Agricultural land confiscation/grabbing

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Description: NGO working on housing, land and property rights (HLP) http://mebel-it.com.ua/shkafyi/dlya-odezhdyi http://getenergy.ru/?page_id=10
Source/publisher: Displacement Solutions
Date of entry/update: 2009-08-29
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Several articles on land grabbing in Burma/Myanmar
Source/publisher: farmlandgrab.org
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-14
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: A global coalition of 14 Partners and over 120 international, regional and community organizations advancing forest tenure, policy, and market reforms..... Core Beliefs: "Based on our experience, we find that empowerment of rural people and asset-based development are part of a process that is dependent on a set of enabling conditions, including security of tenure to access and use natural resources. As a coalition of diverse and varied organizations, RRI is guided by a set of core beliefs... Rights of Poor Communities Must Be Recognized and Strengthened: We believe it is possible to achieve the seemingly irreconcilable goals of alleviating poverty, conserving forests and encouraging sustained economic growth in forested regions. However, for this to happen, the rights of poor communities to forests and trees, as well as their rights to participate fully in markets and the political processes that regulate forest use, must be recognized and strengthened. ... Progress Requires Supporting and Responding to Local Communities: We believe that progress requires supporting, and responding to, local community organizations and their efforts to advance their own well-being... Now is the Time to Act: We believe that the next few decades are particularly critical. They represent an historic moment where there can be either dramatic gains, or losses, in the lives and well-being of the forest poor, as well as in the conservation and restoration of the world?s threatened forests... Progress Requires Engagement and Constructive Participation by All: It is clear that progress on the necessary tenure and policy reforms requires constructive participation by communities, governments and the private sector, as well as new research and analysis of policy options and new mechanisms to share learning between communities, governments and the private sector... Reforming Forest Tenure and Governance Requires a Focused and Sustained Global Effort: We believe that reforming forest tenure and governance to the scale necessary to achieve either the Millennium Development Goals, or the broader goals of improved well-being, forest conservation and sustained-forest-based economic growth will require a new, clearly focused and sustained global effort by the global development community."
Source/publisher: Rights and Resources Initiative
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-22
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English (French and Spanish also available)
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Topic: Land grab; resistance; agrarian climate justice; Myanmar; Burma; democracy
Topic: Land grab; resistance; agrarian climate justice; Myanmar; Burma; democracy
Description: "ABSTRACT: The intersection between land grabs and climate change mitigation politics in Myanmar has created new political opportunities for scaling up, expanding and deepening struggles toward ‘agrarian climate justice’. Building on the concepts of ‘political opportunities’ and ‘rural democratization’ to understand how rural politics is relevant to national regime changes in the process of deepening democracy, this paper argues that scaling up beyond the local level becomes necessary to counter the concentration of power at higher levels. At the same time, this vertical process is inextricable from building horizontal networks and rooting struggles in communities. By looking at national-level land policy advocacy for more just land laws, accountability politics in mining at a regional level in the southern Tanintharyi region, and the bottom-up establishment of local indigenous territories, this paper illustrates how expanding these struggles becomes necessary, but is also accompanied by potential faultlines. These fault-lines include divergent political tendencies within the network and challenges to working in areas contested by the Burmese state and ethnic armed organizations.....Introduction: Political reactions ‘from below’ to what has been termed ‘the global land grab’ following the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been diverse, ranging from resistance to grabs and mobilizations across local, regional, national and transnational levels, to negotiations to improve compensation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals (Hall et al. 2015; Borras and Franco 2013). Attention has been given to the importance of ‘convergence’ across struggles, around common demands for system change, food sovereignty or climate justice as a strategy to strengthen demands against powerful actors (Tramel 2018; Mills 2018; Claeys and Delgado Pugley 2017). However, linking local and national struggles with transnational movements also brings accompanying tensions, as these have their own histories (Edelman and Borras 2016; Peluso, Afiff, and Rachman 2008). While studies have looked at different ways in which mobilizations have engaged with the state, this contribution looks specifically at the context of a national regime transition in Myanmar, namely from authoritarian militarism to nominal democracy, and how agrarian resistance shapes and is shaped by these changes at national level. Reforms in 2011/2012 in Myanmar under President Thein Sein intensified entry of capital into infrastructure, land and extractive industries, deepening liberalization policies that began in 1988 under the SLORC/SPDC governments. Open conflict still continues between the Burmese military and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in some areas. In others, ceasefires have created a situation of ‘neither war nor peace economy’, building on earlier rounds of ceasefires in the 1990s, in which the Burmese military steered EAOs toward businesses, granting them concessions as part of a strategy of political neutralization (Kramer forthcoming). The term ‘ceasefire capitalism’, has similarly been used to describe the entry of foreign and domestic capital into infrastructure development, large-scale land concessions, mining licenses and forest demarcation in previous conflict areas (Woods 2011). National elites linked to the military are consolidating a new form of crony capitalism, building on the historic concentration of power in businesses and conglomerates in what has sometimes been considered an emerging oligarchy (Jones 2014; Ford, Gillan, and Thein 2016). While these changes have created threats, they have also opened political opportunities for mobilizations ‘from below’, in the context of increased formal civil and political rights even as targeted repression through jailing and threatening of farmers and journalists still persists. New land laws, such as the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law (2012) and the Farmland Law (2012), facilitate the acquisition of land by powerful actors, but discussions around the National Land Use Policy (NLUP) have also created openings for actors ‘from below’ to influence policy-making and attempt to shift this balance of power (Franco and Ju 2016). Similarly, multi-stakeholder platforms such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) have created new frameworks for investment that can threaten existing livelihoods, but have also allowed civil society actors to push for greater participation. ‘Green grabs’, interconnected with land grabs (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012; Borras and Franco 2020), have threatened the livelihoods of forest users but have prompted grassroots to mobilize around indigenous rights (CAT 2018, 2020; Morton 2017). Prior to the recent political liberalization, there was a systematic weakness of social forces that could challenge the model of state-facilitated crony capitalism, such as labor organizations, the middle class or radical food-sovereignty or peasant movement (Jones 2014; Malseed 2008). However, recently there has been emerging ground level resistance by farmers through ploughing protests, collective judicial action against land grabs, regional CSOs helping farmers through networking and training, and other tactics such as letter writing, negotiations and protest (TNI 2015a; LIOH 2015). There have also been campaigns against large-scale dams and mining and palm oil concessions (ALARM et al. 2018; Tarkapaw et al. 2015; Suhardiman, Rutherford, and Bright 2017; Park 2019) and demands for the recognition of customary tenure systems in the ethnic borderland areas (CAT 2018, 2020; ECDF 2016). In this context, activists in Myanmar have found opportunities and challenges in strengthening local community-building while at the same time strengthening national-level mobilizing and advocacy. As this paper will argue, they are both necessary in the struggle toward ‘agrarian climate justice’ and in the wider process of deepening democracy. National-level advocacy can create ‘openings’..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies via Routledge (London)
2021-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 2.54 MB
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Description: "Land disputes between farmers and the Burma Army in northern Shan State has been going on for decades. Villagers in Kyaukme Gyi have been trying to get back thousands of acres they say the Army (aka Tatmadaw) stole from them in 2000. Farmers started cultivating these fields again in 2017. The Tatmadaw responded by opening criminal cases against them. “The Army has charged us for various offences (over the years),” Eh Naw, a farmer told SHAN. “A police officer told us the Army recently opened a new case against 13 farmers.” “We’re being charged for plowing our fields…we can’t continue working our farms because we need to attend court hearings.” Kham, also a farmer from Kyaukme Gyi, said after their land was seized they no longer have a regular income and struggle to survive and send their children to school. Three members of her family have been charged for cultivating their confiscated farms..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Under a land reformation act, millions of farmers across Myanmar could be forced from land they have tilled for generations. Many are unaware of the danger they face. Peter Yeung and Carlotta Dotto report from Yangon.
