Land grabbing and speculation, which can both manifest in a multitude of forms, are
unfortunate, often-inter-twined, yet common practices in countries undergoing structural
political transition. If unchecked, unregulated, or unintentionally encouraged by the very
governments that replace formerly authoritarian regimes, these two land realities can serve to
undermine democratic reforms, entrench economic and political privilege and seriously harm
the human rights prospects of those affected, in particular internationally recognised housing,

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.

အစီရင်ခံစာအကျဉ်းချုပ်
ရှမ်းပြည်နယ် အရှေ့ပိုင်း တာချီလိတ်မြို ၏့ မြောက်ဖက် တောင်တန်းဒေများတွင် ဒေသခံများကို ထိခိုကေ် စသည့်
ရွှေဖြူတူးဖော်ခြင်းလုပ်ငန်းကို ၂၀၀၇ခုနှစ်မှ စတင်ခဲ့ကာ ယင်းကြောင့် လားဟူ၊ အာခါနှင့် ရှမ်းရွာ ၈ရွာမှာ လူပေါင်း ၂၀၀၀ကျော်ကို
ထိခိုက်စေခဲ့သည်။ ရွှေဖြူတူးဖော်မှုကို မြန်မာကုမ္ပဏီများက ဆောင်ရွက်နေပြီး တရုတ်နှင့် ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံသို့ တင်ပို့လျှက်ရှိသည်။
တာချလီ တိ ြ်မို ့ မြောကဖ် က ် ၁၃ကလီ မို တီ ာအကွာရ ှိအားရဲခေါ် အာခါရွာအနီးတငွ ်ကမု ဏ္ပ ၅ီ ခကု လပု င် န်း လပု က် ငို လ် ျှကရ် သှိ ည။်

Burmese and Chinese companies are pushing aside Akha, Lahu and Shan villagers
in eastern Shan State in a grab for platinum (“white gold” in Burmese). Women are
facing particular hardship due to the loss of livelihood and the contamination of water
sources. The Lahu Women Organization is calling for an immediate halt to these
damaging mining operations....Summary
Since 2007, destructive platinum mining has been taking place in the hills north of
Tachilek, eastern Shan State, impacting about 2,000 people from eight Lahu, Akha

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
"Myanmar’s agricultural sector has for long suffered due to multiplicity of laws and regulations, deficient and degraded infrastructure, poor policies and planning, a chronic lack of credit, and an absence of tenure security for cultivators. These woes negate Myanmar’s bountiful natural endowments and immense agricultural potential, pushing its rural populace towards dire poverty.

This paper discusses Cambodia’s legal framework relating to Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) and looks at the implementation gaps. It argues that despite Cambodian’s legal framework governing land and ELCs being well-developed, its social benefits, such as protecting the rights of the poor and vulnerable and contributing to transparency and accountability, are almost non-existent.

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.

At night the Shweli has always sung sweet songs for us.
But now the nights are silent and the singing has stopped.
We are lonely and wondering what has happened to our
Shweli?" ... "Exclusive photos and testimonies from a remote village near the China-Burma border uncover how Chinese dam builders are using Burma Army troops to secure Chinese investments. Under the Boot, a new report by Palaung researchers, details the implementation of the Shweli Dam project, China's first Build-Operate-Transfer hydropower deal with Burma's junta.

Documents and analyses on land tenure in Burma/Myanmar.....
"1.Reconcile legality and legitimacy through clear legal recognition of existing
acknowledged rights, whatever their origin (customary or statutory) or nature
(individual or collective, temporary or permanent).
2.Initiate widespread debate on the choice of society that the land policies will
serve (and target), the opportunities for formalisation, how it will be implemented
and its possible alternatives.
3.Build consensus between all the actors concerned (central and local

In October 2013, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) released
"Disputed Territory", a report documenting the emerging trend of Mon farmers fighting
for recognition of their land rights in the face of unjust land and property
confiscations. The report analyzed specific barriers impeding their success, from weak
land policy and inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms, to an absence of support
from various sources.
While "Disputed Territory" explored the broad spectrum of land right violations among

Preliminary: 1. Objectives... 2. Nature and scope..... General matters: 3. Guiding principles of responsible tenure governance... 3A General principles... 3B Principles of implementation... 4. Rights and responsibilities related to tenure... 5. Policy, legal and organizational frameworks related to tenure... 6. Delivery of services..... Legal recognition and allocation of tenure rights and duties: 7. Safeguards... 8. Public land, fisheries and forests... 9. Indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems... 10. Informal tenure.....

Analysis of KHRG's field information gathered between January 2011 and November 2012 in seven geographic research areas in eastern Myanmar indicates that natural resource extraction and development projects undertaken or facilitated by civil and military State authorities, armed ethnic groups and private investors resulted in land confiscation and forced displacement, and were implemented without consulting, compensating or notifying project-affected communities.