Begin forwarded message:

From: Jun Borras <junborras5@gmail.com>

Subject: urgent request re Myanmar agrarian campaign

Date: 18 December AD 2018 15:04:54 GMT+7

To: Shalmali Guttal <s.guttal@focusweb.org>, Shalmali Guttal <shalmaliguttal@gmail.com>

Dear Shal --

Something quite urgent, politically, is unfolding in Myanmar that requires intervention in the form of international solidarity -- which will mean a lot to the ongoing political campaign of grassroots groups to resist massive land dispossession.

Grassroots groups in Myanmar believe that the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin (VFV) Land Management Law passed in 2012 facilitated widespread land dispossession of rural population, especially of poor ethnic minorities, as well as internally displaced peoples and refugees. They also believe that the revised version of the 2012 VFV Law, dated September 2018, made the law even worse as it can potentially and very likely facilitate or legitimize further dispossession, could undermine serious attempts at peace-building, and is likely to criminalize rural poor people's land claims.

Thus, it is very critical -- and urgent -- to support the voices of rural villagers, internally displaced peoples and refugees and their allies among civil society groups resisting the VFV Land Law – and their right to exercise their civil and political rights to resist without threat of retribution.

Therefore, some of us in the international community have taken the initiative to gather support for the grassroots campaign in Myanmar.

Here is the link for the statement, and the space to sign up:

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dUXRWlNS1jeCd8_WaGuqq8C1mbB9RS3b1qN6EVIszrY/edit?usp=sharing

Hope you will be able to sign up, and also perhaps forward it to other key CSO leaders and other appropriate individuals for them to sign up as well.

Many thanks,
Jun