Metal mining
Websites/Multiple Documents
| Title: | | Burma mine protest (Google search results) |
| Description/subject: | | About 23,400,000 results (15 December 2012) |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Various sources via Google |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 14 December 2012 |
|
Individual Documents
| Title: | | BURMA: Criminalization of rights defenders and impunity for police |
| Date of publication: | | 29 April 2013 |
| Description/subject: | | The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns in the strongest terms the announcement of the commander of the Sagaing Region Police Force, Myanmar, that the police will arrest and charge eight human rights defenders whom it blames for inciting protests against the army-backed copper mine project at the Letpadaung Hills, in Monywa. The commission also condemns the latest round of needless police violence against demonstrators there. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) |
| Format/size: | | html (45K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 29 April 2013 |
|
| Title: | | BURMA: Lawyers' report on Letpadaung released in English |
| Date of publication: | | 10 April 2013 |
| Description/subject: | | "(Hong Kong, April 10, 2013) A Burma-based lawyers group has released its findings on the Letpadaung land struggle in English.
The 39-page illustrated report was submitted by the Lawyers Network (Myanmar) and the Justice Trust in February to the government's investigation commission into events at Letpadaung, recounts the land struggle and subsequent crackdown on protestors.
The Asian Human Rights Commission said that the report offered further evidence to support arguments that the mining operation ought to be halted, and criminal actions brought against police and other officials responsible for orders to disperse protestors through the use of incendiary weapons.
"It is alarming that despite having such evidence available to it, not only did the investigation commission endorse the continuation of the mining project, but also said literally nothing about the criminal responsibility of the police and other authorities involved in the brutal attack on peaceful demonstrators," Bijo Francis, acting executive director of the Hong Kong-based regional rights group, said. .." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) |
| Format/size: | | html (49K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 11 April 2013 |
|
| Title: | | BURMA: Two sharply contrasting reports on the struggle for land at Letpadaung |
| Date of publication: | | 03 April 2013 |
| Description/subject: | | "The Asian Human Rights Commission has since mid-2012 closely followed, documented and reported on the struggle of farmers in the Letpadaung Hills of central Burma against the expansion of a copper mining operation under a military-owned holding company and a partner company from China. After repeatedly being refused permission to demonstrate against the operation under the terms of the country's new antidemocratic public demonstration law, the farmers began public protests, which were met with a range of repressive measures, culminating in the night time attack on encamped protestors last November. The attack received international media coverage because the police fired white phosphorous into the protest camps causing extensive burns to protestors, the majority of them monks who had joined villagers in resistance to the mine project.
In recent months two reports have been issued, in Burmese, on the struggle against the mine. The reports make interesting reading because they represent very different perspectives and understandings of the issues for the affected villagers in Letpadaung. One is the official report of an investigative commission headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, published in the 12 March 2013 edition of the state newspaper. The other is an unofficial report by the 88 Students Generation group and the Lawyers Network, Upper Burma, issued before the official report, on 21 January 2013. Whereas the latter report represents a genuine effort to identify the causes for the opposition to the mine and speak to the human rights questions concerned with events in Letpadaung of 2012, the former is little more than an exercise in playing at politics, and an attempt to sidestep and obfuscate the questions of human rights involved through the use of "information" that conceals more than it reveals..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) |
| Format/size: | | html (54K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 April 2013 |
|
| Title: | | Report of the Investigation Commission for Letpadaung Copper Mining Project |
| Date of publication: | | 12 March 2013 |
| Description/subject: | | စစ္ကိုင္းတိုင္းေဒသၾကီး မံုရြာခရိုင္၊ ဆားလင္းၾကီးျမိဳ႕နယ္ လက္ပန္ေတာင္းေတာင္ ေၾကးနီစီမံကိန္း စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရး ေကာ္မရွင္၏ အျပီးသတ္အစီရင္ခံစာ
...
နိဒါန္း
၁။ ၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ ႏိုဝင္ဘာလ ၂၃ ရက္တြင္ က်င္းပေသာ ျပည္သူ႕လႊတ္ေတာ္ အစည္းအေဝး၌တင္သြင္းခဲ့သည့္ အေရးၾကီးအဆိုတြင္ စစ္ကိုင္းတိုင္းေဒ သၾကီး မံုရြာခရိုင္ ဆားလင္းၾကီးျမိဳ႕နယ္ လက္ပန္ေတာင္းေတာင္ ေၾကးနီစီမံကိန္းႏွင့္ စပ္လ်ဥ္း၍ ေၾကးနီမိုင္းလုပ္ငန္း ဆက္လက္ေဆာင္ရြက္ခြင့္ျပဳရန္ သင့္မသင့္ စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ကို ျပည္ေထာင္စုသမၼတျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္၊ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္သမၼတရံုးမွ အမိန္႕ေၾကာ္ျငာစာအမွတ္ (၉၅/၂၀၁၂) အရ ၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ ဒီဇင္ဘာလ ၃ ရက္ေန႕တြင္ ဥကၠ႒အပါအဝင္ အဖြဲ႕ဝင္ ၁၆ ဦးျဖင့္ ဖြဲ႕စည္းေပးခဲ့ပါသည္။
၂။ စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရးေကာ္မရွင္အဖြဲ႕ဝင္မ်ားသည္ စီမံကိန္းႏွင့္ပတ္သက္၍ ေက်းရြာလူထု ခံစားေနရသည့္ ျပည္သူ႕အသံမ်ားအပါအဝင္ စီမံကိန္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္သည့္ အခ်က္အလက္မ်ားကို စံုစမ္းျပီး သံုးသပ္ခ်က္ႏွင့္တကြ တင္ျပႏိုင္ရန္ အဖြဲ႕အစည္းမ်ား ဖြဲ႕စည္းေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့ပါသည္။ |
| Language: | | Burmese/ ျမန္မာဘာသာ |
| Source/publisher: | | Letpadaung Investigation Commission via Burma Partnership |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 24 March 2013 |
|
| Title: | | Submission of Evidence to Myanmar Government’s Letpadaung Investigation Commission (full text - English) |
| Date of publication: | | 14 February 2013 |
| Description/subject: | | Submission of evidence by Lawyers Network and Justice Trust to the Letpadaung Investigation Commission...(Submitted 28 January, 2013, re-submitted with exhibits 5 February, 2013)...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
"The evidence submitted in this report covers two main issues: 1) the circumstances and validity of contracts signed by local villagers in April 2011 to allow their farmlands to be used by a copper mining joint venture between Wanbao, a Chinese military-owned company, and U Paing, a Burmese military-owned company, and 2) the circumstances and validity of the police action used to disperse peaceful protesters at the copper mine site during the early morning hours of 29 November, 2013.
