Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Myanmar: Thousands at Risk of Forced Eviction - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International
 "On 24 March 2015 the President’s office announced that the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for the Letpadaung mine project in Sagaing region, central Myanmar, had been approved. There is therefore a high risk that the mining company Myanmar Wanbao will resume operations to take over land for the project and forcibly evict 196 families who have refused to move and thousands of villagers whose land has not yet been taken over by the company. Myanmar Wanbao is a subsidiary of Chinese company Wanbao Mining. 

Click here for entire URGENT ACTION information and addresses.
Published on Oct 15, 2014
As Myanmar opens up to foreign investment after decades of dictatorship, a big land grab is underway. Companies with ties to the military are kicking the rural poor aside to get rich — and not sharing much of the spoils. In Letpadaung, hundreds of farmers have been displaced from their ancestral villages to make way for a massive, China-backed copper mining project. But some of them are fighting back. Reporter Jason Motlagh traveled to Myanmar for AJ+ to find out more.