Lamu Ga, Nhprang Shingra Tara Hpe Ladat Jaw Ai Masa Hte  Gawnhkang Lu Na Matu Myit Ningchyan Shaw Hpaji Daw Ai Sumtang

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Date: 4/7//2020

Firstly, Kachin Development Networking Group would like to express our deep sorrow to those families affected by the jade mining landslide on 2^nd July 2020 in Gwi Hka, Hpakant Township, Kachin State which killed over 200 and injured another 50 people.

The jade prospectors killed were mostly students and youth. These deaths at the Hpakant jade mines happen every year but this was one of the largest loss of life ever and a huge loss of our nations’ human resources.

Most people prospecting at the jade mines are poor and unemployed and seeking livelihoods to support themselves and their families and come from Kachin State and all across Myanmar.

The tragedy at the Hpakant mines is not due to natural disaster but is a human-made disaster. The core reason for these deaths is the central government’s poor governance of natural resources and environmental mismanagement and flaws in the extreme centralised quasi-civilian 2008 constitution.

Recommendations

• The central government, jade mining companies and other related groups have to take full responsibility and be accountable for these tragedies, rather than calling them natural disasters or accidents.
• Immediately stop extraction of natural resources by using giant mining machines, by dynamite and bombs in any mines in Hpakant Township.
• To implement and apply federal democracy ownerships rights, devolved governance systems, local taxation and revenue sharing policies in a new constitution.
• If we do not solve on this problem quickly and continue to ignore these kinds of social,  environmental and political challenges, conflicts in our country will only multiply.

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Date: August 20, 2019

A new report launched today details how Burma’s security forces have driven out thousands of indigenous farmers from the Hugawng Valley amber mining region in Kachin State, to seize control of this lucrative resource and further secure the Ledo road corridor linking China and India — part of the Belt and Road initiative.

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In 2018, Burmese government troops stepped up their war in Kachin State, further driving out indigenous populations and expanding control over the area’s rich natural resources and strategic trading routes. The fiercest offensive was fought in northwest Kachin State’s Hugawng Valley, to secure the historic Ledo Road linking India and China, which is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and to seize hugely lucrative amber mines.

Kachin State amber is a global treasure: it is the only type in the world formed during the age of the dinosaurs.

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History of the Ngo Chang Hka region

The Ngo Chang Hka flows through the mountain valleys of the eastern edge of Kachin State and into the N’Mai Hka. The N’Mai Hka continues southward and joins the Mali Hka at the Myitsone confluence to form Burma’s great Irrawaddy River. The borderlands of the Ngo Chang Hka form part of the eastern Himalayan ecoregion, a place of globally outstanding biodiversity and ancient human settlements.

Records indicate that the Lhao Vo and Lachid peoples first settled along the lower and middle reaches of the Ngo Chang River roughly 2,000 years ago, while the Ngo Chang people, who trace their ancestry back to the Lachid, journeyed further upstream where they established settlements roughly 1,200 years ago. Lisu settlers later arrived in the area. These communities were traditionally ruled by hereditary chieftains or Duwas.

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Executive summary

In January 2016 the government adopted a National Land Use Policy, which included the recognition of customary land management practices. While this is a welcome first step in the necessary integration of Burma’s customary land management systems with the national-level system, there is an urgent need for constitutional reform and devolution of land management powers prior to any such integration.

This report by the Ethnic Community Development Forum (ECDF) presents how Burma’s diverse customary land management systems in seven ethnic communities are structured, and provides ideas for how these systems could be supported and potentially integrated into a future devolved federal national land management system.

Customary land management systems have co-existed with the national land management system in Burma for centuries.
The national land management system is highly centralized and has facilitated widespread land grabbing for natural resource extraction and agribusiness projects, resulting in loss of livelihoods and environmental degradation throughout the country. Updated Land Laws adopted in 2012 were based on poorly defined land classification and despite some democratic reforms, the military maintains a central role in land management through the General Administration Department. Upland agricultural lands – mainly tilled by ethnic nationalities practicing shifting cultivation – are defined by law as either forest lands or as vacant, virgin and fallow lands. Lands defined as “vacant, virgin and fallow” are particularly problematic as these are designated for “State Economic Development” and contracted to extractive industries, agribusiness and infrastructure development projects.

our_customary_land

Along with the development of the world, there is a constant global demand for energy and natural resources and so natural resources are being exploited and used in development projects all over the world.

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The Irrawaddy, one of Asia’s great river systems which flows through Burma’s heartland, is about to be dammmed. Burma’s military junta is allowing Chinese companies to build a giant 152-meter-tall hydropower dam and transmit the electricity back to China. The dam is one in a series that the junta has planned involving the export of power to neighboring countries. While the regime will gain new revenues, Burma’s ordinary citizens, who have no say in the process, will bear the costs.

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INTRODUCTION

Burma’s government is using the promise of development as a key component in its current peace negotiations with armed ethnic organizations, proposing ceasefire first, then development, and finally a national political agreement. This process has been tried before in Kachin State with disastrous consequences.

This report summarizes findings from seven years of research and demonstrates that the Kachin experience should serve as a warning to other ethnic groups attempting peace through a similar process.
Without a political resolution first, there can be no just or sustainable development of Burma.

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