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.

FARMERS from Alwan Sut village in Yangon Region’s Thanlyin township are seeking the right to continue to farm land they were forced to sell 15 years ago for a dormant building project...

This Situation Update describes events occurring in Hti Lon Township, Hpa-an District in March 2014, including dam construction and the subsequent destruction of villagers land due to flooding, forced relocation, and land confiscation.

Executive Summary: "In the context of transition to a more open form of
government, the Myanmar government has
begun to liberalize land markets and, in 2012, enacted two major land-related laws.
Implementing these new land laws has proven challenging, however, as it has been difficult to
integrate these laws with the existing customary practices of various ethnic minorities. To
address these and other issues UN-HABITAT Myanmar is assisting the Myanmar government in
developing a
Land Administration and Management Program
(LAMP).

This News Bulletin describes land confiscation which occurred as a result of a road repair and expansion project in Bilin Township, Thaton District, from January 2nd – 4th, 2014. On January 2nd 2014, the Zwe Nyi Naung Company arrived in D--- village, Hta Paw village tract, Bilin Township, Thaton District to repair and expand a road. The project resulted in the confiscation of villagers’ plantation lands, paddy fields and the yard around a house.

Abstract:
"In 2012, the Government of Myanmar (GoM) passed
the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow, Virgin
(VFV) Land Law—creating a formalized land market. In essence, this created a formalized land
market. Land titling is often considered “the natural end point of land rights formalization” (Hall et al.
2010: 35). This thinking has become dominant among most governments and development agencies
ever since De Soto (2000) popularized it in
The Mystery of Capital
, in which he argued that the

This Situation Update describes events occurring in Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District during the period between April and June 2014, including land confiscation and access to education, healthcare and livelihoods: The Burma/Myanmar government provided 1,000 kyat (US $0.97) in A--- village for each student; however the teacher did not pay out the money to the students, saying that she had paid out the money for the cost of transporting school books...There are some mid-wives and medics provided by the Burma/Myanmar government who visit villagers in Maung Nwe Gyi village tract, Kon Tain

Land tenure rights and food security for all farmers in Burma has been described by Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Tun Win as one of the top priorities of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government.

“Our government wishes to give back land to the rightful owners,” said Tun Win, referring to the smallholder farmers who still make up the bulk of Burma’s population. He was speaking to reporters from his office on Tuesday.

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...

Land grabbing and speculation, which can both manifest in a multitude of forms, are
unfortunate, often-inter-twined, yet common practices in countries undergoing structural
political transition. If unchecked, unregulated, or unintentionally encouraged by the very
governments that replace formerly authoritarian regimes, these two land realities can serve to
undermine democratic reforms, entrench economic and political privilege and seriously harm
the human rights prospects of those affected, in particular internationally recognised housing,

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.

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during April 2012 in Ler Mu Lah Township, Mergui/Tavoy District by a community member trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The community member interviewed 40-year-old G--- village head, Saw K---, who described abusive practices perpetrated by the Tatmadaw in his village throughout the previous four year period, including forced labour, arbitrary taxation in the form of both goods and money, and obstructions to humanitarian relief, specifically medical care availability and education support.