Hundreds Resume Letpadaung Mine Protest 1st April

More than 300 farm­ers in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing Divi­sion have resumed their protests against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­nese-backed cop­per mine, say­ing they will refuse com­pen­sa­tion and con­tin­ue to push for the mine’s com­plete clo­sure.

More than 300 farm­ers in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing Divi­sion have resumed their protests against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­nese-backed cop­per mine, say­ing they will refuse com­pen­sa­tion and con­tin­ue to push for the mine’s com­plete clo­sure.

“No mat­ter how much com­pen­sa­tion they give, we won’t accept it, because all we want is for the mine to be shut down com­plete­ly,” said one of the farm­ers from the Let­padaung area near Mony­wa.

The pro­test­ers are also demand­ing that the gov­ern­ment take action against those respon­si­ble for a Nov. 29, 2012, crack­down that left around 100 pro­test­ers injured, some of them severe­ly. They say they also want an emer­gency order ban­ning protests lift­ed.

The farm­ers say that the mine, joint­ly owned by the Union of Myan­mar Eco­nom­ic Hold­ings Ltd, a Burmese mil­i­tary-owned con­glom­er­a­tion, and Wan­bao, a sub­sidiary of Chi­nese state-owned arms man­u­fac­tur­er Nor­in­co, has been dump­ing waste on land owned by farm­ers who have refused com­pen­sa­tion.

Some of the farm­ers said that they have attempt­ed to obstruct the efforts of mine employ­ees to take over their land. “When we attempt­ed to halt their work, they called the police to dri­ve us back. Lat­er some farm­ers used big stone slabs to fence in their con­fis­cat­ed lands to pre­vent the bull­doz­ers,” said one farmer.

“They are even try­ing to get us to give up our lands for­ev­er, using some of the for­mer protest lead­ers to con­vince us. They say we will get elec­tric­i­ty and water. But we won’t accept it. We just want to stop the min­ing for the sake of our future gen­er­a­tions,” said anoth­er.

The protests against the mine began last year, and attract­ed sup­port from activists around the coun­try. How­ev­er, farm­ers in the affect­ed area have been divid­ed over whether to con­tin­ue their protests since a gov­ern­ment-formed com­mis­sion led by oppo­si­tion leader Aung San Suu Kyi released a report ear­li­er this month say­ing the project should go ahead.

Those still push­ing for the mine’s clo­sure say they will not give up.

“The rea­son we don’t accept the result of the com­mis­sion is because it doesn’t assure our future, our land and our envi­ron­ment, and makes no com­mit­ment to bring­ing the cul­prit behind the crack­down to jus­tice. We will con­tin­ue to protest—with per­mis­sion from the authorities—until the min­ing stops,” said one pro­test­er.