...In the last four years, the Burmese army based in Mon State has confiscated thousands acres of farmland. The farmers whose land had been confiscated were not given any compensation. They have no opportunity to take legal actions against the army. As a result, many farmers who lost their lands left to Thailand to seek employment. Those who stayed in villages and towns became landless and jobless..." Land confiscation by the Burmese military - description, analysis and case studies.

Historically underdeveloped and divided, Burma today is politically isolated, increasingly militarised, economically mismanaged by its own authorities, and socially and culturally divided along ethnic, religious, and language lines. Following independence from Britain in 1948, parties representing the ethnic minority population have been struggling for greater autonomy from the central Burmese regime.

KHRG Information Update #2003-U1
June 16, 2003

1. Introduction 1;
2. Historical Context and Current Implications of the State Taking Control
of People, Land and Livelihood 2;
2.1. Under the Democratically Elected Government 2;
2.1.1. The Land Nationalization Act 1953 2;
2.1.2. The Agricultural Lands Act 1953 2;
3. Under the Revolutionary Council (1962-1974) 2;
3.1. The Tenancy Act 1963 3;
3.2. The Protection of the Right of Cultivation Act, 1963 3;
4. The State Gains Further Control over the Livelihoods of Households 3;

Mass Displacement by the Burmese Army's forced relocation program in Tenasserim division first rose to awareness when multi-national companies started to build the Yadana gas pipeline. What followed was a Burmese Army offensive in 1997 to KNU controlled areas to secure more of the area for their business interests. After the arrival of foreign companies and the Yadana gas pipeline the Kamoethway area became a refuge for those fleeing from the gas pipeline area. Later Kamoethway area itself became another target for Burmese troops trying to gain better access to the gas pipeline.

Burma has a population of 50 million people, recent estimates place 2 million of those people as Internally Displaced
Persons (IDP). They live precarious and transient lives in the jungles of Burma’s ethnic border areas and in the more urban
central plains. They are denied the stability of having a home and a livelihood and are forced into a constant state of
movement: never having the opportunity to maintain a home, their farms, access to education and medical facilities and
peace of mind...

This paper describes some of the experiences of the Plan Foncier Rural (PFR) or Rural Land Plans and what they teach about the more general question of identifying and recording of these rights, including group rights.

Forests and pastoralism are in a state of crisis in the Borana lowlands in southern Ethiopia. State management has failed to control forest exploitation and past and present development interventions continue to undermine pastoral production systems. In this paper the authors aim to show how a fundamental misunderstanding of pastoral land management, and in particular pastoral tenure systems, has undermined traditional institutions and the environment for which they were once responsible.

On farm conservation of crop diversity poses obvious policy challenges in terms of the design of appropriate incentive mechanisms and possible trade-offs between conservation and productivity.

Important, authoritative and timely report.
I. THAI GOVERNMENT CLASSIFICATION FOR PEOPLE FROM BURMA:

Temporarily Displaced; Students and Political Dissidents ; Migrants .

II. BRIEF PROFILE OF THE MIGRANTS FROM BURMA .

III REASONS FOR LEAVING BURMA :

Forced Relocations and Land Confiscation ;
Forced Labor and Portering;

War and Political Oppression;

Taxation and Loss of Livelihood;

Economic Conditions .

IV. FEAR OF RETURN.

V. RECEPTION CENTERS.

O estudo demonstra claramente as deficiências dos modelos lineares que separam os processos de elaboração de políticas da sua implementação. Ambos os estudos de caso mostram que a legislação e os regulamentos podem ser modificados, reinterpretados ou simplesmente ignorados quando se trata de implementá-los, quando as relações de poder a nível local se tornam críticas. Esta constatação tem duas implicações directas.

Quando a Lei de Terras 19/97 estabeleceu que o direito de uso e aproveitamento da terra é adquirido por ocupação por pessoas singulares e pelas comunidades locais, segundo as normas e práticas costumeiras que não contrariem a Constituição, criou-se a ruptura com a prática legislativa em Moçambique e em muitos outros países africanos.