By John Zaw
Another fatal landslide near a jade mine in northern Myanmar has increased calls for the new government to address concerns over the country’s jade mining industry.
Two people were killed in the landslide near Hpakant township in conflict-stricken Kachin state January 12, the fifth accident in less than two months in the same area.
The worst accident occurred when a landslide killed 110 migrant workers on November 21, 2015.
The accidents have raised concerns about worker safety and a lack of transparency in Myanmar’s notorious multibillion-dollar jade mining industry.
Christina Kai Ra, president of the women’s department in the Kachin National Social Development Foundation in Hpakant, said migrant workers are risking their lives searching for jade in dumped soil.
“How jade is being collected ignores worker’s human rights and their dignity,” said Kai Rai, who also serves as a Catholic catechist in Hpakant.
Kai Rai said mining companies were ignoring local concerns, especially about how their operations were destroying the environment.
She stated that the new National League for Democracy (NLD) led government should prioritize resolving jade mining issues by amending mining laws and better regulating mining activities.
Lashi La Seng, the league’s state MP-elect for Hpakant, said the recent fatal landslides have revealed the lack of transparency in the jade mining industry due to the policies of the past government.
“The new NLD-led government needs to carry out resource-sharing initiatives, largely through giving more power to state parliaments which will benefit local ethnic groups,” La Seng told ucanews.com.
“The state parliament would also need to play a greater role in the collecting of jade mining industry data so to better understand the situation with the union government,” he said.
Myanmar produced $31 billion worth of jade in 2014, a figure that would equate to 50 percent of the impoverished country’s declared gross domestic product, said a report last October by the nongovernmental organization Global Witness.
Most of the precious stone ends up being sold on China’s black market, stated the report.
Mike Davis, Asia director at Global Witness, said the large mining companies licensed by the government are making a “killing.”
“They are grabbing jade worth tens or hundreds of millions a year, while leaving locals and migrant workers to run the gauntlet of deadly landslides caused by the companies’ reckless dumping practices,” Davis said in a November 22 statement.
This story originally appeared on ucanews.com