Description: "It took less than a day for Daw Oo Naing's entire banana plantation to be destroyed. A group of 21 men carrying long knives arrived quietly in the morning and made quick work of hacking down her 600 trees, which were still young with tender trunks. Oo Naing said she tried to drive them away; using a slingshot to defend her ancestral land. "I will protect my plantation with my life," she said. "It will be the legacy of my children." But her effort was futile. Her livelihood was demolished. Under Myanmar's Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Act (VFV), introduced in 2012 as part of a slew of measures to bring in large-scale investment and development to rural areas, Oo Naing's land ownership was not legally binding. Read more: Thailand's war on drugs targets meth from Myanmar Although Oo Naing's family had reared the land for generations, their ownership was not officially documented. This is a common situation among Myanmar's 134 ethnic minorities, who constitute a third of the country' population of 51 million. Their land was considered vacant by the authorities. In effect, anyone could claim it. For example, Chinese businesses have taken over banana plantations for mass-export in Kachin. And in Rakhine state land has been taken over to build oil and gas pipelines..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "DW News" (Germany)
2019-03-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The Myanmar government has tightened a law on so-called 'vacant, fallow and virgin' land, and farmers are at risk.
Description: "Han Win Naung is besieged on his own land. Last September, local administrators in Myanmar's southern Tanintharyi region put up a sign at the edge of his 5.7-hectare farm that read "Under Management Ownership - Do Not Trespass". They felled the trees and started building a drug rehabilitation facility and an agriculture training school on opposite ends of his plot. He was eventually informed that the administrators were challenging his claim to the land and had filed charges against him under a controversial law that could see him jailed for three years. "I didn't know what this law was," the 37-year-old farmer told Al Jazeera. "I didn't understand what was happening to us. They also asked us to move. We don't have anywhere else to go." Han Win Naung is accused of violating the Vacant, Fellow and Virgin (VFV) Lands Management Law which requires anyone living on land categorised as "vacant, fallow, and virgin" to apply for a permit to continue using it for the next 30 years..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2019-04-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "... Community forests (CF) in northern Burma, particularly in Kachin State, have been sprouting up in villages since the mid-2000s, spearheaded by national NGOs. The recent watershed of CF establishment follows several contingent foundational factors: greater political stability and government control in cease-fire zones; enhanced NGO capacity, access, and effectiveness in these areas; and most prominently the recent threat of agribusiness. This paper will critically examine (inter-)national NGO‟s assistance to rural farmers in formalizing collective forestland in cease-fire zones as a resistance strategy to land dispossession from military/state-backed agribusiness concessions. My overall argument is that while CF represents a legally-sanctioned, bottom-up resistance against land dispossession ? a rare phenomenon in a country such as Burma ? an unintended consequence is producing forms of contested state authority and power in cease-fire zones. For instances of post-war zones with continued contentious ethnic politics and contested state authority, as is the case in northern Burma, rebuilding state-society resource relations and institutions present new political and resource use and access challenges. Data presented here is part of a broader research agenda conducted since the early-2000s on resource politics in northern Burma, with qualitative analysis for this paper based upon interviews with CF user groups, participant observation at CF workshops, interviews with Burmese NGOs, and secondary materials. This research project is a work-in-progress, and all errors are of course of my own unintentional making. CF represents a refashioned collective property regime. This novel land management strategy does not represent any sort of customary arrangement; in fact Kachin are upland swidden farmers, not strictly forest-dwelling communities. This scenario then causes conflict in that the CF joint- management plans mirror state land classification schemes that firmly delineate between „forest. and „agriculture. land uses, unlike traditional land management (much like for other rural communities) that does not clearly separate forest from agriculture. CF falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Forestry (MoF), which enables the increasingly weak MoF to stake an institutional claim against the increasingly powerful Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MoAI). In addition to symbolizing emerging state institutional struggles in cease-fire zones, newly established CF are also altering local resource use and access by villagers planting state-favored, high-value timber trees, such as infamous Burmese teak, in former swiddens ? an act that uncomfortably brings colonial-dictated resource use practices into the present. Furthermore, only CF user groups can access forest products, with outsiders (non-CF members, even within the village) formally blocked from access, including for shifting cultivation. By farmers and NGOs attempting to block the expansion of large-scale agricultural plantations, they instead cultivate state authority and institutions, in this case the Forestry Department, state-recognized land management categories, and new state-governed farmers. This case study highlights the importance of seriously considering how development interventions cultivate new forms of authority and power ?perceived as both legitimate and illegitimate by different actors ? in post-war zones when devising collective action strategies. These same interventions also inculcate new environmental practices in farmers, shaping them into NGO-state subjects that contrast with their customary practices. In this case, NGOs assisting farmers in establishing state-authorized collective property in the form of CF does not respect customary land use, facilitates bringing in a villager-perceived illegitimate state, and is increasing food insecurity. The positives though ? which may or may not outweigh the negatives ? include stemming the tide of land dispossession by private companies and providing a potential platform for political mobilizing at the village level. An alternative strategy could be to push for legal recognition of customary land management, such as upland swidden cultivation, could potentially block rubber expansion while concomitantly strengthening food security, customary land use regimes, and traditional village power bases to challenge state centralization in these politically contested cease-fire ethnic areas..."
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: CAPRi
2010-07-01
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 397.57 KB
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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: Land grabs demonstrate disconnect between development discourse and practice: "The historical weight of the political culture of development in Burma ? now more commonly referred to as Myanmar ? must not be discounted during the democracy-neoliberal reform era. National development discourse and practice in Myanmar has combined elements from monarchical patronage and military authoritarianism after decades of ruling military dictatorships where the military-state ?knows best? for its people. If ?development?, a very loaded and ambiguous term, is viewed as being borne out of the crucible of culture and politics, then it should come as no surprise that national development practice in Myanmar has not yet followed the newly-established government?s declarations of ?disciplined democracy? and pro-poor, grassroots development approaches. The former dictator Senior General Than Shwe implemented his final steps in the country?s long road map to ?disciplined democracy? by making U Thein Sein (himself a former regional military commander) in March 2011 the country?s first non-interim civilian president in five decades. The new military-backed President is viewed as a moderate reformist leader who has been tasked to undertake many neoliberal reforms, such as privatizing the state?s stronghold over the economy and deregulating the heavily censored media. In line with democratic ideals, the President and his top aides routinely espouse the hallmark virtues of grassroots voices, bottom-up development and transparency and accountability to its citizens. But despite the President?s western-cultural development rhetoric, Myanmar?s government continues to fall back upon the familiar top-down authoritarian approaches to development long espoused by Myanmar?s military regime that ruled the country as a dictatorship since 1962. Meanwhile, billions of dollars of western-aligned development aid and international finance flood into Yangon and Naypyitaw to supposedly support this realignment of Myanmar?s political economy and culture, but in reality is more an effort to buy geopolitical patronage. Reflections on which different development discourses have the higher moral ground are not the intention of this critical analysis, however. Rather, this commentary articulates the growing disconnect between on-the-ground realities of national development interventions and practices in Myanmar versus the presidential and western development industries repeated proclamations of the virtues of grassroots, pro-poor development. President U Thein Sein?s first presidential speech in 2011, various government officials? welcoming addresses at the World Economic Forum in Naypyitaw in 2013, and the long-list of high-profile national development conferences held in Myanmar have gained acclaim from the western development community for praising the virtues of bottom-up, pro-poor national development and economic growth..."
