for their destroyed lands."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese and Karen
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 322.92 KB 335.27 KB 351.72 KB
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Description: "Throughout the Mekong region, large-scale development projects such as hydropower dams, mines, conventional power plants, and mono-crop plantations are displacing communities and limiting access to natural resources. Several hydropower dams have already been built on the Upper Mekong in China?s Yunnan Province, and the governments of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand are planning eleven additional large dams on the Mekong River?s mainstream. If completed, these dams would not only destroy local ecosystems, but also reduce the ???? ow of silt throughout the Mekong River system, and block major ???? sh migrations, placing at risk over sixty million people who depend on the Mekong for their food security and income. It?s vital for citizens of all six nations who share the Mekong basin?s rich resources to work together to promote greater accountability in development planning. This is exactly what is happening among a new generation of Mekong activists. Over the past nine years, alumni from EarthRights International?s Mekong School representing communities from the source to the mouth of the Mekong have been working together to advocate for stronger human rights and environmental protection in the region. In sharing these reports from their communities, Mekong School Alumni hope to inspire citizens throughout the Mekong region to consider the social and environmental impacts of hydropower dams, mines, power plants and other large development projects and to join together to advocate for greater transparency and public participation in development planning...." ..... CHINA: Gaps in the Environmental Regulation of Transnational Corporations: a Case Study of Cambodia?s Lower Sesan Dam by Li Miao Miao... MYANMAR: A Legal Analysis of the Heinda Mine and its Impact on 12 Communities in Dawei by Aye Mon Thu... Livelihood and Environmental Impacts from the Shwe Gas Pipeline in Nga Phe Township, Magway by Khaing Mi Phue Aung... The Hatgyi Dam Project and Potential Human Rights Violations in Karen State by Saw Lay Ka Paw... THALAND: Comparative Analysis of EIA Quality for Thai Overseas Investment Projects: Dawei Special Economic Zone and Hongsa Coal Power Plant by Ashijya Otwong... LAO PDR: Potential Impacts on Women?s Livelihoods from the Don Sahong Dam in Khong District, Champassak Province, Lao PDR by Dokkeo Sykham... Potential Impacts of the Nam Ou 2 Dam on Local Livelihoods 99 in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR by Luuk Nam Ou... CAMBODIA: Implications of the Anti-Dam Campaign and Eco-tourism 112 Initiative in the Araeng Valley, Central Cardamom Protected Area, Cambodia by Ham Oudom... VIETNAM: The Impacts of Dak Mi 4 Hydropower Dam on Downstream Communities: Assessing the Right to Public Participation by Tran Chi Thoi... The Social, Health and Environmental Impacts of Limestone Mining in Kien Luong District, Kien Giang Province, Vietnam by Nguyen Khiem... Asian Development Bank Safeguard Policies: Fact or Fiction? 170 The Case of the Northern Transmission Line Expansion Project by Vu Hai Linh... Epilogue by Mat Carney.
Creator/author: Chayan Vaddhanaphuti Sabrina Gyorvary (ed)
Source/publisher: Center for ASEAN Studies, Chiang Mai University;The Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University
2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.02 MB
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Description: "Villagers in Karen areas of southeast Myanmar continue to face widespread land confiscation at the hands of a multiplicity of actors. Much of this can be attributed to the rapid expansion of domestic and international commercial interest and investment in southeast Myanmar since the January 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar government. KHRG first documented this in a 2013 report entitled ?Losing Ground?, which documented cases of land confiscation between January 2011 and November 2012. This report, ?With only our voices, what can we do??, is a follow up to that analysis and highlights continued issue areas while identifying newly documented trends. The present analysis assesses land confiscation according to a number of different factors, including: land use type; geographic distribution across KHRG?s seven research areas; perpetrators involved; whether or not compensation and/or consultation occurred; and the effects that confiscation had on local villagers. This report also seeks to highlight local responses to land confiscation, emphasising the agency that individuals and communities in southeast Myanmar already possess and the obstacles that they face when attempting to protect their own human rights. By focusing on local perspectives and giving priority to villagers? voices, this report aims to provide local, national, and international actors with a resource that will allow them to base policy and programmatic decisions that will impact communities in southeast Myanmar more closely on the experiences and concerns of the people living there..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese, Karen, English subtitles
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Kyainseikgyi Township, Dooplaya District from December 2014 to February 2015, including stone mining, arbitrary taxation, road construction and military activities: Two rich individuals, Maung Myat and Kyaw Aye, have been conducting stone mining projects in C--- village, destroying a local villager?s mango plantation and failing to adequately compensate him for his loss... Arbitrary taxation was perpetrated by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) in Noh Taw Pla village tract on January 17th 2015. DKBA Company Commander Shin Gyi demanded a tax of 50,000 kyat (US $45.01) per lumber saw and threatened violence against the village leader for non-compliance... A road construction company took soil from a villager?s land in B--- village in order to construct a road, which negatively impacted the villager?s livelihood... Tatmadaw soldiers from an unknown battalion based on Ka Lee Hkee Mountain cut down trees and bamboo in community reserve forests in order to repair their army camp."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-06-11
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 226.8 KB
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Description: "Villagers in Karen areas of southeast Myanmar continue to face widespread land confiscation at the hands of a multiplicity of actors. Much of this can be attributed to the rapid expansion of domestic and international commercial interest and investment in southeast Myanmar since the January 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar government. KHRG first documented this in a 2013 report entitled ?Losing Ground?, which documented cases of land confiscation between January 2011 and November 2012. This report, ?With only our voices, what can we do??, is a follow up to that analysis and highlights continued issue areas while identifying newly documented trends. The present analysis assesses land confiscation according to a number of different factors, including: land use type; geographic distribution across KHRG?s seven research areas; perpetrators involved; whether or not compensation and/or consultation occurred; and the effects that confiscation had on local villagers. This report also seeks to highlight local responses to land confiscation, emphasising the agency that individuals and communities in southeast Myanmar already possess and the obstacles that they face when attempting to protect their own human rights. By focusing on local perspectives and giving priority to villagers? voices, this report aims to provide local, national, and international actors with a resource that will allow them to base policy and programmatic decisions that will impact communities in southeast Myanmar more closely on the experiences and concerns of the people living there."..... Toungoo (Taw Oo) District... Hpa-an District... Dooplaya District... Hpapun (Mutraw) District... Mergui-Tavoy District... Thaton (Doo Tha Htoo) District... Nyaunglebin (Kler Lwee Htoo) District...
