Burmese military start gold mining operations in upper Putao

Led by Burma's ruling junta's Putao based military strategic command commander Col. Khaing Soe, businessmen from the Lisu tribe have started gold mining operations in Naw Mung (Nomong), where the Rawang tribe mostly live. It is located in the upper reaches of Putao in Kachin State, northern Burma.
"There were no gold mining operations in Naw Mung area before. It was restricted to Putao and now it has come to our area. The commander Col. Khaing Soe is doing this without the knowledge of the Burmese military junta Northern Commander Maj-Gen Ohn Myint", said a resident in Naw Mung.
The gold mining operations were started in Kasang Hka (Kasang River), which is between Gumleng village and Kasang Dam village, five miles from Naw Mung. For the gold mining operations, the commander has sold six machine boats to the Lisu businessmen costing Kyats 150,000 (about US $ 122) per boat, the resident added.
The residents of Naw Mung are now worried about their environment because of the gold mining. There are 60 households in Gumleng village and 30 households in Kasang Dam village.
According to a local people, the Putao military strategic command commander Col. Khaing Soe has started gold mining operations in upper parts of Putao after he operated in the areas around Machyangbaw town.
The Putao District Forestry Department had done business by taking cane from the upper reaches of Naw Mung for two years. Later when the Northern Commander Ohn Myint found out it was closed.
In 2007, the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG) in a report "Valley of Darkness" – said that after the ceasefire in 1994 between the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the junta, gold mining sites increased to 31 in 2006 in Hugawng Valley.
On the other hand, there are gold mining operations in the area of the Mali-Nmai Hka confluence (Mayli Kha-May Kha Rivers), Myitsone, around the Danai (Tanai) Township and others areas as well in Kachin State, northern Burma.

Junta changing lives forcibly in Putao

The secretive and repressive Burmese military junta operating from behind the bamboo curtain has a number of agendas. Top among them is ethnic cleansing – or the process of Burmanization of ethnic areas. No measure, however, harsh is spared to achieve this end. Rape, loot, land confiscation, marriage, religious discrimination and forced labour are all used with telling effect. Take for instance a region like Putao situated in the northernmost part of Burma's in Kachin state set in a picturesque landscape in the foothills of Burma's highest mountain the Khakaburazi. Putao is one of Burma's most attractive tourist sites, with its snowcapped mountains, beautiful scenery, woods, orchards and its biting cold. The main transportation to Putao is by air.

The junta's game plan for Putao and the Kachin state at large crystallized soon after the 1994 ceasefire agreement between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the military regime. The first step was military expansion and thereby slowly taking control. Before the ceasefire was signed the Burma Army's presence was restricted to No 46 Infantry battalion (Kha La Ya). Now there has come to stay Infantry Battalion No. 137 and No. 138 and the Transport and the Local Strategic Command. Now the military junta is bent on having the 2nd Northern Command Headquarters in Putao.

Having done that, the military junta set forth with its Burmaization of the region systematically, both at the social level and at the economic level. In Kachin state which is predominantly populated with Christians slowly but surely the generals introduced Buddhism.

Burmese soldiers based in Putao were encouraged to marry local women. Inter religion marriages helps in transforming the woman and the child she gives birth to become Buddhists. Parents of the young were influenced and encouraged to send their children to the Border Tribes Development School run by Buddhists where education and accommodation for the school going is free. And this helped win over many in the Christian Rawang and Lisu tribes.

Religious discrimination between the Christians and the Buddhists practiced by the junta has been another potent weapon to help its programme of systematic ethnic cleansing.There have been other methods in use to subjugate the local population. Among the most potent is rape followed by human rights abuses, banning prevalent local life styles, forced labour, mass land confiscation of locals rendering them economically ineffective. Even compounds and precincts owned by churches have not been spared. This also helped expanding military bases.

Other methods brought into play is mass recruitment of youth into the Burma Army, albeit forcibly. Civilians of up to a certain age, youths and students from middle and high schools have been forced to join the military sometimes being way laid by soldiers and taken to training camps. They have been flown to Naypyidaw and lower Burma in military aircrafts for training. In other words civilians are being preyed on by the junta.Ironic though it may seem picturesque Putao is home to one of the biggest prisons in Burma where political prisoners from all over the country are detained. One of its most illustrious detainees is former powerful Prime Minister Khin Nyunt who was a victim of
a purge by the junta.

ABOUT MYANMAR (BURMA)

Myanmar (Burma) is located in southeast Asia with Bangladesh to the west, India to the west and northwest, China to the north and east, Laos and Thailand to the southeast, the Andaman Sea to the south, and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest.

Myanmar received its independence from the British Indian Empire in 1948. Since 1988 the country has been ruled by a military junta. Since 1989 the military has promoted the name Myanmar, however, this name was not adopted by the Burma legislature or accepted by the U.S. government. The capital of Myanmar is Yangon (also known as Rangoon) which is located on the southern coast of the country. The country’s currency is the kyat.

The July 2007 estimate of the population was 47,373,958 with a population growth rate of only .82 percent. The current life expectancy is 62.49 years with women outliving men by four and a half years. Myanmar has a moderate infant mortality rate (5.7 percent) and occurrence of HIV/AIDS (1.3 percent).


Myanmar is slightly smaller than Texas. Burmese is the language of the country although minority ethnic groups have their own languages. Myanmar has an 80.9 percent literacy rate of people over the age of 15 with over seven and a half percent more men being literate than women. The majority religion is Buddhism at 89 percent; Christian and Muslim make up an additional 8 percent.

Report: Burma Plans to Wipe Out Christianity

A leaked secret document claims to reveal plans by the Burmese military regime to wipe out Christianity in the Southeast Asian country.
The document, titled “Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma,” was shown to the U.K.-based Telegraph newspaper on Sunday by human rights groups.
Inside the memo were detailed instructions on how to force Christians out of the country, according to Telegraph.
Instructions included imprisoning any person caught evangelizing, capitalizing on the fact that Christianity is a non-violent religion.
“The Christian religion is very gentle,” read the letter, according to Telegraph, “Identify and utilize its weakness.”
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has a Christian population of about four percent, according to the CIA World Factbook. Persecution against Christians have come in the form of church burnings, forced conversion to the state religion of Buddhism, and banning children of Christians from school.
Attacks against Christians are part of the government’s larger campaign against ethnic minorities, according to human rights groups. In eastern Burma, over 3,000 villages have been destroyed or abandoned in the past 10 years, according to the human rights group WITNESS. In the past year, an estimated 27,000 members of the predominantly Christian Karen tribe were forced from their homes in eastern Burma, according to Telegraph.
The Burmese regime has denied drafting the document, but has made no public attempt to renounce its contents, reported the U.K. newspaper.
Burma expelled most of its Christian mission back in 1966 and the repressive military regime continues to this day to control religious activities in the country.