Armed conflict in Kachin State - economic factors associated with the conflict

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Title: Blood Amber Military resource grab clears out indigenous peoples in Kachin State’s Hugawng Valley
Description: "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. “Blood amber” is the Chinese name of the extremely rare, deep red variety of the gem found only in the Hugawng Valley – a name which resonates grimly with local residents who have been driven out by the recent offensive. The amber mining boom began in 2010, due to demand from the Chinese market, causing tens of thousands of migrant miners from across Burma to flock to the region. In 2015, discovery of a 99-millionyear-old feathered dinosaur tail in Hugawng Valley amber further fuelled the trade..."
Source/publisher: "Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG)"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-10
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Type: Individual Documents
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Size: 17.21 MB 1.33 MB
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Title: Beyond Myitsone: the sleeping Chipwi hydropower project
Sub-title: While national attention remains focused on the Myitsone dam, Frontier visits one of the six other mega-dams north of the Ayeyarwady River confluence that could resume if conflict between the Tatmadaw and Kachin Independence Organisation is resolved.
Description: "This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The fuel station is bigger and more modern than anything I’ve seen in Kachin State. It’s also completely abandoned. A fuel nozzle lies on the cracked, overgrown concrete, its hose trailing across the ground to a dispenser that has been reduced to a skeleton. Above the dispensers is a steel frame that would once have held up a roof. The adjacent concrete office is a mess of rubbish and broken glass. Gaping doorways let in the dull monsoon light. The fuel station was built to supply construction vehicles on the 3,400-megawatt Chipwi hydropower project on the N’Mai River. The dam would be the second largest in a cascade of seven that a Chinese-Myanmar joint venture, Upstream Ayeyawady Confluence Basin Hydropower Co Ltd, plans to build on the upper reaches of the Ayeyarwady River in Kachin State. Work began in December 2010 with a targeted completion date of 2020. Just six months later, fighting erupted between the Kachin Independence Organisation and the Tatmadaw, ending a 17-year ceasefire. In April 2012, soldiers of the Kachin Independence Army, the KIO’s armed wing, pushed into the area of the dam project and captured it from a Tatmadaw-aligned Border Guard Force. Fearing for their lives, hundreds of Chinese workers fled for safety in nearby Chipwi town, and the developer was forced to suspend work..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar"
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-12
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Title: China, the United States and the Kachin Conflict
Description: KEY FINDINGS: 1. The prolonged Kachin conflict is a major obstacle to Myanmar?s national reconciliation and a challenging test for the democratization process. 2. The KIO and the Myanmar government differ on the priority between the cease-fire and the political dialogue. Without addressing this difference, the nationwide peace accord proposed by the government will most likely lack the KIO?s participation. 3. The disagreements on terms have hindered a formal cease-fire. In addition, the existing economic interest groups profiting from the armed conflict have further undermined the prospect for progress. 4. China intervened in the Kachin negotiations in 2013 to protect its national interests. A crucial motivation was a concern about the ?internationalization” of the Kachin issue and the potential US role along the Chinese border. 5. Despite domestic and external pressure, the US has refrained from playing a formal and active role in the Kachin conflict. The need to balance the impact on domestic politics in Myanmar and US-China relations are factors in US policy. 6.A The US has attempted to discuss various options of cooperation with China on the Kachin issue. So far, such attempts have not been accepted by China.
Yun Sun
Source/publisher: Stimson Center (Great Powers and the Changing Myanmar - Issue Brief No. 2)
Date of publication: 2013-12-31
Date of entry/update: 2014-01-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Guns, Briefcases and Inequality: The Neglected War in Kachin State
Description: "Burma Partnership is pleased to announce the launch of a new documentary film today to coincide with the International Day of Peace. The film, entitled ?Guns, Briefcases and Inequality: The Neglected War in Kachin State,? demonstrates the need for the government of Burma to engage in meaningful political dialogue with all ethnic nationalities on equal terms, including discussing amendments to the 2008 Constitution. These are necessary in order to address the underlying causes of armed conflict: self-determination, the lack of ethnic rights, and inequality, and to move towards lasting peace throughout the country. The short documentary film also highlights how development projects and natural resource management are exacerbating armed conflict and human rights violations in ethnic areas, without adequate means to justice for the people. The film was written and directed by Daniel Quinlan. It features interviews with Kachin internally displaced persons (IDPs), civil society and community-based organizations, leaders of ethnic non-state armed groups and advocates for human rights and democracy in Burma"
Source/publisher: Burma Partnership
Date of publication: 2013-09-21
Date of entry/update: 2013-09-21
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Blood and Gold: Inside Burma?s Hidden War (video)
Description: 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.
Jason Motlagh, Steve Sapienza
Source/publisher: People & Power (Al Jazeera)
Date of publication: 2012-10-04
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-08
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese, Kachin, (English subtitles
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Title: Untold Miseries - Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Burma?s Kachin State
Description: ?When Burmese President Thein Sein took office in March 2011, he said that over 60 years of armed conflict have put Burma?s ethnic populations through ?the hell of untold miseries.? Just three months later, the Burmese armed forces resumed military operations against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), leading to serious abuses and a humanitarian crisis affecting tens of thousands of ethnic Kachin civilians. ?Untold Miseries?: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State is based on over 100 interviews in Burma?s Kachin State and China?s Yunnan province. It details how the Burmese army has killed and tortured civilians, raped women, planted antipersonnel landmines, and used forced labor on the front lines, including children as young as 14-years-old. Soldiers have attacked villages, razed homes, and pillaged properties. Burmese authorities have failed to authorize a serious relief effort in KIA-controlled areas, where most of the 75,000 displaced men, women, and children have sought refuge. The KIA has also been responsible for serious abuses, including using child soldiers and antipersonnel landmines. Human Rights Watch calls on the Burmese government to support an independent international mechanism to investigate violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all parties to Burma?s ethnic armed conflicts. The government should also provide United Nations and humanitarian agencies unhindered access to all internally displaced populations, and make a long-term commitment with humanitarian agencies to authorize relief to populations in need.?
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
Date of publication: 2012-03-19
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-20
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.72 MB
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Title: KIO Open Letter to the People?s Republic of China
Description: Text of the open letter sent to Chinese President Hu Jintao, in which the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) asks China to stop the planned Mali Nmai Concluence (Myitsone) Dam Project to be built in Burma?s northern Kachin state, warning that the controversial project could lead to civil war
Source/publisher: Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)
Date of publication: 2011-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2011-05-21
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 877.53 KB
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Title: Dam Nation
Description: "Burma and China prepare to build seven hydroelectric dams in Kachin State that will not provide the people of Burma with jobs, security or even electricity Large-scale hydroelectric dams have long been decried for the immense damage they do to the environment and rural communities. Not everyone agrees, however, that the problems associated with mega-dams outweigh their benefits. After all, say pragmatists, dams are a reliable supply of electricity, without which no country can hope to survive in the modern world. (Illustration: Harn lay / The irrawaddy) But in Burma, such arguments fall flat. Not only do massive dam-building projects take an especially high toll on people?s lives—besides destroying villages and the environment, they result in intensifying human rights abuses and make diseases such as malaria more prevalent—they also come without a payoff for the general population. At the end of the day, the electricity they generate—the only benefit the Burmese people can expect to get from them—remains as scarce as ever..."
David Paquette
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 18, No. 4
Date of publication: 2010-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2010-04-19
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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