Burma's dramatic turn-around from 'axis of evil' to western darling in the past year has been imagined as Asia's 'final frontier' for global finance institutions, markets and capital. Burma's agrarian landscape is home to three-fourths of the country's total population which is now being constructed as a potential prime investment sink for domestic and international agribusiness.

Introduction: "Emerging from five d
ecades of military
dictatorship,
civil turmoil
and
economic
isolation,
Burma has
lately
come to the
attention of
international
investors keen to
draw profits from the country’s vast
natural resources which
include
fertile land,
minerals,
oil, natural gas and timber.

In September 2011, residents of Je--- village, Kawkareik Township told KHRG that they feared soldiers under Tatmadaw Border Guard Battalion #1022 and LIBs #355 and #546 would soon complete the confiscation of approximately 500 acres of land in their community in order to develop a large camp for Battalion #1022 and homes for soldiers' families. According to the villagers, the area has already been surveyed and the Je--- village head has informed local plantation and paddy farm owners whose lands are to be confiscated.

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in September 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in T'Nay Hsah Township, Pa'an District during September 2011. It details an incident in which a soldier from Tatmadaw Border Guard #1017 deliberately shot at villagers in a farm hut, resulting in the death of one civilian and injury to a six-year-old child.

WETHMAY, Myanmar—Anger over plans to expand a Chinese-backed mine near here is emerging as a test case of Myanmar's recent political reforms.

Villagers have staged raucous protests in recent weeks over the giant copper mine near Monywa in northwestern Myanmar, owned jointly by Myanmar's military and a subsidiary of China North Industries Corp., an arms manufacturer. The subsidiary, Wanbao Mining Ltd., and its Myanmar partners are hoping to expand the mine, but that would require taking over huge tracts of land and moving as many as 26 villages, locals say...

The complaint letter below, signed by 25 local community members, was written in July 2011 and raises villagers' concerns related to the construction of the Kanchanaburi – Tavoy [Dawei] highway linking Thailand and the Tavoy deep sea port. Villagers described concerns that the highway would bisect agricultural land and destroy crops under cultivation worth 3,280,500 kyat (US $3,657). In response to these concerns, local community members formed a group called the 'Village and Public Sustainable Development' to represent villagers' concerns and request compensation.

As Myanmar’s junta prepared to step down from government, the military set about seizing public assets and natural resources to ensure its economic control in a new era of democratic rule. Guns, Cronies and Crops details the collusion at the heart of operations carried out by Myanmar’s armed forces in northeastern Shan State. Large swathes of land were taken from farming communities in the mid-2000s and handed to companies and political associates to develop rubber plantations.

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;

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.

Introduction: "The following report has been compiled to bring to the attention of a wider
audience many of the problems facing the people of Burma, especially its many
ethnic nationalities. For many outside observers, Burma’s problems are confined
simply to the ongoing incarceration of Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
the country’s democratically elected leader, and many other political prisoners.
However, as we hope to show in the following report, this is only one of very

Contains framework for analysing the gender impacts of foreign investment in agriculture; gender analysis of the certification criteria of voluntary sustainability standards and responsible investment frameworks; do voluntary sustainability standards improve gender equality?; lessons for responsible investment frameworks and recommendations.

An article and radio talk replete with photos concerning a story of land grabbing in the village of Ruasse, Zambezia, northern Mozambique by a Portuguese company, Quifel. By law, companies are supposed to negotiate with communities, but no company seems to be taking the law seriously. The case also cited in the Norfolk & Hanlon World Bank presentation of April 2012.