“Lieutenant General Soe Htut and any other members with
business ties to the jade industry must step down from the committee
immediately or else the investigation cannot be credible. Part of the blame for
the tragedy must go to the Myanmar military, who are the main profiteers from
the jade trade and have rigged Myanmar’s legal and political system at the
expense of people’s lives.”
Yadana Maung, Justice For Myanmar
A landslide that has killed at least 172 migrant workers in
Hpakant, Kachin State as they were foraging for jade must act as a catalyst to
end the devastating model of a deeply corrupt, highly dangerous and militarized
jade industry, in which the pockets of a few elites are lined at the expense of
misery, death and destruction of people and their environment.
The deaths of the at least 172 migrant workers in a
landslide was triggered by heavy rains. The people who died were working as
foragers, sifting through the discarded rubble from nearby excavation sites
searching for small pieces of jade so they can make ends meet. The jade
industry in Myanmar, and specifically the mines around Hpakant in Kachin State
is huge. An in-depth investigation released in 2015 by Global Witness, using
research by its local partner, Kachin Development Network Group, put the figure
at over $30 billion in annual revenue. Much of this is not declared, not taxed,
not regulated and extracted from the ground in the most unsafe conditions
imaginable. The machinery used to extract the jade is bought from international
companies such as US company, Caterpillar, Swedish company, Volvo CE and
Japanese firm, Komatsu. Such companies were warned, two years ago by non-profit
research organization, Swedwatch, about the “alarming environmental and human
rights impacts” of the jade mining industry. The regulations for workers in
this industry are virtually non-existent and landslides are common, killing
dozens if not hundreds each year.
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