This submission presents relevant laws and facts concerning the Letpadaung case; it does not draw legal conclusions or make specific policy recommendations.
The evidence indicates that local government authorities, acting on behalf of the joint venture companies, used fraudulent means to coerce villagers to sign contracts against their will, and then refused to allow villagers and monks to exercise their constitutional right to peaceful assembly and protest.
The evidence also indicates that police used military-issue white-phosphorus (WP) grenades (misleadingly termed smoke bombs) combined with water cannons to destroy the protest camps and injure well over 100 monks with severe, deep chemical burns. White phosphorus spontaneously ignites in air to produce burning phosphorous pentoxide particles and, when combined with water, super-heated phosphoric acid..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Lawyers Network and Justice Trust via AHRC |
| Format/size: | | pdf (1.8MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.humanrights.asia/news/press-releases/AHRC-PRL-007-2013
http://justice-trust.org/wp-content/uploads/Letpadaungreportforpublicrelease.pdf (slightly different text) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 11 April 2013 |
|
| Title: | | Lost Paradise - Damaging Impact of Mawchi TIn Mines in Burma's Karenni State |
| Date of publication: | | 11 December 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | This report documents the increased militarization around the Mawchi mines, as well as the different social and environmental impacts they have had on the local community......
1. Introduction...
2. Ancestral lands and water sources to be lost from
extension of Mawchi mines...
3. Tin production for export and domestic use...
4. Villagers suffer impacts of Heinda tin mine in Tenasserim...
5. Background history of Mawchi tin mine...
6. Timeline of Mawchi mines...
7. Relations between tin mining companies...
8. Military security for Mawchi mine...
9. Social impacts of tin mining:
9/1 . Health problems caused by tin mining;
9/2 . Pollution from mining waste;
9/3. Drinking water problems;
9/4. Health problems downstream from the mines;
9/5. Living conditions and safety of mine workers;
9/6 . Gender disparity...
10 . An old woman from the Mawchi area recounts her
experience...
11 . Environmental impacts of tin mining:
11/1 . Deforestation;
11/2 . Landslides...
12 . Who benefits from tin mining?...
13. Conclusion and recommendations. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Molo Women Mining Watch Network |
| Format/size: | | pdf (490K-OBL version; 757K-original) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://karenniwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/LostParadise-MawchiMining-English-.pdf |
| Date of entry/update: | | 17 December 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Progress stops at the Myanmar elite's door |
| Date of publication: | | 04 December 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | "Freedom of speech will struggle to flourish in Myanmar as its economic interests are dominated by powerful neighbours...The protesters were given five minutes to leave. Police surrounded their camp close to the Letpadaung copper mine in northern Myanmar in the early hours of Thursday, armed with loudspeakers, water cannons and warnings of attack. First came the water, the force of which swept away dozens of flimsy structures used to shelter hundreds of Myanmarese angered at the damage wrought over more than a decade by the country's largest copper mine.
What came next however struck fear into the heart of Myanmar's nascent environmental movement. Plumes of fire lit up the night sky as police and riot control units shot incendiary bombs into the clusters of tents. "They fired 10 rounds; five at a time," one protester told the Democratic Voice of Burma. "And the sparks that landed on people's clothing couldn't be shaken off; they burst into flames when they attempted to do so."
Images that emerged following the crackdown showed hospital wards filled with burn victims - men, women and Buddhist monks. "I'd prefer to be dead now than suffering [from the burns] - the pain is too unbearable," a monk said.
The brutality of the incident conjures memories of September 2007, when hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were shot dead by Myanmar troops. That crackdown was congruent with the reputation of the military junta that ruled Myanmar at the time.
But 18 months into its experiment with democracy and wildly contradicting the progressive rhetoric of President Thein Sein, the attack last week has left many questioning the earnestness of the reforms. Moreover, the involvement of police, who operate under the auspices of the president, has cast a shadow over a leader preparing to accept a number of top peace awards.
The Letpadaung incident goes beyond a simple bid to stifle dissent. While environmental damage and grievances over the confiscation of 7,800 acres of land were the key focus of the resistance to the mine, in the government's eye, these protests marked the intersection at which three hugely sensitive issues meet: The public's ability to exercise freedom of speech, China's influence over Myanmar and vested military interests in the country's natural resources.
Put together, they indicate that at the core of government, there still exists the same fear over the standing of the elite that fuelled abuses by Myanmar's former rulers.