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Mekong Commons
2014-05-02
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-02
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: 2015-10-14
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: "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: "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: "In Myanmar, as in other countries of the Mekong, it is widely acknowledged that the clearing of forests to make way for the expansion of commercial agricultural fields is increasingly the leading driver of deforestation, alongside legal and illegal logging, and the clearance of forest areas to make way for infrastructure projects such as roads and hydropower dams. While the conversion of forests for agricultural development has been occurring for many decades, it is the unprecedented rate of this conversion that is now so astounding — as well as the fact that the government is encouraging increasing levels of investment for large-scale industrial agricultural expansion when laws and institutions are not yet able to regulate these large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs). National legal frameworks — laws, regulations, and enforcement bodies — will need to be improved so this development occurs in the context of sustainable and legal forest management and local communities are assured that they have secure land use rights and access to these agricultural and forested landscapes for their livelihood needs. Despite national statements purporting to protect Myanmar?s remaining forests, a new set of land and investment laws1 are still facilitating the conversion of forests into private agribusiness concessions. Since Myanmar?s President U Thein Sein took office in March 2011, the new reform-minded government has promoted industrial agricultural development as an attractive sector for both domestic and, increasingly, foreign investment. In the forest sector itself, promising new reforms have been progressing, but so far have focused only on the managed timber estates under the direct control of the Myanmar Forest Department (which have been over-harvested for decades). The remaining natural forests in the country?s resource-rich, ethnic-populated states are still left outside any effective forest management and are thus even more prone to extensive logging and forest conversion. In sum, each year Myanmar has been losing more than 1.15 million acres of forests — some of Southeast Asia?s last remaining (sub-)tropical High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF). Hardwood log exports have been growing by volume, and even more by value, since the new government took office (Figures 1 and 2). Between 2011 and 2013, the volume of timber product exports jumped from about 2.7 to over 3.3 million m3, with values increasing from just over US$ 1 billion to about US$ 1.6 billion. Much of Myanmar?s timber is no longer sourced from historical (over-cut) harvesting areas (government-managed timber estates predominately in the geographic center of the country). Instead, domestic private companies are clear-cutting HCVFs — for agribusiness, mining, and hydropower sites, and special economic zones (SEZs) — and producing Myanmar?s, and some of the world?s, most valuable ?conversion timber.” Forest Trends has estimated that conversion timber from these LSLAs now constitutes a significant portion of the Burmese timber being placed on the international market..."
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Forest Trends
2015-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.69 MB
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Description: Introduction: "Emerging from five d ecades of military dictatorship, civil turmoil and economic isolation, Burma has lately come to the attention of international investors keen to draw profits from the country?s vast natural resources which include fertile land, minerals, oil, natural gas and timber. Frequently touted as Asia?s next economic tiger, Burma?s new quasi - civilian government raises the prospect of fundamental reforms in national politics and economics for the first time in many decades, but the reform process is still in its very early stages, and significant challenges of implementation lie ahead. While oil, gas and coal mining, hydropower projects and logging have featured most prominently to date in terms of investments in Myanmar, agribusiness has emerged at the forefront of recent government development policies. The political transformations that Burma is undergoing could be a golden opportunity for the country to engage in agribusiness to achieve economic growth with sustainable and rights - based outcomes. However, a growing body of literature and studies suggests that Burma has instead become the ?latest flashpoint in an alarming trend? of global land grabs. Sources suggest that the land and resource rights of local communities are being undermined by legal reforms that seek to liberalize foreign direct investment and place all lands under the ownership of the State, with little indication that strengthened legal protections for the rights of communities will follow..." .....has an excellent set of online references.
Creator/author: Sophie Chao
Source/publisher: Forest People?s Programme
2013-08-04
Date of entry/update: 2013-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 510.52 KB
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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: "The current reforms in Burma/Myanmar are worsening land grabs in the country. Since the mid-2000s there has been a spike in land grabs, especially leading up to the 2010 national elections. Military and government authorities have been granting large-scale land concessions to well-connected Burmese companies. Farmers? protests against land grabs have drawn recent public attention to many high profile cases, such as Yuzana?s Hukawng Valley cassava concession, the Dawei SEZ in Tanintharyi Region near the Thai border, Zaygaba?s industrial development zone outside Yangon, and the current Monywa copper mine expansion in Sagaing Division, among many others. By 2011, over 200 Burmese companies had officially been allocated approximately 2 million acres (nearly 810,000 hectares) for privately held agricultural concessions, mainly for agro-industrial crops such as rubber, palm oil, jatropha (physic nut), cassava and sugarcane. Land grabs are now set to accelerate due to new government laws that are specifically designed to encourage foreign investments in land. The two new land laws (the Farmlands Law and the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Law) establish a legal framework to reallocate so-called ?wastelands? to domestic and foreign private investors. Moreover, the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Law and Foreign Investment Law that are being finalized, along with ASEAN-ADB regional infrastructure development plans, will provide new incentives and drivers for land grabbing and further compound the dispossession of local communities from their lands and resources. Land conflicts that are now emerging throughout the country will worsen as foreign companies, supported by foreign governments and International Financial Institutions (IFIs), rush in to profit from Burma/Myanmar?s political and economic transition period..."
Source/publisher: farmlandgrab.org,. Focus on the Global South et al
2012-10-09
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: WETHMAY, Myanmar—Anger over plans to expand a Chinese-backed mine near here is emerging as a test case of Myanmar?s recent political reforms. Villagers have staged raucous protests in recent weeks over the giant copper mine near Monywa in northwestern Myanmar, owned jointly by Myanmar?s military and a subsidiary of China North Industries Corp., an arms manufacturer. The subsidiary, Wanbao Mining Ltd., and its Myanmar partners are hoping to expand the mine, but that would require taking over huge tracts of land and moving as many as 26 villages, locals say..."