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Karen and Burmese
Format : pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size: 5 MB 5.54 MB 2.81 MB 2.75 MB 2.67 MB 613.66 KB 949.09 KB
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Description: Authors: Carol Hunsberger, Esteve Corbera, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Romulo de la Rosa, Vuthy Eang, Jennifer C. Franco, Roman Herre, Sai Sam Kham, Clara Park, David Pred, Heng Sokheng, Max Spoor, Shwe Thein, Kyaw Thu, Ratha Thuon, Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, Kevin Woods and Courtney Work..... Abstract: "Recent research highlights the potential for climate change mitigation projects and large- scale land deals to produce conflicts over land and resources. However, this literature generally views climate change policies and land grabbing as separate processes, and focuses on discrete areas where displacement or contested claims occur. We argue that additional research strategies are needed to understand the social and ecological spill-over effects that take place within larger areas where land-based climate change projects (e.g. biofuel production, forest conservation, or hydroelectric projects) and large land-based investments (e.g. plantations or mines) are found. We propose adopting a landscape perspective to study intersections and complex interactions within and across social, ecological and institutional domains. By co-producing knowledge with local actors, building capacity with civil society groups, and informing advocacy that targets policy processes at multiple scales, we suggest that such research could contribute to preventing, resolving or transforming conflicts ? even in places where difficult political transitionLand ‐ based climate change mitigation, land grabbing and conflict: understanding intersections and linkages, exploring actions for changes are underway"..... Keywords: Conflict, climate change mitigation, land grab, resource conflict, green grab, biofuel, REDD+
Creator/author: Carol Hunsberger et al
Source/publisher: MOSAIC Research Project, International Institute of Social Studies, (Netherlands) RCSD, Chiangmai University)
2015-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-06-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 221.9 KB
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Description: "This News Bulletin describes the proposed construction of a portion of the Asia Highway from Eindu to Kawkareik Town, crossing 17 different villages and one town in Hpa-an, Kyonedoe and Kawkareik townships in Dooplaya and Hpa-an districts. The Burma/Myanmar government has demarcated the route and plans to construct the road with funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The planning of the project has thus far been carried out with little consultation with local communities, who remain suspicious of such projects. If implemented, the highway construction would result in the confiscation of villagers? land, posing a threat to their basic livelihoods."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2015-06-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 192.21 KB
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Description: Conclusion: "The Thilawa SEZ project is not clearly described and important information is missing throughout the EIA document. The public consultation process did not involve all relevant stakeholders, including affected communities, and did not provide sufficient information in any case. Consequently, the consultation process did not meet international standards and did not meet relevant JICA Guidelines. Had JICA provided adequate and appropriate support for the EIA according to its Guidelines, it could have assured that the project proponents were accounted for and planned to mitigate the negative social impacts that are and will continue to result from the project. Already there have been substantial impacts to local communities in Phase I as a result of relocation, including inadequate compensation resulting in impoverishment, lost access to land, and reduced or lost livelihoods. Thus, there is a direct link between JICA?s non-compliance with its Guidelines and the injuries suffered by the relocated communities. Furthermore, the analysis contained in the EIA is inadequate. Without further information on the industries that will operate in the SEZ, it is impossible to assess and account for the environmental and social impacts. Cumulative impacts are also ignored, and there is little clarity as to why certain sites were selected for traffic or air testing or why waste management data from an industrial zone in another country was used as a substitute for actual information at the Thilawa SEZ."
Source/publisher: Earthrights International
2014-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-06-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.21 MB 1.13 MB
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Description: A briefer on the Thilawa special economic zone....."Twice the Myanmar Government attempted to confiscate residential and farm land for the Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and twice they failed to properly follow Myanmar laws. In both the 1996/97 and 2013 attempts to confiscate lands, the government and private parties ignored the procedures and requirements of Myanmar law, including the Land Acquisition Act. The Myanmar Government failed to properly notify affected communities or provide adequate compensation for relocation. Furthermore, the Thilawa SEZ Management Committee, the Yangon Regional Government, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) violated JICA?s Guidelines for Environmental and Social Consideration (the ?Guidelines”), resulting in significant harm to Thilawa communities. Accordingly, local communities request that these violations be acknowledged and adequately remedied by the Myanmar Government, the Thilawa SEZ Management Committee, and JICA as required by Myanmar law and JICA?s Guidelines..."
Source/publisher: Earthrights International
2015-06-02
Date of entry/update: 2015-06-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 426.86 KB 1.13 MB
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Description: "Elites still think they?re running the show. But farmers are increasingly taking matters into their own hands.....In the streets, paths, and paddy fields of hundreds of Burmese towns and villages, thousands of protesters are mobilizing, in creative and often radical ways, for everything from constitutional change, to educational liberalization, to improved labor standards, to fair energy prices. But most significant — in terms of numbers, commitment, and challenge to the status quo — are the numerous farmers? protests against the land grabs that went on with impunity during the military era and which are continuing today even amidst Burma?s ostensible transition to democracy..."
Creator/author: Elliott Prasse-Freeman
Source/publisher: "Foreign Policy"
2015-04-20
Date of entry/update: 2015-04-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "As Myanmar?s junta prepared to step down from government, the military set about seizing public assets and natural resources to ensure its economic control in a new era of democratic rule. Guns, Cronies and Crops details the collusion at the heart of operations carried out by Myanmar?s armed forces in northeastern Shan State. Large swathes of land were taken from farming communities in the mid-2000s and handed to companies and political associates to develop rubber plantations. Our investigation reveals those involved, including Myanmar?s current Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, U Myint Hlaing, the country?s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, and Sein Wut Hmon, a rubber company which collaborated with the former military junta to gain control of land. These revelations come as Myanmar?s government finalises the drafting of a national land policy, the country?s first. The report documents the toxic legacy of these land grabs on an already marginalised ethnic-minority population, for whom little has changed since the country?s much-lauded transition to civil democracy in 2011. Villagers told Global Witness that they had received no compensation and are struggling to earn a living and feed their families without land to grow food..."
Source/publisher: Global Witness
2015-03-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 5.38 MB
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Description: Documentary by the Land Core Group Myanmar, where 70% of the Myanmar population are smallholder farmers, about the challenges faced by poor farmers from land grabbing and land dispossession in rural Myanmar...Interviews with land activists and dispossessed farmers in different parts of the country... sections on: resistance to land-grabbing; Myanmar land law and policies (where customary tenure and women?s land rights are not explicitly recognised); efficiency of smallholder practice...
