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Interview

July 17, 2018 12:30AM EDT

Interview: Photographing the Impact of Myanmar’s Land Confiscations

Maung Win, 63, a farmer from the Kyaunggon Township in the Ayeyarwady, said he had his land taken by the government in 1992. He and his family had been working on the land for decades before it was seized. He said that like the other villagers in the area, the government required him to “volunteer” to dig fish ponds on the farmland. He received no prior notice that his land would be confiscated. “It is like our hands are broken because we depend on these lands,” he said. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

While today’s headlines about Myanmar focus on crimes against humanity and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, a story just as consequential and longer in the making has gone largely unreported. A new Human Rights Watch report describes the impact on small-scale farmers throughout the country whose land has been confiscated over the past 30 years by Myanmar’s government and military.

In cases in which the seizures ostensibly promoted economic development, the plans were carried out without consultation or concern for the impact on those affected. Farmers received little or no notice before their farms were taken and no or inadequate compensation, depriving them of their livelihood. While official statistics show the government has taken hundreds of thousands of acres since the early 1990s, local activists believe millions of acres have been seized.

The award-winning photographer Patrick Brown traveled with Human Rights Watch to Shan State and Ayeyarwady and Yangon Regions to document the effect of government “land grabs” on the people there. His work will be on display in Myanmar at the Pansuriya Gallery in downtown Yangon following the report’s release. He spoke to Human Rights Watch about what drew him to this project and what he’s working on in Myanmar now.

201807asia_burma_myanmarland11 — The sun rises over the Ayeyarwady Region’s many fishponds where countless villagers had their once-verdant farmlands confiscated by military-backed ministries and soldiers in the 1990s. Few plots of land have been returned to their original owners who were all denied adequate compensation for their land. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland19 — Laborers on the outskirts of Yangon build low-income housing brick-by-brick, while nearby homes of displaced residents sit on an old trash dump. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland18 — Low-income housing being built on land on the outskirts of Yangon from which previous residents in makeshift homes were displaced. The displaced community, who were told by company staff and local authorities they could relocate a few hundred meters away on an old landfill, still resides in the shadow of the new housing. Residents had to build a makeshift bamboo walkway to avoid having to walk on the trash underneath their homes and all around them. The communities were paid little in compensation for the relocation and considerably suffered through the ordeal. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland14 — A farmer tends a fishpond in the Ayeyarwady Region where untold amounts of land have been confiscated since the early 1990s. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland13 — A man displays his catch in the Ayeyarwady Region where countless acres of farmland were confiscated without notice or compensation and turned into fishponds. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland12 — One of the Ayeyarwady Region’s many fishponds where countless villagers had their farmlands confiscated by State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) ministries and soldiers in the 1990s. Some farmers were effectively forced to dig ponds on their own lands. The government and military have refused in all but a few cases to return these confiscated lands to their original owners. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland9 — La Win, 61, a farmer from the Ayeyarwady Region, spent four years clearing 35 acres of land in 1991. He said that in 2004 a company took the land from him. He received no compensation for the land, which was just one parcel in a broader swath of land confiscated by the company in the region. He has filed countless claims with the government in attempts to get his land back to no avail. Since he is unable to farm his land, he now works as a manual laborer, weaving together thatch walls, and occasionally fishing. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland8 — Villagers ride past the entrance to a vast area of farmland that local residents said the government confiscated from them in southern Shan State. The government subsequently designated the land for use by Myanmar military’s veterans. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland7 — Barbed wire surrounds a factory in southern Shan State built on land that farmers report was confiscated by the military in 2004. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland5 — Farmers wrap and transport crops from a field in the Ayeyarwady Region. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland4 — A fire burns in southern Shan State on land the Myanmar military now claims it owns, though local farmers have lived and worked on the land for decades. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland3 — Thein Myint, 44, a farmer from Hlaing Thayar Township in the Yangon Region, had several acres of land taken from his family in 1991 by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military government. The government eventually sold the land his family once farmed, and new owners fenced off the land and built factories and other structures. To support his family, he now collects and sells grass from nearby empty lots, earning no more than a few thousand kyat per day. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland2 — Thein Tun, 41, a farmer from Shan State, was jailed for one month for trespassing on land he says his family has owned for decades. After his release, soldiers threatened to evict him and his family. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

How much time have you spent in Myanmar? How did you become interested in the country?

I went to Thailand in 1999 and ended up in Chiang Mai, where I met Burmese dissidents. My first photo of Myanmar was taken over the Salween River. The mountains and the hills intrigued me, but I had no idea how much the people and the country would interest me. And it's been a large portion of my career for 20 years. I’ve been covering Rakhine State [in western Myanmar] for one year and before that, I was on the Thai-Myanmar border for five years. It’s been a big part of my life.

201807asia_burma_myanmarland3 — Thein Myint, 44, a farmer from Hlaing Thayar Township in the Yangon Region, had several acres of land taken from his family in 1991 by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military government. The government eventually sold the land his family once farmed, and new owners fenced off the land and built factories and other structures. To support his family, he now collects and sells grass from nearby empty lots, earning no more than a few thousand kyat per day. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

What drew you to this project?

