Farmers take tiger reserve land-grab case to state court

Wednesday, 01 September 2010 01:23 Khaing Kyaw Mya

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Seventeen farmers from Kachin State in northern Burma are taking their fight over land seized in the Hukawng Valley “tiger reserve” by a junta-linked tycoon to the state’s Supreme Court tomorrow.

The farmers, among 148 from five villages in the valley who protested in June against land confiscations by the Yuzana Company run by junta crony Htay Myint, lodged a plea for compensation with the court in the state’s capital, Myitkyina.

However, a report released last Wednesday by the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG), an alliance of civil society groups and development organisations, showed that Yuzana was making a mockery of the reserve’s protected status.

“Fleets of tractors, backhoes and bulldozers rip up forests, raze bamboo groves and flatten existing small farms,” the report said. “Signboards that mark animal corridors and ‘no-hunting zones’ stand out starkly against a now barren landscape; they are all that is left of conservation efforts.”

“Application of chemical fertilisers and herbicides together with the daily toil of more than 2,000 imported workers are transforming the area into huge tapioca, sugar cane and jatropha [potential biofuel] plantations,” it said.

The company had seized more than 400,000 acres of land since its establishment in Hukawng Valley, double the size of the area the junta granted it in 2006 to establish the sugar and tapioca plantations, Kachinnews.com reported last week. The massive land-grab included huge tracts farmed for generations by nearly 1,000 families.

In the past two months, more than 120 farmers settled with compensation of 80,000 kyat (US$80) per acre, Myint Lwin, a lawyer representing some of the farmers, said.

“The 17 [farmers] still reject the offer, arguing that the sum offered grossly undervalues their land” he said.

In March, a group of villagers wrote to the National League for Democracy central advisory committee asking it to appoint a lawyer to file a legal case against the Yuzana Company on their behalf. The case first appeared for comment last month.

“The farmers have lost a total of 1,040 acres of farmland,” Myint Lwin said.

The lawyer’s report said the complainants were from Warazup, Nansai, Bankawk, Awngra and Jahtuzup villages, where 1038.47 acres were stolen out of total farmland area of 3,965.

The farmers have not simply lost their livelihoods, they have been forced to move elsewhere. Some relocated to nearby Sampya village while remained, living in hardship.

“The company has destroyed orange groves, paddy fields, tea gardens, bamboo groves and has confiscated our land. It has forcibly constructed factories in our areas,” one of the farmers said. “We don’t have land anymore.”

Separately in February, a total of 163 families from six villages had been forced to relocate to less favourable farming areas without fishing grounds, while others also accepted compensation funds, the KDNG reported.

However, reports say the compensation was not always accepted willingly. Local police harassed villagers and forced them to accept the compensation money, a farmer who accepted the compensation said.

“The officers came late at night and forcefully detained farmers for questioning,” she said, adding that the farmers had to go with the police as they were afraid of the junta.

She said “Life is secure for those who have agreed to take the money, but those who have opposed taking it are living in fear, can’t sleep peacefully in their homes and have to hide elsewhere.”

The Kachin Environmental Organisation (KEO) gave its views on what was behind the junta giving free reign to Yuzana operations in the state.

“The military regime’s plan is to … bring under its control the whole natural resources of Kachin State within the next 10 years” KEO director Yaw Na said.

This year, 260 farmers from the area wrote to the Rangoon office of the UN’s workers’ body, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), asking it to intervene.

“Complaints were registered with the ILO in March and there have been multiple complainants from a number of villages,” ILO liaison officer in Rangoon, Steve Marshall, said.

“The prime issue is the confiscation of land, but there were some suggestions that there may have been some element of forced labour associated with the confiscations,” he added.

Htay Myint, who is on European Union and United States sanctions lists because of his links to the ruling military junta, had also announced his intention to stand for the governorship of Tenasserim Division in Burma’s elections on November 7 because of his extensive palm-oil business interests there, the KDNG report said.

Htay Myint is also chairman of the Burmese Fisheries Federation, president of the Construction Owners’ Association and president of the Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association. He has other broad interests in hotels and real estate.

Hukawng Valley is in Kachin State’s west near the Indian Border, situated between the Kumon mountain range to the east and the Patkai range to the west and is a watershed for the Chindwin and Brahmaputra rivers.

According to a WCS report early this month, the population of big cats in the region has long been known to be as little as 50 because of illegal hunting.

Both the WCS in New York and Yuzana Company in Rangoon were unavailable for comment.

The Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, which covers around 8,452 square miles in the northernmost part of Burma, was established by the State Peace and Development Council, the junta’s name for itself, in 2001 with the support of US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).