Source/publisher: Land Core Group of the Food Security Working Group
2015-03-17
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ (English voice-over and subtitles)
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Thaton Township, Thaton District during April 2014, including updates on gravel mining projects, community education and healthcare... Villagers report a lack of nurses and medics in Thaton Township. Furthermore, Burma/Myanmar government-built clinics have fallen into disrepair due to neglect and a lack of staff... The Max Myanmar company operates a rubber plantation in Shwe Yaung Pya village, Shwe Yaung Pya village tract, Thaton Township, that has negatively affected villagers by confiscating land that villagers use for grazing their livestock and limiting villagers? access to firewood... On April 3rd 2014, villagers reported that Pru Min Tun company, a private domestic company, came to Maw Lay village, Maw Lay village tract in Thaton Township, and coerced the community into granting them mining rights in the area. However, local villagers concerned with the project managed to halt its development."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 190.71 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update was written in October 2014 and describes events occurring in Bu Tho Township, Hpapun District, including issues of land confiscation... The Burma/Myanmar government Land Registration and Management Department and Land Administrative Department in Hpapun District confiscated villagers? lands and gave it to Tatmadaw Light Infantry Battalions (LIBs) #340, #341, #434 and #642, which are under Tatmadaw Southeast Command Headquarters... Tatmadaw Operations Commander (G3) Zaw Myo Tin, who is operating in A--- military camp bought six acres of land from a villager in A--- village. However, when he fenced his land, he incorporated approximately sixty acres, which included other villagers? land... The land owners reported the confiscation of their land to the Karen National Union (KNU), as well as to the Burmese Parliament Representative U Saing Than Naing. With the help of the KNU, some of the villagers were able to continue working on their land."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-02-06
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 168.37 KB
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Description: "This Photo Set depicts land confiscated in Kawkareik and Kyainseikgyi townships, Dooplaya District for infrastructure development and military purposes. These projects include the expansion of existing roads and the construction of new roads, as well as the construction of buildings for use by the Tatmadaw. The photos were taken between December 2013 and September 2014. Villagers did not receive any compensation for their land which was confiscated and destroyed."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-02-12
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.15 MB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Thandaunggyi Township and Htantabin Township, Toungoo District in November 2014, and includes issues of land confiscation, violent abuse, ongoing militarisation and fighting among armed groups... This report describes land confiscation for the purpose of road construction for regional development, building hotels, natural resource extraction, the extension of military camps and agricultural projects. As a result, villagers have experienced displacement, unemployment and are more vulnerable to human trafficking. Villagers were not compensated for their land... Villagers have taken advantage of new Burma/Myanmar government transparency initiatives, gaining information from the land administration office and cooperating with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The Karen National Union (KNU) also completed new land surveys... Saw A--- was violently abused by Tatmadaw soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #590 and needed medical attention to treat his wounds."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-02-20
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 881.17 KB
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Description: "This Interview with Maung A--- describes events occurring in Kawkareik Township, Dooplaya District in October 2010, including the confiscation of his land by the Tatmadaw for the construction of buildings for the Karen Peace Force (KPF). Villagers were not compensated for the land and Maung A--- remains landless and unemployed. He refrained from submitting a formal land claim due to intimidation from the Tatmadaw..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2015-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.26 MB
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Description: "Over the years HURFOM has produced a number of accounts highlighting the hardships faced by Mon farmers who became victims of land confiscation or unjust land acquisition.1 In this report HURFOM follows-up on previously documented abuses and concentrates on an emerging new trend: farmers? active and collective pursuits for rights to their land. Disputed Territory aims to elaborate on the activities of and express solidarity with farmers who are resolutely, and in some cases for the first time, seeking justice regarding their land. To exhibit current challenges and bring into focus some of the key obstacles in the Mon context, this report uses case studies of appeals over past military land confiscations in Ye Township and on-going transgressions by various investors in Kyaikmayaw Township. Where barriers to justice exist, HURFOM recommends effective and immediate solutions. HURFOM contends that farmers? newly voiced demands present an important opportunity for President Thein Sein?s government. Inherent in an environment of growing activism is the chance to meet appeals with justice, thereby demonstrating to domestic and international critics that the administration is committed to a clear break with the abuses of past military regimes. Violations of farmers? rights need to be publicly condemned and owners of wrongfully seized land must have property restored or be given fair compensation. There is an urgent need for the establishment of a credible legal framework to prevent dispossession and violated rights from continuing to be hallmarks of agrarian life under this government?s nominally civilian rule..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM)
2013-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.91 MB
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Description: "In October 2013, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) released "Disputed Territory", a report documenting the emerging trend of Mon farmers fighting for recognition of their land rights in the face of unjust land and property confiscations. The report analyzed specific barriers impeding their success, from weak land policy and inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms, to an absence of support from various sources. While "Disputed Territory" explored the broad spectrum of land right violations among Mon communities, our current report focuses more specifically on the progress, or lack thereof, in cases of military land confiscation. In this regard, over a year has passed and yet Mon farmers continue to find themselves in a fruitless struggle. New details of past and on-going unjust military land acquisition continue to be brought to HURFOM and other media outlets, on the one hand proving that Burma?s political climate has become a safer space for victims to petition their rights, while on the other hand showing that significant challenges continue to preclude true justice for housing land and property (HLP) rights violations. Since the release of "Disputed Territory", and addressing one of the barriers to justice it highlighted, Mon farmers have gained greater access to education regarding their HLP rights, and are more aware of procedural requirements for landholders under the 2012 land laws. However, while farmers have repositioned themselves, armed with information and supported by advocates, progress remains stalled: farmers? land rights and tenancy remain insecure, properties confiscated by the military have not been returned, and farmers have not yet been justly compensated. Although there are legal channels through which farmers may now petition for their rights, appeals go unanswered. Compounding the lack of restitution for previous infractions, Burma?s small-scale farmers continue to live under the threat of future, continued land confiscations. With the value of Burma?s land steadily increasing, farmers are eager to have their land returned to them, or be provided with just compensation. Patience is running thin among those seeking justice, as the government continues to deny responsibility for the military?s crimes and government bodies established to resolve land disputes fail to do so. Farmers have learned their lessons from the past, changed their strategy in fighting for their rights, but the results remain the same. Building on previous analysis, HURFOM contends that continuing barriers to progress lie primarily in the country?s broken land management system, the failures of recent land laws to secure the protection of farmers? land rights, the failure of government bodies and authorities to perform their responsibilities unbiased from military influence, and the total impunity of the military due to the independent structure of the courts-martial. Ultimately, HURFOM advocates that deep structural change regarding these deficiencies is required, in order to redress past violations and protect farmers? land security into the future; in doing so assisting the slow process of reconciliation and trust-building between Burma?s government and Mon populations..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM)
