Myanmar: A Farmers Activist Is Beaten to Death, and the Video Goes Viral. How Tensions over Land Are Tearing at Myanmar

Dec 29, 2017 | Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times
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In Myanmar, a lush Southeast Asian nation where 70% of the population makes a living from agriculture, a slow transition from half a century of military rule has reopened old grievances over army seizures of land. The disputes pit farmers against the government, influential business interests, foreign investors — and often each other. The land battle is one of the crucial tests of a nation struggling to build democratic institutions while positioning itself as Asia’s new economic crossroads, a largely untapped source of mineral and agricultural wealth at the junction of India, China and Thailand.