Days into the protests, Aung Min, one of President Thein Sein's top cabinet members, was caught on camera saying that the mine would stay open because, "We are afraid of China"..." |
| Author/creator: | | Francis Wade |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | AL Jazeera |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 05 December 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Ceremony to receive Ovada from senior monks in Monywa held |
| Date of publication: | | 02 December 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | "...The ceremony was opened with the recitation of Namo Tasa three times. Next, Commander of
Sagaing Region Police Force Police Col San Yu supplicated the matters regarding the ongoing
situations stemming from Latpadaungtaung copper mine project in Salingyi Township of
Monywa District and religious matters. Please accept my apology. We are very disheartened by
injuries of monks in the crackdown of boycott camps in Latpadaungtaung project in Salingyi
Township..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | "The New Light of Myanmar" |
| Format/size: | | pdf (85K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 02 December 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Asia-Pacific Riot police break up Myanmar copper protest (video) |
| Date of publication: | | 29 November 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | Security forces used a water cannon and other weapons to end the three-month protest, injuring 10 monks, two critically. Riot police fired water cannons and tear gas to break up a three-month protest against a vast copper mining project run by Myanmar's powerful military and its partner, a subsidiary of a Chinese arms manufacturer. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Al Jazeera |
| Format/size: | | Adobe Flash |
| Date of entry/update: | | 29 November 2012 |
|
| Title: | | BURMA Monywa Copper Mining Protest Resumes |
| Date of publication: | | 20 November 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | "More than 1,000 people demanding the closure of a copper mining project in the Letpadaung mountain range, Sagaing Division, held yet another demonstration in front of the company’s headquarters in Monywa’s Salingyi Township.
Protesters have been disrupting project work since Sunday by linking arms and blocking the path of trucks and vehicles at the construction site while security officials looked on.
Local residents and environmental activists have taken up two separate positions—a large gathering in front of the Myanmar-Wanbao Mining Company office on the Monywa-Pathein Road, and a smaller event at the Lelti Sayadaw Buddhist Building near Kyawyar Village, around five miles away from the protester’s main camp..." |
| Author/creator: | | "The Irawaddy" |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Nyein Nyein |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 20 November 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Blood and Gold: Inside Burma's Hidden War (video) |
| Date of publication: | | 04 October 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | Deep in the wilds of northern Myanmar's Kachin state a brutal civil war has intensified over the past year between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
People & Power sent filmmakers Jason Motlagh and Steve Sapienza to Myanmar (formerly Burma) to investigate why the conflict rages on, despite the political reforms in the south that have impressed Western governments and investors now lining up to stake their claim in the resource-rich Asian nation. |
| Author/creator: | | Jason Motlagh and Steve Sapienza |
| Language: | | English, Burmese, Kachin, (English subtitles |
| Source/publisher: | | People & Power (Al Jazeera) |
| Format/size: | | Adobe Flash (25 minutes), html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 08 October 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Grab for white gold - platinum mining in Eastern Shan State (Burmese) |
| Date of publication: | | 08 May 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | အစီရင္ခံစာအက်ဥ္းခ်ဳပ္
ရွမ္းျပည္နယ္ အေရွ႔ပိုင္း တာခ်ီလိတ္ၿမိဳ ၏႔ ေျမာက္ဖက္ ေတာင္တန္းေဒမ်ားတြင္ ေဒသခံမ်ားကို ထိခိုကေ္ စသည့္