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 834.47 KB 2.59 MB
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Description: "In October 2013, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) released "Disputed Territory", a report documenting the emerging trend of Mon farmers fighting for recognition of their land rights in the face of unjust land and property confiscations. The report analyzed specific barriers impeding their success, from weak land policy and inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms, to an absence of support from various sources. While "Disputed Territory" explored the broad spectrum of land right violations among Mon communities, our current report focuses more specifically on the progress, or lack thereof, in cases of military land confiscation. In this regard, over a year has passed and yet Mon farmers continue to find themselves in a fruitless struggle. New details of past and on-going unjust military land acquisition continue to be brought to HURFOM and other media outlets, on the one hand proving that Burma?s political climate has become a safer space for victims to petition their rights, while on the other hand showing that significant challenges continue to preclude true justice for housing land and property (HLP) rights violations. Since the release of "Disputed Territory", and addressing one of the barriers to justice it highlighted, Mon farmers have gained greater access to education regarding their HLP rights, and are more aware of procedural requirements for landholders under the 2012 land laws. However, while farmers have repositioned themselves, armed with information and supported by advocates, progress remains stalled: farmers? land rights and tenancy remain insecure, properties confiscated by the military have not been returned, and farmers have not yet been justly compensated. Although there are legal channels through which farmers may now petition for their rights, appeals go unanswered. Compounding the lack of restitution for previous infractions, Burma?s small-scale farmers continue to live under the threat of future, continued land confiscations. With the value of Burma?s land steadily increasing, farmers are eager to have their land returned to them, or be provided with just compensation. Patience is running thin among those seeking justice, as the government continues to deny responsibility for the military?s crimes and government bodies established to resolve land disputes fail to do so. Farmers have learned their lessons from the past, changed their strategy in fighting for their rights, but the results remain the same. Building on previous analysis, HURFOM contends that continuing barriers to progress lie primarily in the country?s broken land management system, the failures of recent land laws to secure the protection of farmers? land rights, the failure of government bodies and authorities to perform their responsibilities unbiased from military influence, and the total impunity of the military due to the independent structure of the courts-martial. Ultimately, HURFOM advocates that deep structural change regarding these deficiencies is required, in order to redress past violations and protect farmers? land security into the future; in doing so assisting the slow process of reconciliation and trust-building between Burma?s government and Mon populations..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM)
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.59 MB
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Description: Executive Summary: "This report is the culmination of a one year investigation by Amnesty International into alleged human rights abuses by companies, including multinational companies, operating in Myanmar. The report focuses on the Monywa copper mine project and highlights forced evictions, substantial environmental and social impacts, and the repression, sometimes brutal, of those who try to protest. It also raises serious questions about opaque corporate dealings and possible infringements of economic sanctions on Myanmar. The report calls on the Government of Myanmar to urgently introduce strong measures for the protection of human rights, and on multinational companies and the home governments of those companies to ensure that due diligence is carried out to international standards for all investment in Myanmar...This report examines the issues in relation to one major mining operation - the Monywa project - made up of the Sabetaung and Kyisintaung (S&K) and the Letpadaung copper mines. During an extensive one-year investigation, Amnesty International examined incidents that are specific to the Monywa project as well as some of the wider structural issues ? such as the processes for acquisition of land and environmental protection ? that will affect other extractive projects in Myanmar. The organization found that, since its inception and throughout its various changes in ownership, the Monywa project has been characterised by serious human rights abuses and a lack of transparency. Thousands of people have been forcibly evicted by the government with the knowledge, and in some cases the participation, of foreign companies. Environmental impacts have been poorly assessed and managed, with grave long-term implications for the health and livelihoods of people living near the mine. Protests by communities have been met with excessive force by police...".....CONCLUSION: The Government of Myanmar is responsible for the serious human rights violations that have taken place at the Monywa project over many years. It has forcibly evicted people and has failed to put in place safeguards to protect mine-affected communities from environmental pollution which can im- pact their rights to water and health, amongst other rights. It has shown an unwillingness to monitor corporate activity or to hold companies accountable for the harm their operations cause. The companies involved also bear responsibility. Despite a history of human rights violations sur- rounding the mine, a Canadian company, and subsequently a Chinese company, have invested without undertaking appropriate due diligence to ensure that past abuses were remediated and future abuses prevented. They have profited from abuses that they knew or should have known were happening, and have, in certain cases, themselves abused rights by participating in forced evictions or failing to remediate environmental pollution. The system that enabled the transfer of the Monywa project to a business venture that involved My- anmar military interests, without any transparency as to how such a sale occurred, is emblematic of the lack of accountability that exists around allocations of concessions and contracts in the extractive industry in Myanmar. The people of Myanmar must not see a resource curse unfold as it has done in so many other countries where powerful economic interests profit from a context in which regulation is weak, the government is unwilling to hold powerful political interests accountable and there is little or no transparency. The home states of multinational corporations must ensure that these corporations do not unjustly enrich themselves at the expense of Myanmar?s poorest people. The home states of companies involved in the Monywa project ? Canada and China ? have failed to do this...".....The report also contains critical analyses of Myanmar?s land legislation.
