By LAWI WENG : The All Mon Regions Democracy Party (AMDP), which won 16 seats in Mon State during the November 7th elections, will request, from the new Burmese government, the restoration of land confiscated by the Burmese military to Mon farmers.
Nai Ngwe Thein, AMDP chairman told The Independent Mon News Agency on Monday, “Many of our Mon people, especially who are from Ye township, have suffered a lot from the confiscation of their land by the military.”
“We will appeal to the new government for the repossession of the land to the people,” he said.
12,000 acres of rubber plantation land was confiscated by the Burmese army along the highway from Moulmein to Ye township in Mon state between the years 2000 and 2010. As reported by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), the military forcibly ceased the land and built army battalions. HURFOM documented multiple instances of military force and seizure of land and published a report on land confiscation titled, “No Land to Farm.”
The Burmese army has been to known to act according to a “self-reliance program” in which the military seizes land [in this case, rubber plantations] and then earns an income off the plantations and subsequently used for the battalions and their families.
Victims of land appropriation received no compensation and many were forced to work in Thailand or travel to the Mon refugee camp in Halockani as a consequence of their forced unemployment.
In fact, Burma has a law that forbids the seizure of farmer’s land called the 1963 Safeguarding Peasants’ Rights Law, Section (3), which states that “a Civil Court shall not make a decree or order for: a warrant of attachment for or confiscation of agricultural land; neither for employed livestock and implements, harrows and implements, other animate and inanimate implements, nor the produce of agricultural land; prohibition of work upon or entry into agricultural land; prohibition of movement or sale in whole or part or use of employed livestock and implements, harrows and implements, other animate and inanimate implements, or the produce of agricultural land.”
“The farmers must have the right to own their land which was handed down to them from their parents,” said Nai Ngwe Thein.
After the New Mon State Party (NMSP) partook in a ceasefire with the Burmese regime in 1995, the regime has expanded battalions in Mon State, building 15 new battalions and taking land away from Mon farmers.
In 2004, NMSP leaders discussed with the former Burmese Prime Minister and head of the military intelligence’s espionage department, Khin Nyunt, to solve conflicts of land confiscation in Mon state. However, the conflict remained unresolved after Khin Nyunt was expelled from power that same year.
NMSP leaders recounted that Khin Nyunt told NMSP that one battalion had the right to take only 50 acres of land by declaring that it was to be used by the military.
There are around 3 million Mon people living in the southern part of Burma, and the majority work in the agricultural sector.