ေရႊျဖဴတူးေဖာ္ျခင္းလုပ္ငန္းကို ၂၀၀၇ခုႏွစ္မွ စတင္ခဲ့ကာ ယင္းေၾကာင့္ လားဟူ၊ အာခါႏွင့္ ရွမ္းရြာ ၈ရြာမွာ လူေပါင္း ၂၀၀၀ေက်ာ္ကို
ထိခိုက္ေစခဲ့သည္။ ေရႊျဖဴတူးေဖာ္မႈကို ျမန္မာကုမၸဏီမ်ားက ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနၿပီး တရုတ္ႏွင့္ ထုိင္းႏိုင္ငံသို႔ တင္ပို႔လွ်က္ရိွသည္။
တာခ်လီ တိ ၿ္မဳိ ႔ ေျမာကဖ္ က ္ ၁၃ကလီ မို တီ ာအကြာရ ွိအားရဲေခၚ အာခါရြာအနီးတငြ ္ကမု ဏၸ ၅ီ ခကု လပု င္ န္း လပု က္ ငို လ္ ်ွကရ္ သွိ ည။္
ထကို မု ဏၸ မီ ်ားက ရြာသားမ်ားပငို ဆ္ ငို သ္ ည ့္ပစညၥ ္းမ်ားႏငွ ့္ ေျမယာမ်ားက ိုအတင္းအက်ပဖ္ အိ ားေပး၍ ေစ်းႏမိွ ္ေရာင္းခ်ေစသကသဲ့ ႔ ို
ေျမယာအခ်ိဳ က႔ ို ေလွ်ာ္ေၾကးမေပးဘဲ အဓမၼသိမး္ ယူ ခဲ့ၾကသည္။ ေထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာေသာ စိုက္ပိ်ဳးေျမဧကမ်ားႏွင့္
သစ္ေတာမ်ားကို ကုမၸဏီက သိမ္းယူေနၿပီး အခ်ိဳ႔ေသာေျမယာမ်ားသည္ သတၱဳတြင္းမွ အညစ္အေၾကးမ်ားစြန္႔ပစ္ေသာေၾကာင့္
ပ်ကဆ္ ီးလ်ွကရ္ သွိ ည။္ ရြာသရူ ြာသားမ်ား အသုံးျပဳသည ့္အေ၀းေျပးလမ္းသ ႔ိုသြားေရာကရ္ ာလမ္းမွာလည္း သတဳၱတူးေဖာသ္ ည ့္
ကုန္တင္ကားမ်ား၊ စက္ယႏၱယားႀကီးမ်ား ျဖတ္သန္းသြားျခင္းေၾကာင့္ ပ်က္ဆီးၾကရသည္။
သတဳၱတူးေဖာျ္ခင္းေၾကာင ့္ ရြာသားမ်ား အဓကိ အသုံးျပဳေနေသာ ေရအရင္းအျမစ ္ညစည္ မ္းလ်ွကရ္ ၿွိပီး ေရစီးေၾကာင္းမ်ားလည္း
ေျပာင္းလဲကုန္သည္။ ယင္းအေျခအေနမ်ားက ေဒသခံအမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားကို ႀကီးမားေသာ အခက္အခဲမ်ားျဖစ္ေပၚေစသည္။
အေၾကာင္းမွာ ေရရရိွရန္အတြက္ အလြန္ေ၀းကြာေသာခရီးကို ေျခလ်င္ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္သြားရေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ထို႔အတူ သတၱဳတူးေဖာ္ရာလုပ္ငန္းသို႔ အမ်ိဳးသားေရႊ႔ေျပာင္းအလုပ္သမားမ်ား အစုလုိက္အၿပံဳလုိက္ ေရာက္ရိွ လာျခင္းေၾကာင့္
ထိုေနရာတ၀ိုက္တြင္ေနထိုင္သည့္ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ား၏ လံုၿခံဳေရးမွာ အႏၱရာယ္ က်ေရာက္ လွ်က္ရိွသည္။ စိုက္ခင္းသို႔
သြားသည့္အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားမွာ လိင္ပိုင္းဆုိင္ရာ ထိပါးေႏွာင့္ယွက္မႈမ်ားကို ႀကံဳေတြ႔ ေနရသည္။ အမ်ိဳးသမီးငယ္မ်ားမွာ
သတၱဳတြင္းအလုပ္သမားမ်ား၏ မယားငယ္မ်ားအျဖစ္ သိမ္းယူခံရသကဲ့သို႔ အခ်ိဳ႔ အမ်ိဳးသမီးငယ္မ်ားမွာ ျပည္႔တန္ဆာမ်ား
ျဖစ္ၾကရသည္။ သတၱဳတြင္း၀န္ထမ္းမ်ားက ေဒသခံ အမ်ိဳးသမီးငယ္မ်ားကို လူကုန္ကူးရာတြင္ ပါ၀င္ပတ္သက္ေနၾကသည္။
ရြာသ၊ူ ရြာသားမ်ား၏ အခငြ အ့္ ေရးက ိုကာကြယ္ေပးသည ့္ ဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမလႈ ည္း ကင္းမဲ့ေနသည။္ ျမနမ္ ာစစတ္ ပမ္ ွအရာရမွိ ်ားအား
လာဘ္ထုိးျခင္းအားျဖင့္ သတၱဳတူးေဖာ္သည့္ ကုမၸဏီမ်ားသည္ လူမႈေရးႏွင့္ သဘာ၀ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ဆုိင္ရာ စံသတ္မွတ္ခ်က္မ်ားကို
လိုက္နာရန္မလိုဘဲ လုပ္ငန္းလုပ္ကိုင္ႏိုင္ၾကသည္။ ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္ သတၱဳတူးေဖာ္သည့္ကုမၸဏီမ်ားႏွင့္ အိမ္နီးခ်င္းႏိုင္ငံမွ
ေရႊျဖဴ၀ယ္ယူသူတုိ႔သည္ လူမႈေရးႏွင့္ သဘာ၀ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးဆုိင္ရာ တာ၀န္မ်ားကို ေရွာင္ရွားျခင္းျဖင့္
သတၱဳတူးေဖာ္ျခင္း လုပ္ငန္းမွ အျမတ္ေငြ မ်ားႏိုင္သမွ် မ်ားမ်ားရေအာင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနၾကသည္။
ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္ လားဟူ အမ်ိဳးသမီးအဖဲြ႔က ေဒသတြင္းဖံြ႔ၿဖိဳးတုိးတက္မႈကို မျဖစ္ေစဘဲ ဆင္းရဲမဲြေတမႈႏွင့္ သဘာ၀ပတ္၀န္းက်င္
ပ်က္ဆီးမႈကိုသာျဖစ္ေစသည့္ သတၱဳတူးေဖာ္ျခင္းလုပ္ငန္းကို ခ်က္ခ်င္း ရပ္တန္႔ရန္ ျမန္မာအစိုးရအား ေတာင္းဆုိသည္။ |
| Language: | | Burmese/ ျမန္မာဘာသာ |
| Source/publisher: | | Lahu Women's Organization |
| Format/size: | | pdf (2.3MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Grab_for_White_Gold-PR(bu).pdf (Press Release, Burmese)
http://www.lahuwomen.org
http://lahuwomen.org/press-release/lahu-women-demand-end-to-destructive-platinum-mining-in-burmas-s... |
| Date of entry/update: | | 14 May 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Grab for white gold - platinum mining in Eastern Shan State (English) |
| Date of publication: | | 08 May 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | Burmese and Chinese companies are pushing aside Akha, Lahu and Shan villagers
in eastern Shan State in a grab for platinum (“white gold” in Burmese). Women are
facing particular hardship due to the loss of livelihood and the contamination of water
sources. The Lahu Women Organization is calling for an immediate halt to these
damaging mining operations....Summary
Since 2007, destructive platinum mining has been taking place in the hills north of
Tachilek, eastern Shan State, impacting about 2,000 people from eight Lahu, Akha
and Shan villages. The platinum is being extracted by Burmese mining companies and
exported to China and Thailand.
