Jade Mining: "They Couldn't Care Less About the Consequences!"
The jade mining industry in Kachin state is a shadowy world of greed and corruption, where the lives of the poor and desperate are given little consideration. As Global Witness CEO Mike Davis explains on a recent podcast conversation, the companies that profit from this treacherous work are often facades for Chinese firms, with even former dictators having a hand in the profits! Meanwhile, the migrant jade pickers who risk their lives scavenging for scraps in the hazardous tailings are among the poorest and most desperate in the country, with no legal permits to protect them.
The tragedy of this situation is made all the more poignant by the fact that it is taking place in a country where the military regime, following the recent coup, is actively suppressing the democracy movement and further exacerbating the plight of the poor. It is imperative that as allies, we support this democracy movement and work to resist the military regime, so that more devastation can be avoided and the poor jade pickers of Kachin state can one day hope for a better future where their rights and safety may become priorities.
“Former senior general Than Shwe himself controls jade mining companies, and we can access the records which proves this.”
Mike Davis: The companies that mine the jade are typically a Myanmar entity which provides a facade for a Chinese company, which actually brings in the capital and equipment and oversees the work, but doesn't actually have a formal legal presence in Myanmar. Former senior general Than Shwe himself controls jade mining companies, and we can access the records which proves this.
Are they the ones who actually doing the work on the ground? No, they're not as they would have a Chinese hidden joint venture partner who brings the equipment and some of the people relatively short distance over the border from Yunnan province to do the mining.
Now, on top of that, however, you have a very large number, perhaps thousands of people come in as migrant jade pickers from all parts of Myanmar, actually a lot come from Rakhine State. They are picking over the tailings from the jade mining operations, so they're going through the waste. They don't have legal permits to do that very hazardous work.
A lot of them get killed because the mining is carried out in such a grossly negligent manner that there are frequently enormous landslides, tidal waves of mud, which flow down these mountains and engulf these people who are desperately picking through the debris to try to find precious stone. So you've got a mix of different types of people involved, with the big people being connected with the most powerful in the land, and those who are most visible on the ground and most at risk are amongst the poorest and the most desperate.
Host; I'm not knowledgeable about the mining industry. I just assumed that by simple geological nature, any mining industry of this kind, is going to be prone to landslides and geologic instability. So you're telling me that this is not even a necessary outcome of the jade mining process. This is simply negligence on the part of the mining company.
Mike Davis: Oh, yeah, they couldn't care less about the consequences! Some in mining operations invariably have some level of environmental impacts, and often very severe ones. But this is really on a different scale. There's absolutely no controls whatsoever.
There's no efforts by the companies to construct their mines. There aren't really mines in a technical sense, they’re just digging a very big hole in the ground, and scooping out the material with backhoe type diggers, putting it on enormous trucks, and then it gets sorted out, there's not much engineering involved. And after they finish, they just leave these huge pits full of debris and then subsequently water when it rains.
And there's no proper safeguards to prevent these breaking open, tipping these mudslides down the mountains, or to prevent instances which are very common where the mining has just cut through whole mountain sides, meaning that just huge chunks of cliff or hill might just suddenly move and come tumbling down on whoever's below this. This happens every year.