More Oral Intervention delivered by

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Subject: More Oral Intervention delivered by Chin deligation at UNWGIP

17th SESSION UNITED NATIONS WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POLULATION
(26th - 30th July, 1999)
United Nations.
Geneva.

ORAL INTERVENTION DELEVERED BY MR. Suikhar ( Chin National Front)

Madam Chairperson and distinguished delegates:

I am Suikhar and represent the Chin indigenous peoples who live between 
India, Burma and Bangladesh.Burma has been under military dictatorship since 
1962. As soon as the military regime took State Power, all individual 
property was nationalized including land. In 1962, the regime established 
the Land Reform Committee. In the same year, this committee enacted the Land 
Reform Act. According to this Act, all land came under the State ownership 
and no pre-existing laws or customary laws can override this. As a result of 
Land Reform Act, which contradicts all human rights, our Chin indigenous 
peoples no longer have any rights to our land.

Madam Chairperson:

To indigenous peoples, our ancestral land is the very source of our life. 
>From it springs each indigenous community's distinct economic, political, 
and cultural system. Ancestral land is tied up with the very ethnicity of 
our Chin indigenous peoples, in as much as our distinct cultures have 
developed interaction and in adaptation to specific environments. When the 
military regime confiscated or forcibly dislocated from our ancestral lands, 
our Chin indigenous peoples also greatly suffer the loss of our distinct 
identities. For instance, we the Chin people have specific place for ritual 
based on clan. If we are forcibly relocated or our ritual places are 
confiscated for other purposes, we could no longer make any ritual in new 
place like the Israel could not sing a praising to God in exile land.

Madam Chairperson:

Accordance with Chin customary laws, ownership of land is divided into three 
types. Some land are owned in common by the whole community, for instance, 
ritual place, hunting place, river and etc? Some land are owned by a clan or 
kinship group especailly it is used for cultivation. Some land are owned by 
individual private land, we practice our own way to worship to god for good 
harvesting. In this land, we practice our customs and traditions. If our 
lands are confiscated, how can we practice our customs and traditions.

Madam Chairperson:

As mention has been made in above that ancestral land is the very source of 
life and tied up with the very ethnicity of our Chin indigenous peoples. In 

contrast to this, the military regime of Burma considers our ancestral land 
as a mere commodity just like any other commercial factor for production. It 
can thus be appropriated by any body and the owner can do with the land 
whatever ho chooses to. In addition, the military regime is trying to 
assimilate Chin indigenous people by means of cultural genocide. Therefore, 
the military regime confiscated our ancestral land using with the Land 
Reform Act. Or else, we the Chin indigenous peoples are intentionally 
relocated from our ancestral land lest we can practice our customs and 
traditions.

For instance, 6000 acres of cultivating land nearby Haikhawl village was 
confiscated by the military regime in 1997 for Burmese Army to cultivate for 
themselves. But the Burmese army didn't use it for cultivation so that the 
owners of the land asked to military regime. The military regime said that 
if they can give 10 million Kyats, it will be returned back. The owners 
collected the money what the military regime demanded and bribed to the 
regime, but land is not given back yet still today. In addition, over 40 
villages were relocated in 1998 citing security reason.

Madam Chairperson:

If we let the military regime confiscated continuously our land, it threats 
not only our economic but also our existence. We are facing these problems 
because of depriving of rights of self-determination to our land. Therefore, 
I request governments and international communities to pay attention to 
solve our problems.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson

17th Session of United Nations Working Group on
Indigenous Populations
26-30th July 1999
United Nations
Geneva
Intervention delivered by Mr. Khua Uk Lian

Respected Madam Chairperson and distinguished delegates :

First of all, let me say how pleased and proud I am to have the opportunity 
to speak during this session.

I am Khua Uk Lian, and I represent Chin Human Rights Organization. The Chin 
people live between India and Burma. I would like to describe the situation 
regarding the ethnic Chins' territory today, following immemorial 
generations of Chin indigenous peoples who inherited and inhabited this 
territory.

Madam Chairperson,

We feel that it is very important to ensure and secure the rights of 
indigenous peoples to their land. Unfortunately, indigenous rights to land 
not only aren't secured, but, on the contrary, indigenous peoples are 
deprived of their rights due to insatiable capitalistic MNCS (Multi-national 
corporations) and brutal military dictatorships (Burma has been under 
military dictatorship since 1962). I would like to address during this 
session, the situation with respect to violations of the right to free 
movement and residence, restrictions on using land for religious purposes or 
for agriculture.

Madam Chairperson,

Our mainstay profession is agriculture, which we practice within a rotating 
system of slash and burn cultivation. The military regime lays land mines on 
our farms in order to prevent us from using our land freely. This, of 
course, represents a dire situation for our people. In some cases, the 
Burmese Army extorts money from Chin people, promising, in return for 

payment, not to put land mines on their farms. Moreover, the military regime 
rampantly confiscated our land for military camps or for their own personal 
benefit.

