‘With Only Our Voices, What Can We Do?’: Land Confiscation and Local Response in Southeast Myanmar

ORCHID HOTEL, YANGON – 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 […]

‘With Only Our Voices, What Can We Do?’: Land Confiscation and Local Response in Southeast Myanmar

ORCHID HOTEL, YANGON – 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 the 2015 report, ‘With only our voices, what can we do?’, KHRG highlights four main land use types which lead to land confiscation, including 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. However, 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 […]

ND-Burma Releases its New Report About Acknowledgement and Reparation for the Crimes of the Present and of the Past

ND-Burma releases its new report, titled “To Recognize and Repair: Unofficial Truth Projects and the Need for Justice in Burma,”focusing on the need for acknowledgement of human rights violations victims’ experiences and for addressing their needs through reparation policy […]

Amnesty International Annual Report – Myanmar Chapter

Despite ongoing political, legal and economic reforms, progress on human rights stalled, with some backward steps in key areas. The situation of the Rohingya deteriorated, with ongoing discrimination in law and practice exacerbated by a dire humanitarian situation. Anti-Muslim violence persisted, with the authorities failing to hold suspected perpetrators to account. Reports of abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law in areas of armed conflict persisted. Freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly remained severely restricted, with scores of human rights defenders, journalists and political activists arrested and imprisoned. Impunity persisted for past crimes […]

Land Policies and Laws Must Reflect Rights and Interests of Vulnerable Communities

Amid the various serious issues currently dominating the headlines about Burma – including the upcoming elections, the escalation in fighting between the Burma Army and ethnic armies, the recent crackdown on workers’ protests, this year’s student marches, and ongoing religious tensions – it is important that people do not lose sight of the land issue. Like other developing South-East Asian countries, Burma is grappling with the sticky and complex problems of land ownership, rights and use. As is often the case, it is the poor and marginalized communities who are most vulnerable to exploitation and human rights abuses, particularly small-scale farmers in Burma’s beleaguered ethnic regions.

This month Human Rights Foundation of Monland-Burma (HURFOM) released a report titled “Yearning to be Heard: Mon Farmers’ Continued Struggle for Acknowledgement and Protection of their Rights” – a follow-up to their 2013 report “Disputed Territory: Mon Farmers’ Fight Against Unjust Land Acquisition and Barriers to Their Progress.” It argues 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.” A salient example of such impunity, mentioned in the report, is the confiscation of more than 2,000 acres of rubber plantation in Thanbyuzayat Township, Mon State, over the past year. Regrettably, such land rights abuses betray the paltry extent to which the Burma Government is able to influence the Burma Army and rein in its illegal activities […]

Yearning to be Heard: Mon Farmers’ Continued Struggle for Acknowledgement and Protection of their Rights

Land conflict is the most pressing issue facing Burma today, second only to armed conflict. Though Burma’s emerging democratic government has introduced land policy reform and has established land investigation commissions aimed to resolve land conflicts, civilian land acquisition by the Burmese military continues to take place, particularly in Burma’ minority ethnic areas.

Michaungkan Protesters Light Candles in Front of Rangoon City Hall

Villagers from the eastern Rangoon suburb of Michaungkan staged a peaceful candlelit vigil outside Rangoon City Hall on December 12, in protest of the government’s controversial land grabs.

The protestors claim they lost their land under government redevelopment plans and have been occupying a protest camp near Maha Bandoola Park in the city centre for more than 260 days. […]

Two Injured as Latpadaung Protestors Clash with Police

A confrontation between protestors and police left two villagers injured near the Latpadaung copper mine project in Sagaing Division on Saturday.

One villager was injured by rubber bullets while another was injured by a slingshot after protests broke out on Laikkhun Hill. Police were attempting to fence-off the land when they were confronted by locals who have refused compensation as part of government land seizures. […]

Locals Protest Hakha Main Road Widening

Local people of Hakha town are protesting the widening of Bochauk Road in capital Hakha, Chin state. The road laying would have started in the first week of this month. Over 42 local residents put their signatures on a statement and sent it to the Chief Minister of Chin state demanding the authorities consider compensation for losing their lands if the road widening takes place. […]

၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏွင့္ ပြင့္လင္းလူ႔အဖြဲ႔အစည္း (လယ္ယာစီးပြားႏွင့္ ေတာင္သူလယ္သမား ေရးရာဌာန) အမ်ဳိးသားေျမ အသုံးခ်မႈ မူ၀ါဒ (မူၾကမ္း)ႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ သေဘာထား ထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္