"Guns, Cronies and Crops", March 2015

Guns, Cronies and Crops details the collusion at the heart of operations carried out by Myanmar’s armed forces in northeastern Shan State. Large swathes of land were taken from farming communities in the mid-2000s and handed to companies and political associates to develop rubber plantations...[The] investigation reveals those involved, including Myanmar’s current Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, U Myint Hlaing, the country’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, and Sein Wut Hmon, a rubber company which collaborated with the former military junta to gain control of land...The report documents the toxic legacy of these land grabs on an already marginalised ethnic-minority population...Villagers ...[said] that they had received no compensation and are struggling to earn a living and feed their families without land to grow food...Global Witness wrote to Sein Wut Hmon’s owner and director, U Maung Myint, asking for comment. In his response, U Maung Myint dismissed information given to Global Witness as hearsay, denied that the company had used military connections to acquire villagers’ land and insisted that it had consulted with local people and provided jobs and development.