Source/publisher: Amnesty International
2015-02-10
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District in July 2014, including livelihood problems due to land confiscation: In 2014, Tatmadaw Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #603 confiscated over 200 acres of villagers? land without providing any compensation... The villagers requested permission to collect their crops from LIB #603, however they were denied access to their fields. Instead, LIB #603 allowed local female police officers to collect the crops for themselves... The villagers reported this case to the regional sub-township office, as well as both district and state parliaments, however they had not yet received a reply at the time this report was published..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2015-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 132.33 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Bu Tho Township, Hpapun District from February to June 2014, including land confiscation, extortion, violent abuse and updates on economic development projects and access to education: Tatmadaw Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #434 confiscated villagers? farm lands in Meh Ka Law village tract. General Engineering (GE) Platoon Officer U Htay Aung Kyaw gave permission to U D---, from a different village, to produce bricks on the confiscated land, provided he sold all bricks produced to him...Captain Khin Zaw Tun from Ammunition Platoon #642 repaired and extended the fence of his battalion, which included two acres of Saw A---?s field. Captain Khin Zaw Tun then leased back the land he confiscated to the villagers. However, most villagers were not able to afford the leasing fees...On May 5th 2014, two separate incidents were reported whereby villagers? cows were seized by Tatmadaw officers, who demanded 100,000 kyat (US $100.70) for their return...On March 2nd 2014, Border Guard Force (BGF) Officer Tha Beh violently abused two village heads from E--- and F--- village, as well as a sentry from E--- village. The F--- village head was shot in the hand by Officer Tha Beh?s subordinate officer, injuring Officer Tha Beh in the process. The villagers report that although they previously had to be afraid of Officer Tha Beh, they are no longer afraid as he was transferred to another district after the incident."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-12-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 685.43 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District during the period between April and June 2014, including land confiscation and access to education, healthcare and livelihoods: The Burma/Myanmar government provided 1,000 kyat (US $0.97) in A--- village for each student; however the teacher did not pay out the money to the students, saying that she had paid out the money for the cost of transporting school books...There are some mid-wives and medics provided by the Burma/Myanmar government who visit villagers in Maung Nwe Gyi village tract, Kon Taing village tract, Leik Pya Gyi village tract and Leik Pya Ka Lay village tracts area. However, villagers report that they do not vaccinate children in a timely fashion...Villagers report that one woman died during child birth, as the mid-wives appointed by the Burma/Myanmar government are rarely in the village."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-12-17
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 171 KB
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Description: This Short Update describes the confiscation of land belonging to villagers in Don Yin Township, Hpa-an District. The land was confiscated under the threat of violence by members of the Karen National Liberation Army, the KNU/KNLA-Peace Council and other individuals.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 471.68 KB
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Description: This Short Update describes events occurring in Hti Lon Township, Hpa-an District in March 2014, including land confiscation committed by the Burma/Myanmar government and wealthy individuals, destruction of villagers land due to flooding caused by a dam, as well as the strategies of villagers to claim back their land, and obtain compensation for the land that they have lost. In Naung Ka Myaing village, fields belonging to 39 villagers were confiscated and flooded by the Yay Boat Dam (also called the Hti Lon Dam), resulting in the destruction of over 3,000 acres of land. A further 44 villagers had their land confiscated and marked as ?forest land?: The villagers filed an official case with the Burma/Myanmar government, in an attempt to receive compensation, and have submitted a list of landowners and the amount of land they lost, as well as videos portraying the land... Burma News International (bnionline.net) conducted a video news report on the case. A link to the video, as well as a description of its contents, can be found below, following the tables.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-08-15
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 281.44 KB
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Description: This Situation Update describes land confiscation committed by local armed actors in Hlaingbwe, Don Yin and Hti Lon townships, Hpa-an District during 2014: Tatmadaw soldiers destroyed approximately 3,000 acres of villagers? paddy fields during the construction of a dam in Hti Lon village... In the western part of Maw Ko village tract, a monk, coordinating with the Border Guard Force, confiscated villagers? paddy fields and plantations. They also cut down trees which villagers use to make roofing for their houses and turned the area into a rubber plantation... Uncultivated land belonging to villagers who had emigrated to Thailand was confiscated even though the villagers held formal land titles.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 670.2 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Kawkareik Township, Dooplaya District in September 2014, including issues of land confiscation and explicit threats toward villagers. Starting in November 2010, the Tatmadaw began to confiscate A--- villagers land upon which they built houses for their soldiers? families, as well as houses for members of the Border Guard Force (BGF) and the Karen Peace Force (KPF) and their families. Villagers complained to the A--- village head, who felt too afraid to raise the issue with the Military Operations Command (MOC) #19 General Tun Nay Lin. Villagers report having been threatened with arrest by KPF and BGF soldiers if they continue to complain."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-11-20
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 281.26 KB
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Description: This Situation Update describes events occurring in Dwe Lo Township, Hpapun District during February and March 2014, including negative impacts of gold mining and concerns expressed by local villagers regarding education and healthcare.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 366.4 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Kawkareik, Kyonedoe and Kyainseikgyi townships, Dooplaya District between March and May 2014, including issues of land confiscation and updates on villagers? livelihoods and health care."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-08-29
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 168.6 KB
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Description: "This News Bulletin describes human rights abuses occurring in Paingkyon Township, Hpa-an District between February 2013 and July 2014, including killing, forced labour, arbitrary taxation and land confiscation."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 163.29 KB
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Description: The phrase ?land grab” has become common in Myanmar, often making front page news. This reflects the more open political space available to talk about injustices, as well as the escalating severity and degree of land dispossession under the new government. But this seemingly simple two-word phrase is in fact very complex and opaque. It thus deserves greater clarity in order to better understand the deep layers of meaning to farmers in the historical political context of Myanmar. Understanding the deeper significance and meaning that farmers attach to the words ?land grab” entails frank discussions of formerly taboo subjects related to the country?s history of armed conflict, illicit drugs, cronyism and racism. Various state and non-state armed actors have been responsible for land grabs in Myanmar during the past several decades, mirroring recent historical periods.
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Myanmar Times
2014-03-03
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This field report describes events occurring in Toungoo District between January and December 2013. It includes information submitted by KHRG researchers on a range of human rights abuses and other issues of importance to local communities, including violent abuse, landmine contamination, the loss of land and other negative impacts on livelihoods related to infrastructure and industrial projects, on-going militarization and a lack of access to education."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-08-29
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 610.28 KB
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Description: "This Incident Report describes the destruction of farmland belonging to an A--- villager as a result of stone mining in June 2013. The mining work in question was carried out without the consent of villagers living in the area. Villagers living in A--- village expressed concerns that should the mining project expand, their village and plantations would be destroyed, and stated their intention to seek further information about the project."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-08-19
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 170.12 KB
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Hti Lon Township, Hpa-an District in March 2014, including dam construction and the subsequent destruction of villagers land due to flooding, forced relocation, and land confiscation."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-09-10
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 202.23 KB
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Description: "This News Bulletin describes land confiscation which occurred as a result of a road repair and expansion project in Bilin Township, Thaton District, from January 2nd ? 4th, 2014. On January 2nd 2014, the Zwe Nyi Naung Company arrived in D--- village, Hta Paw village tract, Bilin Township, Thaton District to repair and expand a road. The project resulted in the confiscation of villagers? plantation lands, paddy fields and the yard around a house."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-09-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 174.12 KB
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Description: "This Interview with Naw A--- describes events related to land confiscation occurring in Kawkareik Township, Dooplaya District in 2013. The Burma/Myanmar government built a school in B--- village on a plot of land belonging to Naw A---, who was neither consulted before her land was confiscated nor compensated afterwards, and as a consequence had been left homeless"
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This Situation Update describes events occurring in Kyainseikgyi, Kawkareik, and Win Yay townships, Dooplaya District between December 2013 and February 2014, including land confiscation, villagers? livelihoods, abuses, explicit threats and updates on villagers? education and healthcare"
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2014-09-29
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 187.81 KB
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Description: "As Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-Ocha visits Myanmar to revive the stalled Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the governments of Thailand and Myanmar should cooperate to establish a legal framework protecting the human rights of the area?s residents, said the ICJ. The multi-billion dollar Dawei development, strategically located along the Thai-Myanmar peninsula, will be one of Southeast Asia?s largest industrial complexes, with a 250 sq km deep-sea port, petrochemical and heavy industry hub. After the project failed to attract sufficient investment, it was taken over directly by the Dawei SEZ Development Company, jointly owned by the governments of Thailand and Myanmar..."