Five companies are currently operating around the Akha village of Ah Yeh, 13 kilometers
north of Tachilek. They have forced villagers to sell property and land at cheap prices,
and confiscated other lands without compensation. Hundreds of acres of farms and
forestland have been seized, or destroyed by dumping of mining waste. The villagers’
access road to the main highway has been ruined by the passage of heavy mining trucks
and machinery.
The main water source for local villagers has been diverted and contaminated by
the mining, causing tremendous hardship for local women, who must now walk long
distances to do their washing.
Women are also facing increased security risks from the influx of migrant male miners
into the area. There is regular sexual harassment of women going to their fields. Young
women are being taken as minor wives by the miners; some are also becoming sex
workers. Mining staff have also been involved in trafficking of local women.
There is no rule of law protecting the rights of the local villagers. By paying off the local
Burmese military, mining companies are able to carry out operations without adhering
to any social or environmental standards. The companies and platinum buyers in
neighbouring countries are therefore maximizing profits by avoiding responsibility for
the social and environmental costs of the mines.
The Lahu Women’s Organisation therefore calls on the Burmese government to put an
immediate stop to these destructive mining operations, which are not contributing to
local development, but are causing poverty and environmental degradation..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Lahu Women's Organization |
| Format/size: | | pdf (1.8MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://lahuwomen.org/press-release/lahu-women-demand-end-to-destructive-platinum-mining-in-burmas-s...
http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Grab_for_White_Gold-PR(th).pdf (Pres Release, Thai)
http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Grab_for_White_Gold-PR(ch).pdf (Press Release, Chinese)
http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Grab_for_White_Gold-PR(bu).pdf (Press Release, Burmese)
http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Grab_for_White_Gold(lahu).pdf (full text, Lahu)
http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Grab_for_White_Gold(bu)-op75mr-red.pdf (full text, Burmese) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 14 May 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Grab for white gold - platinum mining in Eastern Shan State (Lahu) |
| Date of publication: | | 08 May 2012 |
| Description/subject: | | Summary:
Since 2007, destructive platinum mining has been taking place in the hills north of
Tachilek, eastern Shan State, impacting about 2,000 people from eight Lahu, Akha
and Shan villages. The platinum is being extracted by Burmese mining companies and
exported to China and Thailand.
Five companies are currently operating around the Akha village of Ah Yeh, 13 kilometers
north of Tachilek. They have forced villagers to sell property and land at cheap prices,
and confiscated other lands without compensation. Hundreds of acres of farms and
forestland have been seized, or destroyed by dumping of mining waste. The villagers’
access road to the main highway has been ruined by the passage of heavy mining trucks
and machinery.
The main water source for local villagers has been diverted and contaminated by
the mining, causing tremendous hardship for local women, who must now walk long
distances to do their washing.
Women are also facing increased security risks from the influx of migrant male miners
into the area. There is regular sexual harassment of women going to their fields. Young
women are being taken as minor wives by the miners; some are also becoming sex
workers. Mining staff have also been involved in trafficking of local women.
There is no rule of law protecting the rights of the local villagers. By paying off the local
Burmese military, mining companies are able to carry out operations without adhering
to any social or environmental standards. The companies and platinum buyers in
neighbouring countries are therefore maximizing profits by avoiding responsibility for
the social and environmental costs of the mines.
The Lahu Women’s Organisation therefore calls on the Burmese government to put an
immediate stop to these destructive mining operations, which are not contributing to
local development, but are causing poverty and environmental degradation. |
| Language: | | Lahu |
| Source/publisher: | | Lahu Women's Organization |
| Format/size: | | pdf (1.6MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://lahuwomen.org/press-release/lahu-women-demand-end-to-destructive-platinum-mining-in-burmas-shan-state">http://lahuwomen.org/press-release/lahu-women-demand-end-to-destructive-platinum-mining-in-burmas-s...
http://lahuwomen.org |
| Date of entry/update: | | 14 May 2012 |
|
| Title: | | Pa-Oh youth launch campaign to oppose damaging impacts of Burma’s largest iron mine (text and video) |
| Date of publication: | | 27 October 2010 |
| Description/subject: | | "Save our Mountain, Save out Future": Pinpet Iron Mine and Steel Mill plant, near Taunggyi..."The Pa-Oh Youth Organisation (PYO) has produced a video and leaflets
showing the destruction already caused by the mining project, due to start
next year, including loss of farmlands, pollution of waterways, and abuses
committed by the Burmese regime’s troops providing security for the
project. Hundreds of copies of the video have already been distributed in
the affected areas.
Construction of the massive iron factory, jointly funded by Russian
state-owned Tyazhpromexport company, is almost complete. 100 villagers are
now being ordered out of the project area, among 7,000 people slated for
relocation once Pinpet mountain starts being leveled for open pit mining.
A further 35,000 villagers will be impacted by pollution of the Thabet
Stream, which has been diverted to clean and process the iron ore.
Affected communities have appealed to local authorities to stop the land
confiscation and forced relocation, but so far to no avail.
“There is a news black-out about the Pinpet project in Burma. We want to
raise awareness about the damage being caused and support community
efforts to oppose the project,” said PYO spokesperson Khun Chan Khe..."
