Kevin Woods, a research analyst with Transnational Institute — a think tank that conducts research on Myanmar's land and resource issues — said these peaceful protests are "a symbolically potent" way to demonstrate the farmers' ownership. The authorities' response, he said, is troubling.

"This occupying strategy — and police response to forceful evictions and arrest —brings to light how new laws enacted in the country have in many ways been carefully formulated in such a way as to give more legal power to the government and more legal rights to companies over its citizens and their right to livelihood and land," Woods said by email.

He added that the lack of legal rights afforded to protesting villagers offers a "bleak view" into how President Thein Sein's government is using the law to accomplish "top-down coercive development goals."

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