Analysis of KHRG's field information gathered between January 2011 and May 2012 in seven geographic research areas indicates that, during that period, new landmines were deployed by government and non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in all seven research areas. Ongoing mine contamination in eastern Burma continues to put civilians' lives and livelihoods at risk and undermines their efforts to protect against other forms of abuse.

Stephen Goose, co-founder of Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, is one of the world's foremost authorities on the use of anti-personnel landmines. In this exclusive interview with The Irrawaddy, he describes the situation inside Burma, where, he says, there are an estimated 1,500 landmine casualties each year.

Anti-personnel landmines are victim-activated weapons that indiscriminately kill and maim civilians, soldiers, elderly people, women, children and animals. They can cause injury and death long after the end of hostilities. In Asia, Burma is currently second only to Afghanistan in the number of new landmine victims, surpassing even Cambodia. Contrary to trends in the rest of the world, the SPDC has not signed the Mine Ban Treaty and abstained from the 1999 UN General Assembly vote on the treaty. Of Burma’s 14 states and divisions, 9 of them are affected by landmines.

For as long as anyone can remember, the road from Kawkareik in Kayin State to the Thai border has only been passable in one direction at a time. One day, traffic goes "up" from southern Myanmar's hinterland; the next it goes "down" from Myawaddy -- the busiest trade post on the Thai-Myanmar frontier. Myawaddy is just opposite the Thai town of Mae Sot.

The Asian Highway network is a network of 141,000 kilometers of standardized roadways crisscrossing 32 Asian countries with linkages to Europe.

The Asian Highway project was initiated in 1959 with the aim of promoting the development of international road transport in the region. During the first phase of the project (1960-1970) considerable progress was achieved, however, progress slowed down when financial assistance was suspended in 1975.

Data compiled by Landmine Monitor. This map does not indicate
how extensive mine pollution is in any indicated Township.
Explosive symbol denotes townships in which antipersonnel
mines have claimed casualties between 1 January 2007 to 1
June 2009. All other data 1 January 2008 to 1 June 2009.

Regarding: Use of anti-personnel landmines; Use of child soldiers; Protection of Children from the Effects of Armed Conflict...made between 2003 and 2012...full texts in English.

Despite local opposition, the Karen National Union has deployed its staff to secure the area in Dawei Township, Taninthayi Region, where the Banchaung mining project is located, according to locals.

On November 15, ethnic Kayin locals from Thabyuchaung, Kyaukhtoo, Kahtaungni and Kunchaungyi attempted to block the roads – Kunchaungyi Amara Road and Dawei-Myeik Union Road – which are used as transportation routes for the project.

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in May 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Dweh Loh Township, Papun District between January and April 2011. It contains information concerning military activities in 2011, specifically resupply operations by Border Guard and Tatmadaw troops and the reinforcement of Border Guard troops at Manerplaw.

Unregulated gold mining, agro-industrial farming and hydropower development in Kachin State is affecting thousands of villagers, who are suffering from environmental destruction and a loss of farmland, a Kachin rights group warned.

The People’s Foundation for Development, a NGO based in the Kachin state capital Myitkyina, launched a report in Rangoon on Monday that documented ten cases in which local villagers lost their land and livelihoods to large-scale investment projects and rampant gold mining.

The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatisation of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. Offering a critique of the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved.

Abstract: The most significant land problems in Burma remain those associated with landlessness, rural poverty, inequality of access to resources, and a military regime that denies citizen rights and is determined to rule by force and not by law. A framework to ensure the sustainable development of land is needed to address social, legal, economic and technical dimensions of land management. This framework can only be created and implemented within and by a truly democratic nation.