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

Executive Summary:
"Worsening conflict and abuses by Burmese government troops in
northern Shan State have displaced over 2,000 Palaung villagers from
fifteen villages in three townships since March 2011. About 1,000,
mainly women and children, remain in three IDP settlements in Mantong
and Namkham townships, facing serious shortages of food and medicine;
most of the rest have dispersed to find work in China.
Burmese troops have been launching offensives to crush the Kachin

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during April 2011 in Tantabin Township, Toungoo District by a community member trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The community member interviewed a 37 year-old township secretary, Saw H---, who described abuses committed by several Tatmadaw battalions, including forced relocation, land confiscation, forced labour, restrictions on freedom of movement, denial of humanitarian access, targeting civilians, and arbitrary taxes and demands.

Land confiscation is narrowly defined by KHRG as incidents in which villagers’ access to or use of land is forcibly supplanted by another actor without their consent. Land confiscation often occurs at proposed development, natural resource extraction, or private business sites, including hydro-electric dams, mining and logging projects, and plantation agriculture. Increased militarisation at these sites perpetuates a cycle of land confiscation in areas adjacent to the sites for the development of military camps, roads, or other infrastructure to support the project.

This past week the parliamentary Farmland Investigation Commission submitted its report on land confiscation to the parliament. The report finds that the military have taken almost 250,000 acres of land from villagers. The commission stated that they had spoken to military leaders about the confiscation, “Vice Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing […] confirmed to me that the army will return seized farmlands that are away from its bases, and they are also thinking about providing farmers with compensation.”...

RANGOON—Less than eight months after a parliamentary commission began investigating land-grabbing in Burma, it has received complaints that the military has forcibly seized about 250,000 acres of farmland from villagers, according to the commission’s report.

The Farmland Investigation Commission submitted its first report to Burma’s Union Parliament on Friday, which focused on land seizures by the military.

Contents:
1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose of Discussion Paper
2. Background History
2.1 Ethnic Politics and Military Interference
3. Land tenure legislation (1948-62)
3.1 Earlier a brief period of Democracy (1948-1962)
3.2 Under BSBP rule (1962 - 1988)
3.3 Under Military ruling (1988 - Up to now)
4. Socio-Economic Poverty and Land Ownership
5. Summary of Findings
6. Analysis of Findings
7. Militarization and land confiscation
8. No rights to a fair Market price and food sovereignty

Commentary: Land Grabbing and Related Issues and Abuses Continue...
Contents: Themes & Places of Violations reported in this issue...
Acronyms:
MAP...
Land abandoned under force seized and original owners required to buy them back, in Lai-Kha...
Burmese military let people’s militia groups grow crops on lands long cultivated by local people, in Nam-Zarng...
Situation of land grabbing and related abuses in areas under the influence of a ceasefire group “UWSA”, in Murng-Ton...