Three Arakanese workers were seriously injured in Kachin State's Hugawng (Hukawng) Valley, when they were fired upon by Burmese soldiers on the evening of January 3, the Kachin News Group (KNG) has learned.

According to a friend of the victims, the three Arakanese men came under fire Tuesday evening at approximately 6 pm while they were traveling from Wa Ra Zup village to the Ja Wang gold field.  Soldiers from the Shahtu Zup-based Infantry Battalion No. 297 shot at the three men near a plantation owned by the Yuzana Company.

Eyewitnesses report that the army soldiers mistook the men for fighters from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).  According to a friend of the victims, all three men had nothing to do with the ongoing Kachin insurrection against government troops.

The three injured men were sent to a nearby government run hospital, according to their friend.

[B]Hukawng valley, sensitive ecological area now war zone[/B]
The remote Hukawng Valley is one of the most environmental sensitive areas in Burma and is home to numerous endangered species including rare tigers, leopards, elephants and Himalayan bears.

Reports of armed combat in the valley have been common since the Burmese army launched its offensive against the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in June 2011, ending a 17 year ceasefire.

In 2001, Than Shwe’s military regime in collaboration with the US NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) established a large tiger reserve in the Hukawng Valley.  In 2004 WCS and the Burmese regime extended the tiger reserve’s total area to include the entire valley of 21,890 km sq, creating what is claimed to be the largest tiger reserve in the world.

Environmentalists and critics of the Burmese regime however, have called the tiger reserve a complete sham, they point out that since 2004 the Burmese regime has encouraged large scale gold mining and monoculture plantation farming to destroy much of the valley's ecosystem.

Researchers with the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG) argue that the tigers reserve’s key backer WCS’s former director of science and exploration, Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, has been incredibly naive to participate in the project.

Last September the Burmese government's Forestry Ministry signed a new four year extension to continue WCS's project in the Hukawng Valley tiger reserve.  According to China's state run Xinhua news agency the project will cost US$12 million.

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