Creator/author: Daniel Aguirre, Sam Zarifi
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
2014-10-10
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...Through research on Myanmar, we argue that in authoritarian settings where legality has drastically declined, the starting point for cause lawyering lies in advocacy for law itself, in advocating for the regular application of law?s rules. Because this characterization is liable to be misunderstood as formalistic, particularly by persons familiar with less authoritarian, more legally coherent settings than the one with which we are here concerned, it deserves some brief comments before we continue...By insisting upon legal formality as a condition of transformative justice, cause lawyers in Myanmar advocate for the inherent value of rules in the courtroom, but also incrementally build a constituency in the wider society. In advocating for faithful application of declared rules, in insisting on formal legality in the public domain, lawyers encourage people to mobilize around law as an idea, essential for making law meaningful in practice. They promote a notion of the legal system as once more an arena in which citizens can set up interests that are not congruent with those of the state; an arena in which cause lawyering is made viable and in which the cause lawyer has a distinctive role to play..." Includes description and discussion of the Kanma land-grab case.....The digitised version may contain errors so the original is included an an Alternate URL.
Creator/author: Nick Cheesman, Kyaw Min San
Source/publisher: Wisconsin International Law Journal
2014-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-08-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 226.32 KB 1.57 MB
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Description: "President of Myanmar, U Thein Sein, announced that the government cannot give back over 30,000 acres of paddy land that the state has been using since it was confiscated by the army two decades ago. On the one hand the President ordered state and regional governments and land management committee to cooperate with members of the parliament to solve the problem of land grabbing cases. On the other hand he has announced the government cannot handover some land back. This is leading to prosecution and prison sentences for the farmers in conflict with the army regarding their land...On 27 and 28 May 2014, 190 farmers from Pharuso Township, Kayah State were prosecuted for ploughing in land confiscated by No.531 Light Infantry Battalion. Tanintharyi regional government seized farmland for Dawei New Town Plan Project in Dawai Township and the District Administrative Officer with his team began construction on the grabbed land. Twenty farmers who did not take compensation for their land tried to halt the team. As a result, all the farmers were prosecuted; 10 were sentenced to 3 to 9 months imprisonment and the others paid fines. There are 450 farmers from Kanbalu Township, Sagaing Region who are protesting against the military and have had cases filed against them for cultivating in the confiscated land..."
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission
2014-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Land confiscation is one of the leading causes of protest and unrest in Burma, having led to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in recent years. It also undermines Burma?s fragile peace processes... •The 2008 constitution and subsequent laws are used to legitimize arbitrary land confiscation, deny access to justice, and perpetuate an environment of impunity... • Land confiscation for profitable large-scale development and commercial projects enrich the military, state- owned enterprises, and regime cronies, but result in the loss of livelihood and human rights abuses for local communities... • Land confiscation often involves violence, resulting in grievous injury, to force people off their land, or to suppress resistance to land confiscation... • Benefiting from land grabs, linked in some cases to ethnic cleansing or war atrocities, poses a risk to foreign investors and increases their exposure to judicial claims... • Prevailing censorship and other institutional obstr uctions hinder access to accurate information required for due diligence processes. • It is in the interests of the international corpora te community to ensure that legislative and institution reforms include equitable and transpare nt land acquisition procedures and measures to protect communities from impunity... Since President Thein Sein took office in 2011, the regime has allowed unbridled land confiscation for infrastructure, commercial and military development projects... The 2008 constitution identifies the state as being the ultimate owner of all land in Burma. Antiquated laws such as the 1894 Lan d Acquisition Act give the regime the right to take o ver any land, making local people extremely vulnerable to forced displacement without any recourse to remedy. Given that an estimated 70% of the population depend on small- and medium-scale agriculture for their livelihoods, land confiscation has had a devastating impact."
Source/publisher: ALTSEAN-Burma
2014-05-05
Date of entry/update: 2014-06-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. The international community, whose Western representatives so readily flock to Myanmar in both good will and selfish interest, is often an unwitting contributor to the country?s persistent instability. This will likely lead not to intended peace but to more unwanted war until certain facts are fully faced..."
Creator/author: Tim Heinemann
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
2014-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-05-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Over the course of 2013 the Asian Human Rights Commission has followed reports of a larger number of conflicts over land grabs and attempted grabs in Burma, or Myanmar. Some of the conflicts are over recently taken land, and others are reinitiating struggles begun many years ago. These land grabs include the well-known expansion of the Letpadaung Hills copper mine in Salingyi Township, Sagaing Region, under a joint project of the armed forces? holding company and a Chinese partner; the conflict between farmers and police in Ma-Ubin, in the delta, over the taking of land by a private firm with backing of local officials; and, a land grab by the police force itself in Nattalin Township, Bago Region. Most recently, news reports and online sites have detailed how villagers in Migyaunggan, Mandalay Region, have begun protesting to reclaim land taken from them by an army detachment. The local administration and cantonment board have issued warnings to protestors to desist with their actions. Meantime, senior officials have come to investigate the complaints about the land and learned that the army has no documentation to show that it is entitled to occupy the contested area. Under noxious laws passed in 2010, prior to the transfer of power to the current semi-elected government in Burma, the army retains authority to designate and use land for a variety of purposes. In the case of the Cantonment Municipalities Law, No. 32/2010, the armed forces can establish bodies for the management of land designated as being part of cantonment towns. Under the Facilities and Operations for National Defence Law of the same year, the armed forces can issue designations concerning land under or adjacent to their facilities..."
