2015-11-23 15:21:00

Bishop decries rights and environment abuse in Myanmar's landslide disaster


A Catholic bishop has raised concerns about environmentally damaging practices and human dignity in ‎Myanmar’s notorious multibillion-dollar jade mining industry, after a landslide on Saturday killed at ‎least 113 people in northern Kachin state.  Bishop Francis Daw Tang of ‎Myitkyina said the disaster near Hpakant township was the fault of government regulators and the mining companies, as they ‎had neglected the potential safety implications for workers by lacking systems for properly managing ‎soil dumps.  "We need to respect human dignity, as lots of young people across the country are coming ‎for business opportunities by working as small-scale miners," Bishop Daw Tang told UCANEWS on ‎Monday.  ‎

Soldiers, police and volunteers pulled body after body from the rubble on Monday, and more than 100 ‎were still missing.  The landslide was the worst-such disaster in recent memory. ‎  Bishop Daw Tang said, ‎‎"The government and companies need to educate the people about hazards and risks, otherwise this ‎kind of accident is most likely to occur again, by neglecting the lives of people." The bishop added that ‎the government and companies need to carry out jade mining with consideration for environmental ‎destruction.‎

Kachin is home to some of the world's highest-quality jade, and according to Global Witness, a group ‎that investigates misuse of resource ‎revenues, the industry generated an estimated ‎‎$31 billion last year, ‎with most of the wealth going to individuals and companies tied to Myanmar's ‎former military rulers.  ‎Hpakant, which is the industry's epicenter, remains desperately poor, with bumpy dirt ‎roads, constant ‎electricity blackouts and sky-high heroin addiction rates.  Workers, many of them ‎migrants from ‎elsewhere in Myanmar, toil  long hours in dangerous conditions searching for the ‎precious stones. Much ‎of the jade that is mined in Hpakant is believed to be smuggled to neighbouring ‎China, where the stone ‎is highly valued.    ‎

According to La Ja, a Catholic catechist ‎from Hpakant, ‎"Companies who have close ties to the military ‎get much profit from large-scale digging in jade mining ‎areas, yet local Kachin people get no ‎benefit,"  ‎"Local people face flooding every rainy season as dumped soil blocks … the streams," he told ‎UCANEWS.‎  (Source: UCAN/AP)








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