This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in February 2013 by a community member describing events occurring in T'Nay Hsah Township, Hpa-an District between June 2012 and February 2013. The report describes monks demanding money and labour from villagers for the building of roads and pagodas. Also detailed in this report is the loss of money and possessions by many villagers through playing the two-digit lottery.

This Interview with Ma A--- describes events occurring in B--- village, Hpa-an Township, Thaton District in June 2015, including land confiscation, forced relocation, attack on a village and villagers, threatening, looting, arbitrary detention and threats to children’s right to education.

In Myanmar, as in other countries of the Mekong, it is widely acknowledged that the clearing of forests to
make way for the expansion of commercial agricultural fields is increasingly the leading driver of deforestation,
alongside legal and illegal logging, and the clearance of forest areas to make way for infrastructure projects
such as roads and hydropower dams. While the conversion of forests for agricultural development has been
occurring for many decades, it is the unprecedented rate of this conversion that is now so astounding — as

Conclusion: "Most relevant reports and surveys I have been able to access state essentially that people from all parts of Burma leave home either in obedience to a direct relocation order from the military or civil authorities or as a result of a process whereby coercive measures imposed by the authorities play a major role in forcing down household incomes to the point where the family cannot survive. At this point, leaving home may seem to be the only option.

Introduction:

This report is a preliminary exploration of forced migration/internal displacement in Burma/Myanmar in two main areas. The first is the status in terms of international standards, specifically those embodied in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, of the people who leave home not because of conflict or relocation orders, but as a result of a range of coercive measures which drive down incomes to the point that the household economy collapses and people have no choice but to leave home.

This Interview with Naw A--- describes events and issues occurring in Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District, during January 2015, including land confiscation, development projects, healthcare and education...

Villagers are concerned about land confiscation for an industrial zone planned nearby Toungoo Town and have sent complaint letters to the Burma/Myanmar government requesting that they terminate the company’s development projects...

Submission of evidence by Lawyers Network and Justice Trust to the Letpadaung Investigation Commission...(Submitted 28 January, 2013, re-submitted with exhibits 5 February, 2013)...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

(Hong Kong, April 10, 2013) A Burma-based lawyers group has released its findings on the Letpadaung land struggle in English.

The 39-page illustrated report was submitted by the Lawyers Network (Myanmar) and the Justice Trust in February to the government's investigation commission into events at Letpadaung, recounts the land struggle and subsequent crackdown on protestors.

Villagers in Karen areas of southeast Myanmar continue to face widespread land confiscation at the hands of a multiplicity of actors. Much of this can be attributed to the rapid expansion of domestic and international commercial interest and investment in southeast Myanmar since the January 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar government. KHRG first documented this in a 2013 report entitled ‘Losing Ground’, which documented cases of land confiscation between January 2011 and November 2012.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, Bangkok - Three years after the 2012 preliminary ceasefire negotiations between the Myanmar government and the Karen National Union (KNU), reported instances of land confiscation continue to increase in southeast Myanmar. In its 2015 report, ‘With only our voices, what can we do?’, KHRG highlights four main land use types which lead to land confiscation: infrastructure projects, natural resource extraction, commercial agriculture projects, and military activities.

Throughout the Mekong region, large-scale development projects such
as hydropower dams, mines, conventional power plants, and mono-crop
plantations are displacing communities and limiting access to natural
resources. Several hydropower dams have already been built on the
Upper Mekong in China’s Yunnan Province, and the governments of
Cambodia, Laos and Thailand are planning eleven additional large dams
on the Mekong River’s mainstream. If completed, these dams would
not only destroy local ecosystems, but also reduce the ow of silt