To see the video and an update on the project, see
http://pyo-org.blogspot.com/
..... ပအိုဝ်းလူငယ်လှုပ်ရှားတက်ကြွသူများက
ရှမ်းပြည်နယ် တောင်ကြီးမြို့နယ်ရှိ
မြန်မာပြည်၏ အကြီးဆုံး ပင်းပက်
သံသတ္တုမိုင်းမှ ထိခိုက်ဆိုးကျိုးများအား
ဆန့်ကျင်ကန့်ကွက်နေသည့် ဒေသခံပြည်သူများ
အားဝိုင်းဝန်း ထောက်ခံအားပေးရေးအတွက်
ယနေ့ လှုပ်ရှားမှုကို ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
လှုပ်ရှားမှုနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍သတ္တုမိုင်း စီမံကိန်းကြောင့်
ထိခိုက်ဖျက်ဆီးခံရမှုများကို ဗွီဒီယို၊ လက်ကမ်းစာစောင်များ
အား မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထုတ်ဝေသည်။ ထိခိုက်ဖျက်ဆီးခံရမှုတွင်
စီမံကိန်းလုံခြုံရေးကြောင့် ဒေသခံအာဏာပိုင်များက
ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်ခံရမှုများ၊
ဒေသခံပြည်သူများမှ လယ်ယာမြေများ လက်လွတ်ဆုံးရှုံးရမှု၊
ရေထုညစ်ညမ်းမှုများ ကြုံတွေ့နေရပါသည်။ ထို့သို့ ထိခိုက်
နစ်နာခဲ့ရသည့် ဒေသခံပြည်သူများပုံရိပ်ကို ပအိုဝ်းလူငယ်
အစည်းအရုံးမှ ဓါတ်ပုံဗွီဒီယိုမှတ်တမ်း အနေဖြင့် ဖြန့်ဖြူး
ထုတ်ဝေပါသည်။ |
| Language: | | English, Burmese |
| Source/publisher: | | Pa_Oh Youth Organization (PYO) |
| Format/size: | | Adobe Flash; pdf (4K) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://pyo-org.blogspot.com/
http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs09/Pa-Oh-Pinpet_mine.pdf |
| Date of entry/update: | | 28 October 2010 |
|
| Title: | | Save our Mountain Save our Future -- an update from Burma’s largest iron mine |
| Date of publication: | | October 2010 |
| Description/subject: | | Pinpet Mountain under imminent threat
as iron project speeds ahead....
"Excavation of Burma’s second largest iron deposit located
in southern Shan State is imminent as bulldozers begin
preparatory clearing on the iconic Pinpet Mountain, home
to 7,000 people. The 300 residents in Pang Ngo village are
in immediate danger from falling rocks and landslides as
machines uproot trees, clear brush and remove top soil on
the west side of the mountain. Farm fi elds at the foot of the
mountain may be covered with toxic waste soils once the
excavation starts as ore samples at the site have tested
high for arsenic content.
Construction activities at the secretive iron factory
compound are also racing ahead. Underground bunkers
are now complete and a massive new crushing facility (see inside) now
towers above the compound walls. Surveys for uranium conducted on the
mountain in the past continue to fuel persistent concerns that this project is
linked to Burma’s nuclear plans.
Meanwhile according to authorities the forced relocation of nearby villages
will begin after the military regime’s sham elections, beginning with the
extraction of a community graveyard in December. Land confi scation
continues unabated. Local villagers are calling to stop the project, protect
the mountain and save the main waterway for the entire Hopone valley from
toxic pollution before it’s too late..."
This briefing is an update of PYO’s report, "Robbing the Future published in June 2009". |
| Language: | | English, Burmese |
| Source/publisher: | | Pa-Oh Youth Organization (PYO) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (2.2MB - English; 2.2MB - Burmese) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs11/Pinpet_Updated_Broucher(bu).pdf |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 February 2011 |
|
| Title: | | Robbing the Future - Russian-backed Mining Project Threatens Pa-O Communities in Shan State, Burma |
| Date of publication: | | June 2009 |
| Description/subject: | | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
"The transformation of Mount Pinpet, or "Pine Tree Mountain," in Burma's war-torn Shan State, for the excavation and refinement of the country's second largest iron ore deposit is changing the very nature of life there, and if not stopped could permanently destroy the home of more than 7,000 primarily ethnic Pa-O residents.
Since 2004 Russian and Burmese companies have been preparing to develop the deposit and are currently building an iron processing plant and a cement factory on a total of 11,000 acres of lands. An Italian company is also believed to be involved in the project.
Although there has been a ceasefire in the area since 1991, the military ruling Burma has established three sizeable battalion camps and two military universities in or around the nearby towns of Taunggyi and Hopone. Fighting has flared up south of the project site and has led to recent torture and killing of villagers by the Burma Army.
Twenty-five villages, a total of 7,000 people, could be permanently displaced from their homes and farmlands by the projects. A further 35,000 people rely on the watershed of the Thabet Stream in the valley east of the mountain.
Fifty people have already been forced to move and were not adequately compensated. The confiscation of vital farmlands has begun, leaving over 100 families without the primary source of their livelihood and sustenance. Travel restrictions have closed down a major road and prohibited villagers from collecting firewood, food, and shelter materials on the mountain.
The entire mountain of Pinpet will be excavated for this project, irrevocably changing the landscape and environment of the area. Pollution from mine tailings and erosion of mine heaps threaten the main water source of Hopone Valley. Ancient pagodas have been cracked and may be demolished altogether by explosions to prepare construction sites and begin excavation.
Local communities have not been informed or consulted about project plans and complaints to authorities about the confiscation of lands and lack of compensation have not been addressed. No assessments of the projects have been made public and mining authorities are pushing ahead by using the force of armed local military to relocate families, confiscate lands, restrict movements, and intimidate communities.
