• Burmese
Monday, July 14, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
30 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

Rice Paddies in Dawei Confiscated for Housing

Kyaw Phyo Tha by Kyaw Phyo Tha
October 28, 2013
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0 0
A A
Rice Paddies in Dawei Confiscated for Housing

Workers fence in rice paddies on land to be used for civilian housing in Dawei Township’s Sanchi quarter on Sunday

4.6k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

RANGOON — Authorities in a town slated for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in southern Burma have confiscated paddy fields ready for harvest to make way for civilian housing quarters, according to a local activist group.

An activist from Dawei Human Rights Watch said a nearly 200-strong team led by district and township administrators showed up on Sunday morning at the rice plots in the Sanchi quarter of western Dawei Township, where they proceeded to fence off 14 acres of rice paddies. The land grab evicted more than 20 people working and living out on the fields.

Dawei is the capital of Burma’s southernmost Tenasserim Division. It is also the site of a 250-square-kilomter (97-square-mile) Dawei SEZ, which the Burmese and Thai governments hope to transform into Southeast Asia’s largest industrial complex.

RelatedPosts

‘Las Vegas in Laos’: the Riverside City Wwash With Crime

‘Las Vegas in Laos’: the Riverside City Wwash With Crime

July 14, 2025
93
Myanmar Junta Airstrikes Kill 25 on Friday

Myanmar Junta Airstrikes Kill 25 on Friday

July 12, 2025
461
Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

July 12, 2025
520

The watchdog’s Than Win, who witnessed Sunday’s land confiscation, told The Irrawaddy that authorities ordered the farmers to leave the area within 30 minutes.

“They said any assembly of more than five farmers would be punished,” he said, adding that authorities claimed the land had already been confiscated in the 1990s, but was only now being fenced in by the government.

“If it were unused land, I wouldn’t feel that bad, but the rice is now ready for this year’s harvest,” said Tun Tun Win, one of the land claimants whose four acres of farmland was included in the Sunday land grab.

Than Win said the latest seizure is part of more than 300 acres of farmland in Dawei Township confiscated by the former military regime. Government office buildings and other privately owned structures have been built on about 100 of the 300 acres. The state has offered compensation to 64 farmers who owned the 300 acres, but nearly all of them have rejected an offer to relocate their land holdings to new plots, with the farmers contending that the land is not suitable for growing rice.

Though their lands lie outside of the area designated for the Dawei SEZ, which includes a deep-sea port project, Than Win said the dispossessed farmers were still suffering the consequences of the US$50 billion project, sited 18 miles away from them.

“You could say today’s incident is one jump ahead of other moves as more development projects will be rushing into the area thanks to the deep-sea port project,” he said, adding that the rice paddies grabbed on Sunday were situated nearly one mile from the Dawei town center.

Burma and Thailand signed an agreement to develop a deep-sea port and SEZ at Dawei in 2010. The original developer, Italian-Thai Development, stepped back from the project after struggling to win financial backing. The Burma and Thai governments have since taken over and are attempting to bring Japan into the project, the first phase of which is expected to cost around $10 billion.

But the project is now under fire from human rights groups and local residents who are demanding a suspension of work at the SEZ site, claiming promised compensation has not been paid and work carried out so far has damaged agricultural land.

Tun Tun Win said his family had farmed the land for generations, and added that he learned only last year of the military’s claim that it had officially seized his land in the 1990s.

“When I went out to pay annual tax for my land as I have in previous years, the official no longer accepted it and I was told my land has been seized since the 1990s.”

He explained that when he was first informed of the military’s land claim, no compensation proposal was presented, but later authorities said they could offer a plot of 40 feet by 60 feet for every three acres of farmland confiscated. One square acre is approximately 209 feet by 209 feet.

Tun Tun Win said he and other farmers refused to accept the compensation offer.

“It’s a rip-off,” he said. “The location of the land they offered is quite far away and unfertile. Our lands are near the town center.”

Kyaw Swe, chairman of the Dawei District administration, confirmed the Sunday confiscation and the assertion that the land had technically been government property since the 1990s. He said the land fenced in Sunday was formerly owned by five farmers. The government last year compensated three of them with the 40 feet by 60 feet land plots for every three acres of the seized farmland.

“We will also compensate the other two owners, and allow the farmers to harvest,” he said.

Burma is an agricultural country where more than 70 percent of its 60 million people work on farmland. Land grabs were rife throughout the country under the former military dictatorship, and the issue has not abated with the installation of a nominally civilian government in 2011.