Creator/author: Patrick Barta
Source/publisher: "Wall Street Journal"
2012-09-24
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Analysis of the social costs of large-scale Chinese-supported rubber farms in northern Burma suggests that the future for ordinary citizens will be affected as much by the country?s chosen economic path as the political reforms underway.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2012-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-09-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The complaint letter below, signed by 25 local community members, was written in July 2011 and raises villagers? concerns related to the construction of the Kanchanaburi ? Tavoy [Dawei] highway linking Thailand and the Tavoy deep sea port. Villagers described concerns that the highway would bisect agricultural land and destroy crops under cultivation worth 3,280,500 kyat (US $3,657). In response to these concerns, local community members formed a group called the ?Village and Public Sustainable Development? to represent villagers? concerns and request compensation."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-07-24
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 95.49 KB
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Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in January 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Dooplaya District, during the period between August and October, 2011. The villager who wrote this report provides information concerning increasing military activity in Kyone Doh Township, including the confiscation of 600 acres of farmland for building a camp in Da Lee Kyo Waing town by Border Guard Battalion #1021, and the construction of new military camps, one by LIB #208 in Htee Poo Than village and another by the KPF near to Htee Poo Than village. The villager who wrote this report also noted demands from the Burmese Army that local villagers cover half of the cost of the construction of two bridges in Kyone Doh Township, as well as ongoing taxation demands from various armed groups, including the KNU, SPDC, Border Guard, DKBA, KPF, KPC and a distinct branch of the KPC known as Kaung Baung Hpyoo, and expressed serious concerns about the intended use of villagers to provide unpaid labour on infrastructure projects that will be implemented by civilian and military officials, as well as the severe degradation of forest and agricultural land due to an expansion of commercial rubber plantations..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2012-04-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Northern Burma?s borderlands have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades. Three main and interconnected developments are simultaneously taking place in Shan State and Kachin State: (1) the increase in opium cultivation in Burma since 2006 after a decade of steady decline; (2) the increase at about the same time in Chinese agricultural investments in northern Burma under China?s opium substitution programme, especially in rubber; and (3) the related increase in dispossession of local communities? land and livelihoods in Burma?s northern borderlands. The vast majority of the opium and heroin on the Chinese market originates from northern Burma. Apart from attempting to address domestic consumption problems, the Chinese government also has created a poppy substitution development programme, and has been actively promoting Chinese companies to take part, offering subsidies, tax waivers, and import quotas for Chinese companies. The main benefits of these programmes do not go to (ex-)poppy growing communities, but to Chinese businessmen and local authorities, and have further marginalised these communities. Serious concerns arise regarding the long-term economic benefits and costs of agricultural development— mostly rubber—for poor upland villagers. Economic benefits derived from rubber development are very limited. Without access to capital and land to invest in rubber concessions, upland farmers practicing swidden cultivation (many of whom are (ex-) poppy growers) are left with few alternatives but to try to get work as wage labourers on the agricultural concessions. Land tenure and other related resource management issues are vital ingredients for local communities to build licit and sustainable livelihoods. Investment-induced land dispossession has wide implications for drug production and trade, as well as border stability. Investments related to opium substitution should be carried out in a more sustainable, transparent, accountable and equitable fashion. Customary land rights and institutions should be respected. Chinese investors should use a smallholder plantation model instead of confiscating farmers land as a concession. Labourers from the local population should be hired rather than outside migrants in order to funnel economic benefits into nearby communities. China?s opium crop substitution programme has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers. Chinese authorities need to reconsider their regional development strategies of implementation in order to avoid further border conflict and growing antagonism from Burmese society. Financing dispossession is not development."
Creator/author: Tom Kramer & Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2012-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.67 MB
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Description: "This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher in September 2011. The villager interviewed Saw Ca---, a 45-year-old rubber, betelnut and durian plantation owner from Kawkareik Township, Dooplaya District, who described the survey of at least 167 acres of productive and established agricultural land belonging to 26 villagers for the expansion of a Tatmadaw camp, transport infrastructure, and the construction of houses for Tatmadaw soldiers? families. This incident was detailed in the previously-published report, "Land confiscation threatens villagers? livelihoods in Dooplaya District;" as of the beginning of February 2012, a KHRG researcher familiar with the local situation confirmed that the land had not yet been confiscated and that surveys of that land were no longer ongoing. In this interview, Saw Ca--- described the planting of landmines in civilian areas by government and non-state armed groups, and described one incident in which a villager was injured by a landmine during the month before this interview, resulting in the subsequent amputation of part of his leg; Saw Ca--- said that KNLA soldiers had previously informed villagers they had planted landmines in the place where the villager was injured. Saw Ca--- also described an incident in which villagers were forced to wear Tatmadaw uniforms while accompanying troops on active duty, as well as the forced recruitment of villagers by non-state armed groups. Saw Ca--- noted that villagers respond to such abuses and threats to their livelihoods in a variety of ways, including deliberately avoiding attending meetings with Tatmadaw commanders at which they suspect they will be forced to sign over their land."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2012-02-03
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in April 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Te Naw Th?Ri Township, Tenasserim Division between June 2010 and April 2011. The report details abuses related to land confiscation by Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) officials; forced labour, including forced USDP membership; and attacks on villages in hiding, including the burning of houses, food stores, a school dormitory and supplies by Tatmadaw forces. This report also contains updated information concerning active Tatmadaw units in five areas of Tenasserim Division and relates health and education concerns of villagers in hiding in three areas of Te Naw Th?Ri Township."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-09-26
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "This report validates the fact that multi-national and transnational companies are violating the Ta?ang ethnic nationals? fundamental human rights. The confiscation of Ta?ang peoples? land and the exploitation of their natural resources in which they depend for their subsistence and livelihood are outlined in this report. The Myanmar government continues to permit the persistence of business practices which are illegal under national and international laws. Massive displacements take place without the provisions of adequate compensation or relocation, let alone meaningful community consultations that left the affected people with no legal remedy to rebuild their lives and resume their collective activity. The situation of Ta?ang people in the Shan State is a classic example of land confiscation under the pretext of economic development while totally excluding the affected communities on the benefits of ?development? from foreign investment in the country. As a consequence of these activities the Ta?ang people have to bear the brunt of not only losing their land and source of livelihood, but as well as the practice of forced labor by the SPDC against the Ta?ang people. This forced labor facilitates private companies? projects at the expense of the already displaced community. In this situation, the women, children and the elderly are also disproportionately affected. This report lays testament to the sufferings of the Ta?ang people. This wanton violation of Ta?ang ethnic nationals? rights is representative of the emblematic and widespread disregard for the fundamental rights in Myanmar. It is an outright violation of a number of international laws which include the United Nations Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the violation of the International Labor Organisation (1930, No. 29, Article 2.1). It is also a breach on their commitment as UN member state to the UN Declaration on the Right to Development adopted in 1986 and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011). Yet, international and regional intergovernmental body such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is playing deaf and blind in addressing the situation to put an end to these illegal practices. It is hoped that this report could facilitate the necessary steps and concrete action in behalf of the Ta?ang ethnic nationals which are required from the relevant UN agencies, international and regional bodies, international financial institutions, and the bilateral and multi-lateral donor agencies. The stories collected in this report speak for the longstanding issues that beset the Ta?ang S ethnic nationals and the efforts of the Ta?ang Students and Youth Organisation in publishing this report is a very important step in trying to make a significant contribution to change that situation, now and for the generations to come. As this report shows, this situation could not continue as if it is business as usual. There is no way forward but for a multi-level dialogue to take place and agree on an amicable settlement which is in line with the national and international laws. Let this report which underlines concrete recommendations, encourages all concerned international and national stakeholders and the Ta?ang community to come together and agree to implement resolutions in ways that preserve the Ta?ang ethnic nationals? human rights while meeting the challenges of a sustainable economic development in Myanmar."