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission
2013-12-17
Date of entry/update: 2013-12-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Burma?s dramatic turn-around from ?axis of evil? to western darling in the past year has been imagined as Asia?s ?final frontier? for global finance institutions, markets and capital. Burma?s agrarian landscape is home to three-fourths of the country?s total population which is now being constructed as a potential prime investment sink for domestic and international agribusiness. The Global North?s development aid industry and IFIs operating in Burma has consequently repositioned itself to proactively shape a pro-business legal environment to decrease political and economic risks to enable global finance capital to more securely enter Burma?s markets, especially in agribusiness. But global capitalisms are made in localized places - places that make and are made from embedded social relations. This paper uncovers how regional political histories that are defined by very particular racial and geographical undertones give shape to Burma?s emerging agro-industrial complex. The country?s still smoldering ethnic civil war and fragile untested liberal democracy is additionally being overlain with an emerging war on food sovereignty. A discursive and material struggle over land is taking shape to convert subsistence agricultural landscapes and localized food production into modern, mechanized industrial agro-food regimes. This second agrarian transformation is being fought over between a growing alliance among the western development aid and IFI industries, global finance capital, and a solidifying Burmese military-private capitalist class against smallholder farmers who work and live on the country?s now most valuable asset - land. Grassroots resistances increasingly confront the elite capitalist class? attempts to corporatize food production through the state?s rule of law and police force. Farmers, meanwhile, are actively developing their own shared vision of food sovereignty and pro-poor land reform that desires greater attention.... Food Sovereignty: a critical dialogue, 14 - 15 September, New Haven.
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2013-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2013-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in May 2013 by a community member describing events occurring in Papun District mostly between March 2012 and March 2013, and also provides details on abuses since 2006. The report specifically describes incidents of forced labour, theft, logging, land confiscation and gold mining. The situation update describes military activity from August 2012 to January 2013, specifically Tatmadaw soldiers from Infantry Battalion (IB) #96 ordering villagers to make thatch shingles and cut bamboo. Moreover, soldiers stole villagers? thatch shingles, bamboo canes and livestock. It also describes logging undertaken by wealthy villagers with the permission of the Karen National Union (KNU) and contains updated information concerning land confiscation by Tatmadaw Border Guard Force (BGF) Battalions #1013 and #1014. The update also reports on gold mining initiatives led by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) that started in 2010. At that time, civilians were ordered to work for the DKBA, and their lands, rivers and plantations were damaged as a result of mining operations. The report also notes economic changes that accompanied mining. In previous years villagers could pan gold from the river and sell it as a hedge against food insecurity. Now, however, options are limited because they must acquire written permission to pan in the river. This situation update also documents villager responses to abuses, and notes that an estimated 10 percent of area villagers favour corporate gold mining, while 90 percent oppose the efforts..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2013-07-16
Date of entry/update: 2013-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 292.46 KB
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Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in December 2012 by a community member describing events occurring in Dooplaya District, between July and November 2012. The report describes problems relating to land confiscation and contains updated information regarding the sale of forest reserve for rubber plantations involving the BGF, with individuals who profited from the sale listed. Villagers in the area rely heavily upon the forest reserve for their livelihoods and are faced with a shortage of land for their animals to graze upon; further, villagers cows have been killed if they have continued to let them graze in the area. The community member explains that although fighting has ceased since the ceasefire agreement, otherwise the situation is the same; taxation demands and loss of livelihoods has resulted in villagers being forced to take odd jobs for daily wages, while some have left for foreign countries in search of work. Villagers have some access to healthcare and education supported by the Government, the KNU and local organizations..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2013-06-11
Date of entry/update: 2013-07-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 61.48 KB
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Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in February 2013 by a community member describing events occurring in T?Nay Hsah Township, Hpa-an District between June 2012 and February 2013. The report describes monks demanding money and labour from villagers for the building of roads and pagodas. Also detailed in this report is the loss of money and possessions by many villagers through playing the two-digit lottery. Further, the report describes the cutting down of forest in Yaw Ku and in Kru Per village tracts by the DKBA and the BGF, including 30 t?la aw trees, which villagers rely upon for their housing; the Tatmadaw have also designated land for sale without consulting local villagers. This report also describes the prevalence of amphetamine use and sale in the area, involving both young people and armed groups including the BGF, KPF and DKBA. Finally, the report details the ongoing danger posed by landmines, which continue to stop villagers from going about their livelihoods and are reportedly still being planted by armed groups..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2013-06-05
Date of entry/update: 2013-07-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 241.74 KB
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Description: "Inadequate land laws have opened rural Myanmar to rampant land grabbing by unscrupulous, well-connected businessmen who anticipate a boom in agricultural and property investment. If unchecked, the gathering trend has the potential to undermine the country?s broad reform process and impede long-term economic progress. Under the former military regime, land grabbing became a common and largely uncontested practice. Government bodies, particularly military units, were able to seize large tracts of farmland, usually without compensation. While some of the land Land grabbing as big business in Myanmar By Brian McCartan Inadequate land laws have opened rural Myanmar to rampant land grabbing by unscrupulous, well-connected businessmen who anticipate a boom in agricultural and property investment. If unchecked, the gathering trend has the potential to undermine the country?s broad reform process and impede long-term economic progress. Under the former military regime, land grabbing became a common and largely uncontested practice. Government bodies, particularly military units, were able to seize large tracts of farmland, usually without compensation. While some of the land was used for the expansion of military bases, new government offices or infrastructure projects, much of it was used either by military units for their own commercial purposes or sold to private companies. The threat of military force meant there was little grass roots opposition to these land seizures and few avenues to secure adequate compensation. That?s changed under the new democratic order as local communities band together to fight back against seizure of their lands. Many of the current land disputes date to the period before the 2010 general elections that ushered in President Thein Sein?s reformist quasi-civilian government...Two new land laws passed on March 30, 2012 - the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow, and Virgin Land Management Law - were intended to clarify ownership under the constitution and provide protections to land owners. While the laws guaranteed more individual ownership rights, to date big businesses have profited most from the legislation. The new laws created a dysfunctional and opaque system of land registration and administration that reinforced a top-down decision-making process without local participation. The absence of adequate legal and judicial recourse for the protection of land rights has further exacerbated the situation. Rather than deter land rights violations, the laws have effectively facilitated more land grabbing and manipulation of the system..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
2013-03-08
Date of entry/update: 2013-06-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "About 40 ethnic activist groups are calling on the government, ethnic militias and the international community to address a surge in land-grabbing, as companies move into Burma?s ethnic regions following recent ceasefire agreements. But their campaign was off to a rocky start on Thursday when two government committees on land use declined to meet the activists. Kevin Woods, a researcher with the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI), said the Land Investment Committee, headed by Union Solidarity Development Party MP Tin Htut, and the Land Allotment and Utilization Scrutiny Committee, chaired by Win Tun Min of the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry, had turned down requests to meet with the groups. ?They are the two most important committees for us to meet,” Woods said on Thursday, as the activists prepared to leave for the Burmese capital Naypyidaw. ?If these committees won?t meet civil society groups from ethnic areas, where most land disputes are happening, then how do they expect to address these issues?”..."