Between July 2012 and January 2013, the country’s parliamentary Farmland Investigation Commission received 565 complaints from farmers who alleged that the military had forcibly seized 247,077 acres (almost 100,000 hectares) of land, mostly in Irrawaddy Division, central Burma and some ethnic regions.

Even the country’s President Thein Sein acknowledged during a July speech in London that the issue of land-grabbing was one of Burma’s most important challenges, saying “land ownership issues … are extremely complex,” and vowing to develop “clear, fair and open land policies.”

A few days after the president’s speech, Burma’s defense minister said the military had reviewed half of all complaints of land-grabbing by its units, but had thus far decided to return only a fraction of all farmland forcibly seized during the junta era.

Defense Minister Lt-Gen Wai Lwin told Parliament that it was impossible, for security reasons, to give back lands that were located close to some areas used by the military, such as army training grounds and buildings, and land with ongoing development projects on it.

“So the farmers need to stop staging protests or their fight to win back their lands,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon, Than Win of Dawei Human Rights Watch and farmers were preparing to seek permission from local authorities to protest Sunday’s land grab and campaign for decent compensation.

“I have tried for the permissions two times in the past,” he said. “But they never allowed us.”

Tun Tun Win said the affected farmers were asking that the government give them the market rate for their lands.

“If they can’t give the price we demand, just give back our land and allow us to officially register those lands,” he said.

The Irrawaddy’s San Yamin Aung contributed reporting.

Your Thoughts …
Kyaw Phyo Tha

Kyaw Phyo Tha

The Irrawaddy

Similar Picks:

Exodus: Tens of Thousands Flee as Myanmar Junta Troops Face Last Stand in Kokang
Burma

Exodus: Tens of Thousands Flee as Myanmar Junta Troops Face Last Stand in Kokang

by Hein Htoo Zan
November 28, 2023
98.5k

Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army troops are opening roads and pathways through forests for people to flee Kokang’s capital as...

Read moreDetails
Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public
Burma

Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public

by The Irrawaddy
February 7, 2024
89.9k

People’s Defense Force says junta troops told every household in the village to send one member to witness the double...

Read moreDetails
Another Entire Junta Battalion Raises the White Flag in Myanmar’s Northern Shan State
War Against the Junta

Another Entire Junta Battalion Raises the White Flag in Myanmar’s Northern Shan State

by The Irrawaddy
November 29, 2023
87.1k

Brotherhood Alliance member says it now has complete control of Kokang’s northernmost section after the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 125...

Read moreDetails
Depleted Myanmar Military Urges Deserters to Return to Barracks
Burma

Depleted Myanmar Military Urges Deserters to Return to Barracks

by The Irrawaddy
December 4, 2023
59k

The junta said deserters would not be punished for minor crimes, highlighting the military’s shortage of troops as resistance offensives...

Read moreDetails
As Myanmar’s Military Stumbles, a Top General’s Dissapearance Fuels Intrigue
Burma

As Myanmar’s Military Stumbles, a Top General’s Dissapearance Fuels Intrigue

by The Irrawaddy
April 19, 2024
47k

The junta’s No. 2 has not been seen in public since April 3, sparking rumors that he was either gravely...

Read moreDetails
Enter the Dragon, Exit the Junta: Myanmar’s Brotherhood Alliance makes Chinese New Year Vow
Burma

Enter the Dragon, Exit the Junta: Myanmar’s Brotherhood Alliance makes Chinese New Year Vow

by The Irrawaddy
February 12, 2024
44.8k

Ethnic armed grouping says it will continue Operation 1027 offensive until goal of ousting the junta is achieved. 

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Thousands of Kachin Villagers Trapped After Burma Army Raid

Thousands of Kachin Villagers Trapped After Burma Army Raid

Burma Peace Process Could Create ‘Mini-Cronies

Burma Peace Process Could Create ‘Mini-Cronies,’ Media Coalition Warns

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

5 days ago
1.2k
China’s Surveillance State Watches Everyone, Everywhere

China’s Surveillance State Watches Everyone, Everywhere

6 days ago
1k

Most Read

  • Myanmar Junta Chief Thanks Trump for Shutting Down VOA and RFA

    Myanmar Junta Chief Thanks Trump for Shutting Down VOA and RFA

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Deploying Conscripts in Major Push to Reclaim Lost Territory

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • KIA Denies Rumor Chief Under House Arrest in China

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Chinese Investment Reshapes Myanmar’s N. Shan as MNDAA Consolidates Power

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.