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About 40 ethnic activist groups are calling on the government, ethnic militias and the international community to address a surge in land-grabbing, as companies move into Burma’s ethnic regions following recent ceasefire agreements.
But their campaign was off to a rocky start on Thursday when two government committees on land use declined to meet the activists.
Kevin Woods, a researcher with the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI), said the Land Investment Committee, headed by Union Solidarity Development Party MP Tin Htut, and the Land Allotment and Utilization Scrutiny Committee, chaired by Win Tun Min of the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry, had turned down requests to meet with the groups.
“They are the two most important committees for us to meet,” Woods said on Thursday, as the activists prepared to leave for the Burmese capital Naypyidaw. “If these committees won’t meet civil society groups from ethnic areas, where most land disputes are happening, then how do they expect to address these issues?”...