Creator/author: Paul Vrieze
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2013-05-09
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)... Text box extracted from "Access Denied - Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Burma" by TNI/BCN, May 2013 at http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs15/TNI-accesdenied-briefing11-red.pdf
Creator/author: Jennifer Franco
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centre Netherlands
2013-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 43.88 KB 160.52 KB
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Description: "An advisor to President Thein Sein met with a group of ethnic activists in Naypyidaw on Friday and tried to assuage their concerns over a recent rise in land conflicts in Burma?s ethnic areas. Tin Htut Oo, chairman of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council (NEASAC), told the activists that the government?s attempt at establishing ?rule of law” would protect ethnic communities against land-grabbing. Last week, about 40 activist groups met in Rangoon and called on the government, ethnic rebel militias and the international community to ensure that the recent ceasefires in ethnic areas do not lead to a surge in land-grabbing, deforestation and the damming of rivers. NEASAC and several other presidential advisory bodies agreed to meet the groups, which were led by the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute and the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, in order to listen to their concerns. The groups had also wanted to meet with the two most important government committees on land tenure, but their request for a meeting was declined, to the anger of the organizers..."
Creator/author: LAWI WENG
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2013-05-12
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: The reform process in Burma/Myanmar by the quasi-civilian government of President Thein Sein has raised hopes that a long overdue solution can be found to more than 60 years of devastating civil war... Burma?s ethnic minority groups have long felt marginalized and discriminated against, resulting in a large number of ethnic armed opposition groups fighting the central government ? dominated by the ethnic Burman majority ? for ethnic rights and autonomy. The fighting has taken place mostly in Burma?s borderlands, where ethnic minorities are most concentrated. Burma is one of the world?s most ethnically diverse countries. Ethnic minorities make up an estimated 30-40 percent of the total population, and ethnic states occupy some 57 percent of the total land area and are home to poor and often persecuted ethnic minority groups. Most of the people living in these impoverished and war-torn areas are subsistence farmers practicing upland cultivation. Economic grievances have played a central part in fuelling the civil war. While the central government has been systematically exploiting the natural resources of these areas, the money earned has not been (re)invested to benefit the local population... Conclusions and Recommendations: The new land and investment laws benefit large corporate investors and not small- holder farmers, especially in ethnic minority regions, and do not take into account land rights of ethnic communities. The new ceasefires have further facilitated land grabbing in conflict-affected areas where large development projects in resource-rich ethnic regions have already taken place. Many ethnic organisations oppose large-scale economic projects in their territories until inclusive political agreements are reached. Others reject these projects outright. Recognition of existing customary and communal tenure systems in land, water, fisheries and forests is crucial to eradicate poverty and build real peace in ethnic areas; to ensure sustainable livelihoods for marginalized ethnic communities affected by decades of war; and to facilitate the voluntary return of IDPs and refugees. Land grabbing and unsustainable business practices must halt, and decisions on the allocation, use and management of natural resources and regional development must have the participation and consent of local communities. Local communities must be protected by the government against land grabbing. The new land and investment laws should be amended and serve the needs and rights of smallholder farmers, especially in ethnic regions.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centre Netherlands
2013-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 160.52 KB
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Description: This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in January 2013 by a community member describing events occurring in Nyaunglebin District during the period between November 2012 and January 2013. Specifically, it describes the confiscation of more than 2375.14 acres of villagers? land by Tatmadaw Infantry Battalion #60. One villager was required by Light Infantry Battalion #264 soldiers to collect 250,000 kyat per month from the villagers who operate gold ore processing machines. The community member also describes how, despite the January 2012 ceasefire being in effect, the Tatmadaw continues to increase resupply missions in the area, which has created alarm amongst local civilians. As part of a CIDKP pilot project, 173 sacks of rice have been distributed to Muh Theh villagers. The community member reports that there was an increase in medical care in the area, where Tatmadaw medics travelled with armed soldiers to three towns in KNU-controlled areas in Kyauk Kyi Township, while FBR medics travelled with unarmed KNLA soldiers to Tatmadaw-controlled areas. In response to the land confiscation, villagers? reported their complaints by submitting a letter to the Burma government, however, no response had been received as of January.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2013-04-09
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.53 MB
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Description: The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns in the strongest terms the announcement of the commander of the Sagaing Region Police Force, Myanmar, that the police will arrest and charge eight human rights defenders whom it blames for inciting protests against the army-backed copper mine project at the Letpadaung Hills, in Monywa. The commission also condemns the latest round of needless police violence against demonstrators there.
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
2013-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns in the strongest terms the announcement of the commander of the Sagaing Region Police Force, Myanmar, that the police will arrest and charge eight human rights defenders whom it blames for inciting protests against the army-backed copper mine project at the Letpadaung Hills, in Monywa. The commission also condemns the latest round of needless police violence against demonstrators there..."
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission
2013-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "(Hong Kong, April 10, 2013) A Burma-based lawyers group has released its findings on the Letpadaung land struggle in English. The 39-page illustrated report was submitted by the Lawyers Network (Myanmar) and the Justice Trust in February to the government?s investigation commission into events at Letpadaung, recounts the land struggle and subsequent crackdown on protestors. The Asian Human Rights Commission said that the report offered further evidence to support arguments that the mining operation ought to be halted, and criminal actions brought against police and other officials responsible for orders to disperse protestors through the use of incendiary weapons. "It is alarming that despite having such evidence available to it, not only did the investigation commission endorse the continuation of the mining project, but also said literally nothing about the criminal responsibility of the police and other authorities involved in the brutal attack on peaceful demonstrators," Bijo Francis, acting executive director of the Hong Kong-based regional rights group, said. .."
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
2013-04-10
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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