Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In 2011 unions became legal for the first time since 1962. Employers also now have to
comply with agreements made before a conciliation body. But with penalties for non-
compliance being a maximum fine of $100 or less than a year in jail, critics claim the law
has no teeth.
Land Confiscation
Democracy and human rights groups concerned with Myanmar point to land confiscation
as one of the biggest problems the country needs to tackle. As Myanmar's economy has
opened up, there has been an increase in grabs of resource-rich land by the military, cor-
rupt officials and business cronies, particularly in border areas where ethnic communities
report being dispossessed by a variety of industrial development projects.
Amnesty International says that two new laws relating to land ownership enacted in
2012 'fail to provide adequate protection for farmers from having their land requisitioned
by the authorities'. Among the cases that it has reported on recently are those of the
coconut farmers near the beach resort of Ngwe Saung seeing their plantations destroyed
as new facilities were built in the lead up to SEA Games in November 2013, and the land
grabs associated with the expansion of the Letpadaung copper mine in Monywa town-
ship. In March 2013 the Karen Human Rights Group (
www.khrg.org
)
published a report
detailing land conflicts in eastern Myanmar.
In September 2013 the government convened the Land Utilisation Management Cent-
ral Committee to discuss the 745 complaints it had received about land confiscation and
had promised to solve the issues before the end of its term of office in 2015 as well as
prevent land disputes in the future.
POLITICAL PRISONERS
The last time we researched this guide in 2011 it was estimated there were more
than 2000 political prisoners in Myanmar. Following a succession of amnesties and
pardons, the government claims that they have met President Thein Sein's pledge
that all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar would be released by the end of 2013.
However, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (
www.aappb.org
)
,
which keeps a running tally of the detainees, believes as of January 2014 around 33
political prisoners remain in Myanmar's jails with around another 136 facing
charges linked to their political activities. The discrepancies are because of contin-
ued detentions of political activists by the government, the lack of transparency in
Myanmar's prison and judicial system, and disagreements between government
and opposition groups on who counts as a political prisoner.