Madam Chairperson,

Using their might, their law and their order, the military regime is denying 
the rights of the Chin indigenous people to use our land even for religious 
purposes. Their law and order exercises jurisdiction over our sacred lands. 
For instance, we celebrated the statewide Chin Christian Centennial Jubilee 
in March 1999. By order of the State Peace and Development Council (State 
Administrative Council), under the chairmanship of Colonel Than Aung, 
military personnel forcibly dismantled the holy cross that was erected by 
the Chin people in commemoration of this centennial Jubilee. This not only 
represents a sheer and blatant violation of our land rights, but also the 
desecration of our sacred land. When our Chin elders asked why the holy 
cross was dismantled, the local officials replied that every single square 
foot of land belongs to the state and cannot be used without prior 
permission from the authorities. We condemned the military regime for this 
crime but they ignored us, as they also always have done in the past as 
well.

Madam Chairperson,

Hence we appeal to, and urge, our brother indigenous peoples, as well as the 
international community and other human rights loving people from all over 
the world, to cooperate in and support us in our struggle to regain our 
inalienable land rights.

Thank you Madam Chair.


COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Sub-commission on prevention of Discrimination
And protection of Minorities
Working Group on Indigenous Populations
17th Session
26-30 July 1999
Geneva.

Statement by Mr. Malsawmliana in the seventeenth session of the Working 
Group on Indigenous Populations, Geneva.

Respected Madam Chair and Distinguished Delegates,

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks for the opportunity 
to intervene during this session.

My name is Malsawmliana and I represent the Chin Organization in exile, Chin 
Relief and Development Committee based in India. The Chin peoples reside in 
the north-western part of Burma, the Chin state and its surrounding areas.

Madam Chair,

The Chin peoples were a free and independent nation until the British 
invasion in 1895. Then, in 1947, the Chin, Kachin, Shan and Burman leaders 
signed the Panglong Agreement in which they agreed to form a federal union. 
In 1948, the Chin and the other parties to the Panglong Agreement gained 
independence, forming the Union of Burma. The Union of Burma enjoyed a 
multi-party democratic system until the military coup led by General Ne Win 
in 1962. Since then Burma has been ruled by military dictatorships, under 
various names, of the Burmese Army.

Madam Chair,

The military regime, as soon as it seized power, changed the law concerning 
land ownership. According to the regime's new law, all land belongs to the 
state. The farmers and peasants are the victims worst effected by the 
regime's unjust law. They no longer have the right to grow what they want on 
their own land. They must cultivate what the regime orders them to. The 

peasants in paddy cultivable areas must grow a kind of paddy that the regime 
forces them to cultivate.

The peasants also must sell their produce to the regime for a very low 
price, compared to the market rate. For instance, of the 40-50 tins of paddy 
yielded per acre, 12 tins must be sold to the regime at the price that they 
themselves fix. In addition, since 1995, the regime forces each peasant to 
contribute one tin of paddy per acre for the army and the bureaucrats; this 
without any payment in return.

Madam Chair,

I would like to give another example of the regime's unjust treatment of the 
Chin people; this particular case in Tiddim township of the Chin state. In 
1997, Chin State Peace and Development Council confiscated 1000 acres of 
paddy fields from the Chin peoples without paying them any compensation what 
so ever.

Most of the Chin peoples live from forest produce as well as rotating slash 
and burn cultivation. The regime, while it was named State Law and Order 
Restoration Council, issued an order banning our traditional method of 
cultivation and chopping down trees for fuel. They did this without 
providing any alternative means for the Chin to earn their livelihood. 
However, in contradiction to this order, military personnel exploit the 
timber and forest produce for their own personal gain..

Madam Chair,

I would like to point out another sad thing that the Burmese army is doing 
on the Chin people's land. Army personnel, in association with non 
indigenous businessmen, are operating orchid picking and sandal wood 
lumbering businesses in Chinland. They do not grow the orchids in nurseries, 
but, rather, collect rare species from the forest. In order to do this, they 
fell entire trees. To search for sandal wood they burn down whole jungles.

Madam Chair,

Those are only a few of the very many examples that I could bring to the 
attention of the Working Group in this session concerning how the Chin 
Indigenous peoples are helplessly facing expropriation of their lands by the 
military regime.

Finally, for the Chin indigenous peoples to enjoy their inalienable rights 
on their own land, we feel that Chin representatives must be included in the 
democratically elected legislative body and decision making body of the 
nation. To this end I would like to earnestly express our need for the 
intervention of governments and the entire international community to search 
for a solution to this untenable state of affairs.

Thank you, Madam Chair







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