U Myint Tun was alone in his field in Sagaing Region when four officers pulled up in a military jeep with the bad news: His land now belonged to the government and he could no longer farm it. This was April 1996.

Nearly two decades later, he has still neither gotten his land back nor been paid a single kyat for it. U Myint Tun is not alone. Many of his neighbours had their land taken by the local police and a Thai-Myanmar corporation to grow sugarcane. If caught growing other crops besides sugar, they can be fined or arrested.

Read the entire article on Landportal.info here.