Source/publisher: Ta?ang (Palaung) Working Group - TSYO, PWO, PSLF
2011-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Format : pdf
Size: 7.74 MB
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Description: "This report validates the fact that multi-national and transnational companies are violating the Ta?ang ethnic nationals? fundamental human rights. The confiscation of Ta?ang peoples? land and the exploitation of their natural resources in which they depend for their subsistence and livelihood are outlined in this report. The Myanmar government continues to permit the persistence of business practices which are illegal under national and international laws. Massive displacements take place without the provisions of adequate compensation or relocation, let alone meaningful community consultations that left the affected people with no legal remedy to rebuild their lives and resume their collective activity. The situation of Ta?ang people in the Shan State is a classic example of land confiscation under the pretext of economic development while totally excluding the affected communities on the benefits of ?development? from foreign investment in the country. As a consequence of these activities the Ta?ang people have to bear the brunt of not only losing their land and source of livelihood, but as well as the practice of forced labor by the SPDC against the Ta?ang people. This forced labor facilitates private companies? projects at the expense of the already displaced community. In this situation, the women, children and the elderly are also disproportionately affected. This report lays testament to the sufferings of the Ta?ang people. This wanton violation of Ta?ang ethnic nationals? rights is representative of the emblematic and widespread disregard for the fundamental rights in Myanmar. It is an outright violation of a number of international laws which include the United Nations Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the violation of the International Labor Organisation (1930, No. 29, Article 2.1). It is also a breach on their commitment as UN member state to the UN Declaration on the Right to Development adopted in 1986 and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011). Yet, international and regional intergovernmental body such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is playing deaf and blind in addressing the situation to put an end to these illegal practices. It is hoped that this report could facilitate the necessary steps and concrete action in behalf of the Ta?ang ethnic nationals which are required from the relevant UN agencies, international and regional bodies, international financial institutions, and the bilateral and multi-lateral donor agencies. The stories collected in this report speak for the longstanding issues that beset the Ta?ang S ethnic nationals and the efforts of the Ta?ang Students and Youth Organisation in publishing this report is a very important step in trying to make a significant contribution to change that situation, now and for the generations to come. As this report shows, this situation could not continue as if it is business as usual. There is no way forward but for a multi-level dialogue to take place and agree on an amicable settlement which is in line with the national and international laws. Let this report which underlines concrete recommendations, encourages all concerned international and national stakeholders and the Ta?ang community to come together and agree to implement resolutions in ways that preserve the Ta?ang ethnic nationals? human rights while meeting the challenges of a sustainable economic development in Myanmar."
Source/publisher: Ta?ang Student and Youth Organization-TSYO
2011-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 802.57 KB
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Description: "In September 2011, residents of Je--- village, Kawkareik Township told KHRG that they feared soldiers under Tatmadaw Border Guard Battalion #1022 and LIBs #355 and #546 would soon complete the confiscation of approximately 500 acres of land in their community in order to develop a large camp for Battalion #1022 and homes for soldiers? families. According to the villagers, the area has already been surveyed and the Je--- village head has informed local plantation and paddy farm owners whose lands are to be confiscated. The villagers reported that approximately 167 acres of agricultural land, including seven rubber plantations, nine paddy farms, and seventeen betelnut and durian plantations belonging to 26 residents of Je--- have already been surveyed, although they expressed concern that more land would be expropriated in the future. The Je--- residents said that the village head had told them rubber plantation owners would be compensated according to the number of trees they owned, but that the villagers were collectively refusing compensation and avoiding attending a meeting at which they worried they would be ordered to sign over their land. The villagers that spoke with KHRG said they believed the Tatmadaw intended to take over their land in October after the end of the annual monsoon, and that this would seriously undermine livelihoods in a community in which many villagers depended on subsistence agriculture on established land. This bulletin is based on information collected by KHRG researchers in September and October 2011, including five interviews with residents of Je--- village, 91 photographs of the area, and a written record of lands earmarked for confiscation."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 452.67 KB
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Description: "This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in September 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in T?Nay Hsah Township, Pa?an District during September 2011. It details an incident in which a soldier from Tatmadaw Border Guard #1017 deliberately shot at villagers in a farm hut, resulting in the death of one civilian and injury to a six-year-old child. The report further details the subsequent concealment of this incident by Border Guard soldiers who placed an M16 rifle and ammunition next to the dead civilian and photographed his body, and ordered the local village head to corroborate their story that the dead man was a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier. The report also relates villagers? concerns regarding the use of landmines by both KNLA and Border Guard troops, which prevent villagers from freely accessing agricultural land and kill villagers? livestock and pets, and also relates an incident in September 2011 in which a villager was severely maimed when he stepped on a landmine that had been placed outside his farm."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2011-11-03
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 218.05 KB
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Description: "?I feel sad when our fields have been changed into a lake for the purpose of breeding fish. Since that happened, I became a worker in another field,? said Aye Thein. The 64-year-old was forced to abandon his eight acres of land in 1999 after it was confiscated by the Myanmar Billion Group company in Audsu village of Nyaungdon Township, Irrawaddy Division. Aye Thein is one of many victims in Burma where land seizures take place commonly through three different ways: seizures by the military commander-in-chief of the region, by private companies or by financiers who are allegedly backed by the Burmese Army. Aye Thein, and others in the area who lost nearly 63 acres of land between them, fruitlessly complained to the township and district authorities three times about their land confiscation. Confiscated land taken by the Burmese authorities and distributed to private companies includes approximately 10,000 acres in Rangoon Division, nearly 5,000 acres in Irrawaddy Division, 1,338 acres in Kachin State, 600 acres in Mon State and 500 acres in Maymyo in Mandalay Division. The affected farmers have filed lawsuits but no action has been taken..."
Creator/author: Ko Htwe
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2011-08-30
Date of entry/update: 2011-08-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...Beginning in December 2010, Burmese Navy Unit No. 43, under the command of Ka Dike-based government navy regional command head quarters, began to confiscate the rubber plantations and household plots of villagers on Kywe Thone Nyi Ma Island, Yebyu Township, Tennaserim Division. Since then, all land on which red signboards were placed by the navy has been confiscated. This report documents the confiscation of over 1,000 acres of land on Kywe Thone Nyi Ma Island. However, HURFOM found that Navy Unit No. 43 has surveyed and marked out a total of another 3,000 acres of land to be consficated from the residents of Kywe Thone Nyi Ma Island and the easterly neighboring villages across the water in Yebyu Township. Officials from Navy Unit No. 43 explained that the land seized would be used as a training field for military skills training and constructing army barracks and hostels. Land was confiscated from around 240 rubber plantation owners without compensation, and a decree was issued banning landowners from cultivating or entering their plots. Seizures ranged from four to ten acres and consisted of already-in-production rubber plantations and paddy lands that provided villagers in the area with sustainable incomes and future monetary security. Without means to support themselves. they are unable to feed their families and send their children to school. And in some cases, they are forced from their homes..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma
2011-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2011-08-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.68 MB
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Description: "...This briefer focuses on the impacts of two of Burma?s largest energy projects, led by Chinese, South Korean, and Indian multinational corporations in partnership with the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), Burmese companies, and Burmese state security forces. The projects are the Shwe Natural Gas Project and the Burma-China oil transport project, collectively referred to here as the ?Burma-China pipelines.? The pipelines will transport gas from Burma and oil from the Middle East and Africa across Burma to China. The massive pipelines will pass through two states, Arakan (Rakhine) and Shan, and two divisions in Burma, Magway and Mandalay, over dense mountain ranges and arid plains, rivers, jungle, and villages and towns populated by ethnic Burmans and several ethnic nationalities. The pipelines are currently under construction and will feed industry and consumers primarily in Yunnan and other western provinces in China, while producing multi-billion dollar revenues for the Burmese regime. This briefer provides original research documenting adverse human rights impacts of the pipelines, drawing on investigations inside Burma and leaked documents obtained by EarthRights and its partners. EarthRights has found extensive land confiscation related to the projects, and a pervasive lack of meaningful consultation and consent among affected communities, along with cases of forced labor and other serious human rights abuses in violation of international and national law. EarthRights has uncovered evidence to support claims of corporate complicity in those abuses. In addition, companies involved have breached key international standards and research shows they have failed to gain a social license to operate in the country. New evidence suggests communities in the project area are overwhelmingly opposed to the pipeline projects. While EarthRights has not found evidence directly linking the projects to armed conflict, the pipelines may increase tensions as construction reaches Shan State, where there is a possibility of renewed armed conflict between the Burmese Army and specific ethnic armed groups. The Army is currently forcibly recruiting and training villagers in project areas to fight. EarthRights has obtained confidential Production Sharing Contracts detailing the structure of multi-million dollar signing and production bonuses that China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is required to pay to MOGE officials regarding its involvement in two offshore oil and gas development projects that, at present, are unrelated to the Burma- China pipelines. EarthRights believes the amount and structure of these payments are in-line with previously disclosed resource development contracts in Burma, and are likely representative of contracts signed for the Burma-China pipelines; contracts that remain guarded from public scrutiny. Accordingly, the operators of the Burma- China pipeline projects would have already made several tranche cash payments to MOGE, totaling in the tens of millions of dollars..."