The lack of information is compounded by persistent speculation that the mining operation is in fact being set up to exploit and refine uranium, not only iron ore and limestone. These fears are fueled by Burma's announcement in 2007 that Russia is to build a nuclear reactor in the country.
The companies responsible for these projects should stop all activity and first conduct thorough and transparent assessments of the projects' environmental and social impacts; adequate compensation should be provided for those who have already lost their homes and lands; to assuage fears, all nuclear and uranium mining plans should be made public; and, such projects should not be conducted under the force of military power.
The Pa-O Youth Organization stands with its community to protect livelihoods, land ownership, and cultural heritage, and calls on regional and international actors to inspect the Pinpet projects and use their influence to ensure respect for the rights of affected communities." |
| Language: | | English, Burmese |
| Source/publisher: | | Pa-O Youth Organization (PYO) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (English, 3.5MB; Burmese 4.1MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs07/Robbing_the_Future(bu).pdf |
| Date of entry/update: | | 02 July 2009 |
|
| Title: | | Turning Treasure Into Tears - Mining, Dams and Deforestation in Shwegyin Township, Pegu Division, Burma |
| Date of publication: | | 20 February 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | Executive Summary: "This report describes how human rights and environmental abuses continue to be
a serious problem in eastern Pegu division, Burma – specifi cally, in Shwegyin
township of Nyaunglebin District. The heavy militarization of the region, the indiscriminate
granting of mining and logging concessions, and the construction of
the Kyauk Naga Dam have led to forced labor, land confi scation, extortion, forced
relocation, and the destruction of the natural environment. The human consequences
of these practices, many of which violate customary and conventional international
law, have been social unrest, increased fi nancial hardship, and great
personal suffering for the victims of human rights abuses.
By contrast, the SPDC and its business partners have benefi ted greatly from
this exploitation. The businessmen, through their contacts, have been able to rapidly
expand their operations to exploit the township’s gold and timber resources.
The SPDC, for its part, is getting rich off the fees and labor exacted from the villagers.
Its dam project will forever change the geography of the
area, at great personal cost to the villagers, but it will give the regime
more electricity and water to irrigate its agro-business projects.
Karen villagers in the area previously panned for gold and
sold it to supplement their incomes from their fi elds and plantations.
They have also long been involved in small-scale logging
of the forests. In 1997, the SPDC and businessmen
began to industrialize the exploitation of gold deposits and
forests in the area. Businessmen from central Burma
eventually arrived and in collusion with the Burmese
Army gained mining concessions and began to force
people off of their land. Villagers in the area continue
to lose their land, and with it their ability to provide
for themselves. The Army abuses local villagers,
confi scates their land, and continues to extort
their money. Commodity prices continue to rise,
compounding the diffi culties of daily survival.
Large numbers of migrant workers have
moved into the area to work the mining concessions
and log the forests. This has created a
complicated tension between the Karen and
these migrants. While the migrant workers
are merely trying to earn enough money to
feed their families, they are doing so on the
Karen’s ancestral land and through the exploitation
of local resources. Most of the migrant
workers are Burman, which increases
ethnic tensions in an area where Burmans often
represent the SPDC and the Army and are already
seen as sneaky and oppressive by the local
Karen. These forms of exploitation increased since the announcement of the construction
of the Kyauk Naga Dam in 2000, which is expected to be completed in late
2006. The SPDC has enabled the mining and logging companies to extract as
much as they can before the area upstream of the dam is fl ooded.
This situation has intensifi ed and increased human rights violations against
villagers in the area. The militarization of the region, as elsewhere, has resulted
in forced labor, extortion of money, goods, and building materials, and forced relocation
by the Army.
In addition to these direct human rights violations, the mining and dam construction
have also resulted in grave environmental degradation of the area. The
mining process has resulted in toxic runoff that has damaged or destroyed fi elds
and plantations downstream. The dam, once completed, will submerge fi elds,
plantations, villages, and forests. In addition, the dam will be used to irrigate rubber
plantations jointly owned by the SPDC and private business interests.
The Burmese Army has also made moves to secure the area in the mountains
to the east of the Shwegyin River. This has led to relocations and the forced displacement
of thousands of Karen villagers living in the mountains. Once the Army
has secured the area, the mining and logging companies will surely follow..." |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | EarthRights International (ERI) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (632K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 06 March 2007 |
|
| Title: | | Valley of Darkness - gold mining and militarization in Burma's Hugawng valley |
| Date of publication: | | 09 January 2007 |
| Description/subject: | | Executive Summary: "The remote and environmentally rich Hugawng valley in Burma's northern Kachin State has been internationally recognized as one of the world's hotspots of biodiversity. Indeed, the military junta ruling Burma, together with the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, is establishing the world's largest tiger reserve in the valley. However, the conditions of the people living there have not received attention. This report by local researchers reveals the untold story of how the junta's militarization and self-serving expansion of the gold mining industry have devastated communities and ravaged the valley's forests and waterways.
The Hugawng valley was largely untouched by Burma's military regime until the mid-1990s. After a ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the junta in 1994, local residents had high hopes that peace would foster economic development and improved living conditions. However, under the junta's increased control, the rich resources of Hugawng valley have turned out to be a curse.
Despite the ceasefire, the junta has expanded its military infrastructure throughout Kachin State, increasing its presence from 26 battalions in 1994 to 41 in 2006. This expansion has been mirrored in Hugawng valley, where the number of military outposts has doubled; in the main town of Danai, public and private buildings have been seized and one third of the surrounding farmland confiscated. Some of the land and buildings were used to house military units, while others were sold to business interests for military profit.
