TABLE OF CONTENTS:-
1. Food Security from a Rights-based Perspective;
2. Local Observations from the States and Divisions
of Eastern Burma:-
2.1 Tenasserim Division
(Committee for Internally Displaced Karen Persons);
2.2 Mon State (Mon Relief and Development Committee);
2.3 Karen State (Karen Human Rights Group)
2.4 Eastern Pegu Division (Karen Office of Relief and Development);
2.5 Karenni State (Karenni Social Welfare Committee);
2.6 Shan State (Shan Human Rights Foundation)...

Abstract:

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.

Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District. Based on interviews and field reports from KHRG field researchers in this northern Karen district, looks at the phenomenon of 'Peace Villages' under SPDC control and 'Hiding Villages' in the hills; while the 'Hiding Villages' are being systematically destroyed and their villagers hunted and captured, the 'Peace Villages' face so many demands for forced labour and extortion that many ofthem are fleeing to the hills.

Commission on Human Rights
59th Session

Item 10: Economic, social and cultural rights

"...

It is in the remote parts of Myanmar that the worst abuses of the right to food continue. Within recent weeks, the Asian Legal Resource Centre has spoken with persons travelling in some of these areas. They have told of thousands of people displaced from their lands, some for years, starving in the jungle. One who carried an emaciated child to a Thai town just across the border spoke of the utter shock and disbelief among medical staff at the child?s condition...

Myanmar has a total land area of 676,577 sq km with a population of 57.50 million. Total net sown area is 11.67 ml ha with the cropping intensity of 157.1%. Forest cover, 33.44 ml ha accounted for nearly half of Myanmar's land area. Presently, only 60% of the 17.19 ml ha classified for agricultural production is being exploited.
Myanmar has a predominantly agricultural economy and agriculture sector contributed 45% of GDP, 11% of export earning and employed 63% of its labour force...

This report contains the full transcripts of three interviews conducted during March and April 2011 in Tantabin Township, Toungoo District by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The three female interviewees described the following abuses: attacks on villages, villagers and livelihoods; killing of villagers; theft and looting; taxation and demands; forced displacement; and forced labour, including the production and supply of building materials and forced portering.

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher in May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Naw P---, a 40-year-old farmer who described her experiences living in a Tatmadaw-controlled relocation site, and in her original village in a mixed-administration area under effective Tatmadaw control.

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during October 2011 in Nyaunglebin District by a community member trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The community member interviewed Naw P---, a 42-year-old flat field farmer, who described her experiences being forcibly relocated by Tatmadaw troops, most recently in 2004 from D--- to T--- relocation village.

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.

This report describes the current situation faced by rural Karen villagers in Toungoo District (known as Taw Oo in Karen). Toungoo District is the northernmost district of Karen State, sharing borders with Karenni (Kayah) State to the east, Pegu (Bago) Division to the west, and Shan State to the north. To the south Toungoo District shares borders with the Karen districts of Nyaunglebin (Kler Lweh Htoo) and Papun (Mutraw).

The purpose of the Guidelines for Impact Evaluation of Land Tenure and Governance Interventions (“the guidelines”) is to serve as a tool for both researchers and land sector experts in the design and conducting of land impact evaluations and ultimately broaden the evidence of what works and does not work and why in regard to measures meant to improve land tenure and governance.