Chinese Delegation Visits Myanmar Locals Displaced by Controversial Dam Project

China’s ambassador to Myanmar met on Friday with residents forced to relocate for the construction of the controversial China-backed Myitsone Dam project in Kachin state in a bid to gain local support for the restart of the project, a local resident and state official said.

China wants to resume construction of the U.S. $3.6-billion hydropower project, which was temporarily halted by former President Thein Sein in 2011, Ambassador Hong Liang told Kachin Chief Minister Khent Aung and his cabinet during his first visit to the state.

In Burma’s wildest corner, jade, drugs and rebels will test the new government

The jade tycoon of Burma lives behind stone walls and a sophisticated security system. A visitor must be buzzed through a gate into the garden, pass a hunk of jade as big as a compact refrigerator, enter through a sliding screen and glide by the preserved tusks of the family elephant before sitting down with the man himself.

Yup Zau Hkawng is a well-known figure in Burma’s Kachin state, a broker in the peace process between armed rebels and the military and one of the few ethnic Kachin to own a jade mining business.

Burma’s northernmost state is home to 1.2 million people and some of the country’s most intractable problems — including a rapacious jade mining culture, opium cultivation, environmental devastation, controversial development deals with China, and an armed insurgency. Kachin may pose one of the stiffest challenges to the new democratically elected civilian government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, that has taken over a country that suffered decades of military rule.

Statement of Kachin people on “Natural Resource Governance in Kachin State”

Kachin Organizations On March 1, 2016, 103 leaders of Kachin State from 61 organizations from civil society organizations, political parties, and religion organizations met at Myitkyina, Kachin State to discuss “Natural Resource Governance in Kachin State”. The following statements were agreed collectively at the forum. 1) To institute federalism, self-determination in no time with administration, […]