Land right

Hundreds of Karen representatives from 56 different groups gathered to strengthen Karen customary land management systems at a seminar held at Lay Wah, Karen State from May 29 to 30, 2019. The Kaw Customary Land Seminar was attended by 519 people including representatives from local community and civil society, donors, INGOs, political parties, and officers of the Karen National Union.…

Naw Ohn Hla, a land right and political activist together with four colleagues were arrested in Myawaddy after a protest over a controversial housing project on April 22, 2019. Naw Ohn Hla was arrested while traveling to Yangon on the night of April 22 after she joined with residents of the Shwe Mya Sandi Housing Project to protest the lost…

Amid increasing cases of land disputes in Burma, the country’s Parliament on September, 2018 ratified a controversial land law. The new law has been opposed by civil society and human right groups and the Karen National Union. The KNU released a statement on December 15 calling for the elimination of the newly enacted “Vacant, Fallow, and Virgin Land Management Law…

Karen organizations are accusing the government of abusing the ceasefire process to take advantage of investment opportunities with little regard for potential consequences to the environment or the local population. The latest iteration of the long-standing complaint was lodged by handful of groups after the Kawthoolei Land Seminar on November 2-4. Over 370 participants representing 53 Karen organizations attended the…

Villagers in Karen State are less than ecstatic that more than 232 acres of farmland, confiscated by the Burma Army and other government officials will be returned to them. The National League for Democracy Government’s Land Management Group, based in Karen State, said the land would be returned to its rightful owners. Villagers said the 232 acres are just the…

Karen National Union leaders has called for respective state and regional governments to recognized land rights and policies that are already in place for decades in ethnic areas and agreed to by both ethnic communities and armed groups. Padoh Mahn Mahn, the joint general secretary of the Karen National Union made the call to the government during the launch of…

Two Hpa-an based land right activists have been jailed for two years in jail, under Article 17/1 for association with an illegal organization. The two men, Saw Maung Maung Gyi and Saw Eh Say were sentenced on November 25, at Hpa-an Township’s Court. Saw Maung Maung Gyi, an 88 Generation Karen Student Group’s chairperson who had been helping local villagers…

The Burma government and a Thai company have agreed to pay compensation to farmers for damaging or taking their land while building the Asian Highway network link between Myawaddy and Kawkareik in Karen State. Saw Maw Htoo, Chairperson of the Karen National Union Kawkareik Township office, told Karen News that the KNU, Burma government, and company representatives held a meeting…

Landowners in Hpa-an Township are frustrated that they have to pay yearly rent to use lands that once belonged to them, but were confiscated by the military in 2003. Villagers claim that the property, that includes land from four villages in Aein Duu village tract, costs the villagers 300,000 kyat a acre in fees paid to the military to continue…

Driving through the rural roads of the Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) region in Southern Burma, vast plantation of palm oil and rubber trees stretch on either side of the roads. Signboards along the roads and in the town proclaim that, ‘Tanintharyi Division is the Oil Bowl of Myanmar’. Government policy to use vast tracts of farmland and forests for rubber and palm…