Source/publisher: EarthRights International (ERI)
2011-03-29
Date of entry/update: 2011-03-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Korean
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Description: News: (1) Route to TPP closed sending up commodity prices... Commentary: The Regime and The Companies in Collaboration in Land Confiscations... Report: ?When I became desperate?: Opinions of residents during forced land acquisition in Kyaikmayaw Township: Introduction; October to November; November, Opening Demands; December 3rd to the 6th; December 6th; December 7th; December 8th; December 9th; December 22nd; Opportunity for change; Conclusion
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM)
2010-12-31
Date of entry/update: 2011-01-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 456.01 KB
Local URL:
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Description: "According to COHRE?s new report, ?Displacement and Dispossession: Forced Migration and Land Rights in Burma?, land confiscation by Government forces is responsible for many serious housing, land and property (HLP) rights violations in Burma. These abuses occur during military counter-insurgency operations; to clear land for the construction of new army bases; to make way for infrastructure development projects; to facilitate natural resource extraction; and to cater for the vested interests of business. ?Displacement and Dispossession: Forced Migration and Land Rights in Burma? also reveals that control of land is a key strategy for the military regime, and a means of promoting the on-going expansion of the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw). In 1998, the SPDC issued a directive instructing Tatmadaw battalions to become self-sufficient in rice and other basic provisions. This prompted the Tatmadaw to ?live off the land? by appropriating resources (food, cash, labour, land) from the civilian population. This policy has exacerbated conflict and displacement across much of rural Burma. The Thai Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) and its partners estimate that during 2007, approximately 76,000 people have been newly displaced by armed conflict and associated human rights abuses. The majority of new incidents of forced migration and village destruction were concentrated in northeast Karen State and adjacent areas of Pegu Division. The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Eastern Burma in October 2007 was 503,000. These included 295,000 people in ceasefire zones, 99,000 IDPs ?in hiding? in the jungle and 109,000 in relocation sites. The estimates exclude hundreds of thousands of IDPs in other parts of Burma (especially Kachin and Shan States, and the west of the country, as well as in some parts of Karen State). Including these figures would bring the total to over a million internally displaced people. COHRE?s Du Plessis said, "More than one million people have been dispossessed and are internally displaced in Burma -- not because of a natural disaster, but due to their own government?s calculated and brutal actions. We have here a state monopoly which forcibly transfers property, income and assets, from rural, non-Burman ethnic nationalities to an elite, military Government. The HLP violations found in Burma today are the result of short-sighted and predatory policies that date back to the early years of Independence, and to the period of colonial rule. These problems can only be resolved through substantial and sustained change in Burma. Political transition should include improved access to a range of fundamental rights, as enshrined in international law and conventions -- including respect for HLP rights."
Source/publisher: Coalition on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)
2007-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2010-12-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Summary: "A bitter land struggle is unfolding in northern Burma?s remote Hugawng Valley. Farmers that have been living for generations in the valley are defying one of the country?s most powerful tycoons as his company establishes massive mono-crop plantations in what happens to be the world?s largest tiger reserve. The Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve in Kachin State was declared by the Myanmar* Government in 2001 with the support of the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society. In 2004 the reserve?s designation was expanded to include the entire valley of 21,890 square kilometers (8,452 square miles), making it the largest tiger reserve in the world. Today a 200,000 acre mono-crop plantation project is making a mockery of the reserve?s protected status. Fleets of tractors, backhoes, and bulldozers rip up forests, raze bamboo groves and fl atten existing small farms. Signboards that mark animal corridors and ?no hunting zones” stand out starkly against a now barren landscape; they are all that is left of conservation efforts. Application of chemical fertilizers and herbicides together with the daily toil of over two thousand imported workers are transforming the area into huge tapioca, sugar cane, and jatropha plantations. In 2006 Senior General Than Shwe, Burma?s ruling despot, granted the Rangoon-based Yuzana Company license to develop this ?agricultural development zone” in the tiger reserve. Yuzana Company is one of Burma?s largest businesses and is chaired by U Htay Myint, a prominent real estate tycoon who has close connections with the junta. Local villagers tending small scale farms in the valley since before it was declared a reserve have seen their crops destroyed and their lands confi scated. Confl icts between Yuzana Company employees, local authorities, and local residents have fl ared up and turned violent several times over the past few years, culminating with an attack on residents of Ban Kawk village in 2010. As of February 2010, 163 families had been forced into a relocation site where there is little water and few fi nished homes. Since then, through further threats and intimidation, * The current military regime changed the country?s name to Myanmar in 1989 1 others families have been forced to take ?compensation funds” which are insuffi cient to begin a new life and leave them destitute. Despite the powerful interests behind the Yuzana project, villagers have been bravely standing up to protect their farmlands and livelihoods. They have sent numerous formal appeals to the authorities, conducted prayer ceremonies, tried to reclaim their fi elds, refused to move, and defended their homes. The failure of various government offi cials to reply to or resolve the problem fi nally led the villagers to reach out to the United Nations and the National League for Democracy in Burma. In March 2010 representatives of three villages fi led written requests to the International Labor Organization to investigate the actions of Yuzana. In July 2010, over 100 farmers opened a joint court case in Kachin State. Although the villagers in Yuzana?s project area have been ignored at every turn, they remain determined to seek a just solution to the problems in Hugawng. As Burma?s military rulers prepare for their 2010 ?election,” local residents hold no hope for change from a new constitution that only legalizes the status quo and the military?s placement above the law. Companies such as Yuzana that have close military connections are set to play an increasing role in the economy and will also remain above the law. The residents of Hugawng Valley are thus at the frontline of protecting not only their own lands and environment but also the rights of all of Burma?s farmers. The Kachin Development Networking Group stands fi rmly with these communities and therefore calls on Yuzana to stop their project implementation to avoid any further citizens? rights abuses and calls on all Kachin communities and leaders to work together with Hugawng villagers in their brave struggle."