In order to expand and ensure its control over gold mining revenues, the regime offered up 18% of the entire Kachin State for mining concessions in 2002. This transformed gold mining from independent gold panning to a large-scale mechanized industry controlled by the concession holders. In Hugawng valley concessions were sold to 8 selected companies and the number of main gold mining sites increased from 14 in 1994 to 31 sites in 2006. The number of active hydraulic and pit mines had exploded to approximately 100 by the end of 2006.
The regime's Ministry of Mines collects signing fees for the concessions as well as 35% - 50% tax on annual profits. Additional payments are rendered to the military's top commander for the region, various township and local authorities as well as the Minister of Mines personally. The junta has announced occasional bans on gold mining in Kachin State but as this report shows, these bans are temporary and selective, in effect used to maintain the junta's grip on mining revenues.
While the regime, called the State Peace and Development Council or SPDC, has consolidated political and financial control of the valley, it has not enforced its own existing (and very limited) environmental and health regulations on gold mining operations. This lack of regulation has resulted in deforestation, the destruction of river banks, and altering of river flows. Miners have been severely injured or killed by unsafe working practices and the lack of adequate health services. The environmental and health effects of mercury contamination have yet to be monitored and analyzed.
The most dramatic effects of this gold mining boom, however, have been on the social conditions of the local people. The influx of transient populations, together with harsh working conditions, a lack of education opportunities and poverty have led to the expansion of the drug, sex, and gambling industries in Hugawng valley. In one mining area it was estimated that 80% of inhabitants are addicted to opium and approximately 30% of miners use heroin and methamphetamines. Intravenous drug use and the sex industry have increased the spread of HIV/AIDS. Far from alleviating these social ills, local SPDC authorities collect fees from these illicit industries and even diminish efforts to curb them.
The SPDC continually boasts about how the people of Kachin State are benefiting from its border area development program. The case of Hugawng valley illustrates, however, the fundamental lack of local benefit from or participation in the development process. The SPDC is pursuing its interests of military expansion and revenue generation at the expense of social and environmental sustainability
This report documents local people speaking out about this destructive and unsustainable development. Such bravery should be encouraged and supported.".......The main URL for this document in OBL leaqds to a 1.5MB version, obtained by passing the original through ocr software. The original and uthoritative version can be found as an alternate link in this entry. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (3.77MB - original and authoritative; 1.5MB - ocr version) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.eldis.org/assets/Docs/24720.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 09 September 2010 |
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| Title: | | Gold Diggers |
| Date of publication: | | October 2005 |
| Description/subject: | | Big companies push small prospectors aside in hunt for Burma’s riches...
"In Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen tells Alice: “A word means what I want it to mean.” That sums up in one sentence the state of Burma’s statute books—particularly those decrees relating to mining the country’s rich resources.
Robert Moody, in his 1998 “Report on Mining in Burma,” put it more directly. The law on mining passed by the Rangoon regime in 1994, he said, “is not just one, but a parade of farts in a bucket.”
The law makes no provisions for holding mining companies responsible for failure to stabilize workings and waste piles, nor for rehabilitating closed mines. There are no requirements for an environmental and reclamation bond to be posted by a mining company, no need for an environment and social impact assessment, nor for an independent monitor to ensure compliance during mining and post-closure operations.The law allows private citizens to prospect for gold, but they are not permitted to use machinery. People granted permits must sign an agreement to turn over 30 percent of their refined gold to the Ministry of Mines. Citizens are also permitted to pan for placer gold found in streams, although they are increasingly being edged out by Chinese contractors dredging the Irrawaddy River..." |
| Author/creator: | | Charles Large |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 13, No. 10 |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 30 April 2006 |
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| Title: | | At What Price? Gold Mining in Kachin State, Burma |
| Date of publication: | | November 2004 |
| Description/subject: | | Contents:-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS;
MAP;
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY;
INTRODUCTION & METHODOLOGY;;
BACKGROUND;
UNEARTHING BURMA;
ENVIRONMENT AND MINING LAWS;
THE LAND OF THE KACHIN;
GEOGRAPHY & BIODIVERSITY;
HISTORY;
GOLD IN THE KACHIN HILLS;
CONCESSION POLICY;
ROLE OF THE KIO;
FOREIGN INVESTORS;
CHINA;
GOING FOR KACHIN GOLD: MINING TECHNIQUES;
PLACER MINING;
PANNING;
BUCKET DREDGES;
SUCTION DREDGES;
HYDRAULIC MINING;
GOLD ORE;
OPEN-CAST MINES;
SHAFT MINES;
CHEMICALS IN THE MINING PROCESS;
DANGER: MERCURY;
ALTERNATIVES TO MERCURY;
CYANIDE LEACHING;
CASE STUDIES OF MINING AREAS IN KACHIN STATE;
HUKAWNG;
MALI HKA;
N’MAI HKA;
HPAKANT;
GOLD AND THE ENVIRONMENT3;
AFTER THE GOLD RUSH: TAILINGS AND ACID MINE DRAINAGE;
LAND REHABILITATION;
THE RIVER ECOSYSTEM;
GOLD AND ITS SOCIAL IMPACT;
SEEKING WORK, SEEKING GOLD;
ENDANGERING MINERS;
MINING AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS;
RECOMMENDATIONS... APPENDICES: IVANHOE MINES LTD.; EXAMPLES OF MERCURY AND METHYLMERCURY POISONING; CASES OF CYANIDE POLLUTION; AGREEMENT BETWEEN MYITKYINA TPDC AND NORTHERN STAR MINERALS TRADING AND PRODUCTION CO. |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Images Asia Environment Desk, Pan Kachin Development Society |
| Format/size: | | pdf (3.4MB) 66 pages |
| Date of entry/update: | | 21 December 2004 |
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