Burma's Revolution from Below
Publisher: Foreign Policy
Author(s): Elliott Prasse-Freeman
Date: 2015
Topics: Governance, Land, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources
Countries: Myanmar
In the streets, paths, and paddy fields of hundreds of Burmese towns and villages, thousands of protesters are mobilizing, in creative and often radical ways, for everything from constitutional change, to educational liberalization, to improved labor standards, to fair energy prices. But most significant — in terms of numbers, commitment, and challenge to the status quo — are the numerous farmers’ protests against the land grabs that went on with impunity during the military era and which are continuing today even amidst Burma’s ostensible transition to democracy.
Though the scale of the problem is difficult to assess, 11,000 cases of land theft have been reported to the parliament’s Farmland Investigation Commission (FIC). Thein Aung, head of the Freedom of Farmers League, has estimated that roughly five percent of Burma’s farmers — in a country where 60 to 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas — are involved in a land dispute. Legislator and FIC member Aung Thein Lin warns that the land protests “are everywhere, and I fear they may result in a national uprising, and if this happens it will reverse our democratic transition.”