Source/publisher: Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG)
2010-08-25
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English and the other EU languages
Format : pdf
Size: 2.58 MB
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Description: Introduction: "The following analysis has been compiled to bring attention to a wider audience of many of the problems facing the people of Burma, especially in Arakan State. The analysis focuses particularly on the increase in land confiscation resulting from intensifying military deployment in order to magnify security around a number of governmental developments such as the Shwe Gas, Kaladan, and Hydropower projects in western Burma of Arakan State...Conclusion: "The SPDC?s ongoing parallel policy of increasing militarisation while increased forced land confiscation to house and feed the increasing troop numbers causes widespread problems throughout Burma. By stripping people of the land upon which peopl?s livelihoods are based, whilst providing only desultory compensation if any at all, many citizens face threats to their food security as well as water shortages, a decrease or abolition of their income, eradicating their ability to educate their children in order to create a sustainable income source in the future. Additionally, the policy of using forced labour in the Government?s construction and development projects, coupled with the disastrous environmental effects of many of these projects, continues to create severe health problems throughout the country whilst simultaneously stifling the local economy so that varied or sustainable work is difficult to become engaged in. All of this often leads to people fleeing the country in search of a better life."
Source/publisher: All Arakan Students? and Youths? Congress (AASYC)
2010-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-06-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.34 MB
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Description: Introduction: "The following report has been compiled to bring to the attention of a wider audience many of the problems facing the people of Burma, especially its many ethnic nationalities. For many outside observers, Burma?s problems are confined simply to the ongoing incarceration of Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country?s democratically elected leader, and many other political prisoners. However, as we hope to show in the following report, this is only one of very many human rights abuses that provide obstacles to the people?s hope for democracy. This report concentrates in 3 specific areas of the country – Arakan State, Mon State and the Pa-O Area of southern Shan State. This is partly due to budget and time constraints, but, primarily because the brutal treatment received by the people of these areas at the hands of the military junta has received limited media attention in the past."...Conclusion: "The SPDC?s ongoing dual policy of increasing militarization and forced land confiscation, both to house and feed the increasing troop numbers, causes widespread problems throughout Burma. By robbing people of the land from which many make their livings, without any or providing only desultory compensation, many citizens face drastic problems such as food and water shortages, an inability to educate their children and an inability to find work. Additionally, the policy of using forced labour in the Government?s construction and development projects, coupled with the disastrous environmental effects of many of these projects, continues to create severe health problems throughout the country. All of this often leads to people fleeing the country in search of a better life."
Source/publisher: All Arakan Students? and Youths? Congress (AASYC), Pa-O Youth Organisation (PYO) and Mon Youth Progressive Organisation (MYPO)
2009-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2009-04-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 2.21 MB 793.16 KB
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Description: Contents: 1. Introduction 1.1 Purpose of Discussion Paper 2. Background History 2.1 Ethnic Politics and Military Interference 3. Land tenure legislation (1948-62) 3.1 Earlier a brief period of Democracy (1948-1962) 3.2 Under BSBP rule (1962 - 1988) 3.3 Under Military ruling (1988 - Up to now) 4. Socio-Economic Poverty and Land Ownership 5. Summary of Findings 6. Analysis of Findings 7. Militarization and land confiscation 8. No rights to a fair Market price and food sovereignty 9. Abusing the environment and natural resources 10. New poverty due to illegal Tax payment
Creator/author: Khaing Dhu Wan
Source/publisher: Network for Environment and Economic Development (NEED)
2006-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2009-01-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 198.97 KB
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Description: Abstract" "This research was framed by a human rights approach to development as pursued by Amartya Sen. Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development but they are the principle means of development. The research was informed by international obligations to human rights and was placed within a context of global pluralism and recognition of universal human dignity. The first research aim was to study the State Peace and Development Council military regime confiscation of land and labour of farmers in villages of fourteen townships in Rangoon, Pegu, and Irrawaddy Divisions and Arakan, Karenni, and Shan States. Four hundred and sixty-seven individuals were interviewed to gain understanding of current pressures facing farmers and their families. Had crops, labour, household food, assets, farm equipment been confiscated? If so, by whom, and what reason was given for the confiscation? Were farmers compensated for this confiscation? How did family households respond and cope when land was confiscated? In what ways were farmers contesting the arbitrary confiscation of their land? A significant contribution of this research is that it was conducted inside Burma with considerable risk for all individuals involved. People who spoke about their plight, who collected information, and who couriered details of confiscation across the border into Thailand were at great risk of arrest. Interviews were conducted clandestinely in homes, fields, and sometimes during the night. Because of personal security risks there are inconsistent data sets for the townships. People revealed concerns of health, education, lack of land tenure and livelihood. Several farmers are contesting the confiscation of their land, but recognise that there is no rule by law or independent judiciary in Burma. Farmers and their family members want their plight to be known internationally. When they speak out they are threatened with detention. Their immediate struggle is to survive. The second aim was to analyse land laws and land use in Burma from colonial times, independence in 1948, to the present military rule by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The third aim was to critically review international literature on land tenure and land rights with special focus on research conducted in post-conflict, post-colonial, and post-socialist nations and how to resolve land claims in face of no documentation. We sought ideas and practices which could inform creation of land laws, land and property rights, in democratic transition in Burma."
Creator/author: Dr. Nancy Hudson-Rodd; Sein Htay
Source/publisher: The Burma Fund
2008-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-03-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 11.22 MB
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Description: Conclusion: "Most relevant reports and surveys I have been able to access state essentially that people from all parts of Burma leave home either in obedience to a direct relocation order from the military or civil authorities or as a result of a process whereby coercive measures imposed by the authorities play a major role in forcing down household incomes to the point where the family cannot survive. At this point, leaving home may seem to be the only option. These factors, which include direct forced relocation, forced labour, extortion and land confiscation, operate in, are affected by and exacerbate a situation of widespread poverty, rising inflation and declining real incomes. In other words, people leave home due to a combination of coercive and economic factors. One has to consider the whole process leading to displacement rather than a single, immediate cause. Where coercive measures, as described in this article, are involved, the resulting population movement falls under the Guiding Principles even if the situation that actually triggers movement, frequently food insecurity, may also be described in economic terms."
Creator/author: Andrew Bosson
Source/publisher: Andrew Bosson
2008-03-17
Date of entry/update: 2008-03-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 45.63 KB
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Description: This report is a preliminary exploration of forced migration/internal displacement in Burma/Myanmar in two main areas. The first is the status in terms of international standards, specifically those embodied in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, of the people who leave home not because of conflict or relocation orders, but as a result of a range of coercive measures which drive down incomes to the point that the household economy collapses and people have no choice but to leave home. Some analysts describe this form of population movement as "economic migration" since it has an economic dimension. The present report, however, looks at the coercive nature of the pressures which contribute to the collapse of the household economy and argues that their compulsory and irresistible nature brings this kind of population movement squarely into the field of forced migration, even though the immediate cause of leaving home may also be described in economic terms... The second area is geographic. The report looks at those parts of Burma not covered by the IDP Surveys of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, which concentrate on the conflict and post-conflict areas of Eastern Burma. It hardly touches on conflict-induced displacement since most parts of Burma covered in these pages, including the major cities, are government-controlled, and there is little overt military conflict in these States and Divisions. Within these parts of the country, the report looks at the coercive measures referred to above. It also carries reports of direct relocation by government agents through which whole rural and urban communities are removed from their homes and either ordered to go to specific places, or else left to their own devices. The report annexes contain more than 500 pages of documentation on forced displacement and causes of displacement in Arakan, Chin, Kachin and Eastern and Northern Shan States as well as Irrawaddy, Magwe, Mandalay, West Pegu, Rangoon and Sagaing Divisions. It also has a section on displacement within urban and peri-urban areas.
