This Short Update describes events occurring in Hti Lon Township, Hpa-an District in March 2014, including land confiscation committed by the Burma/Myanmar government and wealthy individuals, destruction of villagers land due to flooding caused by a dam, as well as the strategies of villagers to claim back their land, and obtain compensation for the land that they have lost.

This report is the first in a series of three on issues related to theft of state and private lands by private individuals, armed groups, communities, the government and the state. This report, which provides the foundation for the subsequent reports, is issued separately and stands alone as a summary of the basic legal framework for land administration and management (A&M) in Afghanistan.

Includes background – the global land grab; FPIC in response to land grabbing today; whose consent is required or desired?; the key challenge is political, not technical. Concludes that as long as there is a significant gap between what is promised and what is delivered by the state, there will always be cause for poor people to engage in rightful resistance. The current global rush to cloak land grabbing in FPIC may ultimately end up sparking such resistance.

President of Myanmar, U Thein Sein, announced that the government cannot give back over 30,000 acres of paddy land that the state has been using since it was confiscated by the army two decades ago. On the one hand the President ordered state and regional governments and land management committee to cooperate with members of the parliament to solve the problem of land grabbing cases. On the other hand he has announced the government cannot handover some land back.

This Situation Update describes land confiscation committed by local armed actors in Hlaingbwe, Don Yin and Hti Lon townships, Hpa-an District during 2014: Tatmadaw soldiers destroyed approximately 3,000 acres of villagers’ paddy fields during the construction of a dam in Hti Lon village...
In the western part of Maw Ko village tract, a monk, coordinating with the Border Guard Force, confiscated villagers’ paddy fields and plantations. They also cut down trees which villagers use to make roofing for their houses and turned the area into a rubber plantation...

This Short Update describes the confiscation of land belonging to villagers in Don Yin Township, Hpa-an District. The land was confiscated under the threat of violence by members of the Karen National Liberation Army, the KNU/KNLA-Peace Council and other individuals.

...Through research on Myanmar, we argue that in authoritarian settings where legality has drastically declined, the starting point for cause lawyering lies in advocacy for law itself, in advocating for the regular application of law’s rules.

Land confiscation is one of the leading causes of protest
and unrest in Burma, having led to the forced
displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in
recent years. It also undermines Burma’s fragile peace
processes...
•The 2008 constitution and subsequent laws are used
to
legitimize arbitrary land confiscation, deny access
to
justice, and perpetuate an environment of impunity...
•
Land confiscation for profitable large-scale development
and commercial projects enrich the military, state-
owned

Land grabs demonstrate disconnect between development discourse and practice:

28 May 2014

GRAIN | La Vía Campesina

For immediate release

Forest Peoples Programme and the Amerindian Peoples Association are pleased to announce the publication of a new special report:

Edited by Kate Dooley and Tom Griffiths

Authors: Oda Almås (FPP), Lawrence Anselmo (APA), Laura George (APA), Tom Griffiths (FPP), Solveig Firing Lunde (RFN) and Jean La Rose (APA)

May 2014

ISBN 978-0-9544252-8-9

Includes growing pressures on land and water rights, growing conflict; different pressures on land and water; availability of agricultural land and water throughout the world; distribution of access rights; socio-economic, legal and political variables; conflict over land tenure and water rights; demographic and climate factors; land grabbing a burning question; are we headed for global crisis?