This story [of land confiscations in Myanmar] doesn’t make headlines. It’s not the most obvious subject matter to document, which makes it intriguing for me. The people we met had no political alliances as such. They were people going on about their lives, much like people in Pittsburgh might. But there were people with power coming in and totally dismantling their livelihoods.

We spent the afternoon with a farmer and we went to his block of land where he had been cultivating rice. The government had taken his land and had therefore taken his income, his self-esteem, his capacity to provide for his family. He hadn't done anything wrong, but they wanted his land because it was fertile. It had a tremendous impact on him and his family.

How would you describe your work as a photographer?

I don't chase headlines as such. I’m not a news photographer. Once the headlines have dissipated from the front page or the World Wide Web, I like to stick around and find out what was happening and what it actually means for people. Sometimes that can take years. I like to slowly find out what the narrative is, not just listen for the soundbite.

201807asia_burma_myanmarland6 — Ma Mau Oo, 46, a farmer from Shan State, said the military took 12 acres from her family in 2005. Since then, she has sent over a dozen letters to the government requesting that the land be returned to her family. “I keep sending letters because I want the higher ranks to know what’s happening,” she said. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

Tell us about your current project.

I’m in the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar [in Bangladesh]. I’ve been coming here since August 2017 to document the plight of the refugees and what it’s like to be stateless in a place with a population that would dwarf Liverpool or Copenhagen. I see this as the second phase for the Rohingya, after the initial exodus. At the moment the monsoon season is approaching, but the heavens haven't opened yet. One of the biggest cyclones to hit was in 1991 and that directly impacted Cox’s Bazar. The storm made 10 million people homeless and killed 130,000. At that time, there weren't hundreds of thousands of people living in bamboo and plastic shelters.

I’ve been revisiting people I met a year ago. I just visited a young boy who had his arm shot clean off from just between the elbow and the shoulder while he was escaping. His uncle cleaned his arm as best he could with a knife he sharpened on a river stone, and he knew which leaves had antiseptic qualities. It took him a month to walk out of the region where he was and to get to Bangladesh, and when he arrived, the wound was still open. The bone was still showing. I first met him at the hospital in Cox’s Bazar and he was getting a blood transfusion. I just saw him now. The idea is to come back and follow the people that I’ve made contact with. The camp has its own life. It changes, it evolves, it’s moving constantly.

201807asia_burma_myanmarland17 — Kyaw Ohn, 46, a farmer from Kyaunggon Township in the Ayeyarwady Region, said he had over 10 acres confiscated from him by the military government in the early 1990s. Since then, he has farmed a much smaller plot of land and works as a day laborer. He and his family received no compensation or substitute land for the seizure of the land they depended on for their livelihood. He said his complaints to the government have received no response. © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

201807asia_burma_myanmarland16 — Thein Win, 60, a farmer from Kyaunggon Township in the Ayeyarwady Region, said he had 12 acres of land seized from him by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military government in 1992. They used the lands they took from him and other villagers for fishponds. When he complained about the land confiscation, authorities threatened to arrest him. Eventually, the government required him to “volunteer” to dig his own land up to create the fishponds. He said he never received any compensation for the land taken from him: “We got nothing. We literally got nothing for our land.” © 2017 Patrick Brown for Human Rights Watch

The Rohingya crisis has been a major news story, but what do you think people who are following the crisis through news stories might be missing?

The sense of statelessness, which I can't even fully grasp. The consequences of not belonging to a state, I can't emphasize enough how demoralizing that can be. It leaves you– psychologically and physically – in a state of flux. They can’t get a job, they can’t farm, they can’t travel, they can’t go see a doctor outside the refugee camps. They don’t have any power. They’re stateless. They literally don’t exist on paper. And that’s very hard concept to grasp if you come from a society where before you’re born, you’re documented in some manner. It’s hard to portray that in imagery and in stories or to people who belong to a society where they are “documented.”

It’s such a hard angle to photograph, the sense of frustration. It’s man-made and totally preventable, and yet we have 900,000 people who are living in plastic and bamboo shelters. I don't think that comes through in some of the news reports.

Can you describe what it’s like to be in the camps?

It’s awesome, but only in the sense that it actually takes your breath away. You see the size of it and it just goes on and on and on. Every day I go to a new part of the camp that I've never been to. There are no concrete buildings, no sewage system, no roads. It just keeps rolling. I walked 15 kilometers today and the landscape didn’t change.

What do you want to accomplish with your work?

I want to challenge people and make them feel uncomfortable – not to the point where they shy away, but to the point where they will reflect on their own position in the world and bring it up at the dinner table or their next gathering.

I don’t want to preach, I don’t want to startle or scare people away with my imagery, but I want them to reflect and contemplate their own existence on this planet of ours, and how they could start a dialogue. I want them to start a dialogue with each other.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Region / Country

Myanmar (Burma)

Topic

Migrant and Refugee Children