Ethnic Kachin rebels are pressuring more than 600 people to move out of a village so they can take over gold and jade mining in the area to fund their fight against Myanmar’s ruling junta, residents told Radio Free Asia.
Officials from the Kachin Independence Organization met with the elders of Sabyit Khu village in early September to negotiate payment to villagers in exchange for their homes and to cover resettlement costs, the resident said.
The village was established more than 30 years ago in the jade mining center of Hpakant township in Kachin state in northern Myanmar..
“They said they are trying to collect funds for the revolution,” a source who goes by Zaw Zaw for security reasons said. “They said they needed these things (our land), not to build a private company, but to make funds for the revolution as a government.”
The Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, is the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army, which has clashed with the Myanmar military for decades.
The KIO sometimes works with Chinese companies in mining rare earth minerals in Kachin state, where successive governments have failed to regulate illegal mining for gold, jade and other rare metals for generations.
But when RFA contacted KIA information officer Col. Nobu about the relocation, he said he hadn’t received any information.
“I haven’t heard of that,” he said. “I don’t know about the project yet.”
‘We are not in a position to say no’
Some of the residents have already resettled in another village about three miles away from Sabyit Khu, Zaw Zaw said.
Residents have been offered between 15 million to 20 million kyats (US$7,140 to US$9,520) in compensation, in addition to land at the new location, a resident who goes by Wai Lu for security reasons told RFA.
“If they choose to live in the new location, they will be provided with the moving costs,” he said. “They are also provided with new water wells dug for them.”
Residents have been instructed to move out by mid-October, residents said. The KIO’s Hpakant township administration began paying compensation on Sept. 22.
However, some people have resisted giving up their homes, residents told RFA. Most members of the village have made their living mining for gold and jade and are worried the new location will make their livelihood more difficult, they said.
“It’s not like we have become better off,” Zaw Zaw said. “I think we just got the amount we fairly deserve. And we are not in a position to say no to them under this unstable political situation.”
According to the United Kingdom-based rights group Global Witness, nearly 400,000 people in Myanmar rely on scavenging precious stones in the area around Hpakant to earn a living – most of whom work under unsafe conditions.
Area residents have told RFA that since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, jade companies have illegally restarted mining operations and skirted scrutiny by paying taxes to the KIO and the junta.
Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
