Violence in Myanmar. Over What? Land Seizures, Of Course.

The latest dispatches from Myanmar inform us that local villagers, sick and tired of having their land confiscated, are striking back and letting the authorities know that have no intention of taking it anymore. When the police tried to disperse villagers protesting the land seizures, the local folks responded with violence, wounding 46 people (27 of them police officers) and killing one.

Land seizures by the police, have been going on in Myanmar for years, but something — no one has explained what — set things off this week. Something acted as the straw that broke the camel’s back. For the whole story, see Thomas Fuller, Clashes Over Land Seizures Batter the Police in Myanmar, N.Y. Times, Feb. 228, 2013, at p. A3 – click here.