MYANMAR: Myanmar at risk of land-grabbing epidemic

In a written statement during its September 2011 session, the Asian Legal Resource Centre alerted the Human Rights Council to the dangers posed to the rights of people in Myanmar by the convergence of military, business and administrative interests in new projects aimed at displacing cultivators and residents from their farms and homes. At that time, the Centre wrote that whereas seizure of land has long been practiced in Myanmar, in recent years its dynamics have changed, from direct seizure by army units and government departments, to seizure by army-owned companies, joint ventures and other economically and politically powerful operations with connections to the military...