Creator/author: Andrew Bosson
Source/publisher: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)
2007-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-05-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 716.88 KB
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Description: "...The main objective of this research is to examine housing, land, and property rights in the context of Burma?s societal transition towards a democratic polity and economy. Much has been written and discussed about property rights in their various manifestations, private, public, collective, and common in terms of ?rights?. When property rights are widely and fairly distributed, they are inseparable from the rights of people to a means of living. Yet in the contemporary world, millions of people are denied access to the land, markets, technology, money and jobs essential to creation of livelihoods (Korten, 1998). The most significant worldwide problems of unjust property rights remain those associated with landlessness, rural poverty, and inequality (Hudson-Rodd & Nyunt, 2000)..."
Creator/author: Nancy Hudson-Rodd
Source/publisher: Edith Cowan University, Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)
2004-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-02-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 741.09 KB
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Description: "...The objective of this research paper is to describe specific ways in which the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) deprives the people of Burma of their land and livelihood. Confiscation of land, labour, crops and capital; destruction of person and property; forced labour; looting and expropriation of food and possessions; forced sale of crops to the military; extortion of money through official and unofficial taxes and levies; forced relocation and other abuses by the State..."
Creator/author: Dr Nancy Hudson-Rodd, Dr Myo Nyunt, Saw Thamain Tun, Sein Htay
Source/publisher: Edith Cowan University, National Council of Union of Burma (NCUB), Federation of Trade Unions-Burma (FTUB)
2004-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-02-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 448.43 KB
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Description: "Villagers in northern Pa?an District of central Karen State say their livelihoods are under serious threat due to exploitation by SPDC military authorities and by their Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) allies who rule as an SPDC proxy army in much of the region. Villages in the vicinity of the DKBA headquarters are forced to give much of their time and resources to support the headquarters complex, while villages directly under SPDC control face rape, arbitrary detention and threats to keep them compliant with SPDC demands. The SPDC plans to expand Dta Greh (a.k.a. Pain Kyone) village into a town in order to strengthen its administrative control over the area, and is confiscating about half of the village?s productive land without compensation to build infrastructure which includes offices, army camps and a hydroelectric power dam - destroying the livelihoods of close to 100 farming families. Local villagers, who are already struggling to survive under the weight of existing demands, fear further forced labour and extortion as the project continues."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2006-02-11
Date of entry/update: 2006-02-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Summary: "Wrong-headed agricultural and development policies, counter-insurgency activities, as well as corruption and cronyism by the Burmese military regime, have all caused a dramatic decrease in rice production and food security in southern Shan State over the past ten years. The township of Mong Nai provides a good example of how food security, commonly defined as the physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food at all times, has been put in a precarious condition despite the regime?s claims that it is achieving self-sufficiency and agricultural development. In the past Mong Nai was well known for its fertile land and abundant production of quality rice. Even though people could not make much income from their crops, they had enough to survive. Since 1994, however, a series of national policies and initiatives have led to a decline in rice production, the abandonment of fertile fields, and the exodus of thousands of residents to neighbouring Thailand. In order to implement its national rice procurement policy, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) set up a paddy (unmilled rice) buying center in the town of Mong Nai in 1994. Farmers were forced to sell rice to the regime at depressed prices (about one quarter of the normal market price) based on the acreage of land they customarily tended and regardless of actual crop yields. This center, and how its quota system was implemented, disrupted farmers? access to their own rice harvests and drove many into debt. The SPDC proudly announced the abolishment of this system and the opening of a market-oriented economy in 2003. However, new practices have been able to ensure that the military maintains its own stores of rice at the expense of local populations. agriculture, and led to decreased rice production and food security in the township. The amount of rice fields under cultivation has decreased by approximately 56% since 1994 while the population has decreased by approximately 30%. The drastic decrease in upland agriculture has practically wiped out the cultivation of sesame and the subsequent production of sesame oil in the township, while a wide variety of beans, fruits, and other vegetables are also not cultivated. Restrictions on trade and travel have made foodstuffs harder to get and more expensive. Contrary to the regime?s claims, Burma is not on the road to self-sufficiency and food security."... Table of Contents: Summary.2; Background 4; Food and Agriculture Situation Before 1994 5; Rice Procurement Policy/the Quota System 6; Forced Relocation 7; Map 1: Rice Cultivation and Villages in 1994 8; Map 2: Rice Culitvation, Remaining Villages and Confiscated Lands in 2005 9; Land Confiscation 10; Restricted Movement 12; Trading Restrictions 13; Forced Planting of Summer Paddy 13; Conclusion: The Situation Today 15... Appendix 1: Decrease in Rice Production in Mong Nai Township 1994-2005 16.
Source/publisher: Shan Relief and Development Committee (SRDC)
2006-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2006-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Released on March 30, 2005... This bulletin examines the factors causing many villagers in Pa?an district to say that they now face a deepening food and money shortage crisis which is threatening their health and survival. Based on villagers? testimony, the main factors appear to be recurring forced labour for both SPDC and DKBA authorities, made worse in some areas by orders for farmers to double-crop on their land and the encroachment of new SPDC military bases on villages and farmland.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG #2005-B3)
2005-03-30
Date of entry/update: 2005-05-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: 1. Introduction 1; 2. Historical Context and Current Implications of the State Taking Control of People, Land and Livelihood 2; 2.1. Under the Democratically Elected Government 2; 2.1.1. The Land Nationalization Act 1953 2; 2.1.2. The Agricultural Lands Act 1953 2; 3. Under the Revolutionary Council (1962-1974) 2; 3.1. The Tenancy Act 1963 3; 3.2. The Protection of the Right of Cultivation Act, 1963 3; 4. The State Gains Further Control over the Livelihoods of Households 3; 4.1. Under the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) Rule (1974 - 1988) 3; 4.1.1 Land Policy and Institutional Reforms 3; 4.2 Under the Military Rule II - SLORC/SPDC (1988 - present) 4; 4.2.1. Keeping it Together: Agriculture, Economy, and Rural Livelihood 5; 5. Militarization of Rural Economy 8; 5.1. Land confiscation 8; 5. 2. Land reclamation 11; 5.3. Military Agricultural Projects 13; 5.4. The Fleecing of Burmese Farmers 15; 5.5. Procurement 17; 5.5.1. Other crops 20; 5.5.2. Farmers tortured in Mon State 23; 6. Forced Relocation and Disparity of Income and wealth 25; 7. Conclusion 29... APPENDICES NOT YET ACQUIRED Appendix 1. Summary Report on Human Rights Violations by SPDC and DKBA Troops in 7 Districts of KNU ( 2000 to 2002) 31; Appendix 2. Forced labor by SPDC troops on road construction from Pa-pun to Kamamaung in 2003 38; Appendix 3. Survey Questionnaires (Ward/village and Household - in Burmese) 45.
Creator/author: Dr Nancy Hudson-Rodd, Dr Myo Nyunt, Saw Thamain Tun, Sein Htay
Source/publisher: NCUB, FTUB
2003-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-08-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm pdf
Size: 19.45 KB 412.77 KB
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