Mon communities should have a say in how commercial activities and business development are determined and planned and all investments in the state and it will come under official inspection within the next few months

2 Apr 2019

The current approach in rushing through investment proposals concerning Mon State by authorities in Nay Pyi Taw is alarming. Projects should not be approved without proper community consultation because communities should have a say in how commercial activities and business development are determined and planned.

Questions around investments in Mon State are heating up these days. The Economic Affairs Reviewing Committee of Mon’s parliament has announced that, within the next few months, all investments in the state will come under official inspection. This inspection is taking place in the context of a recent surge of investments in the state – particularly following the New Mon State Party’s (NMSP) signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the National League for Democracy-led (NLD) government in February 2018. Despite the concern in the state legislature about the ramifications of the investment inflow, the Union Parliament has rubber-stamped all of these investments.

The Union Parliament appears to be taking its cue from the NLD administration. At the Invest Myanmar Summit 2019, the State Counsellor proclaimed that “As Southeast Asia’s final frontier market – final and best – we offer a world of opportunities… Investment opportunities are everywhere in Myanmar; some are there to be seen, and others are waiting to be found.”

This “world of opportunities”, however, is at odds with the many ongoing conflicts around investments across the country, where interest from investors has often meant the loss of lives and livelihoods. One of the areas that has recently “been found” by investors is a cluster of villages around Magyi, Ye township, in southern Mon.

For livelihoods or profits?

In these villages, despite the signing of the NCA by the NMSP, people are still under pressure from both the Tatmadaw and an armed NMSP-splinter group that regularly takes villagers as hostages for ransom.

Nonetheless, the general situation in the area is much better than during the decades of harassment at the hands of the Tatmadaw, when it was considered a ‘black area’ and hence a target of the infamous “four cuts” campaign. However, this “peace” has come at a cost. With it has followed increasing pressure from powerful business interests that want access to land and natural resources in and around the villages.

Historically, the livelihoods of local people have been diverse, consisting of a combination of small-scale agriculture and fishing for personal consumption as well as for sale in markets. Their livelihoods therefore rely on access to land, sea and surrounding water sources. Particularly important for local livelihoods is a mountain in Magyi. Yet the mountain is now under threat. For the past year, Yangon-based Excellent Fortune Development has been trying to initiate a controversial stone-mining operation on Mount Bleh Patoi. This created tensions within and between local villages. Some villagers have been willing to sell their land in expectation of future jobs promised by the company. But other villagers, led by Buddhist monks from the local monastery, are firm in their opposition to the proposal. Their belief is that the destruction of the mountain by the mining project will destroy the basis of their communities, livelihoods and lives.

The mining scheme is not alone. The conflict around the site is unfolding in the context of other resource-grabs that target the coastline and three offshore islands. Varying constellations of the Tatmadaw, NMSP and different cronies have been working together with the village tract leader, gradually taking over the coastline.

In consequence, today there is only a small stretch of coastline that is available for people to live on – everywhere else has been sold off. For the moment, nothing has been built, but rumours continue that a “zoning plan” already exists for the entire coastline, dividing the area between tourism and industry.

This small snapshot of the dynamics around Magyi mirrors processes up and down the coast in Mon, where land and natural resources are increasingly coveted for extractive purposes and a combination of conservation and tourism. Unfortunately, while the land and natural resources are coveted, the people living there are not.

The conflicts over land and natural resources need to be seen in the context of the broader breakneck speed of land reform in Myanmar. In particular, amendments to land laws recently came into force that are putting pressure on local villagers to register their land or risk having it declared “Vacant, Fallow and Virgin [VFV]” and possibly confiscated. The amended VFV law sparked concerns among community organisations about the risk of commercial interests getting priority over local livelihoods.

This has put villagers in a complicated situation throughout the country, particularly those displaced from their homes or in areas where customary land ownership is practised. This practice does not fit into the model of individual ownership that land reforms are supposed to spur on, so registration undermines their way of life. Yet, if land is not registered, people fear they will lose their land.

Another vision is needed

In response to all these pressures, villagers and civil society groups across Mon are mobilising and organising to come up with their own visions for investment, with a number of basic demands that must be met by investors. Villagers are not against investment or development as such, but many areas are in dire need of basic services, including electricity, health care and education. The question, then, is under what terms should investment be accepted? So far, the goal of the Union Government seems to be to attract any and all investment, no matter what the cost to people’s lives and livelihoods or the environment.

An alternative vision taking ordinary peoples’ interests into account will take time. It will require broad public debate on what role investments can play in advancing socio-economic conditions in an environmentally just way for people who live in very different contexts and settings, both in Mon and the rest of the country.

Hopefully, the process that has been initiated in Mon by the regional Economic Affairs Reviewing Committee can be a tool to halt investments that are creating division within and between villages. This could allow for people to debate – and decide – what role they want for investments in their villages, if any.

The Mon Area Community Development Organisation (MACDO) is a community-based organisation working primarily in southern Mon State in support of community mobilisation and organisation for development. Mads Barbesgaard is a researcher with the Transnational Institute's Myanmar in Focus and Agrarian & Environmental Justice programmes.

 

(The Myanmar Times: https://www.mmtimes.com/news/mon-state-villagers-should-have-say-investments.html )