Scott Leckie: ‘Burma could very easily become the displacement capital of Asia’

...In the last six to eight months there’s been a lot of commotion made about land disputes in Burma. Legally speaking, what’s setting the precedent for this to happen now?

Well the whole phenomenon needs to be looked at in terms of the history of the country when it comes to land ever since independence, whereby a system of law, which essentially gave all power to the state when it came to the control, use and allocation of land, was used and very often abused by those who were members of the state or closely associated with the state to acquire land for personal benefit.

That process may take a slightly different form today and may manifest itself in slightly different ways than it did in the past, but the environment now – with greater openness and greater commercial possibilities, business possibilities and investment possibilities – has put ever greater and increasing pressure on land with the net result being that values go up, expectations go up, and therefore the incentives to acquire land and benefit from it personally have also consequentially expanded. That of course leaves those who reside on the land in an extremely difficult position, particularly in a country which traditionally has not taken housing, land and property (HLP) rights of the citizenry very seriously...