Following the Burmese government’s suspension of a controversial joint-venture hydroelectric dam project with China in the far north of the country, another flashpoint has emerged in relations between the two countries – a massive copper mine at Latpadaung, a mountain near Monywa northwest of Mandalay in Upper Burma.

The Myitsone hydroelectric project, being built to supply power to China, was cancelled in the face of strong local resistance. This time, local residents are protesting against a Chinese company. Wanbao Mining, a joint venture with the Burmese military’s main commercial enterprise, Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, or UMEH. Wanbao has been accused of destroying cultivated fields, polluting nearby water sources and desecrating Buddhist shrines. No less than 3,150 hectares of land from 26 surrounding villages were confiscated for the project.

Myanmar will implement 14 hydropower projects involving more than US$1.7 billion loan from China, according to sources.
 
The country has already received over $509 million in loans for seven of the projects, said sources in the ministry of electric power.

YEYWADDY, Myanmar — The villages along the Myitnge River have been inhabited since medieval kings first located their royal palace in Ava, where the Myitnge flows into the Irrawaddy, the flowing soul of Burma, or as some scholars translate it, “the river that brings blessings to the people.”
 
But there is nothing ancient about Yeywaddy, a small settlement that possesses all the charm and character of a refugee camp, which in some ways is what it is. Red dirt lanes meet at square angles. Woven bamboo shacks and small gardens of straggly vegetables occupy some plots. Others are simply marked in string and cinderblock. The village looks half-abandoned.

An investment project in Myanmar by Wanbao Mining Ltd., a Chinese State-owned company, has been protested by local villagers in recent weeks, due to their dissatisfaction with the compensation they received for their land. The Latbadaung Mountain copper mine project was even suspended in August because of the fierce opposition.

The confrontation reveals the increasingly tense relationship between Chinese enterprises and Myanmar locals. Some observers even bracket the Latbadaung project with the Myitsone Dam, another Chinese investment project suspended last September under overwhelming local public pressure.

Aung Myin Thar relocation camp was flooded in last Spetember 19th. At that time, the water supply pipes are broking and floating into Chying Hkrang stream. Those water supply pipe are built by CPI. It is clear; how did they set up them.

Today Local people urged the Myitsone project implementing company, CPI, to get out from
Myitkyina and totally stop the project.
The Tang Hpre-Myitsone village, Roman Catholic Church held a one year anniversary on
Myitsone project suspension.

Kachin people yesterday celebrated the first anniversary of suspension of Myitsone hydropower project in the country’s northernmost state.

Myanmar President Thein Sein’s announced the suspension of the hydropower project, which was being built on the Ayeyawaddy River near Tanphe village, about 7 kilometers downstream of the confluence, on September 30 last year.

Tatmadaw and Kachin Independence Army soldiers are battling for control of Hpakant’s lucrative jade mines, sources in the region said last week.

All mining operations ceased in May but aid workers in the region said Tatmadaw soldiers were sent in to guard the mines several weeks before fighting erupted in the township in late August, prompting at least 6000 people to seek refuge in temporary relief camps and many more to flee the area completely. “They are fighting to control the mines,” said a senior aid worker for the Kachin Baptist Convention who is based in Myitkyina but regularly visits Hpakant. “Most of the rest of the area is under [KIA] control.”