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The Asian Human Rights Commission on Wednesday sent a message of support to farmers and their allies gathering for a "people's conference" to oppose land confiscation and degradation for a copper mining project.
In the message to farmers and others gathering for the inaugural Letpadaung Mountain region people's conference, the AHRC said that the farmers' struggle set "an important example and signals the determination of people [in Burma]… to resist dispossession, repression and the use of violence and illegal tactics by powerful interests".
AHRC-PRL-044-2012.jpgThe farmers around the Letpadaung Mountain, which is in Sagaing Region, have since June conducted an increasingly high profile and determined campaign against attempts by an army-owned company and a Chinese partner firm to push them off their farmland.
They have posted signs warning "no trespassing" onto agricultural lands, and in October conducted a funeral march to a local cemetery where while praying, they insisted that the spirits of deceased ancestors are also rising up against the new copper mining project -- one of a string of such projects conducted in the region over decades...
