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The government has fundamentally changed the meaning of land. It is now a product you can buy and sell. But land means more to us Karen people. It is our life and livelihood. It sustains us and our community. And our way of life. Without land we have nothing,” Karen villager from Kyauk Kyi township.
Land Confiscations and Potential for Restitution
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revious research demonstrates that conflicts over land are one of the central challenges facing Myanmar’s rural population in the contemporary period.114 Research conducted in Kayin State, Eastern Bago and Shan State similarly exposes how the legacies of military rule continue to play out and challenge peoples’ access to housing, land and property (HLP) rights. Moreover, the introduction of new land laws in 2012 to encourage domestic and foreign investment, has left communal customary land title vulnerable to alienation. A new National Land Use Policy was approved in January 2016. This policy recognises the importance of customary land rights in Myanmar, as well as restitution and the inclusion of women in land governance. While this new policy has the potential to help protect customary communal land rights and management practices in line with international standards, its implementation has fallen short of expectations. The 2012 land laws do not acknowledge existing customary land tenure mechanisms, apart from the 2018 amendments to the VFV Law. Specific provisions for the protection of customary land ownership rights and management are yet to be included within the current legislative framework outlined by the 2012 Farmland Law. In addition, the implementation of the kind of policies necessary to enable the recognition of customary land practices are hampered by top-down mechanisms, which importantly do not include the voices of those most affected. The introduction of new frameworks and bodies regarding land under the NLD government has only further complicated these processes. Furthermore, in contexts where powerful armed actors play a defining role in access to justice, many people see these new mechanisms as having little authority. The historical legacies of ethno-national conflict continue to play a significant role in people’s lives and their access to land in each of the three areas. These political flows and movements are central to understanding customary land laws and peoples’ differentiated access to land title and dispute resolution. Even though protections afforded by both Myanmar and EAO laws are being formalised, the ambiguity of standards of protection and the lack of comprehensive knowledge of land laws weaken the protection of people’s access to HLP rights. Despite the fact that ceasefires have been agreed to in each of the areas, the struggle over political power, legitimacy and authority forces people to negotiate between multiple authorities and regulatory systems and people’s housing, land and property rights. People also face challenges regarding the dual administration of sometimes multiple and conflicting authorities. This is enhanced in mixed-administered areas where there is a lot of confusion regarding who bears responsibility or duty towards civilians. The demarcation of land for private sector development and conservation is still often conducted in non-transparent ways
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