The COHRE Guide to Housing, Land and Property Rights in Burma, published in 2009, sets out the key international standards on land and housing rights relevant to Burmese groups. It is aimed at those Burmese activists working on land and housing rights issues, whether they are focusing on policy development or documentation of human rights violations. Available for download below. **

Burma is experiencing a housing rights crisis. Millions were displaced by cyclone Nargis in 2008, and the impact was made more acute by poor planning and inadequate warning by the Burmese junta and restrictions on international assistance and relief.

Before cyclone Nargis hit, there were already an estimated one million displaced Burmese, mostly from Burma’s many ethnic minorities. This displacement was caused by the Burmese military’s counterinsurgency tactics in the civil conflicts it is fighting, and by their policy of military self-sufficiency, where poor villagers and forced to provide food, labour and land to the military. Development projects, such as dams, mines and oil pipelines have also caused mass displacement and other violations of human rights

To read more about this displacement see COHRE’s December 2007 publication, Displacement and Dispossession: Forced Migration and Land Rights in Burma below.

The housing rights crisis in Burma can only be resolved in the context of substantial and sustained change in Burma. Political transition should include improved access to a range of fundamental rights, as enshrined in international law and conventions — including respect for HLP rights. Notwithstanding the need for fundamental political change in Burma, steps can and should be taken now to address HLP issues.
 

COHRE is working with a range of Burmese groups, primarily based in Thailand, on other forms of displacement in Burma, to:

• train groups in HLP Rights
• document violations of HLP rights, and
• make preparations for the resolution of HLP rights issues in a future transition to democratic rule

For more information about COHRE’s work on restitution issues, click here.
For more information about our work on Burma, contact us at cohreasia@cohre.org or

COHRE Asia and Pacific Programme
PO Box 2061
Phnom Penh 3
Cambodia
Tel: +855.23.726.930
Fax: +855.23.726.934

Other Burma resources on this site:

Alternative assessment of the impacts of Cyclone Nargis (25 July 2008). For more information about this independent assessment of the impacts of Cyclone Nargis, click here.

COHRE Statement on Burma – 7 May 2008
COHRE calls for urgent action to protect housing rights in response to cyclone in Burma
To see COHRE's statement in response to the cyclone in Burma, click here.

Burma's displaced people - a long term problem
Click here to read an opinion piece from the Irrawaddy, written by COHRE, on the current crisis in Burma.